Derailed!

Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

I'm in Berlin for the day, and this is a wonderful surprise. I like Germany: I have been to Munich before and loved it. But Berlin has a completely different feel to it, I discovered. It certainly feels German, but it's a more modern and open feel than Munich. I really only had the afternoon to explore, so I went on a great walking tour of the city that focused on the most important sites. It was a good use of my limited time, and I learned so much about the general history of the city.

Berlin Wall.

How did I end up spending time in Berlin? I had to abandon my Warsaw and Kiev plans because I was not going to make the connection in Warsaw after the train strike in Germany. I discovered I wouldn't make the connection after boarding the train to Berlin from Cologne. While on the train, I weighed my options of flying from Berlin to either Warsaw or Kiev to pick up with my trains there, but at that point it seemed futile, especially since there are travel warnings for Kiev and I would be spending a day there.

The new plan is to fly to Moscow tomorrow. It was an easy decision, as you can imagine! Part of me feels like I'm "cheating" by taking this flight, but it's not really about that. I do wish I could see more of Eastern Europe, but it's not happening on this trip.

I'll be arriving in Moscow a day earlier than planned, and I'm excited to have a bit more time there. I'm also going to be meeting up on Saturday with a friend of a friend who lives in Moscow, so I hope to get a unique perspective from him.

Goodbye, Germany! :)