In the middle of writing my journal last night I found I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I closed it and went to sleep. For awhile. It’s hard to sleep bolt upright in a chair. You can’t stretch out because the car is filled with people.
On the bike tour I found myself trying to keep my eyes open.
I left the train station and took a bus to my reserved hostel. However the 2007 travel guide I used incorrectly stated the address. Actually it stated it fine. It just didn’t know it was no longer two hostels but one. And I went to the wrong location.
I was early, but I could store my luggage. I then walked to the TV tower, (The East Berlin attempt at Germany’s highest structure. Built by Swedes.) and joined the Fat Tires bike tour. It was well worth it. You ride bikes through Berlin, stopping every several hundred meters to see a new historical monument. And we saw them all. Old history (Brandenburg gate), Nazi history (the carpark over Hitler’s bunker), Communist history (Checkpoint Charlie) and current history (The new Reichstag). The guide was interesting and had good anecdotes. We stopped for lunch in Tiergarten. (I tried a diesel, but not even Coke can disguise the taste of beer.) The tour was also affordable.
I still have to figure out what I am doing tomorrow.
This evening I hung out in the hostel café and spent time discussing politics, treatment of aboriginals, Euro as an oil currency and other things. I represented the Canadian view against an Australian and an American.
I’m going to bed now. Hopefully I can sleep myself better. My roommates are three pre-university Australian boys and a Brazilian man.