BERLIN:
DAY ONE:
Most days I was in a fairly strong sedated state for a number of reasons --- beer (obviously), weed (endured a very unintentionally funny drug deal on the outskirts of Berlin, too), lack of sleep, lack/presence of company, etc. And maybe because of all these different lenses I looked at the city through, I didn't really love Berlin. Not a bad place, not an uninteresting place ... just maybe not my kinda place.
Showed up on Sunday afternoon, 4pm. Spent about an hour at the train station, the majority of it spent trying to feel my way around and actually comprehend where I was. This period of "figuring things out' never really ended in my four-plus days there.
By 5pm, I had filled up with some stabersnackhe (huge bread, filled with cranberries and glazed... then fried... then probably glazed and fried again). And with a full stomach, I ventured into the bus station office, they gave me a ticket and I was on my way.
12 minutes or so later I got off at the Rosa-Luxembourg exit and found my way to Wombats, my hostel/home for the next three days. This area -- within a mile radius of the infamous East German mainstay TV Tower -- would be really the only thing I would master in Berlin.
Waltzed into the joint not having reservations, or frankly, knowing anything about it other than Katie told me it was a chill place to stay and that she liked it when she showed up by herself in February. Good enough for me. The short-haired German 20-something wasn't all that friendly, but I didn't do much to help her mood, wavering between 1- and 2- and 3-night stays. Eventually, I settled on 1 (but an hour later, I came back and decided to stay 2 more. Standard indecision practice).
Anyways, got to my room ---- definitely worth 20 euro a night. Clean and cleaner, lots of light, good storage cubbies, crisp architectured bathroom. Couldn't ask for more. My roommates (or flatmates) were on point, too -- two Swedish sisters (Jessica and I forgot No. 2) and an American girl named Lindsay who goes to school at Coastal Carolina by way of Akron, Ohio. I'd later find out that she had, in fact, met Lebron, and she even mentioned that when he was a junior in high school, a vicious dunk of his tore down one of the baskets in her high school's gym. I told her that was awesome --- few can say that they played on a hoop that The King ripped to shreds. She didn't seem too excited (and still a bit bitter, actually). More on Lindsay later in one sec.
Sunday night, I really didn't know what to do on my own. The Swedes had made up there mind to go to Potsdamer Platz for a dinner-and-a-movie date (Sushi and Harry Potter 5. I almost convinced myself to ask them to tag along (the night before had been rough and a dinner/movie sounded friendly to my stomach) but ultimately didn't, deciding it was probably better to see Berlin than see a movie you can see in Buffalo. I didn't have anything to do, though. But luckily, Lindsay came to Berlin much in the same way I had -- without anything really to do. A good person to spend your first night in a new city with.
So we headed to this Russian restaurant just down the block from our hostel in a typically trendy neighborhood, complete with "White Trash, Fast Food" (one of those places that acts lame, but is really cool and hip and ironic ... within an old Chinese restaurant --- still bummed I didn't go). Sprinked between all these other boutique-y coffee shops and restaurants was our joint.
Anyways, food was decent -- got Borsch and a salad, she had crepes, which weren't especially Russian. All and all, pretty good first Russian food experience. Next, we headed back to our hostel and spent about an hour or so playing pool and hanging there and trying to decide what to do with the night.
Meanwhile, I was trading texts with Daria, an old (she's not old, I guess our family ties are) family friend who I hadn't seen in forever. Turned out she came to Berlin at the same time, so after a bunch of back and forth, we decided to meet up ... but stupidly picked the Alexanderplatz station, which like she said, is like its own mini-Berlin.
Me and Lindsay walked down to go meet her there and got there at about 11pm... and then started waiting. We were right below "The Point," which was Lindsay's make-shift description of the TV Tower, and right in the middle of three exit points. Seemed liked an easy meeting point. Wrong. Daria's phone died, so I couldn't get a hold of her, either. So, after a lot of sitting around, taking pictures, Lindsay buying a medium Burger King fries, me approaching an impostor Daria who definitely thought I was stalking her, and ultimately an hour of waiting, me and Linsday decided to head out sans Daria. In the end, Daria waited for a bit at another station and packed it in after realizing that we weren't gonna be in the same place. More on her in a second.
So me and Lindsay headed out to wander around the east side, pretty content to just get lost and see some sites. Saw a pub crawl line and decided not to jump in with them.
