February 26th, 2022
"It's after 730! We have to go" Gina whispered as she shot up in bed. I sleepily looked at my phone, only to see it was 4:55am. "Go back to sleep" I said. And just as quickly as she had bolted up she laid back down again. Our morning was an early one though. We had to be up and out before 6 so that we could catch the S-Bahn Train to the airport. We didn't have a clue which tickets to buy and in hindsight I think we ended up buying ones for the wrong train (we purchased them upstairs instead of downstairs) but we boarded the right train and made it to the airport all the same. At the airport we grabbed a quick breakfast and then boarded our tiny plane to Berlin. We got so lucky because the guy on the ground grabbed our bags and put them under the plane which meant we didn't have to do any heavy lifting when we boarded. I slept for the hour flight and after deplaning we headed to Alamo to pick up our rental car. After planing, training, busing, streetcar-ing, and walking for a week, there was something so liberating about having our own vehicle. Windows down, music on, we embarked on the 2 hour drive to our hostel in Dresden.
We initially made these plans so that we could travel into the mountains, however, by the time we made it into town, got covid tests from the testing center, got our results, paid to use the toilet and checked into the hostel it was mid-afternoon. We hadn't eaten since 7am and had another hour drive ahead of us if we were going to make it into the mountains. We opted instead to get lunch at Rolle, a local kebab place. The lamb meat was fall off the bone tender while the bread was unbelievably fresh however, when we tried to pay for our delicious delicacies we ran into a little snafu. Rolle only accepted German credit cards. What? Why? Certainly there wasn't a setting on the card machine that said Deutsch Only. We had international credit cards. No fees. Paid in euros. Nope. Nada. Not happening. Cash only. Well shit. Our covid tests cost 15 euro apiece and were cash only so we both only had coins left. 😟Now what?
Run to the central train station (even though we hadn't taken a train in this city) to find an exchange to convert USD to euros. Then run back to the kebab place and pay the nice man who let us leave even though he surely thought he would never see us again. We tipped him generously since he didn't make us wash dishes or surrender our passports to him. Maybe one of us will name our first born after him as a thank you? Hopefully karma takes care of him instead.
After all our running around in the cold we headed back toward our home for the night, a&o hostel, but not before stopping by Aldi on the way for some fruit for tomorrow's breakfast. I caught up on some blogging and reading, while Gina showered and repacked.
We went to the hostel rooftop bar where I enjoyed a radeler pilsner topped with sprite-- apparently a local Dresden favorite. I wasn't too sure how I'd feel about it but I actually found it quite refreshing. While there we met a lovely bartender named Piip. We chatted with them on and off throughout the night, sharing our best hostel stories. Piip shared that an elderly man who was checking in with two huge suitcases lost his pants and it took everything they had not to start laughing at the swearing, pantsless man. Gina and I shared about a girl in our dorm whose phone kept flashing under the covers at night and lighting up the entire room. When we jokingly asked her if she was taking and sending naughty photos she blushingly replied, "....I didn't know you could see the flash...." 🤣🙉
She's been traveling in hostels for OVER A MONTH and we were the FIRST to tell her. Chatting with Piip and reminiscing about our trip was the perfect end to our trip in Deutschland.
