Holiday weekend in Poland and Germany!
A weekend in Poland and Germany
It was a New Year's and very cozy trip to the New Year's European fairs. We didn't really plan it, but wizz turned up cheap tickets, and we couldn't sit idly by. The flight was late. We received an email from the hotel with instructions on how to get to our room. It was on par with the walking quests in terms of difficulty. In the beginning, we had to get to one address. They entered the secret code, the door opened. Four boxes hung on the wall to the left, we have a code for the third one.
Opened the drawer, there is a key. With this key we went to another address. Right outside our front door is what seems to be the most popular nightclub in the galaxy. There was such a long line of tipsy guys that it is unlikely that everyone leaked into the club before morning. We found a door blocked by a crowd from the queue. Moved them carefully. Moreover, it was necessary to move tactfully so as not to provoke wall to wall. Behind the guys, another combination lock with a keyhole just in the wall was waiting for us. I had a special code with a description of how exactly it should be entered in order to fit. The owner must have studied cryptography. It didn't work the first time. The guys gave advice in Polish on how to defeat this enigma. At some point, our torment came to an end. The massive door swung open. The passage into a dark and lifeless corridor ominously beckoned us. We entered the entrance, now we are looking for another door 5B. Of course, there was no such door. The door was identified by the elimination method, the next key came up. Now we were in a lighted hall. The last door, the last remaining key and we are in the room! Now you can sleep, it's night-midnight in the yard. But the feeling of rhythm and drive did not leave us until dawn. Klubas on the first floor played with all spectrums of basses! The feeling was that we were old farts who were prevented from sleeping by progressive youth. And the music was not particularly, in general, all the signs of old age on the face. But in the morning we were cheerful first of all. The deserted streets of the ancient city were only for us. Shops and shops are still closed. From the stormy nightlife there was no trace. Everyone was fast asleep. From one of the windows, a huge bust of Lenin in a New Year's hat looked at us.
The town is very cozy indeed. What is not a street, then joy. First of all, we went to the outskirts of the city to the ancient temple. One of the attractions is the bridge. In any case, in my memory it was deposited as a landmark))) Probably, the antiquity of the city and solitude created that wonderful atmosphere for us. We walked along the big lake. Poznan was beginning to wake up, we hurried to the center. On the way, I noticed a courtyard in which there were very beautiful houses. They were so beautiful, as if from a picture.
After a couple of moments, it dawned on us that this was a very successful picture on the end of the building - a mural. The picture depicted how this place looked before. In general, in Poznan it is worth paying attention to the courtyards. As we walked downtown, the city was watching us. And followed in the truest sense of the word. At times, in the most unexpected places, one could see images of living beings with one large eye. There were dozens of them throughout the city.
On the Internet, I did not find anything about these residents anywhere, but it was very thematic. Sometimes short letters were written with them. Sometimes they hid among the graffiti. We wound a couple of circles around the central square and hurried to the show at the bagel museum.
There we were waiting for a real master class on cooking the best Poznań bagels in the world. And we not only watched, but also participated. All spectators, from the youngest, played a different role in the preparation. Someone was kneading the dough with their fists, someone was rolling it out, someone was tasting the filling. We were all dressed as cooks and cooks. At first it seemed to me that the show was quite childish, but when they called me to spin the bagels, I felt all the seriousness and responsibility.
The show ended with a grand goat show! I won't reveal the details of the show. Just go to the very morning show at 11:00 and you too will go all this way, including the show. True, one minus - in 11 shows in Polish. You can just watch the goat show at 12 in the central square, and at a later time, sign up for a bagel master class.
From all these bagels, the appetite finally broke out, and we ran to the Milky Bar for pies (vareniki). But personally, our opinion is that they don’t know how to cook pies in the milky bar) And so our first part of the weekend trip ended. We hurried to the railway station to go to Berlin.
Berlin
Initially, I wanted to buy train tickets on the German railway website. But I was finally finished off by an extra charge of 5 euros for the fact that, for the sake of super security, they are obliged to send me tickets to Kyiv by mail. They have a very serious train and you can’t just print it. Remarkably, on the website of the Polish railway, the same tickets for the same train were one and a half times cheaper and at the end they simply sent a barcode that you need to print out and take with you on the same train. In general, international tickets should always be checked on the websites of both countries.
