I Hurt my Knee Jumping the Berlin Wall

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Well, actually I hurt it jumping a fence that happened to be in Berlin, but whatever.

Overview

1. Thanks for all your comments...we really look forward to them everytime we go into an internet cafe. Harlan gets the most points this time because his comment was hilarious.

2. Americans butcher languages. My favorite to butcher so far has been German, becuase its just so easy to screw up, so I was glad to be back in Germany. However, me screwing up German in Berlin is not a new past-time. It is well known that JFK visited Berlin at the peak of the Cold War and made a famous speech ending with "Ich bin ein Berliner". What is not very well known is that it translates into "I am a jelly doughnut". Look it up if you dont believe me.

3. More Lost in Translation. There was a sign at our campground that said "Do not let shoes stand outside. We have a fox. He robs shoes." In our tiredness of traveling all day, Christina and I imagined a fox coming out of the woods, running over to the shoes and saying, "Stick em up shoes, or the socks get it." (We laughed for hours over this, so we hope you find this slightly humerous and arent just shaking your head at the computer - i.e. what Harlan is doing right now).

We really enjoyed our time in Berlin...what a fascinating city. Although it has been one city for 16 years already, there are still distinct differences. Because the city was bombed to hell during WW2, all the building are new and so it really feels like being in an American city rather than in a European one. In fact the starting point for our walking tour of the city was (no joke) between the Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks near the Brandenburg Gate. We were so excited to eat a bagel!!! I know that sounds lame. We took a Third Reich tour of the city and got to see cool things like where Hitlers Bunker was, the old Gestapo headquarters, etc. It was great. But the best was the Berlin Wall. Only small parts of it remain, but they outline where it once stood with bricks in the ground, and seeing old pictures of places during the wall years compared to today is just amazing. Some metro stops even became "ghost stops" during those years because no trains could stop there. Anyway, like Meg said, it was fascinating. Our tour guide made us jump a fence at one point because it was accidentally locked, so that was interesting, but he was from Australia and really enthusiastic so it was all fun in the end.

We met up with our German Military officer friend from oktoberfest in Berlin. He lives in Potsdam which is right there and met us in the city for a night with a friend and took us to some Berlin clubs. Lots of fun. Although, we didnt think we were going to get to see him at first because he emailed us saying he couldnt meet up with us because he was "down" because (true quote here) "My girlfriend has a new boyfriend." It was so cute, and sad of course. But I guess we talked him into it because he texted us saying he wanted to take us out later that night. We were actually on a bus going home at that point, so we had to jump off the bus and head back into town.

Off to Poland.

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Comments

[Tim]

Berlin is Bad for Bones
Whilst, I have no idea the details behind the events that lead up to the damaging of the knee, I too stupidly injured myself my first night in Berlin. I hope your circumstances were similar to mine. Some friends and I found this beer garden in the middle of a park and started drinking. After few litres, we realized there was an elaborate playground next door, complete with giant structures to climb on and a zip line! So we start running around and acting like little kids. We are having a BLAST! until I stupidly decide that I should try and perform a flip off the swings. I suceed a little too well, over rotate, and land entirely on my tailbone, bruising the hell out of it. For the next 3 days, i can barely walk, let alone wear my backpack (it sits right on the bruised spot). So I guess the moral of the story is, Berlin 2, Bones 0