Jelly Donuts in the house yall!
Oh my, waking up early is so fun. Not. It was kinda cool walking to the station while everyone was still sleeping. Paris Orly Airport is nice, they have Playstation 3 booths where you can play demos! Love it! I did not actually partake, wanted to hang by my gate in case they started boarding. I lost my hat on the tram to the airport! Gah! I bought that hat in North Carolina on a camping trip and I’ve worn it a lot. Yet to be honest, I wasn’t really upset at all. I’ve been thinking about it, material goods are just stuff… now there’s definitely sentimental value to certain things, but I am divorcing myself from it. I want sentimental attachment to replaceable possessions to have no value for me, because in the end, it really serves no purpose other than to clutter you with junk you don’t need. I mean, I’ll buy myself a new hat that will probably fit better and I’ll like even more. And I have a nice backup that Celia donated, so I don’t even need to find one that badly. I think the real sentimental value for me is better kept in memory, in pictures, and in writing. If something means so much to you, you shouldn’t need to be reminded of it by stuff.
Ok enough semi-rant. Berlin is niiice. I stayed in a hostel last night called Three Little Pigs, and I finally found one with free, really good internet. They also had huge lockers in the rooms for free, rock on! Too bad I was only there for one night, I had some cool roommates from Australia, Canada, Indonesia studying in Holland, and Mexico studying in Spain. So that was an interesting mix! When I got in, I grabbed some Lasagna at a real Italian restaurant down the street run by actual Italians… man was it freakin awesome! Best lasagna I’ve ever had (no offense mom, your lasagna is lovely, but these are Italians)! The waiter only spoke a little English… I asked him how to say delicious in Italian and he was like, “Me? Yes, I’m from Naples!” I guess he thought I was asking if he was Italian. Delicioso!Â
I chilled out a bit at the hostel, figure I’d have plenty of touring time with the J man. Ate dinner at a hole in the wall place with gyros and stuff, but just ordered a burger since the lady didn’t speak english. I got a burger, fries, and a tall beer for just 4.50 Euros, so cheap compared with my other meals! I should probably buy some groceries and eat cheap at some point, but when else will I be able to enjoy Berlin’s restaurants!
I met Justin at the airport and we grabbed the wrong bus for our hotel… so far this is only the second time I’ve done that in Europe. Upon arrival we discovered that we booked our hotel with one double bed in it! I’m not sure if the other option was twin or single or something (J booked), but it was something confusing like that. In the end they brought us a cot for no extra charge and we got a huge room. Booyah!
First things first, we needed some food and we passed a bakery called Der Backermann, which I can’t stop saying. Der Backermann! Der Backermann in der bahnhof! Ja!!! That means the baker in the train station but it sounds badass! It’s fun speaking another language, but I always wonder what a local would thing if I walked past and was just like, “THE BAKER IN THE TRAIN STATION!” Or ausgang, which just means exit. AUSGANG DER BAHNHOF, JA!!! Anyway. J grabbed some cheesecake and I got some sort of not-so-chocolatey cake pie thing that was quite good. We also drank a liter of skim milk between us, which they didn’t have for sale but sold us one from their stock. The girl at the counter was quite nice to us and very fluent in English. Apparently she studies four languages or something and lived in Appleton, Wisconsin for a year (what the heck!).
So we invited her to dinner with us sometime and then all of the sudden, she started getting really excited and telling us about this club we have to go see on Wednesday where they have naked girls that do the most crazy things to each other but you have to get totally crazy drunk before you go there and she had been there the wednesday before and they brought some customers onto the stage with them and she really wished they had picked her so on Wednesday she was going to make sure she got up there and she thought Germans were more open than Americans but it still really shocked her and oh my god.
So that was a bit nutty, totally normal friendly conversation turned into a big sell for this crazy club where they do some naughty stuff. And it was right in the bakery where she was working, sometimes while helping a couple of customers. Nutty. We ended up making plans for dinner, not really sure if we’ll be going to the club though… I’m not the biggest drinker and J doesn’t drink at all. I’ve never been to a stripclub and I’m not sure I’d really get much out of it. But then again, one night of culture shock wouldn’t kill us… we’ll see. Oh and it turns out that she is the daughter of the woman who owns the hotel we’re staying at, nutty.
We walked around the main tourist drag in Berlin and scouted some places we can check out tomorrow… one of which is a church with bomb damage that looks pretty cool. We grabbed dinner at The Blue Flag, an awesome restaurant with mainly Italian style dishes. I had some awesome chicken something or other that came with the most amazing salad i’ve ever tasted. I never asked what the dressing was, I usually don’t like dressing but this stuff was fantastic! Stupid me! The waitress was awesome as well, and she ended up giving us some tips for hanging out in Germany and some cool places to see some good live music and “actual” Berlin instead of the touristy front. So yeah, so far we’ve already met some really friendly peoples and enjoyed some delicious foodage.
And one last oddity, half of the traffic signals here have this crazy little dude for walk and don’t walk… I guess he’s called the Ampelmann, you can google him to see what he looks like. Is that his arm or…
I call him der bonamann… DER BONAMANN IN DE BAHNHOF! AUSGANG!
Don’t forget Anna’s German lessons she gave us. Guten Appetite! Prost!! Bahnhof!!!!