The Hizzle of T-Fizzle

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04/05/2007:
By morning we were all feeling a little bit better. Not 100%, but at least well enough that we weren’t going to be getting sick on the plane ride home!

I forgot to recount 2 humorous stories of yesterday:

The first is that X bought me a giant Kinder Egg. For those not in the know, Kinder Egg is a candy sold by Ferrero, the diabolical geniuses that began with the invention of Nutella and have also brought us Tic Tacs, and Rocher. Kinder Eggs consist of a hollow chocolate egg that is made up of two thin layers, one milk chocolate, one white chocolate. Inside the egg is a plastic capsule and inside the plastic capsule is a toy. They aren’t super special but they are cute and have a lot of novelty in that, predictably, they are not actually legal in the US. I always thought that this was because it was an obvious lawsuit in waiting, but apparently the original mandate for the FDA in the 1930s actually forbade embedding toys in food from the get-go. I like to pick some up anytime I’m in a country where they are available.

X picked this up as sort of a “get well” present and I was very grateful, although I had to poke fun that she had got me an egg for girls. She protested that it wasn’t her fault - the label is in German! Look closely at the label and you will see why I got a good laugh at this. It’s basically your normal Kinder Egg only it’s much larger.

Fortunately the toy inside doesn’t seem particularly gender-specific. It consists of a bunch of plastic ants and a plastic honeypot that you stack up.

Clicking this link will take you to the Kinder Egg album.

The second story is that at some point during the evening our landlord stopped down to return our security deposit. Mike and I, already not good at math spent an absurd amount of time passing Euro banknotes back and forth to each other but could not figure out a way to make it balance out. Mary was getting quite a laugh listening to us go back and forth unable to make any progress.

OK so our flight home was fairly early. We were already packed so we really just had to clear out and pick up a bus to the airport which was very close to the apartment. We walked out to the bus stop and waited. And waited. And waited. While we waited we discussed the bus schedule and why we hadn’t seen a single bus. Maybe we were just outside of peak hours. Maybe we just missed the last bus. Suddenly it occurred to me - it was Good Friday, which I had heard was a widely observed holiday. Maybe there is very limited public transit on Good Friday!

No sooner than I got these words out did a taxi cab approach us on the opposite side of the street. And not just any taxi cab - a big van. Big enough for all of us. Mary used her elite NYC skills to quickly flag him down. I was concerned he wouldn’t stop since he had to turn around to get to us, but he swung right around and picked us up. A few minutes later we were checking in at the airport.

Tegel airport seems pretty tiny. A long narrow hallway with all the check-in counters and another long narrow hallway divided up to form the gate waiting areas. We had to loaf around in the first long narrow hallway waiting for the security people to arrive and clear us. When they did, they flagged me to look through my backpack. My backpack is a combination camera bag/backpack (a review on this later) and so the lower portion contained the camera and the upper portion contained solely the giant Kinder Egg. I have no idea if the Kinder Egg looked suspicious on the X-ray display or if it was just a random check, but the woman doing the inspection seemed quite amused to find that my backpack pretty much contained nothing but a giant Kinder Egg.

The flight home was fairly uneventful. There were no Scary German Guys.

Back in the airport, we got a good taste of Department of Homeland Security dog-and-pony show. Maybe not specifically DHS but it at least illustrates some of the stupid things we do. As most travellers know, luggage is sent to a baggage claim where each traveller is responsible for finding his/her own bags and double-checking to make sure they aren’t mistakenly taking someone else’s. This isn’t a bad system. It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than this.

After we collected all of our bags, we found that one of Mary’s was missing. She found the people to talk to and after a little while was notified that someone had picked up her bag and when they presented it to check in for their connecting flight it was caught since the destination tag indicated it was staying in Newark! They told Mary where to go to get her bag and then asked her to provide ID to claim it. This seems somewhat silly considering anyone can steal anyone’s bag from the baggage claim, but whatever - it’s just lucky that these people had another flight, otherwise they probably would not have noticed they had the wrong bag until they got home and opened it!

We considered making a stop at Harold’s on the way home, but after the previous days’ illness and wanting to just get home and unwind we decided to just skip that and head straight home.

