Berlin part 1.

After completing my 5 hour train trip from Marburg I spent a while trying to get my bearings together then headed for my hostel and of course got a little bit lost on the way but it wasn't too bad. My hostel is probably about a 4/10 at the end of the day it is as cheap as chips and is a bed but that's pretty much all you get here. The showers are ice cold and the hostel has no common area for hanging out so it's pretty hard to meet people. You definitely get what you pay for. 

On a related note there is this guy in my room that now on my third day here I believe has only left once and that was to get energy drinks, otherwise he just sits here on his computer playing super Mario and has been wearing the same clothes the entire time, even when he sleeps. 

In the first day I just walked around the local area and checked out a few of the sights before heading back to the hostel and going to bed, it was a nice day all in all. 

Day 2 began with me again getting lost because one of the U-bahn stations on my line is closed for repair so no trains are going through there. I didn't really mind though considering I had plenty of time to kill, eventually I found my way to the Brandenburg gate and Reichstag buildings which are pretty impressive and  cool places, it's amazing thinking that you're actually at these places that are so historically significant. 

After that I went to do a tour with "alternative Berlin" and it went around a lot of parts of the old west Berlin through a lot of street art and that kind of thing, it was very cool and probably one of the highlights of my trip so far. I definitely recommend doing it to anyone going to Berlin. It also involved checking out a few of the old punk clubs and squatters camps, it was interesting to see it from a different side of things rather than the generic slightly left of centre view you get on any other tour. 

Below are some of my favourite pieces of street art that I saw. 

After the tour I had been waking around Berlin for a solid 6 hours or so, so I decided to return to my hostel and chill out for a while before going to get a Döner for dinner. 

On another note, I think I have fallen in love with Berlin. For uni I have to do a semester abroad and I am definitely giving a lot of thought to doing it in Berlin, I would have to improve my German to a genuine 95% fluency level but I think I could do that. We will see what happens, I know all of that is a bit of a way off yet but would be a nice way to end my degree.