Then We Almost Got Eatten By Wild Boars

---

I'm doing another cheater entry again because I happen to have some time to kill. I won't tell you where I am at this moment though as it will ruin the surprise of my long hard struggle.


Let us begin: Berlin and My Feelings

I feel that Berlin is my favorite German city. The four of us left Prague and our nifty little apartment for Berlin, arguably one of the most interesting cities in the world. I'm not arguing, I do in fact think it is one of the most interesting cities in the world. Orginially, I wasn't actually going to go there. I was going to go from Prague to Italy, but as it turns out, it's hard to get any where in Prague except for Germany... So Berlin seemed like the most logical (read cheap) choice. The train ride was five hours. I think that along the way I found competition for the beautiful Irish country side, with the country side of Prague. It was stunning. Castles on hills, long curvy rivers, beautiful buildings... It was really the land of fairytales. For realz. I saw Grumpy and Cinderella planting their garden as the Prince and Rapunzel seemed to be having a fight over communism!

So our arrival in Berlin was pretty... long. First there was a 5 hour train ride. Then once we arrived at the main train station, had to figure out the S bahn, system.... Or by that I mean, figure out where it was. So after the long train ride we then had to take 2 S bahns (subways) and then a bus. Our hostel was in the forrest, or so hostel world said. But it also said it was on a main bus line, so we assumed this meant that there were some trees behind the building. Once we got off the bus though, we knew they were serious. From the bus top it was about a 1 k hike through a residential area, followed by about a 1.5k hike through the forest, down a dirt path. They weren't kidding. We were in the forest. Surrounded by two lakes, and many many bugs. Like huge bugs too. There were these big mosquito like things that were the size of my hand. The up side to this was that the woman who ran the hostel was possibly the nicest person ever. She was so sweet to us and we spent a lot of time talking with her. Our first night there we were pretty tired, and it was already getting dark so we decided that Jono, Anna and I would take a walk to one of the lakes, (this came after Jono when for a jog to find them, and then got lost in the forrest for an hour), and then go into the city to bring back some food for Nicky. On our way to the lake we heard the trees shake, and both Anna and I saw a big black figure move around and then walk away. We screamed like girls. Jono pretended to be manly, and said it was "just a bird." We didn't believe him and walked faster. We made jokes about what it could be, a bear, a wild boar, an elephant, Ralph Klein drunk and lost trying to find homeless people to yell at... the usual.
About an hour later, we walked to the bus stop to go and get food. It was dark by then, as it was about 11pm. Then, just across the street from the bus stop is not one, but two ... WILD BOARS!!!!!!! That's right, wild boars. And not one, but two. We were afraid of them, because we assumed they would eat us. We tried to take pictures, we tried to stop people from going in their general direction.
A couple of nights later, we were walking home around 12:30am after seeing a play, and as we turned to enter the forest there was a large sort of "roar' and a rustling/running away sound.... again we screamed and almost ran away abandoning poor injured Nicky. So when we got back to the hostel we asked, thinking it was rather ridiculous of us to think there were actually wild boars.. the conversation went like this.
Anna: Okay I have to ask, are there like wild boars in the forest?
Hostel Lady: Yes.
Anna: Oh. We'll are they going to hurt us?
HL: No. The babies are very cute, you can feed them but don't touch them because the mom will get angry!

So we're in a forest, in Berlin, with wild boars, that almost tried to attack us (or not.. it was dark though, so maybe they did!).

Although it was difficult to get to/from our hostel, and made nightlife almost impossible because the buses stopped running around 1am--we did have a pretty great time in Berlin. I really liked Berlin a lot and can easily say it was my favorite Germany city hands down. It had a lot to do, a lot to see, good food and really interesting history. Jono and I went on the walking tour (with the same company I went with in Munich and Paris) and it was a really great tour again. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it, but if you find yourself in a city that offers New Europe Walking Tours I highly recommend them. They're free, and at the end you just tip the guide whatever you think they deserve.

Oh! Something really strange also happened, which I should tell you about before I go into the tour. When we were in Prague and Jono and I went to the dance club we saw a girl there who we thought might need to be "saved" from a creepy guy who was trying to dance with her. It's a Canadian thing, we save people in awkward positions. Then Jono began a "scenario" game, and then we didn't save her at all, and she eventually left the dance floor. Well, while on the really great walking tour of Berlin, we stopped at a cafe for lunch. It was completely out of the tourist area, and had two floors. After we ordered our food we were waiting for it to be handed over the counter, and I noticed a very familiar girl walk by. "Jono, "I said. "That's the girl from Prague." He didn't believe me so he walked over to check, and came back and agreed it was her. Later we were sitting on the second floor, and we decided to take advantage of the (rare) free refills of pop, so I ran downstairs. She also happened to be there at that second, so I couldn't help but ask if she had just been in Prague. It was her actually. I asked myself what that meant. Are we supposed to be friends? Date? Creative soul mates? Save her life?? I never figured it out. But it was a strange coincidence.