It was a great trip, and Berlin is an awesome city. I think I may like it even better than London, and the fact that it is a LOT cheaper than London makes it all the more appealing.

To see all of the pics from the trip, head on over to the Gallery!

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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!

This map is interactive! Click an icon to get more information or click here to view it in greater detail.

04/03/2007:
Our train back to Berlin did not leave at the crack of dawn as our train out did, but it left fairly early. Early enough that in order to do further sightseeing in Prague, we would have to truly get up at the crack of dawn. Instead we opted to sleep in a little bit. We woke and packed and got some breakfast from the cool kids lounge and then went down to wait for our taxi.

The taxi was right on time and took us right to the station.

For some reason, Nádrazí Holesovice was either uncommonly empty yesterday or uncommonly crowded today. We were in the station around the same time both days, but for some reason today there was a lot of people. Touristy people. With all of these travellers in the station who were there with a purpose, Holesovice seemed a lot less seedy than before. Had we stepped off the train into this environment I might not have been quite so skeeved out.

In the station were a bunch of American girls. Pretty young I’d say…17 years old maybe? They seemed *awfully* young to be travelling without any adult supervision…or at least a beefy male to back them up. One of them approached me and asked me about a train to Italy. “You do know there are other train stations, right?” She said that her train was leaving from Holesovice. “Is this Holesovice?” Yes. *Whew* For a minute I was concerned these girls weren’t even in the right station.

Meanwhile, our train was listed as delayed. I took advantage of the extra time to waste the remainder of my Czech crowns seeing as how by the time I ever come back that currency will be long-gone. I suppose I could have kept some as a souvenir, but I don’t need the clutter. Believe me.

At some point we decided our train’s arrival was imminent. We went out on the platform where it was shockingly cold. I believe there were snow flurries in the air. There was a single tramcar sitting on the track. Was this the cause of the delay? I suggested that we all just get behind it and push it out of the way, but this plan did not last long. Everyone was cold and we went back inside.

The train was not super late in the end. An hour, maybe? I don’t recall completely. We found our car and boarded and I was disappointed to learn that we did not get a cool compartment to ourselves. For the ride home we would be in normal train seats. Sometime into the ride, Mike revealed a stash of fruit in his backpack. He had the foresight to take a little snack along for the ride. X had a banana and the rest of us had apples.

The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful. Because we didn’t have private cars, and the dining car seemed pretty crowded, we went there in shifts. The girls went first while we held down the seats and then X came and got us and we went back and assumed their table at the dining car while Kate and Mary went back to the seats. On the long walk through the train we went through the smoking car which was astounding. You could smell it two cars away and it was thick with smoke. I’m pretty tolerant of smoke and it threw me for a loop! At the dining car I had some sort of sausage and lentil stew that I really liked.

We arrived back at our lovely apartment and kicked back for a few minutes to change, freshen up, nap and plan dinner. We also planned some activities after dinner - namely a ride on the 100 bus that goes around the touristy attractions so that we could see them light up at night. We also wanted to visit the Siegessäule.

All week long we had been going back and forth about visiting a kneipe. You see, my guidebook described kneipen as, basically old-man bars. Seedy joints where neighborhood people went to get blitzed after work. It specifically said that women rarely ventured into these dives. But Mary, on the advice of her guidebook and a co-worker had been lobbying to visit a kneipe listed in her guidebook. At some point I mused to X that maybe Mary’s guidebook described kneipen more favorably, so we decided to compare. Sure enough, Mary’s guidebook talked of the kneipe being a friendly neighborhood pub where the whole family goes out for a drink and a cheap bite to eat. It would be interesting to visit the kneipen listed in my guidebook to see if they really are seedy dives.

In any case, spurred on by the favorable description in Mary’s book we sought out the kneipe that she thought was most interesting. We stepped inside the main entrance and it wasn’t beautiful. It did seem like an old-man bar. In fact it was full of old men - actual old men in the 60+ range, a lot of them playing cards. This might not be the crowd we’d normally hang out with, but they did not seem a dangerous lot. We got some looks as we entered but nothing disconcerting. There were no tables in the bar but someone spotted a door leading off to another room. We went through to find more of restaurant-like area. This area was completely empty. We sat down at a nearby table.

