Berlin 2007 - Day 7 Shopping Sick Day
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04/04/2007:
I didn’t want to spoil it in the title, but there it is. Sick Day.
Mike and Mary had an unpleasant evening and were totally wiped out by morning although their intestinal issues were beginning to at least subside. Kate was feeling a little bit queasy. X was feeling ok. As for me…I absolutely despise getting sick to my stomach. So much so that in her day care days, X merely mentioning one of the students getting sick to his stomach had me feeling off for days wondering when the other shoe was going to drop and I would get sick. So I was also feeling a little bit off, but was uncertain whether it was the real thing or if it was all in my head.
We had put off most shopping excursions for Day 7 instead of trying to make side trips to various places that we wanted to shop. We figured we would wrap up any remaining touristy things we wanted to see, go get souvenirs for friends and family, and have a fairly easy day.
After having a bite to eat, the 3 relatively healthy travelers set out. We hopped on the U-Bahn. Kate was looking a little pale but she vowed to tough it out. And tough it out she did. For about 3 stops. At this point she decided that maybe it wasn’t going to go so well after all, so we got off and hopped on the train going back towards the apartment. When we got to our station and got off the train, Kate was getting worse. She probably doesn’t want this story recounted, but it’s worth recounting.
She got sick on the U-Bahn platform. Fortunately there was a trash can nearby. X went ahead to stop at a drug store/apotheke to see if she could get some drugs. Meanwhile I was with Kate on the platform pondering the rather odd situation here. I didn’t want to abandon Kate on the subway platform, but I didn’t want to get too close because A) I didn’t want to get sick and B) I kinda didn’t want people in the area to know that I was with her. Later on Kate would have a similar concern that people passing by would identify us as uncouth Americans who come to Berlin, get totally drunk and party all night and then get sick in public places!
After this unfortunate event, we walked back to the apartment and were joined soon after by X carrying some sort of odd medicine that the pharmacist had confirmed was good for upset stomach through hand signals. It was a strange tincture that you mixed with water and drank. It had an herbal scent. Kate mixed up a dose, took a sip and decided it wasn’t worth it.
Meanwhile, I was still feeling fairly OK if not a little bit washed out. We decided to go on shopping expedition, take 2. On the way to the kneipe the previous night, I had spotted a toy/game store that I wanted to check out in the hopes that I could find a cool German game and maybe something for Lee.
On the way across the bridge, a man stopped us and asked for directions. FINALLY someone doesn’t immediately assume we are Americans! Unfortunately he was a bit disappointed with the result since he seemed to be in a bit of a rush and of course we could offer little assistance other than confirming that the large palace across the river was, indeed, Schloss Charlottenburg.
As we made our way to the game store, I was feeling OK…not great. When we walked into the game store, things immediately got a lot worse. I’m not sure if it was the temperature differential, but it was fairly chilly outside (in the 50s) and it was pretty hot in the store. Either way, in the store I started to feel unbearably hot and could not decide if I was just overheating or was about to faint, but either way, I felt that it was extremely important to get out of that store and into the cool fresh air.
After getting back outside I felt a little bit better, but still not great…more and more fatigued for sure. We decided to go back to the apartment and I felt worse and worse as we went. I laid in bed and slept, read, sweated, etc. My stomach started to feel queasy but I never did get sick. I did take a dose or two of the strange medicine which did taste pretty gross but it did settle my stomach.
X, meanwhile, was still feeling healthy, but was pretty much stuck. As if she wasn’t already hesitant to travel alone in an unfamiliar foreign city, she was doubly concerned that she was going to get sick sooner or later and did not want to be alone in an unfamiliar foreign city and getting sick! She hung out with me most of the afternoon which was very nice. At some point I commented that while I loved traveling to foreign countries, I think our next trip needed to be a cruise…I needed a relaxing vacation!
As the afternoon wore into the evening, Mike and Mary were still hiding out in their room. They reported that their symptoms had mostly subsided aside from just being completely wiped out. I was about in the same boat. Kate seemed to be feeling relatively normal and X had not yet developed any symptoms. X decided to keep her date with the family and go meet them for dinner and Kate also felt up to the challenge. We decided that our plans for a little party in the apartment probably should be abandoned. X and Kate left and I slept awhile longer.
Eventually I heard some stirring and found that Mike and Mary were up and moving around. I wasn’t feeling too bad either. We had some toast and tea and found that we could get the EuroSport channel in our apartment here, too so that we could watch more curling. We found it amusing that while the commentary was in German, many of the curling “terms” such as “takeout” or even “double takeout” were still pronounced in English by the commentators. We discussed our illness and how it might have come to be. Eventually we settled on a theory that Kate would later call “The Snow White Incident.” Remember the apples we ate on the train the day before? We had no way to wash them. Who knows what was on them, be it germs or some pesticide that will make you sick. This would also handily explain why X did not get sick - she had a banana. In fact she consciously chose the banana because she was concerned about not being able to wash an apple - which…good thought. Would have been nice if she had told the rest of us this concern!
However, since that fateful trip I have learned a little bit about norovirus and I have to ease Mike’s conscious (since he provided the apples) by pointing out that our symptoms were consistent with norovirus AND the “epidemiology” as it were also works out. You see, 6 weeks or so prior to our trip, X had a sinus infection and took some broad spectrum antibiotics. She then started having some intestinal trouble. I think it was a side effect of the antibiotic even though the doctor tried to claim otherwise (I think maybe he just wants to discourage people from diagnosing themselves). In any case, she was given a targetted antibiotic for this and was specifically told to not consume even the slightest bit of alcohol.
All through the trip, Mike, Mary, Kate and I were constantly sharing things, in particular beer. We would all order different beers and then try each others. All of us, that is, except X who was prevented from drinking beer. If any one of us had picked up norovirus - which would be fairly easy to do travelling on airplanes, busses, subways, etc - the rest of us would have very easily been infected through all this sharing of beer!
Nonetheless, “The Snow White Incident” is a great title so we’re generally sticking with that. It also gives us another reason to dislike Prague. When you get right down to it, our one day trip to Prague ended up costing us 3 days - the day spent travelling to and in Prague, the day spent coming home and then the day spent laid (and throwing) up!
X and Kate came back fairly late. Late enough that we were a little bit worried especially since we had no real way to get in touch with them. But they were fine. They had gone to a pizza joint that Maria and Colin had said was really good and they came back with very favorable reviews and had a wonderful time.
Unfortunately, we had a fairly early flight home and so we needed to pack before bed, otherwise we would have to be up at 5AM trying to get everything together. After packing everything up we went to bed with a heavy heart.
We were thankful that it looked like none of us was going to be sick for the flight home!
To see all of the pics from the trip, head on over to the Gallery!
Tags: Berlin, Norovirus, Snow White Incident
October 22nd, 2007 at 7:02 pm
Hey now the old lady with a cane wearing a black robe assured me that those apples were safe!
I’m all for taking a day off from vacationing, but I will have to remember next time that this isn’t a good day off. Hey, at least we have a good story to tell. I guess the germ circle will have to remain closed on the next trip.