This girl, though -- Wow. I mean like, picture the most standard, friendly American traveler and this is her. Not in a bad way. Just out of central casting for the role. She was pretty loud, pretty savvy, very self-supporting ... but a little dim. We had a number of head-scratching exchanges, the most memorable of which, she asked if I knew about "the geometry of Berlin." Umm... I didn't exactly know what that meant, so I asked her what that was ... and she said it was "like, where everything is in the city."
I suggested maybe she meant "Geography." She did. And at that point, I knew I was dealing with a from-the-factory, ah-shucks, don't-make-'em-like-they-used-to American.
DAYS TWO AND THREE:
Arranged breakfast with Joelle at Barcomis at 10am. Checked out of my room temporarily before I moved to another one. Trekked out to Barcomis right after ... and then got horribly lost. By 10:15am, Joelle called. Gave me more directions. I ended up misunderstanding and going further and further. En route, I ended up asking a bike tour guide, a hotel lobbyist, a waitor, a city construction worker, and an Germany student who scoffed and laughed at me and said "American" under his breathe. Too good. But only the hotel woman knew how to get there, but between all the other mis-directions, I got lost again. By 10:45, Joelle called and said she'd ordered and tried again to direct me. Finally, I went right back to the intersection I came from ... and saw the street I was supposed to turn onto (Sophienstraze) had the street sign peeled. I sighed. By 11, I made it to Barcomi's, a cute American-ish joint tucked into a nice courtyard. Joelle was lovely and I got a chicken-curry salad sandwich and OJ and coffee -- all really good. She talked of art and the German influence in Mallorca and her husband's work as a lawyer for the government and her dislike of Air France; I struggled to talk about myself and pieced together a few sentences in between worrying about whether she knew that I had never met her connection to me, my dad's friend Michael.
She then showed me this really cool newsstand joint that I'd come to the next two days (Do You Read Me?) and a couple other nice restaurants and then went on her way. A very great first face to associate with Berlin ... and if I ever go back, someone I'd love to see again.
After hanging at the magazine joint, I walked back to my hostel and then did a quick U-turn towards the Orianianburger Station to go on a bike tour. I was jonesing to ride a bike after living on bikes in Paris, and figured it was worth it to pay the steep 15 euro fee to have someone tell me about some of the Berlin sites on the way. After 30 seconds of the tour, I was in regret mode. Why, oh why, did I pay so much for someone to give me a half-baked German history lesson (how many times have I heard about hyperinflation before?) But in the end, I learned some cool tidbits about German history:
-Hotel (I Forget), right by the Bradenburg Gates, where Obama stayed for 12,000 euro a night and Michael Jackson dangled his baby
-the Russian monument,
-the Hitler bunker (literally nothing)
-Charlie's Checkpoint (Tourist Checkpoint now, with ice cream/CC puns galore)
-The Reichstag's glass ceiling and an illusion to democracy's transparancy (not to mention that Hitler burned that shit down in the 1930's)
-Gay momunment to the holocaust (with a porno playing -- seriously)
-Holocaust memorial (the dude who made it never told anyone what it was supposed to mean)
-Berlin wall (how long it was -- forgot)
Plus, our guide Stu was some Dubliner who liked to rap and did 3 different raps over the tour ... 1 per 30 minutes, not bad. He was a good guy to do it with, could tell he was just tolerating people, but still had a good time. Anyways, the tour rapped up and one of the German guys suggested we get a drink ... but I just peaced it without saying goodbye (to Lindsay, too, who had done the tour and I felt a bit bad about leaving behind). Oh well. I was late and meeting Daria and didn't really want to go through the same ordeal as the night before.
Came up with a meeting spot, but of course, that didn't work. She said she was at Starbucks, so I just met her there. Easy. From that point, the next 48 hours or so in Berlin were a bit of a blur. Here's what we did.
Walked around the same few miles of Berlin a handful of times, drank a lot of coffee (some good and on couches, others watery and bought by her French teacher), waited in line to get into the Reichstag (got turned away on try No. 1), spent two-and-a-half hours trying to find the Holocaust Memorial (which, from where we were, is normally a five minute walk), ate a lot of surprisingly good food (a late, late dinner at this Sophien joint with chicken and eggs and caprese and quiche; a cheap but classly doner spot, and a solid dinner spot near the Russian joint that served me literally a fruit salad with chicken), endured some of the loudest snoring known to man (from this Asian/Brazilian guy who had some severe sinus problems or weight issues, which Daria claimed could cause snoring), actually got to see the view from the top of the Reichstag with complete audio tour, walked along the river in day/night for hours on end (seriously), got a lot of frayed nerves and uneasy feelings of malnourishment, tried to venture outside of the TV Tower radius, only to end up on Karl Marx Blvd in 1975 East Berlin, walked around some more and decided that telling someone to relax really does the opposite. Okay. Breathe. Spent like 34 of 40 hours together. Pretty much ridiculous. But Daria's really amazing... I am sort of smitten and try to go to Prague with her for dinner the next day but she bails. Maybe next time.