On the table was little metal cube that had a picture on it of a crossed-out cigarette. Presumably this room was a non-smoking section. A bit of an extra bonus since people smoke pretty much everywhere in Berlin, including at the dinner table. While they eat. Shortly after we sat down, a pleasant waitress buzzed by the table and sat down an ashtray! We got a chuckle out of this. Evidently the non-smoking section is not heavily enforced!

Once concern with eating at a kneipe is that they are not really touristy so you are less likely to find English-speaking staff or English-language menus. I don’t know how much English the waitress knew - we all try to be polite travellers and just do our best in German and hand signals. She did fairly quickly determine that we were English speakers and did bring us an English menu. I always carried a guidebook that included a food dictionary, but having an English menu always makes things simpler!

This seemed like a good opportunity to get a Berliner Weiße which was described in the guidebook as one of the things you *have* to do in Berlin since it’s something pretty much unique to Berlin. I asked for it mit grün which includes a shot of a woodruff flavored syrup since that also seems to be the most traditional of all the options. Actually, I ordered a different kind of beer mit grün and I believe the waitress told me that you wouldn’t want to put that syrup in anything but Berliner Weiße, so I heeded her advice. It is definitely different and I can see why it’s very popular during the summer months!

For dinner I got this dish that had a name that I cannot recall but it was bloodwurst and liverwurst fried up with potatoes and onions and maybe some sauerkraut into a sort of hash. I think you would have to try pretty hard to come up with a meal that is more unhealthy and more offensive to the senses. It was really, really good. Frying liverwurst is a brilliant idea.

At some point during the meal Mike, who had previously mentioned not feeling very hungry, declared that he was going to opt out from further touring activities for the evening and just get an early night. He was looking a little bit pale. Mike and Mary departed and X, Kate and I finished up and paid. We decided not to go touring without Mike and Mary after a long day on the train. On our way back to the apartment, we got a little bit lost. A very nice woman noticed us huddled around a map and asked us (in German) if we needed help. At least I recognized the word for “help” in there somewhere. Kate used this opportunity to use the one German phrase she has truly mastered “Ich verstehe kein Deutsch” or “I understand no German.” The woman chuckled. We pointed to her on the map where we wanted to go and she pointed us in the right direction.

Meanwhile back at the apartment, Mike and Mary were in bed. Aunt Bern and company were supposed to arrive the next day so our plan was to meet them for dinner. Since we had this awesome apartment with this awesome balcony and the weather was beautiful, we figured after dinner we could hang out at the apartment. To celebrate the occasion I had picked up a case of Berliner Pilsener at ReWe during our last shopping excursion. I have no idea if it’s good beer, but really it’s hard to find BAD beer in German. In ReWe there were a couple of guys who were giving away some Berliner Pilsener schwag to go with a discount on the case and they seemed to enjoy practicing their sales pitch in English. We scored a pen, a lanyard, a metal motorscooter keyring and a model tractor trailer Anyway, we had this case of beer so we figured we’d crack into it. Kate and X and I sat and talked and drank for awhile. Well Kate didn’t drink because despite feeding her beer in every restaurant she just can’t get into it.

After awhile, Mary came out to chat for awhile. She wasn’t feeling all that great either. Suddenly, Mike runs past and into the bathroom and gets sick. Mary goes into to assist…and soon after she gets sick, too! After things started to calm down we got the sick soldiers to bed and then retired ourselves. Not a very spectacular day for us!

To see all of the pics from the trip, head on over to the Gallery!

This map is interactive! Click an icon to get more information or click here to view it in greater detail.

03/30/2007:
After a busy day 1 and a fairly late night, we had no trouble sleeping and were able to get up fairly early in order to make breakfast and meet Maria and Colin to see a flohmarkt and taste some German street food. Buoyed by a tasty breakfast and some of strong coffee, we took the U-Bahn down to Maria and Colin’s apartment.

