Berlin: ICE Trains and Beer Festivals

Fair warning, even though this was a short trip to Berlin, this will probably be a very long and detailed post. On Monday, I found a flier at the gym advertising the Berlin International Beer Festival this weekend. Since we've never been to Berlin, we figured this may be the best time to make a trip over to the east. The next day, we booked train tickets and a hotel. So, this was definitely a more spontaneous trip than we usually take. Aside from my trip via ICE train to Nuremberg to visit Greg when he was at training, this was our first long distance train adventure. There were a lot of bumps in the road along the way, but we made it there and had a pretty awesome time on our mini vacation.

Backpacking in Baumholder Fraunberg

Before I post about Berlin, I have a few other things to cover. Greg and I have been slowly accumulating all of the supplies needed to take a nice long weekend backpacking trip. REI is probably happy to add us to their membership list. Two weekends ago, we decided to try out ort equipment more locally by taking a day trip backpacking through a forest reserve area near Baumholder. On a previous trip, we stumbled onto this place on accident when we parked along the trail head to adjust our GPS. A sign we parked next to held pamphlets explaining the highlights of the trail. I kept the pamphlet just in case we decided to come out that way again.