met her at the love parade...

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so i took a train from amsterdam to berlin after paying 100 euros, which at the moment is close to $200 canadian dollars... yikes. apparently it's much cheaper if u book things ahead of time, but who knows what day they will want to be leaving before they are ready to leave? anyways. the train ride was terrible, i didn't have an assigned seat so i just sat in an empty one, which turned out to be someone's who got on a few minutes later, so i switched which also turned out to be someone's spot, and so on... in seven hours i probably moved about seven times, and didn't get a wink of the sleep i had anticipated. so i arrive in berlin on saturday around 5, i call my couchsurfing host and there is no answer... gulp. i found an internet place and posted a need for an emergency couch (this couchsurfing business is so rad), and two people replied to me (saints), but by that time i had paid a german girl way too much money to borrow her phone. my host picked up the phone this time, and he came to pick me up from the train station. we stopped and grabbed some food (authentic turkish kofti), and went to drop my stuff off. by some worldly fluke, my host was a dj and had a gig that night, so i possied along with him to the club. i guess the underground club scene in berlin is massive, something about there being a lot of area that isn't very occupied so u can have massive nights there with no worries of noise, and the space is cheap to rent... anyways, u practically had to be a detective to find this place, it was in an industrial area through some weird door and up about seven flights of metal stairs... but once u got in, it was RAD. there was a big room that a band (?) was playing in, then a big lounge/bar area, then the dj area... and it was warehouse-like, so really spacious and they had done wonders with the lighting and visuals. so it was cool, i sat in the free-beer-for-dj area and met a scottish guy and talked about music all night long. apparently minimal techno is where it's at in berlin... weird. my guy played house, not exactly my favorite, but thank the lord it wasn't minimal techno!!!

after that, my host (his name is chris) was headed to a big birthday party, which he also invited me to, but i was exhausted (due to lack of sleep on the train) so i headed home and slept... the next day, chris had a sailing excursion planned and invited me along! amazing. we went to this beautiful lake (wonn sii, but u actually pronounce it vonzee... i don't GET german) and sailed around all day. i had never been sailing, it was awesome, and such a glorious day. also, my first day in amsterdam was the hottest day of the year. amazing, because i was almot convinced that europe didn't actually ave summer. when we got back, i was in search of some authentic german cusine, and they told me currywurst was the way to go... unfortunately, we walked around for ages and couldn't find any, so settled on a nice restaurant on a boat overlooking the water... i am not exactly sure what water it was, but there was a big bridge with people playing music and everyone was hanging out around the bridge and all down the water on the grassy embankments, just chillin and drinkin... a really nice spot. so we are at the restaurant and everything is in german, so chris helped me pick one and it turned out to be.... ice cold fish. not something i would ever order in my life, but i ate it and it was delicious! and it came with potatoes, which always helps.

the next day i went to a sand sculpture exhibition, and then on a bus tour around the city... unfortunately, i didn't get on the bus til about 3, and there is 15 stops and u can hop on and off wherever u like, but i didn't have time to stop at barely any... i did, however, see the remains of the berlin wall which kind of made me day. germany is facsinating, things were so fucked up, it's so insane to think that is wasn't even long ago! when my tour finished, i resumed the hunt for currywurst, and after a few minutes, i hit the jackpot: the place was actually called 'zer currywurst' or something. i was expecting the very best, since that is what the restaurant was called! to my suprise, currywurst is actually just a sausage (and not even a delicious one, more like a glorified hot dog), with some curry sauce and ketchup squirted on it! and it came with a bun, and i had no idea what to do with the bun so i kind of tried to stuff the sausage in the bun, which made a huge mess and led me to believe that that is not how u are supposed to eat it. they do actually have sausage stands everywhere tho... the most common thing i saw was these long-ass sausages in these little mini buns. a low carb thing maybe. 😉

the next day i wanted to go back to two of the stops that i missed on the tour the day before: the jewish museum and the checkpoint charlie museum, which was the border crossing of the berlin wall... i also was going to head to an old conerntration camp nearby. unfortunately, i didn't look at the times that any of them closed, because the camp closed at six and the other two were open late, but i went to the other two first... so i missed out on the concentration camp, BUT it's all good cuz the two i saw were amazing. the jewish museum is maaaaaaaaaaaasive, i spent about four hours there but u could easily spend four days. i learned soooooo much, it's so interesting, a definite MUST SEE if u are in berlin! then i went to the other museum, also interesting... they had the real cars with special hiding places that they used to sneak people across the east-to-west border, and lots of insane stories about what happened to people when they tried to flee... it's been 20 years since the wall came down (they have a fabulous photo of david hasselhoff chisling some of the wall down), so there is massive extra exhibits around town... there is this one plaza, called alexanderplatz, which i thought was just a train station stop, but it was actually the sight of massive protests back in the day. speaking of train stops... oh my. the names of every single stop have about ten sylllables each and if u aren't paying attention, makes for very difficult train travel. in my few days in berlin, i made three train mistakes, and i don't even think that is bad. luckily, they were minor. i feel pretty good about navigating foreign subway stations actually. 😊

the other cool thing about germany is that u can drink anywhere. order a beer at dinner and don't finish it? bring it with u! feel like a beer on the way to work? bring it on the train! just thirsty for a cold one? grab one at any convenience store and walk around town. amazing.

berlin is cool, it's massive and really spread out... there is a train system that goes around the whole city though, so it's easy enough to get around. the underground subways are the most ghetto i've ever seen tho... concrete walls covered with graffiti, low ceilings, dim lights... kind of scary. the main stations aren't so bad, but the little ones are a scene out of a movie. the whole city is covered in graffiti actually, maybe mostly a political thing... it's everywhere tho, even high up places nobody could ever reach.

i advise anyone against buying yogurt in germany tho. i tried the other day, and i bought two different brands, brought them home, and neither one of them was yogurt, even tho they were in the yogurt section and were flavors like 'tropical explosion'... the explosion turned out to be a yogurt-shaped tub full of tropical buttermilk, and the other one was something u drink... so let that be a lesson to u.

i took an early bus to prague this morning and am soooo excited to be here... i just went to a shop and got a loaf of bread, cheese, some sort of meat, a tomato, three yogurts, some corn nuts and a pack of tictacs... for... $7. i love eastern europe already. berlin was reasonable as well, definitely the cheapest on my trip so far... until now! i am staying in a hostel now, no more couchsurfing til madrid i don't think, and i anticipate this city being all kinds of amazing... will update soooooon!!! xo

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