After relaxing for a few minutes, off we went to Rathaus Schöneberg for the flohmarkt. Flohmarkt is literally a flea market, and these are a big part of life in Berlin. All the refrigerators I saw in Berlin (of course I only saw 2 or 3) were quite small. I imagine most Berliners don’t keep much food in stock; they just get things fresh at the flohmarkt 2 or 3 days each week. The square was full of tables and stalls selling flowers, meats, strong cheeses, clothes, jewelry and pretty much anything else you could imagine. We wandered around awhile picking up some gifts for the homefront. X got a necklace in keeping with her tradition of buying unique jewelry whenever she travels. I would later learn that Rathaus Schöneberg was also the site of John F. Kennedy’s famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech.

As the day wore on and we got hungry, we decided to get some food. I love sausage so I got some sausage mit brotchen. Brotchen being a little roll (literal translation: small bread) that basically serves as a handle to hold the sausage that is probably a foot long. Most of us got the same thing, but Kate (being of Alsatian heritage) could not resist tasting the Flammkuchen, a very tasty treat that is akin to pizza. We also had some orange juice. On the plane I observed that SGG and his entourage were dropping OJ faster than an LA cop. At the flohmarkt we noticed a huge preponderance of folks squeezing fresh OJ. OJ is apparently VERY popular here. It smells heavenly being squeezed. Colin warned us that it was different from the OJ back home and it certainly is. It’s not nearly as sweet, but it is quite tasty.

After lunch we parted ways. Maria and Colin, who were not actually on vacation, had to actually go be real people for awhile. Colin showed us the way to the station and we then embarked on a long day of hardcore tourism in the heart of Berlin’s Unter Den Linden section.

First stop: The Reichstag. The Reichstag is the home of the German parliament and a turbulent history. You can read the history over at the Wikipedia so there’s no need to recount them here. As a tourist stop, the Reichstag sits on the end of a huge open space. After East and West Germany reunited, the building was renovated and capped with a huge modern glass dome. Tourists may go to the roof of the building and walk a ramp to the top of the dome. At certain times it is also possible to observe parliamentary proceedings. There was a line waiting to get in…it didn’t take long, although X lobbied to skip entering the building and just “check it off.” There were some buskers to entertain us while we waited.

X bought a bottle of water and was dismayed to find it was carbonated. In many parts of Europe, bottled water is carbonated by default. I guess after a long history of water that was not safe to drink, it still isn’t very popular. If you are a water drinker and are ever travelling in Germany, here is your mantra: Stilleswasser. This will score you normal water (or at least prevent you from getting fizzy water). In a restaurant you can also order Leitungswasser which is tap water (literally pipe-water). You may get funny looks. We stuck with Stilleswasser mainly because it’s a pretty much a cognate and so it’s easier to remember than Leitungswasser.

In any case, the line did not take long and it was well worth the wait.

The Reichstag Building

The dome

The dome presents both some beautiful views (and it was a nice day!) and the opportunity for some interesting abstract shots.

Here is a picture of the spectacular central rail station, Berlin Hauptbahnhof

And an abstraction from part of the dome.

This pic will take you to the Reichstag album.

At the base of the dome there is also a history of the Reichstag building and the German parliament (Bundestag).

Upon leaving the Reichstag, we scratched our heads at some nearby memorials before making off for one of Berlin’s most well-known icons, the Brandenburg Gate. It is a very cool and imposing structure, although it was thronged with tourists.

There is the gate. Note the crowd.

You also get a nice view of the Funkturm from here. The former East Berlin side is under massive construction and revitalization.

This pic will take you to the Brandenberg Gate album.

Our next stop was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

As you approach the memorial, the stone stelae do not appear to go more than about 6 feet high or stretch very far. What you do not realize is that pathways actually descend and the farthest stone you can see here is pretty much the midway point - the Memorial basically occupies a city block. If you view the satellite map of the area, you can get a feel for the magnitude of its size.

As you approach the center, the stelae quickly grow over your head. 303 of the stelae are over 4m high with the tallest being 4.7m. There are 2711 stelae. Despite what I’m sure you are wondering (and what I also wondered) there is no significance to the number. It was simply the number of .95m x 2.38m stelae they could fit in the space! In an interesting twist there was a controversy because the anti-graffiti paint used to treat the stelae was developed by a company that had participated in the holocaust. One of the company’s subsidiaries even produced Zyklon B.

