I guess I said I wanted an adventure...

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I just wasn't prepared for what happened after the last post; bear with me folks - this is going to be a long one.

Wednesday evening - I stayed home for a quiet evening. Wrote the last blog entry, did some laundry in the sink, did some dishes - and then my computer started acting funny. It was taking forever to load, running very slowly and making some funny noises. I turned it off for the evening and assumed things would be better in the morning.

Thursday - Not better, not better at all. Took over 45 minutes to load but managed to get it to full power. Was still acting funny so I turned it off and had a shower. Came back only to have it refuse to even boot up. Was making new ticking and clicking noises and refused to start - panic sets in. My computer is dead... In an attempt to let it go off I went that day, leaving it in the corner of the apartment knowing there were bound to be Mac stores in Berlin and I would be headed to the google machine hospital when we crossed back into German territory. Buying tickets was bizarre, it was cheaper (and I mean significantly cheaper - like 2000 Kc/100€ cheaper) to buy six tickets rather than four. Don't ask me how this works, it just does - apparently they do it all the time because I only had to reserve for our four seats and that was that. Sometimes it's just safer not to ask questions, smiling and nodding is a better philosophy than I give it credit for being. I was then off to the Kafka Museum on my own - it was incredible! It was dedicated to the life of Kafka and the time he spent in Prague; his famous quotation of the city was at the entrance, "this mother has teeth." This museum is relatively new and is a true existentialist's dream - the visitor is primarily guided by sound and the space of the building which houses the museum. You are free to roam and wander within areas and are lulled into various phases in Kafka's life and writings through music that flows seamlessly from one place to another. There was a wide open room where a maze had been built in the dark with a black scrim - you had to stop walking and wait for the tiny beam of light rotating through the space to return to you before you could continue onwards, otherwise you would surely crash into the mesh wall in front of you. There were videos, photo and writing installations as well as some animated tributes to Kafka done with his own drawings - they were so melancholy and beautiful it broke my heart. One of the most fascinating displays was a video installation created after Kafka's novel The Castle. For those of you not familiar with Kafka, The Castle is one of the more controversial pieces because no one can come to an understanding as to the meaning behind the words. Every group of critics, philosophers, and even scientists have their own theories regarding the circumstances and every opinion is so different from the next that it creates a fascinating void in the academic community (end of nerd rant). After reaching the end of the museum two and a half hours later (the brochure said it should only take an hour - I'm a nerd and stayed for EVERYTHING) I went into the gift shop, caved and bought another book; The Metamorphosis and Other Stories. Someone needs to teach this backpacker to STOP BUYING HEAVY THINGS like books to add to her already HEAVY and DECENTLY LARGE load. *sigh* I believe this man may have become my patron saint for the rest of this journey. I know statements like that make him spin in his grave, however it just seems right when everyone else is asleep and I am reading melancholy by pen light in the darkness amid snoring and silence. That purchase and the museum made me feel much better, mind you I was still living in a little place we like to call denial, but the weather was so nice that I was going to stay for a while. We all met up for dinner and had a picnic in the park on the edge of the river - it was great to eat sandwiches and vegetables cut up with a pocket knife outside on some beautiful green grass. Ladies and gentleman, my first real stereotypical backpacking meal. That night we battled with my computer some more, decided it was dead and I tried not to throw a tantrum. Funny how some things can reduce you to child-status in a matter of seconds... We packed, managed to get hostel directions in Berlin off the computer before it died completely and that was it.