So Jono and I went on the walking tour (which like i said was amazing). The history if Berlin/Germany is so interesting, and more contemporary than most places. We stood above Hitler's bunker, looked at the Berlin wall, walked the same pathways at the Nazis... it's hard not to be interested or affected. Then he and I headed to a museum, which was amazing. They reconstructed (from actual material from the site... all authentic) a temple, right in the museum. It was beautiful, and much more than we were expecting. After that we met Nicky and Anna and our friend Kate who now lives in Berlin. She took us to a different neighborhood to a restaurant called White Trash. There was VEGETARIAN food there. I about peed my veggie pants when I saw this and was REALLY happy to order a veggie burrito.

The next day Jono and I walked around some more and came upon a German festival of some kind.. we didn't know what it was, or why but it was fun and i found an awesome little gift for myself. It was however HOT. Like once we left the festival the usual bustling Berlin was dead because it was too hot to walk around. It was too hot to do anything.... but Jono and I are troopers. What do you do when it's so hot you can't walk or move? You go to the Topography of Terror. This is a walk of the old torture/interogation cells of the Gestapo/Nazi's. It's actually outside, sort of like a very very long baseball dugout, with posters, movie clips and a bunch of info. It's really interesting and really depressing. We got about half way through when I felt like I needed to a) cry or b) drink. Lucky for me, Jono felt the same way so we decided it was time to go and meet Anna and Nicky for dinner. After a small mix up, and Jono and I running around bunches, and almost dying of heat stroke, we did find Anna and Nicky and went to a play. What play?? MOTHER COURAGE!

The Berliner Ensemble was putting it up, and it seemed to make sense that we see a play that three out of the four of us were in. A play that affected us all immensely. Especially me, I learned so much in that show, and it's still sort of sits on my chest when I think about it. The play was pretty good, I think we all liked it. The three of us cried a lot. Nicky and I held hands when Kattrin died. I was okay, until the lights came up and kattrin was a dead mass in mother courage's hands.. I think I gasped and then burst into tears like a 2 year old. It was... a little difficult.. but beautiful. It was also surreal because I spent (of course) the whole time watching the girl playing kattrin. I was watching everything she did. I thought I would come away feeling like I did everything wrong, but weirdly, we did A LOT of the same thing. She even did things that I used to do in warm up on stage. It was really creepy. Over all there were a lot of similarities between our production and that one, so it was cool for the three of us to see that. I hope i can find some pictures of the production on the internet.

One of my favorite things in Berlin was the Jewish Monument. It's a bunch (like a city block full) of large concrete squares/rectangles of various heights, placed on an uneven surface. It's a little hard to describe, but I have lots of pictures and a video of it to show you all some day. It's just a really great thing. The artist wanted people to feel uneasy when they were walking through it, and you certainly do. You don't know what's around the corner, things seem quiet.. it's all very strange..but really amazing. The best monument I've seen on this trip hands down.

So you're probably wondering where I went when I left Berlin. I spent a long time trying to come up with a place to go. I looked at Italy, Spain.. everywhere I could think of. But every where was either way to expensive to get to, or was too difficult to get back to Frankfurt in time to catch my flight to Greece with Jessi. Jono, as it turns out, was going to Paris. There was a cheap flight. Okay, so I went back to Paris. I was in Paris. I'm not now and this has become a cheater entry times two. But I did go to Paris. Again

When the time came to leave Berlin it was a little strange. It was weird to be leaving Nicky and Anna in another country. But we did. The adventure of getting to Paris was pretty... long. We left 4 hours before our plane was taking off. First we hiked through the forrest with our bags, then we took a bus. Then two trains (which were both late), then our last train which was really late. Then we sprinted through the airport and basically just made our flight. Barely. There was a lot of running. Jono and I ran a lot in Berlin for a variety of reasons. I'm fortunate that Jono and I travel so well together. He's even been super nice and has been strapping my day pack to his bag (we have the same brand), saving me the extra weight.

I really liked Berlin. I will go back some day and stay some where more central when i can get a better idea of it's nightlife and a better feel for the city. It was for sure my favorite German city though. It made Munich seem a little boring and the food was WAY Better. I managed to eat a vegetarian meal not once, but twice (like tofu even), and it just had a "cooler" vibe. It was a little hard to leave it, but for whatever reason, I just felt like I needed to move on... so to Paris I went.

---