After wandering the labyrinth of stelae to get yourself in the appropriately somber and contemplative mood, you will eventually find your way into the underground museum where there are artifacts, exhibits, and a reading of the names of all known victims. It is harrowing and fascinating.

This pic will take you to the rest of the album.

After finishing at the museum we stopped for a snack at the nearby Terrace Cafe. We next ventured to Bebelplatz, the site of a Nazi bookburning. There exists now a window in the ground that looks into a basement library, painted stark white, devoid of any books. It serves as a memorial to the unfortunate event. It was now beginning to get dark…we were getting tired but we still had one more stop in our itinerary, Checkpoint Charlie.

My honest opinion of the Checkpoint and the accompanying museum: Do a walkby. It’s a bit out of the way, the museum is a bit expensive, and the “checkpoint” building that stands there today is not even original (nor are the faux Soviet artifacts being peddled nearby, I’m sure). The museum does have some fascinating stories about the evolving technology of the wall and the ever more ingenious methods devised to get to the other side. The museum and the man behind it have a fascinating story, but the unfortunate part is that he was by no means a professional curator, and it shows - the museum is packed with artifacts and exhibits that seem to have no logical flow and are even duplicated in multiple places. It’s long and hard to follow. Perhaps it was hunger and fatigue that tainted my judgment a bit, but I don’t think so.

You’ve all seen the booth and the big sign; no point taking a pic of that, and no photography allowed inside the museum itself.

Upon leaving Checkpoint Charlie, we sought a place to eat somewhere not too far from there. We decided to check out the spectacular Sony Centre. We actually had a hard time finding our way into it (suprising because it’s huge). Once we did, we looked around at our choices and settled on the Hofbrauhaus which is sort of chain of breweries. The food is standard German food…schnitzels and the like. We were able to get beer in litre quantities which was fun. I had a dish with some very doughy dumplings and pork. It was good, although it was probably one of the least memorable meals of the trip. We also got cool pins for drinking mass quantities of beer.

At this point we were dead tired. We slogged to the U-Bahn station and finally made our way back to the apartment for a well-deserved rest. But not without incident - when we got into the station, we realized there was a train right at the platform! What good luck! We ran in and sat down on the train. The doors closed. The train did not move. After a few seconds someone noticed that we were the only people actually ON the train - everyone else was on the platform. But we were trapped on the train - pushing the “exit” button on the doors did nothing! The girls were beginning to panic, but Mike and I felt that we were perfectly safe - we were on a train in a well-lit station that was full of people. Sure, we could not leave the train, but aside from looking like complete idiots and providing the a good laugh for the folks on the platform, there did not seem to be any immediate danger. Eventually a conductor came by and let us out. Turns out the train was being taken out of service, so he locked all the cars down so that he could go through and empty them one-by-one to make sure no one stowed away to wherever the U-Bahn trains go when they are taken out of service.

THEN we finally made our way back to the apartment for that well-deserved rest.

To see all of the pics from the trip, head on over to the Gallery!

This map is interactive! Click an icon to get more information or click here to view it in greater detail.

03/29/2007:
At last the day had come to depart on our next adventure. We all piled in Mike’s car to head off to Berlin, Germany with a side trip to Prague, Czech Republic. The trip to Newark was uneventful. We got the airport and checked in and then went to get some food. Our outbound flight was delayed by a couple of hours which was probably a blessing in disguise - our original flight plan would have got us in to Berlin fairly early in the morning and also would have us in the air earlier in the evening. The delay meant we would not arrive in Berlin until after 10AM and we would hopefully be a little more tired and able to sleep during the flight.

While we waited for the flight, we discussed some of the places we wanted to see and began working out a rough itinerary.

Kate, having slacked off on her German-language studies, tried to pick up a crash course in the language.

Mike and Mary chilling at the gate.

Kate and X by the gate.