This story was about a cold and windy Polish railway station, which the train could not reach in any way. Of course, it was not as epic as the plane that did not arrive two days later, but at the time of waiting for the train, it seemed to us that it was rather uncomfortable. The high-speed train did arrive, and we hit the road! Three and a half hours and outside the windows of Berlin. So big and vast. After a small and cozy Poznan, a feeling of uncertainty woke up. But we pulled ourselves together and went to look for the subway map. When we saw the scheme, it was impossible to express emotions in words. In the fifth year of the institute on the theory of automation of microcontrollers, when we studied circuits, it was much easier. Of course, then I didn’t fully understand what was on those schemes, but there was a complete failure. An employee advised me to start mentally preparing for the China metro scheme, but compared to Berlin, everything is extremely simple there. The easiest way is to buy a day pass right away. Otherwise, the calculations of time or the number of stations will simply drive you crazy. Needless to say, our first route to the hotel was not the most optimal number of transfers. Moreover, some transplants had to be made completely, going outside.
A pleasant surprise on one of the branches was the sound of the phrase in German “The doors are closing”. I recognized this phrase, it is present at the end of the song “Pendulum of Eternity” by fleur. And the characteristic sound of closing the doors of the trains of this branch. It was very unexpected. I didn't even know it was a subway phrase.
There was also a funny incident at the station. A very tall man with long hair in leggings and shorts was very defiantly walking in our direction, catching passers-by along the road. We hurried to get off its trajectory to every fireman, we sensed something was wrong. And then one of the tourists dropped a massive suitcase on the floor next to us. Together with the suitcase, my heart fell into my heels.
Checked into the hotel. The clock was about 18:00. Now we can start our cultural program. We started with local cuisine. For 9 euros, two huge portions of German doner and durum were waiting for us. It was delicious - we recommend it to everyone. At 20:00 we were signed up to visit the Reichstag dome (pre-registration is required).
Accordingly, we began our tour of the city from the central arch and its environs. There are a number of signs of the city, by which we can determine in advance that we will like it. Despite the fact that Berlin did not meet these criteria, for some reason the city entered immediately. I liked literally everything. We are not connoisseurs of architecture, but for some reason we really liked this color of buildings.
The very activity of visiting the Reichstag is quite amusing. There was nothing super interesting for us, but the activity itself was five plus. Besides, it's free. The capital of Germany is famous for its famous New Year's fairs. The second important point was to check how the Germans know how to walk. One of the epicenters of New Year's festivities is Potsdamer Platz. What an amazing New Year's Eve atmosphere. Everything was lit up, sweets were sold everywhere.
Crowds of people were having fun, eating, moving down from huge hills on pillows. Here one could walk endlessly and soak up the atmosphere of the coming New Year. We held on to the very end. And again we sleep without hind legs in the room, wandering in the worlds of our dreams.
The morning was snowy. Snowball generously endowed us with his wealth. We started from one of the most expensive streets, where boutiques of world brands were located. However, they were all closed on Sunday morning. And we really wanted to come in and stare at all these expensive branded things and play a game, guess how much it costs.
But the Hard Rock Cafe was always glad to see us. They had a festive breakfast with live music. At this point, we regretted that breakfast was included in our hotels. In Hardrock with live music it would be more thematic.
Another fair was waiting for us near the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. We stayed there for a long time. Sweet shops and themed shops just wouldn't let us go.
In order to be sure to check in the city, we climbed the Victory Column. Dasha also asked not to repeat the trick with the ring that was on the Eiffel Tower) The city is covered with Wi-Fi in many places. This makes it very easy to move around. When you need to drive to a far point, you can almost always go online and get directions on the map. And with day passes it's just a fairy tale. So we got to the central fair at the Berlin TV tower.
Here we were met with real German sausages and they did not disappoint. There were millions of goodies. There were many interesting things in the vicinity of this square. We walked along the narrow streets in the thick of low houses and courtyards.
There was always something interesting to discover. Exhibitions, decorated trees, fountains and finally a themed traffic light shop. In this store, everything was connected with green and red men. Here you could buy everything, including traffic lights.
We were even treated to jelly men. Berlin literally absorbed us and was not going to let go. There were always interesting things along the way. Leaving the courtyards, we got to another fair, where we were generously drunk, that is, tasted schnapps. Got out of the fair. I had to go to the toilet of some institution. We went into a rather unremarkable pub. I went to the toilet, and Dasha found what she had been waiting for since childhood. When I returned to the hall, I noticed my wife, overwhelmed with emotions, she was ready to save the galaxy in the truest sense of the word! It was a real battle with spaceships, asteroids and bombs.
