Anyway auf wiedersehen Berlin.In the words of a famous Austrian,no not that one,the other one “ I’ll be back” don’t know when yet but probably next year at some stage…meanwhile I need to download one last U-Bahn ticket and make my way to the huge behemoth lump of a station to get the train.Luckily it’s not a long journey to Leipzig and hopefully DB are not playing up.I also know where the hotel is and which tram to get so all I need to do is get a local ticket on my phone but that can wait till I get there…luckily too it’s overcast & grey and not blisteringly hot…
As much as i love Berlin HBF with its five or six floors of madness there is one problem.With thousands upon thousands of people passing through daily they only have one small toilet which probably just about reaches official standards but is an absolute pain.If you need to go but obviously can hold on a bit then get on an S Bahn train to Zoologischer Garten next stop along and use the one‘s there…another tip for any smokers.Berlin HBF is one of the few German stations where there’s no smoking but instead of going outside either main entrance where you will be immediately ambushed by beggers go to a side entrance where all the train staff light up….this has been a public service announcement…
Did I say easy? Was on the platform and tried to activate my Interrail pass and kaput,no go so couldn’t get on the train.So what do I do in a time of crisis? Swear a bit,go for a smoke,swear a bit more,rinse & repeat…I had to get to Leipzig as the hotel is booked so went to ticket office and had to buy a physical ticket for €50.Not cheap but no choice…I am hoping it’s a weird phone thing as there were loads of people in the ticket office holding their phones and complaining…I will find out more when I get to Leipzig and can sit down with a beer.If it’s not the network then somehow I might have lost my Interrail ticket.We will see.Finally left Berlin on a Munich train,grabbed a seat but have the company of not one,but two,whining nippers in the carriage…
Phew! Relief (but €50 lighter) just tried my Interrail and it worked.Trouble is I couldn’t take the risk of it not kicking in on the train and getting fined a lot more than fifty sobs…I was already thinking of plans if it had just wiped out altogether.Basically that was keep moving around Germany forever or something…oh and we‘re running late of course…so a valuable lesson.Don‘t panic,swear a lot,waste good money and take up smoking..,
Good night chatting to the owner of Madonna Bar…hardly anyone in there so he was a prisoner to my inane ramblings…i think I’m now banned.
Currently sat at what looks like a godforsaken town called Lutherstadt Wittenberg and all the train staff are on the platform having a smoke…not all Geman towns are chocolate box Bavarian dreamscapes,some,particularly in the East still look like old Soviet gulags…
Got to the hotel eventually,even though I knew which tram to get it took ages to get here then I hardly recognised anywhere we passed until eventually I saw the hotel over the road from the stop and honestly I can’t remember that last year as I walked up a fairly steep road…maybe they have changed the route a bit.Anyway bad news is that the sexy laundry/bar thing over the road has closed down so tomorrow I’m on the hunt for a patch of water and an agreeable rock…
In a while crocodile…
Ps Had forgotten that Leipzig don’t have an app for their transport system so it’s ticket machine or local tabac/Lotto shop.Then of course remember to validate it…
2 comments:
Can you claim the €50 back from interrail seeing as how it's their fault?
Not sure.I would imagine there’s some fine print about it but I’ll see.First time it’s happened to me.Nothing is 100% fail safe.
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