We boarded the plane and found our seats. I had an encounter with “Scary German Guy.” SGG might have been in a rock band. He was travelling with 4 or 5 other people. His head was completely shaved except for a 2-3 foot braided pony tail coming out of the back of his head. His beard was similarly braided and of a similar length. When I went to put my bag in the overhead compartment, I found 2 of the packets the airline leaves in every seat containing blankets, headphones, etc. These were presumably extras and were in the way, so I took them down to put them in the next bin over which had a small space that was perfect for them. Apparently they were actually claimed by SGG and Mrs. SGG. Why they didn’t keep them in their seats with them like everyone else is beyond me. SGG stood up, yoinked the bags right out of my hand, and threw them back up in the compartment. Because he didn’t say a single word, I assumed he did not speak English, so I decided that now was as good a time as any to start fumbling through German. With a combination of elementary German and hand signals, I managed to convince SGG that I was not trying to steal his blankets (Why would I? I had one of my own already!) and, again without saying a single word, he took them down and put them in his seat pocket. I put my bag up. Mrs. SGG smiled at me. A smile that said “I know he’s a jerk, but you handled him admirably.”

Later on, all of us recalled thinking “I hope this isn’t the way most Germans are!” Fortunately they are not.

The rest of the flight was fairly uneventful. I stayed up for awhile watching the movies and then tried to get some sleep. I put on an album that is approximately 70 minutes long and tried to get through it as many times as possible. I found myself falling asleep for about the middle 50 minutes and waking up for 15-20 minutes at either end. In this way, I got a fairly decent amount of sleep. I also observed during the flight that SGG and his party were all fairly good at English. Certainly better at English than I am at German. SGG’s silence was simply because SGG is…well…SGG.

I was also mildly nervous about our arrival in Berlin. This was really my first time travelling in a region where it was entirely likely that communicating in English would not be possible, and my command of the native language was not that great (I’m not fluent in Spanish, but I can at least get by…and I’ve never been in part of a Spanish-speaking country where no one speaks English). To add to the concern, we had booked an apartment for the week. We had seen pictures of this apartment online, but let’s face it - pictures are easy to fake. The place could really be a total dive, and the owner could be a total flake. I really felt bad for Mike since he had read about booking apartments for European trips and would no doubt be the bad guy if it turned out to be a disaster. I took comfort knowing that we had only paid a deposit, so if the place was a total dump we could turn tail and find a hotel.

We landed in Berlin sometime around 9 or 10AM, claimed our luggage and went through customs. Thus did we encounter our first challenge - getting a taxi to our apartment. The taxi stand was easy enough to find and did not appear to function any differently than it would in the US, however we needed to find a van large enough to carry the 5 of us and our luggage. As luck would have it, after a few minutes, just such a vehicle dropped some people off and Mary ran over to see if he could take us. Of course the driver was happy to be able to jump the line at the taxi stand (I hope he didn’t get in trouble for that) and there were no other large vans in sight, so this worked well for all of us.

It did not take long to get to the apartment building, which was in a very nice-looking area right along the river Spree, adjacent to Schloss Charlottenburg. This was encouraging - the building was at least not in a slum! We buzzed the penthouse apartment and were soon greeted by Patrick, the very warm and friendly landlord. A French expat, jazz afficionado and former restaurateur, Patrick speaks at least Engish, French and German and knows all about hospitality. All fears of a sketchy of apartment and sketchy landlord were allayed when we walked in the door. The apartment was beautiful and spacious. Patrick spent a long time showing us around and giving us advice on operating all of the appliances and fixtures, some of which are quite different from those found in the US. He lives in the penthouse with his wife and assured us that one of them would always be around if we needed help. He also gave us some tips about how to get around.

This is the main living room (and Kate’s bedroom). Clicking on it will take you to the album containing all of the pics of the apartment and the views from the balcony.

If you are interested in staying here, please let me know - we can get you in touch with Patrick. When we booked, we believed the weather would be too cold to enjoy the balcony, but it was very warm all week!

One of the appliances was a fancy Solis Super-Automatic espresso machine. Patrick clearly felt this to be one of the apartment’s greatest features. It is a great thing - beans go in one side, water goes in the other side. You select how much water you want added to the espresso, push a button, and 30 seconds later a hot cup of coffee squirts out! The coffee was very good, but Mike and I were both intrigued at the idea of a machine that squirts out a single cup of coffee in a short time. I made a note to research these things when I got home.

