A Haircut, a History Lesson & a Homemade Repair

Today we drove into the outskirts of Berlin with a mission: find a replacement wheel liner for the Blue Gnu. The front right one had cracked and was making a bit of noise. I even had to dust off some German, which was an adventure in itself, but despite our efforts we had no luck finding the part.

Fortunately, Cotty is resourceful. He managed to repair it using what we had on hand, and the Gnu was once again happy enough to continue the journey.

With that sorted, we parked at a Park and Ride and took the S-Bahn into the city.

Then we received an unexpected message: my hairdresser from home happened to be in Berlin and had her scissors with her.

Naturally, a haircut in Berlin became part of the day's itinerary.

It may be one of the more unusual road trip victories we've had so far.

After catching up and getting my hair trimmed, we walked from her apartment into the city centre and spent the afternoon exploring. We visited Checkpoint Charlie, the Jewish Memorial, the Brandenburg Gate, and admired plenty of other impressive architecture along the way.

Berlin felt very different from the cities we'd visited over the past couple of weeks. Bigger, busier, and layered with so much history that it felt impossible to take it all in during a single day.

By this point, after weeks of what has felt like "Junuary" weather, we were both a little walked out and ready for a break. We hopped back on the train and headed for the car.

Unfortunately, this was also our first day in quite a while that we hadn't prepared food ahead of time.

We paid for that decision immediately.

Back at the Blue Gnu we put together a substantial cook-up, refuelled ourselves properly, and felt much better for it.

With both the car and its occupants repaired, we hit the road once again and pointed ourselves toward Quedlinburg, where friends were waiting.

Another day, another adventure.