Friday - Woke ourselves up, tidied the place up and made our way to the other train station in town. Arrived early and hung out, tried not to think about my laptop - but well, two pieces of electronic equipment I own died in that city, I was less than impressed. The train ride was only 5 hours this time, I was exhausted and drifted in and out of sleep for most of the ride. Not deep asleep enough to avoid the anger boiling in my system thanks to buddy sitting beside me with his girlfriend. I know I'm a bit of an academic snob, an elitist if you will - and it's something I don't really like about myself - but there are things that grind my gears no matter what, and one of them is a superiority complex combined with lying or bullshitting. Buddy opens his laptop: this grinds my gears out of jealously because mine is in the bag on the rack above my head and is about as useful as a paperweight right now. Buddy's name on his laptop: Something Something Something the IV Esq; are you kidding me? SERIOUSLY!?!?! NO ONE LOOKS AT YOUR COMPUTER BUT YOU AND THAT'S WHAT YOU REFER TO YOURSELF AS WHEN YOU LOG ON?!?!?! Breathe, must remember to breathe - I try and read to pull my focus away from what's going on beside me. Sometime later Buddy pulls out all of the theory books in his bag, my egotistical mind assumes he's trying to one-up me because I am reading Kafka... (His books of choice include Kleist and Schiller - both German Romantics). He then proceeds to open articles on his computer by Slavoj iek - a Slovene sociologist, philosopher and cultural critic who makes me swoon. (There was a geek comment made earlier - I am just following my path...) He then proceeds to explain to the girlfriend what a parallax is (according to iek) ONLY HE WAS DOING IT WRONG!!! GAH!! He proceeds to destroy this beautiful theory and then bash it to pieces before my very ears. I finally stood up and went for a walk down the car before I exploded. GAH! ARGH! Arriving in Berlin I all but ran off the train, I was a woman on a mission and the mission was getting away from Buddy. For some reason the train system makes sense to me here - I don't see coloured spaghetti on a map, I see links and connections, it meant I was leading the way this time. We stopped to eat in the Bahnhof and trade our money back to Euros - it was far more depressing to go this way, no big wad of cash this time... It turns out to be an hour commute from the main train station to the hostel - two trains and a bus later we're dropped off on the right street and are not sure what to do next. Turns out the hostel really is in the forest - it's a fifteen minute walk down to the end of the street and then another ten minute walk through the forest to the hostel nestled in the greenery. After all the uneven cobblestone in Prague, the train ride, and now the hike through the bush on a not beaten down dirt path, I was a wee bit cranky when we strolled up to the hostel door. That feeling vanished the moment Jahra came around the corner - she is the owner's daughter and is 2 years old, she was a sweetheart and we bonded right away. My German lessons involving animals? Totally useful now! The woman who runs the place is amazing, she upgraded us to a 4 bedroom room at no charge and moved us together so we could share some space - she told us where to go and what to do, and listening to us rant and rave when needed. The funny part? When people started trickling in that evening we discovered 2 things; a) it was almost ALL BOYS in the hostel minus Anna, Lana and myself and two or three girls with the giant group from Signapore; and b) all the kids no from Signapore were Canadian, not just Canadian, Albertan - Edmonton, Calgary and Lethbridge to be specific. Seriously? Yes, I am not even joking. How random is that? I guess we just gravitated there because it was a piece of home - forest in Berlin... Jono went off for a run and then they went down to one of the lakes nearby to dip their feet. Afterwards it was a food run, they returned with stories of WILD BOAR on the road by the bus stop. Two of them just cruising around on the main street, stopping traffic and being boar like... What was I supposed to say to that? Seriously, boar in the forest - there was no mention of ANYTHING like that when we checked in or on the hostelworld website when we booked the place. Well, boar it is then...

Saturday - The goal was to drop the google machine off at the Mac hospital and then make the free Berlin bike tour; alas, it was not to be. Anna's iPod has been acting funny so we wandered off together in search of the store which would hopefully solve our problems and save my life. After a semi-German, semi-English conversation it turns out that they would have to mail Anna's iPod away to fix it - she decides to wait until she gets home. My computer's turn, he turns it on, bends his head down to listen as it powers up and makes this face that can't be a good thing. The hard-drive is dead. He asks how long I'm in town, when I tell him only until Monday he tells me to wait and wanders off somewhere; I don't mind staying longer if it means getting my computer fixed, but the knowledge that my harddrive is dead hurts me, a lot. My thesis is backed up all over the place, but for the life of me I can't remember what else is backed up where - of if it is even backed up at all. Neat. He returns 15 minutes later with a new hard drive - pops the old one out, puts the new one in and my computer is as good as new. He can't tell me why it died, I didn't do anything wrong - it was just a defect. The other sad news? Apple policy dictates that when they take a harddrive out of a computer they have to ship it back to the manufacturer - there's no way to try and salvage the information on it - toast, done, finished, over, kaputt. The good news? Turns out the extended Apple warranty I purchased was the best money I've spent in my life - it didn't cost me a thing. He just helped me start it up and change things around to English and that was it, I walked away with a computer that works (as good as when it was new) and has the latest Mac operating system. But *shhhh* I'm not supposed to tell anyone about that... Having survived this adventure Anna and I have a celebratory coffee before I contemplate my lack of camera, what's across the street? Camera store... Again in broken German-English I managed to talk my way into the new Canon G9 (for cheaper than at home). Feeling the panic begin to well up I was grateful for Anna who smiled at me and said, "you're making a life purchase, don't cop out on something because you think it's a trip purchase only." I walked away with a camera I've been drooling over since it came out. Anna and I continued to wander around, making our way to an open air market and an amazing little sushi place recommended by the guidebook. We wandered around historical Germany - walking the path of the wall and the memorials erected along the way, wandering through the garden and seeing the scam that is Checkpoint Charlie nowadays. We met up with the others and our friend Kate, who is a grad of the Drama Honors program as well and has been living in Berlin for 7 months now, for dinner. Closed the night with some snack shopping at an Esso gas station (which was a wonderful echo of home) and began the walk home down the dark path in the forest. We made a pledge at the bus stop that no matter what happened in the forest, people wouldn't just run away and leave me standing there alone in the case of a boar. Pact. Deal. Promise. Right - ten steps into the winding path something rather large (bigger than a great dane) rustles in the forest less than 3 feet from us - there may have been screaming from the girls and running - which left me standing there as the thing clambered noisily back into the darkness of the forest (more afraid of us than we were of it). Needless to say the girls spent the rest of the walk down the path pointing out "holes" in the ground for me in an attempt to distract themselves from the shadows in the forest. Returning to the hostel we shared our story with the woman who runs the place, she thought it was a riot. We're just ridiculous and they're not dangerous at all, but I think we may have made her weekend.