You may be wondering about this picture. This is the “shelf toilet.” It seems to be a German tradition. There are a lot of apocryphal stories about just WHY this is a common commode in Germany from it being a way to force men to pee sitting down (sitzspinkel) or perhaps so that you can inspect your own work to help you look out for diseases. I had read about these but didn’t really believe it was true. It is. And it’s VERY unpleasant.

And here’s a view from our balcony looking west towards Schloss Charlottenburg. The view was amazing.

This is the view back east towards central Berlin.

Again, to see the rest of the pics, click the pic of the living room or check out the album in the gallery.
After getting settled in the apartment, we went out to the grocery store, ReWe. Getting there involved a nice walk in a park along the river. I noticed a lot of graffiti around and this made me a little nervous that the neighborhood was not as safe as I thought. As the trip wore on, I realized that there was graffiti EVERYWHERE in Berlin. Grocery shopping is a great and free thing you can do as a tourist to really see how people in other countries live and eat. They don’t have any shopping bags in these grocery stores - you are supposed to bring your own. They do sell canvas totes for a couple of Euro. They make a nice cheap souvenir. Some other things we noticed are that eggs are sold un-refrigerated and they eat a lot of “paprika” potato chips, which are actually red pepper flavor and quite tasty.

Our plan was to save money by cooking breakfast every morning. We picked up eggs, bacon, bread, strawberry jam, juice and other items. We joked with Mike (who had picked up the jam) that we would never finish it, but over the course of the week I think we pretty much knocked it out!

We dropped off our groceries and decided to set out and get to work. We decided to do some “light” tourism since it was our first day and we were tired from the flight. We hopped on a bus and took this towards the Ku’Damm to visit the Hard Rock Cafe. Yes, corny, but all of us have gotten into the habit of picking up glasses, pins and whatnot at the various HRCs around the world. We also grabbed lunch there to help ease us into the particulars of the region’s food. Not that there was much German about the food in the HRC. We explored the area around the HRC a bit and then went back to the apartment to freshen up before meeting up with Maria and Colin for dinner.

We left the apartment and took the U-Bahn to Eisenacherstrasse near Maria and Colin’s apartment where Colin met us and brought us back to their place. They showed us around and we hung around catching up for a little while prior to heading out for dinner at Massai, an African restaurant. This was a great opportunity to get some fairly adventurous food. I had an assortment of meats in a sort of curry sauce. They also had some fruit-flavored beer. I had the banana flavored one and it was great. Eating in Berlin is typical Europe - it’s a relaxed pace and no one minds if you hang around in a restaurant for awhile after your meal. If you want to order something else or pay your bill, you just call them over…otherwise you will be left alone after your meal is served. Maria and Colin gave us some good tips on German culture (spicy food is not common, for instance), tourism (free state museum entry on Sunday!) and getting around (the 100 bus basically goes by all of the major tourist attractions). They also felt that Germans in general were very closed-off. Not necessarily mean like SGG, but just that they keep to themselves. I think I big part of this is simply part of urban life - New Yorkers don’t really seem all that friendly to an outside either. Another part of it is surely that they are on the rebound from a very bizarre and oppressive half-century of life.

After dinner we headed back to Schöneberg where we got some ice cream. X and I chose a flavor call Butterkeks which had all sorts of good stuff in it wafer cookies, butterscotch, etc. Very tasty. We then spent the evening walking around the Schöneberg neighborhood looking at the signs there that are part of the Bavarian Quarter Memorial. This memorial is comprised of 80 signs that are on lamp posts and illustrate the laws that were put into effect as Hitler rose to power and began oppressing Jews, homosexuals and other minorities with increasingly restrictive policies. The link will take you to a site that has pictures of all the signs and English translations of all the captions. While were there, Colin translated for us. It was an interesting experience and one that I imagine a lot of tourists do not realize exists.

Finally around 10 or 11PM, we headed back to our apartment. We had managed to make it through the entire day without falling asleep, which is a good step in battling jetlag - exhausted from our travels, none of us had any trouble sleeping through the night. I was feeling a lot better about our trip - everything that was concerning me had worked out. We even found the language barrier to be very minor - many Berliners speak good English and between the 5 of us, we could get by OK in German.

It was shaping up to be a great trip!

To see all of the pics from the trip, head on over to the Gallery!