Kebabs in Berlin. (Oct. 27, 2009)

The other day I managed to break my glasses and lose my contact lens case all within an hour from each other.  Fortunately, the contacts were in my eyes at the time,  but finding a new lens case has been a pain in my frozen butt (it has been 3 years since I've experienced winter you know).  There is no Wal-Mart here like in the U.S, and there isn't an optometrist on each corner like in Thailand.  But honestly, as inconvenient as it's been, there's a part of me that loves the idea of being forced into going to a specific store to meet specific needs.  Gigantic supercenters are quite possible some of the saddest places on the planet.

Tonight I ordered a Kebab  from a small stand on the street.  I always thought kebabs were little chunks of meat, tomatoes, onions, and peppers pierced and grilled together on a large skewer.  But I think that must just be the Mississippi version.  This was a huge spinning pole of chicken sliced and stacked like newspapers.  The guy then slices the chicken vertically as it cooks and  makes a sandwich... which I think is the kebab.  Ordering was a fun experience that reminded me of my first months in Thailand with a lot of pointing and grunting.  The man knew I couldn't speak German but seemed to enjoy pretending like I did. 

Tomorrow I will say goodbye to the dormatory for a night and check-in to the Intercontinental.  It's probably the nicest hotel I have ever stayed at, and has the added bonus that I won't be sharing my room with 20 other people, some of questionable hygine.  When I travel I prefer to spend the bulk of my money on experiences, not accomadation. The reason for this splurge was justified with four semi-valid reasons:

(1.)  I bought a ticket to the sold-out MUSE concert in Berlin (from Thailand) and it was only $5 to ship it to the hotel, while it would have been $60 to ship it to Bangkok.
(2.)  I didn't trust a guesthouse to keep up with my ticket for a month until I arrived in Germany.
(3.)  Priceline.com had an amazing deal on the hotel.
(4.)  After a month of traveling, mostly through the desert, can you really put a price on a comfortable bed and a swimming pool? 

Despite these justifications, the primary one (securing my concert ticket) has apparently already fallen through.  I called the hotel tonight to confirm my ticket had arrived, and they confirmed it had not.  I then called the ticket company who politely informed me that didn't even have a record of my order.  I was told to call back tomorrow, so we'll see what happens.   The cute, chocolate-throwing  German girl offered her condolences and said she didn't mind speaking with them in German.  Hopefully it'll all work out.  We'll see what tomorrow brings...

Berin Walking Tour. (Oct. 26, 2009)

I woke up earlier than I wanted and took advantage of this unfortunate accident by going on what was billed as a free walking tour.  I walked to the meeting place in the crisp morning air, stopping into Dunkin Donuts for a quick cup of caffeine.  Talk about sticker shock: the prices were literally four times as much as they were in Bangkok for some items . . . like the coffee I bought.  The tour was excellent!  Our guide was an American guy from Maine and about the same age as myself.  His American accent reminded me that I would soon be back in the USA with family, friends, and familiar things.  The tour guide is living in Berlin on something called an artist visa which I immediately started quizzing him about.  (I'm always shopping for a new home!).  Berlin still hasn't recovered from the effects of war; one of which is the mass exodus that went down after the wall fell. Something like 10% of the buildings currently sit abandoned and the population is nowhere near the city's potential capacity.  Therefore, the government passes out these artist visas like candy in order to both increase population and to draw in people who will enhance Berlin's reputation as one of the world's most artistic and progressive cities.  The mayor even said once, “Berlin is poor, but sexy.”  However, the resident’s must not be that poor,  if they can afford to keep Dunkin Donuts in business.

I had a few minutes before the tour began and wandered down the street finding the Kaiser
Wilhelm Memorial Church.  It was bombed, but left as a reminder of the destructiveness of war.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Back to the tour; it included a visit to the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, a portion of the Berlin Wall, and a number of other interesting places.  At one point the guide took us to a dirt parking lot and explained that Hitler died in a bunker below the ground we were standing on.  He went on to say that the bunker had been destroyed and the government now used the area as a parking lot in an effort not to bring any attention to Hitler.  The only time this location is remembered for its Nazi history is on New Years when people make an effort to go there to vomit after their celebrations.   Nearby residents, he said, would also take their pets there to clean out their digestive systems. 

The Brandenburg Gate, once a diving line between East and West Berlin.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



The Holocaust Memorial in Berlin is a concrete field with gigantic concrete blocks
protruding from the ground.  The artist has never explained his vision to anyone.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



The Berlin Wall
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



Living Statues at the Brandenburg Gate
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________



The Reichstag is where the German Parliament meets.  The glass dome is a recent addition and popular
tourist attraction. It was built above the room where government sessions are held so the politicians can look
up through the glass ceiling and see the people above them.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________



Havel River in Berlin.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________



DZ Bank Interior.  Designed by Frank Gehry to look like a whale... hopefully an abstract one.
____________________________________________________________________________



This is where Michael Jackson dangled his baby... sometimes we forget how crazy he was.
___________________________________________________________________________

The walking tour ended here.  This is one of 6 or 7 museums in the nearby area, appropriately titled: Museum Island.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



The basement was a creepy mausoleum that I was sure only existed within soundstages in Hollywood. 
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



The skull adorning the casket on the left seems a bit morbid... there were plaques explaining everything, but it was all in German.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Berlin's Crackers. (Oct. 25, 2009)

