The Summer of 827: Berlin and Beyond-Part Ein

Hallo,

Yes I’ve been in Berlin and around Europe for a month now, and yes this is my first blog about it. What took so long? Well I went three weeks without Internet in my apartment, but more so that it’s just so much more fun to go out and do than to stay in and write. I haven’t been taking tons of pictures and keeping a journal for nothing, so now I present what I’ve been up to while abroad. Let me take it back to Ann Arbor where I last left off.

Of course for my many travels, I needed movies to watch while traveling, and luckily Askwith had a Memorial Day special, so I ended up renting seven movies. Not all of them could fit on my computer, so I’ll just let you know when and what I watched. I also couldn’t leave Ann Arbor without my favorite foods. Since Dad didn’t know why cupcake places were so big now, especially in NYC, I figured I’d show him the way. A quick stop to the Cupcake Station with Mike and I picked up:

Dark chocolate cake filled with caramel and caramel buttercream

Red velvet and marshmallow (Simply Red)

Strawberry cake and strawberry buttercream

PB&C

Then later that night I packed my things, and that morning I was off to Philly. I made it back for dinner, and in time to watch the Phillies on TV. About halfway through the game we started realizing Roy Halladay was pitching quite the game. Turns out, he pitches a perfect game and wow was it exciting to watch. Also, for those who don’t remember, he pitched the perfect game against the Marlins. Next up was Memorial Day, where my Uncle Danny came in from Minnesota. It had been about 10 years or so, making it that much more special. Lots of good food, got to see the sis, and more eating. Only a quick stop home though, the next day I was off to the airport (with my Wawa hoagie in hand). Waved the parentals goodbye and I was officially hopping the pond.

For the 8 or so hour flight to Frankfurt I was ready with my music, laptop, and headphones for in-flight movies. Turns out I didn’t need anything since I met Ed, a cool 70 year old man from Germany who was going back to visit family. We talked about everything, mostly how it was lame sitting on the runway for an hour and how this old woman diagonal from me was being needy. She must have asked for 6 or 7 different things just for her. To highlight: grapes, pretzels, wine, water, juice, crackers, wet naps, and probably several things while I dosed off. We enjoyed making fun of her high maintenance. Ed was super happy he could talk to me and I was happy to help him out. His wife died a year ago and he has no kids, which is really unfortunate. Good stories about Germany and I would always be an American and ask what something was in German. Best lesson: prosit! = cheers! and to drink Bavarian beer which is about 14% alc. by volume. We landed, I caught my connecter in Frankfurt (luckily it was moved back 30 min or I would have missed it), 45-minute flight, got my gear, and no one was there to pick me up. I waited a good 15 minutes. Just as I was walking over to the pay phones, I see a guy holing a “Michigan Summer School” sign. We both looked at each other and let out a collective sigh of relief. Tim took me back to the apartment, set me up in the room, and took me to a bank and supermarket close by. I bought wheat bread, carrots, and bananas, which I lived off of for a few days. I emailed Mom and Dad to tell them I was alive, and then I took the forbidden jetlag nap. I woke up, went to the nearby café to see if anyone from the program was there, failed, walked and got a falafel, back to the apartment, then bed. Day one over.

First real day! Tim picked the few of us up, got out university tickets, burned cotton (flies around everywhere like dandelions), and went to the Kudamm and a cool sports store. We found a little café and had some lunch. My first German beer: a pilsner which was nice and smooth. We went back to the apartments and I tried to find a bank: fail. Wandered for dinner, but ended up going to the nearby beer garden. They have 3 home brews, and I had their amazing dark beer. We decided to hope on the train and get off at a random stop and find food. We saw a cool shopping district, but no food, so we went to the next stop. We walked along a river and found a nice little Italian place on the water. The water was very touchy and loved that we were from the states. We are looking for the train and a drunk German man stumbles over and tells us the train is out of order and we need to take the bus. Clearly we were new at this if a very drunk man could figure out the transportation system better than us. Kevin, Ian, and myself decided the next day to go to the main train station, pick a random spot, and go!

We woke up, went to the station and picked Hamburg. 4 hours later, we got off in Hamburg and it was super crowded! We went to the tourist center and got a list of hostel. We called about 6 places on the list and each one said they were booked and there was no way we would find anything in the town for the weekend. Distraught, we went to some random place looking for a hostel, and ended up in a firefighter convention. I went into a cigar shop and asked for a hostel, and a nice lady shopping there pointed us in a new direction. We get off the train and find a pier that looked amazing. We found another tourist booth, and got the same answer, but we could try the one at the very top of a nearby hill. We went anyway fearing failure and they ended up having emergency rooms. We were so excited, especially with the view from the top of the hill. We met our roommates Martin and Mix, and then went to the Reeperbahn, the famous street in Hamburg for dinner. We wandered around, saw cool stuff, had an entire bar start a George Bush chant directed at us, and eventually settled on Doner. Super good.Then we found a bar that was empty but the bouncer pointed us in the direction of the action. After walking for 20 minutes thinking we were lost, we found the spot where all the locals hang and drink outside before going to clubs later. It was so crowded and awesome, so we grabbed a beer and joined in. Around 1 in the morning, we found another main street with all the clubs that looked like New Orleans. We went to a club called “Jams” to meet up with Mix and Martin. After dancing for a while, we walked back and had a nice talk with both of them; Mix is from Thailand and Martin from Dresden (Germany) who had tons of cool stories. We went back and slept for a few hours, got up and did plenty of walking. We saw the Rathaus and huge St. Michael, which we went up and took beautiful pictures of the city. Time to go back to Berlin to meet up with everyone else.

It was great to finally meet everyone and soon we all went with Kristina’s friend Benny. Kristina is the head of our program who works at TUB. Before going in, we all had a few beers outside the train station near the club. After about 20 minutes, Benny says, “O that’s the Berlin wall right behind you.” Freak out by everyone, then off to the club. Apparently, Americans dance much more actively than Germans, who gave us plenty of dirty looks throughout the night, but that couldn’t stop our fun. The next morning we joined Benny for a breakfast buffet nearby where we had real German food. After, he took a few of us to Wannsee, the beach in Berlin. It was a lot of fun hanging out and tossing the disk so I knew it wouldn’t be my last time there.

The next day was our first day of class…at the zoo! We learned different animals names and sounds in German. Germans say that bees go “zoom zoom zoom” instead of buzz. Then a few of us went to the KaDeWe, which is the second biggest department store in Europe, behind Harrods in London. What a cool store! After we met up with Kristina and the rest of the program for a boat trip around the city. Awesome sights, great food, it was perfect.