It was a mechanical pinball! As a child, Dasha played a lot in the game built into windows xp. Dasha is the unrecognized pinball champion in the world! For a euro coin, the game lasted 10 minutes, emotions and courage literally went wild here. We've helped the Enterprise bring order to the universe! Recharged with energy and continue on the road.
Now was the historical part of the trip we were at the remnants of the Berlin Wall. Here you can even take the elevator to the site and see how it looked from above. Now our path lay to the famous open-air gallery. Or rather, first drop by the central fair for a portion of sweets and continue on your way.
By the time we got to the wall, it was already quite dark, but even in such darkness it was not difficult to find the kissing Brezhnev. The time allotted for Berlin was coming to an end and we still had about an hour to wander aimlessly. First, we found a cool bridge on which the signs of the game “Rock Paper Scissors” were winking. We had to take our side in the hope that now there would be a winning combination in your favor. I always lose to Dasha in this game and even the interactive version was no exception. I was also very struck by how spectacular the stops of some elevated metro stations look. The train, as if in a castle, calls in for Lancelot passengers. Then we finally plunged into the life of the outskirts of the city - wandering into the black quarter. I have the impression that in literally every city in Europe we will not calm down until we wander into the black quarter at night. Now we had to take the metro to the other end of the city where our hotel, our doner and our flixbus. Upon arrival at our stop, we presented our travel cards to two guys. Rather, it was a rather funny situation. When the guy asked us if we need our travel cards by any chance. And we really don't need them anymore. Even on the way to the hotel, they put a lost tourist on the right bus. As it turned out, the flixbass managed to merge with the Polish bass. And surprisingly, it was the Polish bass who came for us, and we went back to our small and already native Poznan. Berlin keep it up, it was cool!
Poznan Once Again
Now we had the whole day at our disposal. But one problem - on Mondays all interesting things are closed. It was also a Monday-Sunday night, which meant the club below us would be quiet. We had to do the whole quest again to get the room key. But this time we got a box with an additional secret. And getting the key took a considerable amount of time. We already thought that the owner really made a mistake with the password. Then we noticed the button. Pressing the button had no effect. After much torment and search, we found out that the drawer has two buttons. But even with this scenario, it was not possible to open it the first time. We entered the room - silence. The club is closed, great! The heating was so warm that the open window was just right. The failure of the nightclub was compensated by two guys who were arguing very, very loudly about something in Polish. No matter how hard I tried to fall asleep, I had to tear myself away from the bed and close the window. Morning. Again we are alone against the sleeping city. This time, the bust of Lenin from the window looked at us with more open eyes. Someone raised his New Year's hat more. By and large, we spent the whole day wandering aimlessly through the streets of the city and the big pier. Pyra Bar became the hit of the day. There was a huge assortment of potato dishes. I ate such a fancy dish that in my life I would not have guessed that it was from potatoes. In the evening, when we hurried to the plane along the road, we found a whole fairground, which had not been noticed point-blank both days. It was an unexpected and joyful surprise.
Poznań can be described as a small and cozy city. It seemed that our measured trip came to an end, I even said my phrase of the year “I can’t believe that today we will spend the night already at home”. We arrived at the airport, handed over things for x-rays. The cash was spent almost to the end, the last 10 zlotys (2.5 euros) were in my pocket. My backpack drove along the tape under the scanner. Everything is as usual. The backpack left, 110 zlotys appeared in its basket. We looked around. All neighboring baskets were ours and there was no one nearby who potentially lost money. We stood still for a minute, no one showed up with a search. Apparently the money was meant for us. We went to the transit zone, passed the border control and received the exit stamp from the Schengen....
In the next story: “Don’t worry, ” the officer said and carefully crossed out our stamp under the ruler. “Now a bus will come for you all, and we will return you to the city. ” I opened a skype chat for work and started writing “Guys, sorry, I’m just in a complete ass... ”
Date of travel: 12/16/2017 – 12/19/2017
Duration: 3 full days
Flights: Wizz
Hotels: Booking
Excursions: All by yourself
Trip difficulty: 4/10 (below average)
Costs for two: Since the trip got out of control at the last moment, to put it mildly, we still cannot deliver the final costs. Now we are dealing with wizz and insurance companies.
