The start of a new adventure ⎜Berlin Travels

Every time I go on vacation I have the same problems, packing clothes seems impossible, time management doesn't seem to be working and the biggest problem is that I'm to excited for the flight. Which end up in not sleeping the night before I leave. This seems to becoming my ritual, not the best one out there but it gives some sort of comfort as well.

Like many of you already know I went to Berlin in Juli for the first big event of Ribbon City which is the Berlin Lolita community. Planning for events is something that I love to do, booking the hotels, finding the travel options and mostly coord planning.
Though this trip was going to be a little bit different than our normal event trip.

I think it was around december 2015 when I spoke with my dear friend Vanilla Bear about her summer school program in Berlin. At first we talked about exploring Germany together or that she would come to Belgium to meet up which would be so cool. But since I wanted to go to the Urban Fairytale event I thought that I could come a bit earlier so we could finally meet. And that's what we did, she extended her trip with one week while I came one week earlier.

Over time we discussed about the things we wanted to do and see together, it is nice to have some sort of plan when you are going on a city trip. Even though I'm not the best at planning things in general I had my list of things that I wanted to do.
In preparation for our vacation I started to look up all the information I needed, like adresses and routes to get there. Every thing would be in my handy dandy folder which was super convenient.

I mentioned before that the night before is mostly a short one, not because we always leave in the middle of the night to catch our flight at 7 in the morning. But because I get excited about everything, this time I was getting really nervous as well. Since when I set a foot onto the plane that would mean I was going to meet my dear friend for real!

We left at 3:30 in the night to be on time in the airport, that would have been plenty of time don't you think since we needed to board at 6:30am. Our ride towards the airport wasn't a smooth one, I got sick in the car and panicked when I thought that I didn't brought my pasport with me! As some of you may know I live in Belgium but we always take the plane from Amsterdam airport, since my parents in law are living in The Netherlands. Luckily I had my pasport with me and the sickness passed by as well, although we needed to make multiple stops along the way.

There is something about seeing the planes that makes me get butterflies inside, they are so big and awesome looking. Or maybe it is because of the fact that you can go to the other side of the world with it, see the fluffy clouds and all the cities below which look like a playmobile village from the top.

For this trip I only brought my essentials, but I was still able to fill up 1 giant suitcase, a carry on and a backpack. Why is it that I always have so much items with me on vacation? Do you have the same problem?

There was one thing that I didn't brought with me and that was my own camera, which I missed so much during this trip. But sadly enough it needed to go back to the factory for repairs, thank god my dad has a really good camera as well and I was able to borrow that one for this trip.

I was planning on doing a daily vlog series for my youtube channel but with such a big camera how is that going to go? As excited as I was I started with my vlog in the airport, talking to the camera and overcoming my shyness as well. It is not as easy as it looks..

Around 9 we arrived in Berlin, since I did all the bookings myself we needed to find out how we would get to the airport. I was sort of familiar with the public transport lines but still, walking around in an airport and not speaking much German I found the right busline that would bring us to the right street where our hotel would be.

It felt really weird to be on public transport to begin with, to be honest I'm not a fan of busses, metro lines or anything that combines lots of people, small spaces or crazy drivers on the street. But I was with my own little map that I got at the information point in the airport before we left to our hotel.
While we couldn't check in right away we left our bagage and headed towards the city centre, no idea of where to go we started walking. In case you are wondering who we are... I was together with my partner in crime, aka my husband.

At the Alexanderplatz station we would meet up with Vanilla Bear, it was finally time after talking to each other online for so long. Since I was a bit to early I headed over to Starbucks to order my favorite drink, a soy latte with caramel sirup. It was hard to sit still while you are getting so nervous about meeting a friend.

All sort of thoughts are going through my head.. Will she like me? What do I need to say to her? Do I want to film it? no that would be so akward... Luckily Alexander is so sweet and always tell me to relax and start a conversation with hello or hi. Best advice ever I swear!

And there she was... standing in front of the Starbucks cause I said we where waiting for her at that same shop. I started screaming her name and run towards her, the moment she looked up and saw me we started hugging each other. I feel a bit sad that I didn't got this on camera now that I'm thinking about it again since it was so sweet. We had an instant click, kept on hugging and where both super happy to see each other.

After a little chat at the station we decided to go to a fancy chocolate restaurant, this was the first time I went to a chocolate themed restaurant. All the items on the menu had chocolate in them, weird but amazing as well. I went for the only vegan option on the menu and ordered a fruit soup with chocolate ofcourse. They had one without any milk products in it, I was so happy. One of the waiters came to our table with a chocolate truffle to grind above our dish for extra flavour, isn't that cool?

At a certain point it started to get to an sort of akward silent moment, both of us where eating and at that point we both wanted to give each other a small gift from our home country. I was feeling so insecure about the gifts that I collected for her, she wanted to have some Belgian Chocolate and a special drink which made me travel all the way to Antwerp to get it but that doesn't matter. I also found a japanese sheep keychain in Dusseldorf for her when I was on the Japantag and I added a bracelet with matching earrings to her gift set. Maybe I went a bit overboard on the chocolate, luckily Alexander told me to stop buying anymore chocolate for her since I was already at 500 grams. They where all in different flavours so it was hard to pick just one right?

She had for me a jar of Maple Almond butter from Justin's this brand is so good! As well as some peanut butter cups with dark chocolate, she also had one with milk chocolate but I gave those to my niece cause of the milk that's in it. I must say that I was so happy with it and didn't opened any of it on my trip in Berlin. But on top of these things she had a water bottle, not just any water bottle, a glass water bottle from Starbucks with the skyline of San Fransisco on it. OMG this was not what I was expecting at all! I still can't believe that she did this all for me, since the water bottle was super hard to find. She is such a sweetheart! And it made me think that I want to try extra hard next time to find unique items for her too.

Since we where in a chocolate mood that day we visited two chocolate stores, the restaurant has a store as well with stunning chocolate sculptures which you can see in my vlog. One of them was a vulcano, with actual steam coming out, it would be a great science project if you ask me. Vanilla Bear wanted to have some amazing gifts to give to her boyfriend so we headed over to the second chocolate shop. You would think that a chocolate bar isn't that special but at the Ritter shop you can make your own chocolate bar. Or at least pick all the ingredients and toppings for it.

She went for a milk chocolate bar with double cherry flakes inside and the cutests golden stars as decoration on top. I wanted to make one as well but they didn't have the vegan option for sale at the counter. If I really wanted I could buy a bar that wasn't customized but that wouldn't be the same in my eyes. Even though I wasn't able to make my own bar it was so nice to see how they made them.
It felt like I was in Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory!

Our day ended at a pizza pasta place where we could eat a pizza or pasta for under 5 euro, it was about 3,5 euro if I remember correctly. With the help of Vanilla Bear we were able to get back to our hotel and get some sleep before we would meet again in the morning on the second day.
The first day was a long one cause the lack of sleep but I wouldn't change a thing about it. Well maybe the fact that I didn't make as much photo's as I would like but this is something that I want to take with me to my next trip.

Even though I didn't made many photo's I had some nice memories of our first day in Berlin, while the photo's where transferring to my hard disk I already started to think about our trip for the next day. We are going to visit the Charlottenburg Schloss, I was charging my batteries from the camera and was ready for a short night again. But it would be all worth it in the end, I'm sure about it! And besides, there is nothing that a bit of concealer can cover up..

Lots of love,
Poppy xx