1000 Crown Bills

After gathering our stuff, we made our way back to the main train station of Hamburg.  We gave ourselves lots of extra time, and got to the station with about 45 minutes of time to relax. We found a bar that was serving coffee, so we grabbed a seat, had a cup of coffee, and took a few deep breaths in gratitude of not being rushed :)

 

We caught our train and had a short ride to Berlin.  Of course, since the rain has followed us our entire trip, it was raining in Berlin. We went to the ticket station and got some train tickets for the next leg of our trip.  We then searched the station and found the luggage lockers.  Both Kristin and I had medium sized bags, but there was only one locker available… since we’re both pretty stubborn and type-A, we weren’t going to let the locker beat us. We somehow managed to fit both bags into a relatively small locker.  We were ecstatic. 

We headed out into the city with just our backpacks.  We saw a few monuments, where the Berlin used to stand, and grabbed a quick lunch that is authentic to Berlin: some sort of meatball, with a side of potatoes and a salad.  It was yummy and filling before our 5-hour train ride.   

We made it back, caught our second train and found ourselves in a compartment with a few other people who didn’t seem to speak English and didn’t smile.  So we did some reading and knitting.  At the first stop all three other people left so we had the entire compartment to ourselves for the last 3 hours of the ride! We then proceeded to play our music, have some snacks, and read girly magazines. We made it to Prague at our 7 PM without any problems.

We did however realize that we had to take the metro, but only have Euros, rather than crowns, the currency in Prague.  Upon finding an ATM, and inserting my credit card I was faced with a choice to withdraw: 500, 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, or 5000.  Neither of us had the slightest idea what the exchange rate was., so I pressed the 1000 button.  Causing us even more shock was the fact that the machine spit out a 1000 bill!! We both just started laughing because we had no clue what that meant.  Turns out that 1000 is about $50, so it worked out in the end.   

We found our third AirBnB apartment, and went to grab dinner down the street.  We enjoyed delicious salads, some Czech beer, and ice cream for dessert since for a change it was actually hot here! But because traditions can’t be broken, it did rain that night on our way back home… at least it was a warm rain!