This was my exact face when I found out I had a few days off. Happy, tired and a bit nervous. You see this was it, I had no work excuses, no nothing. Not sure where to go, but I needed to get out. Out of this rut that is, working, eating, sleeping, being tired, sleeping, working and quess what, more working. After searching the web for cheap flights and being pretty disappointed I remembered that this girl, Johanna, that I followed on instagram once commented that "If I would ever be in Berlin I could crash at her place", Not sure if this was a real offer or not, I decided to message her. Well one thing lead to another and a few days later I was standing in front of her apartment. Not without facetiming and background check, don't be naive my children.
I booked my bus ticket with Flixbus, they had mixed reviews, but if you are okay with holding your pee for a couple of hours, not sleeping & being late they are great. But hey what can you expect from a 50 euro retour ticket. Atleast they had places to charge your phone + pretty decent wifi. If you download enough series on netflix, plus are lucky enough to have your bus driver stop to get fries it is not half bad. I mean they got me to Berlin in one piece and that's pretty much all I wanted.
After being on that bus for around 11 hours it was time to test my German skills by getting myself a travel day ticket and finding the U-Bahn station. Thanks to google maps I managed to find Johanna's place "all by myself". And there I was, walking in the rain in another country standing in front of a strangers apartment with my ugly backpack and a too large suitcase (somehow I always pack way more than I actually need, it's a gift) I couldn't stop laughing at myself, was this it? Had I officially lost my mind, probably.
Being welcomed by this cute tall human with spot cream on her face was very reasuring, so far so good I thought. I could now finally pee in peace and shower off the stinky smell of that guy sitting next to me. Johanna made me some lovely strawberry cereal bowl and after that it was time to explore the city. The weather was pretty shit the whole time I was there, but at least that made for some quality café drawing talking sessions. It was very funny how i'd been talking about this place i'd been to the previous/first time I was in Berlin and we unintentionally ended up there. The RAW gelände is this place with expo halls, food stands, vintage clothes, a indoor skatepark and LOTS of street art. Johanna got gifted some free recycled plants (which she later forgot at a café, shame on you for leaving your plants Johanna)
We did the typical photobooth thing, had coffee at a cute café, shared a very delicious cookie and wandered around Berlin. After Johanna took me to this amazing Asian place called Unami, where I had the best fucking tofu of my life. Being two tired beans, we headed to bed early to explore more the next day.
Barely awake and my tea and cereal are already being made. I quickly hopped into the shower where I could hear Johanna singing and playing her ukelele (My shower time has peaked and there is no going back now) It was going to be a good day, the sun was starting to show her face so we decided to pay a visit to the Botanical gardens. This being a very spontanious trip, the botanical gardens where pretty much the only thing I knew I wanted to see, and man did they not disappoint.
Next up we went to a very cute english bookshop, where Johanna couldn't help herself and ended up buying multiple books, one of which she ended up reading to me on the metro home. We stopped at the greentea cafe along the way for some greentea, cheesecake journal time and ended up going home, putting our pj's on and eating very delicious home cooked pasta in bed.
On my last day I felt like I hadn't sniffed enough of the culture so we decided to go to a museum and ended up at a Jan Toorop expo. We sat there in an almost empty museum, me drawing Johanna, and Johanna writing, the museum guard was very amused by us ;-) After admiring the works we went to this really big second hand store, I mean i'd like to think that i'm quite the thrifting expert, but hell this thing was so big I got overwhelmed, at least I did my wallet a favor. Being tired of walking with our heavy bags (camera bag struggles) we found ourselfs in yet another café, they played nice music, had good coffee but it was all a bit too made to look good. Nonetheless it was good, what was even better was the cheapy pizza we ate in Johanna's apartment after. A truly classy bunch we are.
I am very thankfull for Johanna letting me stay at her place, showing me around and most off all becoming my friend. I had a great three day vacation and am very glad I went eventhough my stomach was telling me not to, the day of departure haha.
I hope to be able to share more travel diaries with you guys in the near future.
For now it is back to work for me.
I wish you all a nice day, lots of love, Sophie.
