Getting ready for Berlin!

This time last year, I was still under the influence of our trip to Scotland and I was already thinking about going back some time soon. Some might say what am I on about, starting to write about Scotland after reading the title. I know it doesn’t have much to do with it, since it says Berlin, but stay with me and you’ll see why I wrote this intro the way I did. Also, if you’re going to read any of my previous posts, you will notice I always put a few pictures into them, but this one probably won’t have any, because I prefer using the ones I took myself, even though they aren’t really professional but they are mine. Although sometimes I just can’t do anything else, so I get a little help from Google, like with the picture at the beginning of this post, because I haven’t been to Berlin before and don’t have any pictures of my own of the city yet.

Since I’ve already mentioned the trip to Scotland, you can check out my post on that here, which is only one of the posts I’ve written about it. Last year, after coming back home, it took me some time to take it all in and really understand where I was, not only a few days after coming home, but a few months later as well. I know this might sound a little strange but it was my first real touristy trip let’s say. 😀 So once I, kind of, got over the trip, I started thinking about, at first, going back to Scotland. By the beginning of this year, I left that idea behind me, I was quite busy with everything going on at work, and sports, so travelling just wasn’t a part of my plan. Fast forward a few months, I got the travel bug again, so to speak. 😀 I’ve presented the idea for a trip to Scotland to my parents, and that was all there was to it at the time, because we couldn’t really come together on the exact dates when to go. It was either we all could go but the prices for that part of the year were really high, or at least one of us wouldn’t be able to make it even though everything would be cheaper. We also mentioned going to Berlin, especially my father, since he’s worked there for a few months just a year or so prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. And THAT is where the connection to this post finally begins! 😀 After those first few days of thinking about a trip at our house, it all died down, mainly because we had other things to focus our energy on, but then came my dad’s birthday last month. My mom and I were deciding what gift to get him, in the end we came to the conclusion to book and plan the trip to Berlin for us, since he really wants to see the city again.

It didn’t take much to convince me, I was ready to organize everything straight away! Wasn’t hard to find a cheap flight with EasyJet either, but finding a place to stay in Berlin proved to be a bit more challenging. First, my idea was to book an apartment through Airbnb. Even though there were some good listings on there, we decided to book a hotel instead, or should I say motel, through booking.com at the end. Usually by what I’ve witnessed before, the listings on Airbnb were almost always cheaper, but that was not the case when it comes to Berlin. A friend told me that renting an apartment through Airbnb got quite difficult in Berlin, because of some weird regulations as I understand it, so the prices went up quite significantly. It was in that moment that I decided to only focus on finding a hotel, which proved to be much better since they were even cheaper than renting an apartment.

I/we booked a flight out of Marco Polo airport in Venice, and it’s going to be a morning flight, departing at 7 o’clock. I was deciding whether to write it the way I did or say early flight, because technically it is both, but it depends on what you perceive as early. 😀 After talking about it, we decided that we wouldn’t risk missing the flight due to some unforseen circumstances on the road, if we left home on the day of our flight, so our first stop on the trip is going to be Venice. That part of the journey I told everyone that I will take care of, so I booked everything by myself, none of the others had any say on where we are going to stay or anything else for that matter. Since there’s going to be quite a lot of time left, after we check into the hotel, I’m planning to visit the city of Venice as well, another one of firsts during this trip.

By the looks of it, once we actually get to Berlin, there won’t be much time to rest. As you would expect if you go on a four day trip to such a big city, that you haven’t been to before. I really love animals, so visiting Berlin ZOO is one of the main things for me! Every other part of our plan on things to see, I’ve adapted mostly to my dad, what he wants to see and where he wants to go. Of course, those things are also interesting to me, but the most important thing is for him to remember what it was like when he was there all those years ago.

To anyone reading this post, who has been to Venice and/or Berlin before, getting some insights or tips on where to go, what to see, maybe some good restaurant/bars to check out, or any other advice you would have would be greatly appreciated, so leave a comment below or go to my facebook page and let me know. 🙂