I see white people, they're all around me.  The good thing about being in Germany is that my white skin doesn't trigger any tourist alarms and I'm able to blend in... This wasn't the case in Thailand or Egypt. The sole exception are some of the beggars who ask if you speak English, then proceed to give you a card with a sad story at the beginning and a request for money at the end.  I've started asking them if they can speak Thai (in Thai), and that's usually the end of our little discussion.  If someone actually is able to understand or speak Thai, I'm totally prepared to fork over some cash for their cause, because that would be an accomplishment I couldn't achieve in my 3 years of living in Thailand.  Anyway, the bad thing about blending in with the locals is that people start to ask you questions like you have some sort of clue as to what’s going on.  Earlier today, an old lady started talking to me in a lengthy elevator ride and I totally had a conversation with her that consisted entirely of me laughing, nodding, and making random noises. She kept talking and I kept grunting.  I had an internal laugh when she hopped off the lift none-the-wiser that I can't speak a lick of German.  (Actually she didn't “hop of the lift” as she was quite old.  It was more like a slither.) 

The transportation system in Berlin is even more extensive, efficient, and confusing than I originally thought.  Fortunately Berliners are very friendly people.  Three kind souls went out of their way to help me today.  Even with all of the assistance, I somehow managed to miss my intended destination by three stops.  I ended up on some random street and just decided to wander around.  I found an awesome pretzel shop where my love for this city doubled on the first salty bite.  

The standard taxis in Germany are all Mercedes Benz
___________________________________________________________________ 



The top level of one of the biggest train stations in Berlin... A far cry from the double line Skytrain in Bangkok.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The guesthouse is unlike anything I’ve stayed in before; there are huge murals of naked fat angels and other creatures on the wall, all painted with a hippy flair- I like it.  Despite the pleasant atmosphere, I do not enjoy the idea of sleeping in a dormitory.  It is something I've only done once (in Singapore) because private rooms are very affordable throughout most of Southeast Asia and Egypt.  Heck, even in Japan I was able to afford a private room.. albeit it was a cubicle at an internet cafe.

Anyway, Berlin is beautiful!  I truly do love the adventure of third-world locales, but it's very nice to be in a country that has clean buildings, even side-walks, and working street lamps.   

Guten Tag Berlin

The flight from Cairo to Berlin seemed twice as long courtesy of a baby and its eccentric mother sitting next to me.  Children under the age of two shouldn't be allowed on international flights... it's not like they appreciate where they're going in the first place.  To avoid any frivolous lawsuits, perhaps the airlines should just schedule certain "baby friendly" flights every week or so; if it's so important for Baby Balinda to see Disneyland in Tokyo then her family can arrange their schedule accordingly.  I'm well aware of the inconvience this would cause  the baby's family, but think of all the flights that would suddenly be so peaceful.  It's called taking one for the team people.

Souless diatribe aside, I meandered down the airport corridors to immigration and was pleasantly surprised to receive a German stamp in my ragged passport.  I attempted to decipher the transportation routes into the city as I waited for my abused baggage to arrive on the carousel.  I collected my bags, converted what was left of my Egyptian Pounds into Euro and set out to find the S-Bahn.  I would discover later that S-bahn was essentially the above ground train and U-Bahn was the subway.  This was all lost on me at the moment however, and I awkwardly stood dumbfounded at the ticket machine hoping it would all be okay. A really cute German girl, sympathetic to stupid foreigners, walked up and gave me a quick rundown of the public transportation system along with her ticket which still has 2 hours of validity left.  Yay for German girls!!!

Maybe it was my exhaustion, the girl's attractiveness, or just the inherant complexity of the public transportation system, but I didn't remember a single thing about the train I was on or where I was supposed to go.  My Ipod has an application with hotels and hostels listed so at the very least I had an address.  I asked a few other people on the train for help with no avail; they were mostly tourists and in the same unfortunate situation I found myself in.  Sitting across from me was this old German lady who knew just enough English for me to know she was crazy and wouldn't be of any worthwhile assistance. 

I hopelessly hopped off the train and began a guesthouse scavenger hunt walking through the cobblestone streets of Berlin.  The trees were on fire with the glow of an autumn sun.  After three years of eternal summer, it was nice to know that it was still possible for leaves to ripen into shades of burnt orange and apple red.  This made being lost tolerable... almost enjoyable.  And it would have been enjoyable had I been appropriately dressed for such weather, but Thailand and Egypt had left me suited for nothing but the sand and sea.

Guesthouse #1 in Berlin, Germany.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I found the guesthouse as night fell.  It was on the bottom floor of an old historic building nestled on the corner of a quiet intersection.  After some initial confusion over whether they had room for me or not, I was led back into a dorm and flopped onto the bed like jello... it was rather hard though, and this hurt.  A friendly (and hot)  German girl a few beds over offered me some chocolate.   After refusing a few times, she began tossing them at me.   We talked for a bit about my travels and she explained to me  that she had just finished high school and was in Berlin with her friend to look at universities. She invited me to go out with them that night and enjoy the city.   Berlin is known for its nightlife, and while I'm not big into the club scene -at all-, I very much wanted to experience the city's highlights.  Having a cute semi-local girl as a friend and tourguide was most certainly a win-win situation, but I felt like death, and my weakening eyelids forced me to decline the invitation.  I regretted this decision greatly in the minute or so it took me to fall asleep.  The blame for this regret falls squarely on that stupid baby from the plane. Had the parents shut it up, I would have been full of energy and ready to go . . . maybe on the next trip to Berlin.