Bye, Judson

Woke up around 10:30, checked out of room 21 at 11. Judson went home today, so we had to close up shop in the room. I checked into room 3, a 6-bed dorm, for the rest of my stay here (another three nights). We set out from Rosa-Luxemburg Straße's U-Bahn and headed down, via the S-Bahn as well (I'm really not loving the S-Bahn) to Potsdamer Platz.

From there we walked north to the corner of Ministergärten and G.-Kolmar-Straße. It was there, on the 30th of April 1945, that Adolph Hitler killed himself in an underground bunker known today (and possibly then) as the Führerbunker, just 10 days after his 56th birthday. There is no plaque, just a small sign talking about the area. Today it is a small park, surrounded by apartment buildings. You cannot go into the bunker, it has been filled in and sealed off. But the scene is a peaceful one, and from the spot on the surface, we could see the roof of the Reichstag, the side of the Brandenburg Gate and, closest to us and most significantly defiant of Hitler's aims,  the tops of the nearly 3,000 concrete blocks that make up the Holocaust memorial.

We walked back to the S-Bahn and worked our way to Warschauer Straße station on U1, then to adjacent Mühlenstraße, where the East Berlin Gallery stands, with beautiful and chilling art painted on sections of the actual Berlin Wall, still standing in their original positions. It's quite a site, and stretches on for a long, long way. But it was hailing so we only got about half a kilometer down the display before we turned around.

Back at the hostel around 2:30, we relaxed and waited for Judson's plane departure time to arrive. It's been an exhausting two weeks.

At 6:30 we set off on a meandering journey to Tegel (TXL) airport. First to Alexanderplatz via the U2, then we found the bus that first brought us from the TXL Burger King to Berlin proper in the beginning. After a short 20 minute wait, we were off.

We arrived at terminal B and wandered for a bit when we realized Judson's plane to Copenhagen didn't leave from terminal B, it left from C. So we made the short trek through the tunnel to C, checked him in, and at 7:50, at the entrance to security, we said goodbye.

Fun two weeks, Judson. Cheers.

Back on the bus to Alexanderplatz. Out of superstition, or perhaps just because Judson and I did it the first time we got on the bus (but barely since) I did buy a ticket for the ride. No one in Germany checks though.. And they didn't. Waste of €2.40

I got back just before 9 and ditched the bar in favor of my room which, being just above the bar, gets a decent wifi signal. There I chilled for a while with Ben, a pot-addled Perth native, and Celina, an Argentinian beaut. We never left the room.. All too exhausted.

Around 1:30 our fourth roommate James (another Aussie) stumbled in, drunk, and crawled into his top bunk, where he promptly threw up in the trash we had provided him, cursing the Germans who had supposedly spiked his drink. Ravings of a drunk man.

Then sleep.