Berlin

My friend and I decided last week that we wanted to meet my brother (who studies right across the bride from Copenhagen in Sweden) in Berlin. The train tickets in Germany are not bad when you buy them a month or too in advanced, but are ridiculously high when you last minute plan. Airfare in Europe is random and rather weird too--sometimes you can fly with a cheap airline for 10-30 Euro round trip and sometimes the same ticket will cost you 100-150 Euro. I finally found the solution to cheap, last minute travel in Germany. A website called Mitfahrgelegenheit.de allows you to search "rides" from your city to your final destination. The ride giver puts the amount he wants, the time he leaves, and his phone number to set up a meeting point. The website allowed us to go round trip to Berlin for about 50E, which beats the heck out of the 200 Euro train price we would have paid! If you do use the website, make sure you make an account so you can check out the person's profile who you ride with. I would also recommend you talk to him or her on the phone and find out more about the person to be safe.

Berlin was a great time. I was able to meet up with my fellow Hokies who are studying at our Swiss Campus in Riva San Vitale which was comforting to be with Americans again. We saw a lot, met cool people, and I was able to joke again in my mother language. I'd say that one of the hardest things about learning a language is not being able to joke. Jokes normally come quickly and out of the blue, and if your constantly trying to think before you talk, you rarely think of jokes. Something that surprised me about Berlin was how cheap it is. Granted, I study in the most expensive cities in Germany, but EVERYTHING, even in the tourist areas, was inexpensive. I was definitely happy to come back to Munich though. I love to travel and have had some good trips to Prague, Salzburg, and Berlin, but every time I get back to Munich I always am happy to be back. The city is too clean, too efficient, and too "gemütlich" to not be happy to come back.

So, some tips if you study here: check out mitfahrgelegenheit.de