Charlie's Thoughts

This episode of the Germany Chronicles finds our protagonist in Berlin, the capital of Germany. On Saturday, we took a short train ride from Hamburg to Berlin, unbeknownst to us, the finals of the German Soccer League (I think) were taking place in Berlin that night. Thus, our 1:30 train ride got considerably more exciting when opposing legions of fans ended up seated across from each other on the train. There was a lot of drinking and a lot of dissing, and a jolly good time was had by all.

The main Berlin train station is by far one of the coolest/biggest stations in Germany. It features a multi-level setup but is entirely open, very pretty. Once there, we proceeded to our hostel located 10 minutes south around the Kreuzberg area and then to KaDeWe. If you've ever been to the large Macy's in New York, KaDeWe is about twice that size. It's 7 floors of department store goodness. I actually couldn't afford a single item in the store (Headbands ran about 30 Euros). But for those who could, one could find everything from a nice evening gown (~800 Euro) to some designer baby outfits (~100 Euros).

Again, floating throughout the store were groups of soccer fans loudly singing their teams anthem. Later that night (The game was actually at 7:30), we watched the second half at a bar where I happily cheered on my home team, Bayern-München, who won 4-0. Yay.

Sunday is an interesting day in Germany. Unlike America, all stores are actually closed on Sunday...the entire day. So instead of shopping, we took advantage of the first nice day the entire trip (It was over 50 and not raining!) and visited all the classic Berlin sights: East side gallery, Berliner Dom, Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag, Unter Den Linden, usw. We actually encountered one of Meredith's old camp friends whilst walking under the Brandenburg Gate, small world eh?

Food in Berlin was generally hit or miss. Lunch was a struggle for us. The first day we ended up in the equivilant of a restaurant in Ikea, which was fine, but not actually that good. Hoping to salvage our culinary experience, we went to a German restaurant the second day. After reviewing the menu, it became clear that I knew about 10% of the words on the menu, so we picked the item which had the most vocab words (Mashed Potatos, Apple, Onion, Berlin-Style)...sounds good right? The only word I didn't actually know was "Leber", which in hindsight should have been pretty obvious, but I figured it was meat...maybe lamb or something. Well it turns out that word means liver...yumm. So we had Berlin-style liver, a true German delicacy?

On Monday, we cleaned up a few of the other sights we missed. Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to visit some of the museums as they are all closed on Monday, even the memorials. Still, a full day. Then we took an overnight train to Munich, and well here we are, tired and hungry in a coffee shop.

As it turns out though, Overnight trains are perhaps the best place to practice German. We met a Math grad student from Austria, a California guy who moved to Berlin randomly after college and has lived there for the past 7 years, and a crazy Bavarian history/academic type who had great stories. We discussed the (comical) etymology of various German words (Durchfall, ubergeben and ertrinken meaning diarrhea, to throw up, and to drown respectively) after which the academic explained ad nauseam the process by which beer was made, of which I understood almost nothing. But it was fun nonetheless.

That's the trip summary so far. It's been a busy few days without internet, but those pictures will come eventually. I'm off to find my apartment for the summer now, bis später!