On Saturday morning, our daughter, her friend, and I traveled by IC from Frankfurt to Berlin.

Due to signal failures along the way, our planned ride of 4:27 minutes took 64 minutes longer than scheduled. We had no problem with that, but the Deutsche Bundesbahn, nevertheless, offered us a 25% refund because of our late arrival.

Somewhere between Göttingen and Braunschweig

The highlight of this 20-hour visit to Berlin was for the girls to see Justin Bieber in concert. After our arrival in Berlin in the late afternoon, we checked into the Ramada Hotel in Berlin Mitte, then took off for an early dinner (Turkish cuisine), and got to the O2  Arena by 6:00.

Turkish red lentil soup

It had been a while since I had seen so many excited teenage girls, all dressed up, lined up, and made up.

Justin Bieber concert O2 Arena, Berlin

During the time of the concert, I was fortunate to meet up with a new friend in Berlin. We now have gone from meeting online on facebook to our first personal encounter. We had agreed to meet in front of the concert hall and from there on, we walked to the nearest bistro, which happened to be near the Oberbaumbrücke in Kreuzberg.

The weather was just perfect to sit outside and my friend and I got to know each other a bit better. Got to see a few Paradiesvögel (exotic creatures) pass by, lots of young people on bikes, and trains up in the air.

After we said our goodbyes, it was time to head back to the O2 Arena to pick up the two girls. When you stand there for about 20 minutes, searching for familiar faces, all the girls end up looking the same. Most had the same hair color, same hair length, similar ages, and were dressed in similar fashion. Some came out screaming Justin!, or geil!, while others made loud noises to relieve the pressure.

My daughter told me that Justin had a cake prepared on stage for his mom’s birthday (02 April) and he got the audience to sing her the Happy Birthday song.

Around 10 p.m., my feet felt flattened out, my eyes were fatigued from all the new sights, and my brain cells commanded me to hit the pillow. So we headed back to the hotel by S-Bahn and I got a good night’s sleep to prepare me for part two of chaperoning and sight-seeing in Berlin.