The last day of school was on Friday and we weren't leaving until Christmas eve. Go figure 10 minutes after school let out it started snowing and didn't stop for a day and a half. It was absolutely beautiful but i couldn't help thinking, "Why couldn't this have happened while we were in school so we could get a snow day" but hey I really can't complain since it was rather lovely around Maidenhead. That Saturday we had Chris and Carly, and both the Pete's over for Christmas dinner. We made way too much food but it included roast chickens, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, bread, pigs in a blanket and a few other assorted appetizers. It was absolutely wonderful and even felt a bit like Christmas with all of the good company around. The following week was a bit aimless for me as Kelly got really sick and stayed home from work for two days but mostly stayed in bed, and the other days she was at work and i was stuck at home a little bit bored. Luckily i did go into Windsor one day to spend it with my friend Tom and also go to Reading another day to get a new jacket with some money Kelly's parents got us for Christmas (thanks Olson's). Finally it came time for us to leave. Now in order to catch our 6 am flight from Stansted airport (1 1/2 outside of London) we had to leave our house at midnight. I decided not to sleep and Kelly managed to get a few winks but I don't think it helped much. We got on the train to Paddington and it was nice and quiet until at the next stop a large group of loud English-Jamaican gentlemen got on the train who were more than slightly inebriated. It made for a loud couple of stops and prevented any sleep whatsoever. When we finally arrived at Paddington we became aware that the tube was shut down and we had to get a cab to the bus stop. I only had 6£ on me but found a cabbie to drive us even though it cost around 9£ (thanks mystery cab driver). After he dropped us off in the general vicinity Kelly and I found the bus stop. It was at this point that Kelly realized that she had left her make up all at home and we entered crisis mode. I could just see the future in my head. Me with my camera out and Kelly constantly covering her face and having many arguments of me telling her she is very beautiful au natuale and her telling me to shut up and that i have to say that because im her husband. She calmed down though when i said we could go get some make up when we got to Berlin. We caught the EasyBus and got to Stansted a few hours early after all so we joined with the 100's of other passengers who were sleeping on the Terminal floor at 3am until the desks for Ryanair opened at 4:30. There was a mad rush for the counter but we got through easily and without incident. Thankfully after security we went to the terminal where low and behold they had the duty free shops, WITH EVERY TYPE OF MAKE UP KELLY COULD EVER DREAM OF!!!! So 40£'s later Kelly was much happier than i was as we headed off towards the plane.
Ryainair is truly a budget airline. Nothing is free, and they constantly try to sell you stuff the entire flight, from scratch-it tickets to food and perfume, they never stop. Seats are also first come first serve and are very small and uncomfortable, but for the price you cant argue, and i slept the entire way to Berlin.
Once we got there i made my first and only really dumb mistake which was to take a cab into town. From looking at the map i thought it was really close but it ended up costing us about 38 Euro, which was a really lot of money to us. Little did we know we could have taken the train for about 2.80, but oh well it was the only really big blunder i made for the trip so it wasnt that bad. We got to the Grand Hostel in Berlin a little bit before check in, but they let us stow our bags and told us our room would be ready in about 2 hours. The hostel was really nice and clean and i would recommend staying there to anyone.
We decided to go for a walk to pass the time so we grabbed a map and headed out to find a Christmas Market that was across the city but which was supposed to be cool. As we walked i noticed a few things, one was there weren't really many people around and almost zero tourists. I had no idea what there was to do in Berlin and the cold rainy weather told me i might have picked a less than ideal city to go to for Christmas (Thankfully this wasn't a correct assumption because we had a great time). We walked and walked and the drizzly rainy atmosphere really took away from the city's beauty as well as all of the black road slush from snows in weeks past. We did find a Starbucks to warm up in and grab some coffee since we were still exhausted and i happened to be right outside of Checkpoint Charlie which was kind of a big deal back during the Cold war. I snapped a picture of the 'Last' USSR flag that ever hung in the Kremlin.
We did eventually find the Christmas market, and it was really great. We enjoyed some Bratwurst for lunch which was out of this world good. The US versions just don't compare, which is probably obvious since we were in Germany but it had to be said. There were all sorts of cool little makeshift café's set up and all sorts of little vendors selling home made arts and crafts. We found some cool Christmas ornaments and bought them and then realized the time and headed back for the Hostel to catch a few winks before dinner.
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| Christmas Market |
When we got back to the Hostel we passed out for about 3-4 hrs. and woke up at around 6 in the evening and decided to bundle up and venture out to find a little Christmas eve dinner. Luckily for us and our Christmas mood it had started to snow outside. As we walked we had a few special moments in the snowy empty streets of Berlin and both mutually decided that we would probably remember that walk for the rest of our lives.
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| Our special walk in the snow on Christmas eve. |
We managed to find a little Italian/Mexican place called L'Mante that looked open, cheap, and good after about a 20 min walk. We weren't disappointed and were treated to an excellent meal of Pizza, Calzone, and Nacho's that was all dirt cheap and our waiter was an amazing host. Grand total of dinner and drinks came to 18 Euro and i tipped 5 just because it was great and Christmas and our waiter was great and he was shocked, and told us to come back the next night (sadly we didn't) but it was a truly memorable Christmas Eve dinner.
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| Dinner at L'Mante |
We headed home in the now blizzard like conditions and loved every minute of it. We went to bed tired and full and ready for an exciting Christmas day.
Alright, just to get this up here i will post this as a part 1 and do the rest later today or tomorrow. Thanks for reading and leave me some comment if you are so inclined. Thanks, and come visit us... Anyone. We would love to have you sometime soon.
Casey and Kelly
