First 24 hours as a Berliner

The Bradenburger Tor (Gate)

Vacations are necessities, not luxury.

My first contact with the outside world as a resident Nigerian was in 2015, when I landed in Sofia. I'd described the air as smelling of grass and water. It still smells like that (whenever I return from a trip). Whatever makes the atmosphere in "the abroad" smell differently is honestly the reason why we all want to exit our country at all costs.

Technology is amazing! After living in Eastern Europe for few years, I eventually got the opportunity to see beyond the Europe that once wowed me. I'm on a vacation to Germany- the heart of technology, football, and beer!

My insides when I got the visa😛

Someone told me to visit Japan before I'm entirely floored by technology. I told them that nothing beats what you've seen/feel yourself. So until I'm in Tokyo, Berlin has the best I've seen.

As the plane was on its landing course at Frank Josef airport in Munich, my heart had already taken a swift course. The ground looked like a football field with houses all painted alike, concentrated at close proximity to one another.
It is true what the people in my place say that "a child who hasn't been to another's farm will claim his father's farm has no counterpart". I had always assumed I couldn't be more thrown off balance than what I'd seen where I live. I lied to myself. Wonders exist the more you step out of your zone. I shall begin with the airport.

I have been to Charles De Gaulle in Paris few years ago, but I have little memory of it, except that it is occupying a ginormous portion of the city (I can imagine how massive the city itself is!). It is that expansive that the entire MMA in Lagos is like two boarding gates in it. So when I arrived Munich airport, it wasn't much of a surprise that trams are required to commute between gates. The first knock off my composure was the passport scanner. No, not literally, it's just a machine (with lack of words to describe it) that saves you from joining the lengthy queue at the Passport control. How cool is that, huh?
And did I mention that I also wanted to look technologically cool that I didn't print my boarding pass; I simply scanned the QR code (on my phone) at every point I needed to😉. But of course, that failed at the first point.

I'm finally at Tegel airport in Berlin, and as much as I tried not to embarrass myself by being an ambulance, my neck did not quit at doing automatic 180°s as the minivan drove through the streets of Berlin. First word for Berlin- broad!

Quite unfortunate that I didn't get to see the TV tower (at Alexanderplatz), but we shall be back here!

I arrived on a Sunday, and guess what the first shocker was- no shops were opened! Satisfying my peckish self became a herculean task, as the only option I had was to place an online order. It was barely thirty minutes that I arrived and I could already taste the horrors of communicating with people for the next month.
I had never felt so dumb over the phone. I placed the order successfully, but I really needed to make a change...over the phone. Girls and gents, I hung up with a shaky voice and undelivered message. But the pizza came...yay!!!

As I plugged in my phone at about 21:30, laid on the bed to catch up with my homies, I was awakened with a sun-kissed face at 6:02 the following morning.

Tips:
Unless you're not travelling on a budget, be good friends with Google Maps. It will save you tons of taxi fares in Berlin.
Do your grocery shopping before 22:59 on Saturdays.
Wake up early to avoid lateness.
DON'T thrash the plastic bottles!!!



I've never tried travel blogging, so permit the amateurish paragraph above. But I promise to put more efforts in the next post.
Also, I apologise for taking too long to update. The holiday kept this girl busy. I'll let out the secret of what I was up to in my next post, so watch out for it! xoxo