DAY FOUR: JAN. My god was this guy a nervous bundle of energy. But a sweetheart. I'm 3 years older than him, but he was into some heavy shit. Here's what we did:
Met up at my hostel. Got a fat German meal at this trendy place in Mitte (I got Schnitzl for the first time -- same as chicken fried steak). Jumped on the Metro. Went to Kruezberg. Weird. Lots of Immigrant and Gypsy types. Reminded me of what I think Brooklyn is. Met his Dad at the Framemakers. Another sweetheart. Walked to a coffee-shop. Got coffee. Jan tells me about how Central Banks are ruining the world. And that he likes conspiracy movies. I listen. Walk to Subway to meet his friend Konstantine. We leave. Konstantine tells me that one of the guys at Subway was gay and "had the hots for me." Uh oh. Go to a kiosk and pick up European Budweiser. Go to the park. Hang out. Bake in the sun. I stand because of my man. Makes Konstanine nervous. I don't blame him. More drinking. Konstantine leaves. Me and Jan walk to the Greek theatre there with junkies and goths and 14 year olds. I watch guys play basketball. We leave. Get on the bus for another part of town. Get off. Walk a bit. Find a guy with a bike. Drug deal. They do the drug/black handshake. Jan thinks he got a bad deal. He doesn't care because he is so paid because he just graduated. He is curious about the quality of the home-grown. I am hungry. I grab a fat Doner at a Doner vendor. It's delicious. We get on another bus. We go back to Jan's flat. Very nice. We smoke and watch Metalocalpyse. Kinda weird. I'm not that into it. Then we watch George Carlin. Not the funniest high. He is very angry. But still savvy and amusing. Jan looks back at me every joke to see if I'm laughing. This makes laughing harder. Movie finishes. I grab my pictures and take pictures of the sunset and a crane. Nice. We order the extreme pizza. It's death by grease. Cheese. Ham. Pepperoni. Sausage. Cheese. Onions. I took pictures. It's insane. Then we watch The Obama Deception. Big conspiracy movie. Jan has seen it many, many times. The movie freaks me out. Loud music and deep narrations. After an hour, Jan gets bored. He suggests Rock Band. I agree. Weezer, Stones, Bowie, Killers. We finish. Time for sleep. I shower. I sleep for 4 hours. I wake up. I leave for Switzerland. Goodbye, Berlin. The end.
BASEL:
LYON:
I'd made a point of not doing what I deemed an "American" or "Tim Riordan-esque" stay in any European city, which to me would be defined as passing through said city at 35 mph in a manner of hours and checking it off the ol' Lonely Planet list of cities to see. With a couple stays in Paris, a long stay in Barca and Mallorca, a decent chunk of time in Gottingen and Berlin, I'd staved off this urge to rush through a city.
My streak finally ran out in Lyon, where I said for slightly more than 24 hours --- but thankfully, I had a number of French Lyonnis who knew how to make a single, solitary day in Lyon spect-act-ular.
The day began for me following another one of many early morning trains from Basel to Bille to Geneva to Lyon. I stepped off at about 1pm and saw my old Afro pal Elena waiting for me at the Lyon Part Dieu train station. We jump on the metro and head back to her crib, a 10th story two-story apartment that sits in a cool urban area. We chilled for a second -- met her boyfriend Arthur (tall, glassed, skinny, smart former-Parisian-turned-hopeful-journalist) and Marion, her cheerful and sweet room/flatmate. Cool kids.
Then me, Elena and Arthur peaced it to go to the biggest park in Lyon. These guys were ballers in the kitchen and brought out a mammoth French picnic for us --- a delicious and massive quiche with peppers, zuchinni; some fresh hummus; lentils; fresh mushrooms with lemon; for dessert, some seriously rich chocolate creme pudding. So good. We sat under the shade on this very hot Lyonian day and talked about journalism and good life --- the good life was to come more and more the rest of t
BIKED AROUND FOR 2 HOURS --- SAW SITES --- rain started --- got ice cream/coffee ; Marion called with options: go to her place in St. Etienne, go to soccer game with Arthur at St. Etienne or hang in Lyon; we picked 2 -- nuts ness
