Herbstferien

Last Saturday morning, I packed up my pack and took a train to Hamburg. There, I met my friend John (a fellow Fulbrighter and fellow Grinnellian) in the Hauptbahnhof, near a man dressed as Mario. John and I then spent about an hour wandering the train station, attempting to find Lauren, another Fulbrighter who had planned to spend the weekend with us. This task was complicated by our lack of any sort of contact information or a plan for finding her. Also, the Hauptbahnhof, if you don't speak German, is the main train station. Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany. Poor planning. After walking back and forth for a solid hour, we decided to just stand in one place for a while. Fifteen minutes later, Lauren came down the stairs. It worked!

We called Hilary, a Grinnell alum who's been living in Berlin for the last few years and was also traveling up to Hamburg for the weekend, and discovered that we had several hours to kill before we could celebrate 10.10 (on 10.9). It's a Grinnell tradition. We threw our bags into a train station locker and took off, sort of unintentionally riding the S-Bahn (mostly above ground train) all the way around the city, until we saw a tall ship, where we decided to get off and go see the boat.

Turns out, it was the Rickmer Rickmers and for only 3.50 Euro, we could go aboard and check it out. So we did, me showing off my nautical knowledge and explaining things. John and Lauren put up with my overexcitement quite well. We also saw several large churches and memorials and were good tourists. We settled down in Oma's Apotheke (Grandma's Drug Store), a bar, to begin celebrating 10.10. Hilary met up with us there; it was her idea to do the true Hamburg thing and party through the night and have breakfast at the famous Sunday morning Fischmarket. We gave it a valiant effort, getting kicked out of two bars at closing time, and wandering the Reeperbahn (the red light district) for a couple hours, but then it got really cold and we didn't really want to go inside anywhere on the Reeperbahn. So we went to the Reeperbahn McDonald's. Where I promptly fell asleep (it was about 4:30 am). At 6:30, we walked to the Fischmarket. There, we found a large hall, full of people drinking beer, eating fish and singing along to the really loud cover band. It was great.

After that, Hilary headed back to Berlin, the rest of us found a nice sunny warm park to sit in, then got some coffee and then found the hostel. Lauren and John fell asleep, while I discovered free internet in the hostel lobby and figured out my trip to Berlin. The next few days were pretty low-key, cheap food, a boat trip around the harbor, the Miniature Wonderland, more boats, a museum. Having a bed to sleep in was wonderful.

On Tuesday, Lauren and I headed to Berlin, a surprisingly quick trip. We made it up to Bine's apartment, where we got to hang out with Steini, her roommate, for a while until she got back. I felt kind of bad for Lauren, because she just kind of got thrown into Bine's normal life. While it was fine for me (and my German is good enough that I could deal with it), it was pretty awkward for her. But, anyway. We went to the bank, went grocery shopping, learned to play Skat (THE German card game) and went to a friend of Bine's for dinner. I learned that the German word for "moose" sounds a lot like the English word for "elk" and that what we call an elk, they basically classify as a large deer.

Wednesday was Bine's birthday, so we went to a Champagne breakfast with some friends of hers. It was a four hour breakfast, starting at 11. Afterwards, we went to Ikea. Bine had her eye on a bed, and the Spandau Ikea was the only one with it. And they had only one, so we had to go really fast. But I still go to try out a bunch of mattresses and ride the shopping carts like a skateboard, so it was fun. We went home to wait for the furniture to be delivered, playing Skat, which I was slowly getting better at. A few hours later, boxes of new furniture clogging the hallway, we went out on the town. We rode the newest and shortest U-Bahn (two whole stops) and walked from the Brandenburg Gate to Alexanderplatz. Normally, this is a pretty walk, but that night it was even better, because it was the beginning of the Festival of Lights, so all the monuments and important buildings were lit up in crazy colors and there were fireworks. We ended up at a bar called Yesterday, where the tables were old table games and the decorations were lava lamps and creepy moving puppets and had a few celebratory birthday drinks before catching one of the last S-Bahns home.

Thursday, we put the bed together. Then Lauren and I went out to see the city. She'd never been to Berlin before, and I wanted to see what had changed. I mean, I'd only been gone two and a half years, but it's Berlin. New buildings had popped up, the Palast der Republik was finally gone (they had to take it apart piece by piece instead of blowing it up because of its proximity to the Cathedral), Kunsthaus Tacheles had grown a lot, and a million other little things. No matter what, though, I managed a fairly thorough tour of Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg and Kreuzberg without the use of a map, which I am proud of. Oh! The East Side Gallery was totally cleaned up and repainted, so that you can actually see the murals on the wall, which was a huge surprise. We met up with Hilary again for a beer, then headed back up to Bine's, where watched Rambo (a great choice).

Friday, Lauren headed back to her Frisian Island and Bine had to work, so I wandered Berlin alone, unfortunately, the weather was pretty terrible. I am unprepared for a German winter. Upon seeing this, Bine immediately threw a sweatshirt at me for me to borrow and told me to get a jacket. But I got to spend part of Friday sitting in a coffeeshop, watching Berlin walk by, so that was cool. Friday night, Bine and I were sitting in her room watching Der Goldene Kompass, drinking Glühwein and eating chocolate (gotta say, always a good choice). Then Hilary called, "Hey, do you want to go to Poland tomorrow?"

So, Saturday morning, I hopped on a train and ended up having a rainy adventure in Schehzin, Poland. We followed a walking tour map for a bit before discovering that the entire path was actually marked on the sidewalk in red paint. We had lunch at a restaurant whose name translates to The Hut. It was underground, fairly typically traditional Polish decoration, Disco Hits soundtrack, large dancefloor, and, thank God, had a Polish/German/English menu. I still ordered by pointing at the menu. The entire adventure was made much easier by the fact that though all five of us spoke German, Hilary also spoke Polish, which made many things less difficult than they could have been. After everyone else picked up cheap fancy Polish vodka (I am running low on funds), we headed towards Berlin. Only to get off the train at one of bleakest looking train stops ever. The small village of Chorin, home to a large monastery, apparently also offers a golf cart safari. Unfortunately, everything was closed. We walked a couple kilometers through the woods to the monastery, which was totally worth it. We decided the monastery would be the perfect place for a DAG wedding, complete with a jousting tournament.

Our hike back to the train was uneventful, but the train ride featured Glühwein (I could get used to this), cookies, tomatoes and radishes. I knew I was going to be getting home late, by this point. I hung out in the Hauptbahnhof for an hour (less than I though) and hopped a train to Hamburg, then waited another forty minutes for the train to Kiel. I got home around midnight. Highlight of the train ride: two teenagers that I'd seen in the Hamburg Hauptbahnhof arguing getting on the train and sitting a couple rows behind me, arguing loudly for over an hour. Apparently, she'd gone to the bathroom and when she came back, a bus was leaving and she didn't see her friends, so she went to the Hauptbahnhof alone and it was all the dude's fault. I felt sorry for the poor guy. I also felt sorry for EVERYONE ELSE in the train (including me) who had to listen to this. Eventually, they walked off to another car with some friends. When I saw them get off the train in Kiel, the girl was crying and the dude was obviously so tired of the entire thing.

Anyway, I caught one of the last buses to my place and went home and went to bed. This next week, I still don't have school, so I'll have to be productive or something. Cheers.