Berlin: July 11

July 11

Today I fly out to Berlin.  I just took the DLR to Bank and walked over to Liverpool Street.  It's only 12:30, and my flight isn't until 6:45, so I'm trying to decide what to do for the next hour or two, when I'll need to catch a train to Stansted.

There's a giant chess set out in the courtyard by Liverpool Station.  I took a picture of it.  I wish we had something like that on campus.  They do all the other weird, interactive art things, why not a chess set.

Sometime while we're here Laura and I want to go do a Harry Potter exploring tour.  We're going to go to King's Cross Station and take lots of pictures of the barrier.  We were also going to try and find where the Leaky Cauldron is supposed ot be, and if there is indeed a Grimmald Place.

I have some shopping to do while I'm here too.  I want to bring back things for friends.  I found bookmarks with family crests on them, so I'm goign to look through those.  I also want to get for myself a cute pair of flat, a cute clubbing dress, and some of the Horrible History books.

While I was wandering around waiting to board the Stansted Express I wandered down to the East End.  There were lots of shops lining the streets with the most beautiful silks, laces, and other textiles.  It was set up a lot like Florence.  I was a bit sketchy though; I kind of felt like I shouldn' be there alone, so I didn't stay for very long, heading back towards Liverpool Station.

My ticket for the Stansted Express was L26, but it's roundtrip, and by far the simplest way to get ot the airport.  It's only 2:00 now, but I'd rather have plenty of time to make my way aroudn the airport and figure out where I'm going.

So now I'm just chilin' at the airport.  There's shops everywhere here, too.  I founf four Horrible History books, so that made me happy.  I was still here was early though.  It's kinda weird being completely by myself for an entire day.  I don't think I've said more than 10 words today, and most of those have been "sorry", "okay", and "thanks."  I get really nervous about flying, too, which doesn't help.

So....I'm freaking out.  Scared out of my mind.  I made it to Schonefeld Airport in Berlin, but Chris isn't here.  I'm in a foreign country, with only a basic knowledge of the language at this point, and no idea where to stay for the next two nights, and no idea where to go, and very little ability to ask.  My parents won't answer the cell phone, the home phone won't accept international call for which it doesn't recognize the number.  I called Thom, fighting tears, and had him check my Facebook for messages from Chris.  Nothing.  I at least now know which hostel he booked us at, the A&O Stadtmitte, but that does me no good because I have no clue how to get there and the booking isn't in my name anyways.  Chris also has the travel passes, so that does me no good either.  I've both called and texted him, but no answer...

So the plan now is to sleep in the airport tongiht.  It's too dark and late for me to be going out trying to fidn something in a city I have no idea how to navigate and can't easily read maps or ask for directions.  Tomorrow I call Thom to let him know I'm okay; he relays this message to my parents.  Then I go explore Berlin for myself if I still haven't heard from Chris.  Then I'll come back to the airport tomorrow night, sleep ere again, and catch my flight in the morning. ... I really hope Chris calls me back...

Berlin: July 12

July 12

It's 5am.  I got about 3.5 or 4 hours of sleep.  No word from Chris.  I'll try calling him again a little later.  Thom hasn't managed to get ahold of my parents.  I'm wonderign if they went out of town for the weekend.  Right now I'm going to finish eating breakfast, see about getting a Day Travel Pass, ring Cris once more, and then head out to explore.  I'll just stay at the airport again if worse comes to worse.

Thom just called me back.  Apparently Chris lost his SIM card, or got his number locked or something when he turned his phone off.  He's at the hostel and will meet me at Alexander Platz at noon today if I can't get ahold of him.  Mom also called Thom back.  She's thinking of getting a new phone today since her's is on the fritz.

Luckily when I got off the S-bahn at Alexander Platz Chris happened to be there.  So we ended up meeting early and sitting by a fountain while he finished breafast.  Then we went to Vodafone so he could get his phone unlocked and working again.  His German sounds very nearly fluent to me.  I decided to let him handle most of the talking all day.

Once his phone is working again we set off to explore.  We found a little park dedicated to the events of 1968.  I got a cool picture of me sitting on Marx's knee.  I like I'm asking for a pony and a rocket.  We moved on and looked at some old churches and monuments.

Then we headed for the Brandenburg Gate, the place where JFK made a fool of himself by claiming "Ich bin ein Berliner!"  I, however, did not pronounce myself to be a jelly donut.  I settled for a picture.

From the Brandenburg Gate we headed to the Reichstag.  It's a deceivingly huge building.  The queue to go inside was exceptionally long, so we didn't stay long.  Instead we went to look for food (Doeners are quite amazing) but found the Holocaust Memorial first.  It's a huge coutyard filled with grey blocks of varying height.  We theorized that it is supposed to represent the loss of identity that occured.

After lunch we head to Checkpoint Charlie and die Berliner Mauer.  The checkpoint itself is rather unobtrusive, but I did get a pressed penny out of it.  The wall, and memorial, however was much more moving.  There were some beautifully repainted slabs of the wall on display, as well as a short strip of what is left of the wall.  Also, running through the city is what we've fondly called the Berlin Speedbump.  It's a line of brick that shows where the wall used to run.  The memorial at the wall was about Hitler's rise to power and the horrors of his reign and WWII.  It showed anti-semitic propoganda of the Nazi party and the other big names who were in the HOlocaust.

Then we hopped on the S-bahn again for a long ride to the Olypic Stadium.  There was an event going on, so we didn't go in, but instead got throughly turned around in the city on our way to the Schloss.  It was big and impressive.  The walkway to get there was quite long.  I would rather have come in a carriage as gentry than walked as a petitioning peasant.

After that we went to the Babylon Museum.  There were a whole bunch of cool things in there.  We started in the Ancient Greek and Roman area.  I got some pictures of statues of the gods, including Artemis and Apollo.  We then moved on to a set of rooms containing old artifacts and modern art.  They had lots of old books.  So were written in insular miniscule, and others in the fancy Altehochdeutsch text.  We saw a Lego set that was of a concentration camp.  It had all the gory details and reminded me of the dungeon Lego sets now.  There was an exhibit called Glitter Cum Saddam.  It was a series of newspapers with Saddam Hussein on the front that the artist had splattered with semen and glitter.  Chris and I spent a while musing over the interpretation of this one.

Our feet were killing us by this point so we head out to get dinner and souvineers.  We passed by the TV tower.  It looks like a giant needle with a bubble on it. We wandered around for a bit before heading to the hostel.  Did you know they've got ads that are pictures of fruit with condoms on?

After dropping off our non-valueables at the hostel we headed out again for a bit. We went to SandSation, a giant sandcastle exhibit.  Unfortunately it had closed for the night.  So instead we walked around a bit and Chris taught me some German idomatic phrases.  "Ab geht!" means "get up!" and is used at parties in situations when drunk girls dance on tables.  "Es geht um den Wurst" :literally, "it goes around the sausage," but is used to say "things are getting serious."  

We headed back to the hostel a little later, knowing we'd have to be up early for me to catch my 10:15 flight back the next morning.