An early start for us today. Unfortunately, our plans for an early night last night were scuppered and we ended up in bed at about 23:30 🤦🏻♀️. Jezza said that the beer he’s been drinking is making him snore and he certainly was true to his word – having set our alarms for 05:15, I feared I would be lucky to get 3 or 4 hours at the most, as the noise started as soon as his head hit the pillow 🙄🙉🙉.
I was awake before the alarms went off as we hadn’t packed our cases – at least we didn’t have to worry about taking extra tote bags (David Bowie and my Happywool knitting bags), as we will do when we take the plane. Today our journey was on The Ducktape Bus, sorry, I meant FlixBus (see pic below) from Amsterdam Sloterdijk to Essen, and then the train from Essen to Berlin – so today’s news may be a bit sparse/boring – unless …..
I said goodbye to my friends the goats, and we got on our way to start the long journey to The Fatherland.
Another interesting fact we learned in Amsterdam was that as a hangover from the war, the vast majority of the Dutch people don’t have either curtains or shutters (which we do in France). This is because during the war and persecution of the Jews, if people could see into your house, it meant you had nothing to hide…. I don’t think I’d like that, but, as you know, our Jezza has no shame 😂😂😂.
What I didn’t say yesterday was that as our time in Amsterdam was nearing an end, Jezza suggested that I should get a tattoo and Tilly said we should both get high – needless to say, we just had a drink 🍺🍹😂😂😂. Sorry Tilly 😂😂.
Also, on our way to dinner last night, I forgot to share that we passed a wool shop which was next to a vinyl shop- my idea of heaven 🤭🤭. Much to Jezza’s delight, both shops were closed 🙄.
Back to today and our long journey to Berlin. We made it to the FlixBus stop in plenty of time and the bus left promptly. I watched the last episode of The Other Bennet Sister – after a slow start to the series. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
There seemed to be a high percentage of Eastern European passengers onboard, and in spite of travelling through Schengen, once we had crossed the German border, we were pulled over by Police in an unmarked car for a passport check – I’m not sure why we were singled out … 🤔🤔. This took a while, but fortunately we were fine time wise for our onward connection.
We got to Essen train station at lunchtime with about 45 minutes to kill. Jezza bought a roll and I finished off the bread and cheese that we had brought with us that was left over from our Airbnb. I bought some naughty chocolates for the lengthy train ride 😋🤪.
Jezza booked a fast train with only a few stops, but, in their infinite wisdom, FlixBus changed it to a train with multiple stops 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️. We can’t really complain though as the whole journey from Amsterdam to Berlin only cost 90€ for both of us- beggars can’t be choosers 😂😂. If only ERNIE would pick my number for the £1m prize 🤞🏻🤞🏻 😂😂😂.
During the journey I managed to get some knitting done – I’ve hardly done any all holiday – I’ve had other things to occupy my time 🤪😂😂.
Having arrived at Berlin station, Jezza navigated us to our hotel. We were very tired and hot and were looking forward to a shower and a cup of tea for me. I shan’t repeat my words when I realised we had neither a kettle for my tea, nor a fridge to cool the bottle of rosé that we had so carefully brought with us. I didn’t want to get too angry as Jezza had carefully picked our accommodation all through our trip and I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, but no tea for me? That just wasn’t cricket, so I went down to reception and asked for a kettle – a fridge was going a bit too far, but I got my kettle and proudly went back up to our room with my spoils!!! Having got back, I realised that there wasn’t a mug in the room, but there was a glass that would make do for the time being…
We showered and having freshened up after our long (and tedious) journey, we made our way to the restaurant that Jezza had found. It was Croatian with a very extensive menu. The staff were very friendly, so we happily sat down and perused the menu. Jezza ordered veal liver with onions, apples and mashed potato, and I ordered grilled calamari with spinach and potatoes. The plates were huge and the flavours were spot on- we washed our meal down with a beer for Jezza and a bottle of Croatian rosé for me (Jezza did share it with me after his beer!) I have to admit that diluting the wine with some ice made it quite drinkable 🤪😂. Jezza needed 5 minutes rest before cleaning his plate – the portions were indeed very generous! He had his eye on the apfelstrudel, however, his eyes were bigger than his belly, so we asked for the bill. The waitress brought us out a couple of gratuit glasses of schnapps – I had a tiny sip of mine and poured the remainder into Jezza’s glass – not really my cup of tea.
We settled up and asked for a few beer mats to put into our new holder and made our way back to the hotel. I procured a mug for my tea from Reception and we got back in time to see Frank take Coventry into the Premier League next season- there’ll always be a special place in our hearts for him 🥰.
Long day over – not quite as many steps, but very draining. Tomorrow’s another day and for the next 3 days, ich bin eine Berliner – and Jezza is too!!
Total steps: 8,752
