Germany Adventure, Day 1 & 2

The title of this post had to be Day 1 & 2 because it was all just one long blur of travel that, because of layovers and time changes, were two calendar days. We left Salt Lake City on Tuesday afternoon and flew direct to Paris (11 hour flight) where we spent 7.5 hours in the airport waiting for our next flight to Berlin. 

Waiting in the Salt Lake airport

Charles de Gaulle airport, where we spent far too long with not enough to do

We arrived in Berlin on Wednesday night at 8:30 pm in the middle of pouring rain. Our luggage arrived just fine, we were able to phone the apartment manager to meet us with a key, and we all managed to fit in one taxi. I wish the taxi driver had used his GPS (or as they call them, navi) to pinpoint our destination before driving WAY past the apartment and then trying to find a place to turn around (he didn't get much of a tip, I figured he could have used the navi much sooner than he did so the meter ate up his tip).
We got "moved in" to the apartment and found out that there was a grocery store open until 10:00 pm just around the corner. It was 9:40, so we hurried off to procure some food before falling into bed. Aubrey picked out some of his favorite cheeses, the least expensive salami that he had eaten his fair share of as a missionary, some breakfast cereal he missed, some tasty juice, and a few other staples (including Coca-Cola for me). We were the last ones in the store, but we got what we needed.

We stayed in a vacation rental apartment on Karl Marx Allee. It was more cost effective than a hotel and we had more room to move about--that's important when you travel with tall people...  It was right by a U-bahn station (subway), so it was pretty convenient and the neighborhood was safe, so I felt we had made a good choice. I'm glad Aubrey was able to help me make the decision about which apartment to choose--he knew the areas we'd be visiting and this was a good place for home base.

The living room with two couches where Carson & Aubrey slept

Our kitchen

The bedroom with 2 single beds where Maren & I slept

The apartment was clean and comfortable, although the pictures on the rental website made it look bigger, but don't they always? No one took pictures of the bathroom, but maybe we should have so we could have a photo memory of the world's smallest shower. Even smaller than the one we had in Italy. At least this one had hot water that lasted more than 10 seconds. Well, all but one morning anyway. The furnishings all came straight out of IKEA, but we like IKEA, so that's okay :)

We all went to sleep pretty quickly that first night so we could be up and ready to go the next morning for our first sightseeing day in Berlin. Stay tuned for day 3...