Sunday - After spending the morning trying to sort out lives out and figure out where in the world to go next, Anna and I spent the afternoon in the hostel while Jono and Lana were off to book travel tickets. As a warning to the father and grandfather unit - Anna may periodically be on Skype now to call home, you can't beat 2 cents a minute - please send a message first asking who it is before calling. 😉 That night was magical - we went and saw Mother Courage and Her Children by Brecht done by the Berliner Ensemble theatre company (the one founded by Brecht). The show was stunning - they made some major cuts all over the place, some things which became rather dear to us in our performance, but it was fascinating to watch. There were some eerie similarities between both performances, but the differences were also as fascinating. This is where we learned a valuable lesson about Berlin - no one really believes in air conditioning here. People dressed for the theatre assuming it would be like home - two steps above hell freezing over. This was decidedly not the case - it was REALLY HOT in that theatre. It's been above 30 every day in Berlin with at least 60%!h(MISSING)umidity - le ick. The show was a gift, I'm glad we saw it - I have a program with all of the text cuts, some of Brecht's poetry and some incredible pictures. Unfortunately because of the size of it, it also qualifies as a small book - bringing my current book total up to 3. I gave the Chomsky book to Jono because it was either that or trade it away - it's hard to find something equal to Chomsky in the swapping library at any hostel, I think Lana wound up with a John Grisham book in place of something she valued rather dearly. We returned to the Esso for late night snacks only to discover that no one is allowed inside the store after midnight - instead you walk up to a glass window and the clerk grabs thins for you and you pay through a slide drawer (like Silence of the Lambs) and she puts whatever you paid for in the bottom drawer - random. Also - ask me about "The Lion Sleeps Tonight Guy" at some point - it's a good story.

Monday - Today we woke up later than anticipated, ate some breakfast and were graced with the permission to check out late. After some very slow packing - Lana and Jono bid us farewell, they were on a flight to Paris for a few days before going to Greece for a week with Jessi. Anna and I wandered into town together, we parted ways for a bit as she went to the zoo, I bought my ticket to Amsterdam, locked my luggage up and then wandered the city to see a few last museums before meeting her for dinner. What did this kid forget? It's Monday. What does that mean? Museums are closed on Mondays in most of Germany! NEAT! I wandered the city for a while, tracing some steps from yesterday and stopping at the "Topography of Terror" open air exhibit. The museum itself is currently under construction and until it is finished they are hosting an outdoor exhibit - it was really neat, but I had been walking most of the day and was looking forward to air conditioning. Turns out I wasn't able to find any all day, even sitting at the train station right now - there's circulating air but that's about it. It's ten after eleven at night and it's still 25 degrees outside - neat. Anna and I said goodbye and here I am, hanging out at the train station waiting to get on my 00:32 train. It's just under ten hours to Amsterdam, I'll be sleeping in a reclining seat rather than a couchette. It means that the ticket only cost me 4€ (my reservation fee) rather than 150€(ish) - thanks rail pass! Berlin is beautiful and I am most definitely coming back here - especially because this is the city that let me give birth to new toys rather than Prague which killed them. I'm on my own again and feeling pretty good about that - everything is one day at a time and I'll get to set my own pace again rather than worrying about ruining other peoples'.

Tschüss Berlin! Tschüss Deutschland!

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