Germany Part 2

Europe » Germany » Berlin
October 4th 2011

Published: October 14th 2011

One of the things I forgot to mention about Jessi's apartment is the rather unstable ladder she has going up to her bed. It's a long ladder, because the bed is actually quite far up. The ladder is, to say the least, a little wobbly. Jessi has tried to fix it, and there's even been a qualified carpenter type man come to look at it - but because the ladder is old and an irregular size, it's not easily replaced. So Jessi takes a treacherous trip up to bed every night. As I may have mentioned before Jessi likes to have the odd drink, so imagine her coordination to climb said high/broken ladder after a night (or a morning) on the town.

When Jessi left for Oli's, this was my first time in a while alone in a foreign country where I don't speak the language. This can be kind of anxiety inducing if you're worried about your pride. Luckily, I'm not and I'm an excellent pointer so I didn't really have any trouble at all. If I have one suggestion to people who are considering going on a trip to a country where they don't speak the language it is to do a variety of finger excercises. Pointing is the most often used form of communication between cultures, just don't use the wrong fingure.

It's funny though because the first few days with Jessi I just let her lead me around and hardly put any thought into where we were going because I would just follow her... So I did have a little bit of anxiety when I had to take the U-Bahn (subway) by myself. But after doing it once it was no big deal at all, and I was anxiety free for the rest of the day.

The next day when Jessi got home we went to Mauer Park. It's the "cool thing" to do in Berlin on Sundays (so I'm surprised they let Jessi in). It has an amazing and HUGE flea market, and a bunch of food and drinks. If you lived there you could easily furnish your house with some really awesome stuff from there, you could also find some pretty amazing vintage/second hand clothing. I think that's the worse part about backpacking or traveling with little baggae - you can't really shop. There were a lot of things I would have love to buy.

Eventually we grabbed a beer and sat to watch THE event of the park on Sundays - Bear Pit Karaoke. A man from Ireland rolls his little karaoke machine to the bottom of this little hill (think like a stage at the bottom of the hill at one of the small folk fest stages). Then HUNDREDS of people sit to watch, and a few brave or crazy souls get up to sing. We saw everything from terribly awkward girls staring at the screen and barely making a sound, to three little girls sing in matching outfits. We also saw the KD Lang (because we all know what it means if a woman under 40 has short hair)of Germany perform a really solid rock ballad. At the end, almost without fail, everyone would scream and clap enthusiastically. This goes on for hours, and Jessi and I happily sat there and watched for a couple. There was also a basketball game happening by us (because we couldn't actually sit on the hill as there was no room) and occassionally we may have discussed the particulars of the other gender as they were being all sproty and masculine and sweaty. Well Jessi did. I didn't. Because I'm a nun.

That night we went for an authentic German meal. A meatless one granted because of my dislike for all things fleshy. There is one German dish (besides a pretzel) that doesn't have meat in it. It's basically the German version of macaroni and cheese, which means when they bring it to your table they set it on fire. Just kidding. It has onions, and the noodles are more rustic. Fire free. It's delishious and full of butter. I continue to eat my way through Europe. I am afraid to see how much I'll weigh when I get home - but the good news is I'll be too poor to buy groceries so I will be on a diet!

One afternoon when we were walking through this little bush filled walk way (there's a "that's what she said joke in there some where") a little thing scurried out in front of me - then Jessi SCREAMED HER FACE OFF. Then a few seconds later, another one ran the other way. Big. Gross. Rats. In the day time! As we walked along the path, probably about ten of them came out at one point or another. Apparently it's unusual for them to come out in the day but it was really gross. Every time we walked there again I would see at least one, and we also saw one in the sewer one day. I've been in a lot of big cities and I've never seen a rat before. I can't help but make the correlation between the fact that these rats were in Jessi's neighborhood.....

Our next couple of days were rather low key. We hung out and did laundry, walked around some cemetaries and had lots of day beers. I worked on my German and insulted Jessi and her mom a lot.

Last time I was in Deutchland I saw a couple of plays - but none of them were really that amazing to me. This time Jessi took me to see a piece that was a collective creation between a company from Isreal and one from Berlin. The general topic was religion. It began with a (fake) speach by a (fake) doctor about the end of the world - and then mutated into a very interesting piece about religion and how it affects our world today, and the conflicts between the major ones. It was mostly done in English but there was also German, Arabic and Hebrew. A lot of video was integrated as well. This topic has been done a lot, but it was great to see it done by actual people from the actual contries where the conflicts are happening. They also brought up some new and interesting ideas. There was also a woman in it who looked a lot like Karen Hines, which was endlessly funny to me. In the end, it was by far the best piece of theatre I've seen in Germany. I really liked it a lot. It was really funny (think of an opening scene where a man who looks a lot like Jesus is having a battle with technology and trying to set up a projector. Jesus against the future.) Jessi and I both left the theatre happy we had gone (it was a bit of an effort because we were trying to sneak me in at the student rate.. and managed to do it).

I would have loved to have chatted with the actors and talk about how they came to work together... Jessi told me after they always come out and have a drink in the bar after... But I didn't think to bring it up right away.

My time is running out.. More to come later! Next up, by by deutch hello la spain!

Copyright Notice: All Rights Reserved