Airports Suck

So until now I have had pretty good luck with airtravel. No canceled flights,  no big problems, all good stuff.
Now however, I am getting bitch slapped around by the airport that I feel like I didn't shake it well enough (and i always shake it well enough).  Yesterday I was supposed to fly out to Luxembourg from Berlin (transfer in Amsterdam). Pretty easy right? It should only take 4 hours tops. WRONG. So yesterday all of Europe decided to have snow, and all the pilots in europe decided to be whiny babies.  Paris, Amsterdam and London were completely shut down. So my flight to Amsterdam was canceled right, well maybe. The person at the baggage drop off told me she would take my bags and to go wait in the ticket line and re-book a new flight... this would be so bad if there weren't 200 people already in the line. So I wait, and Wait , and 3 hours and two feet of movement later I hear a call for my flight to board.  WHAT!?!?!  I run back to the check in counter and ask the woman what is up.
Counter woman"Oh well the plane is taking off"...
Me "What?! you told me to wait and re-book"
Counter woman "well you should have listened to the announcements"

Just so everyone knows, I wasn't being oblivious to the announcements I just couldn't hear 90% of them because of the mob of people all pissed about their canceled flights. So I wait again.  2 hours later I am taking about my flight and a guy next to me asks
"which flight to amsterdam?"
Me: "1822"
Guy " It didn't go, we were all boarded and then they told us to get off"

And that was the biggest relief of the day. Knowing that my flight was only canceled and  I didn't miss it . I finally became fed up with the line and bought an hour of internet so I could cal KLM. 10 minutes later they booked me on a flight for the next day. I was still in line and everyone around me asked if I had a flight booked. when i told them yes,  they all furiously asked for the number.

So now I am waiting and hoping to get on my flight today. Europe really needs to learn how to deal with snow.

Also I know compared to stories of some of your out there that are more seasoned in flying this one is nothing, but I now appreciate all the horror stories a little bit better.

so to summarize

Canadians met in airpot (not mentioned) = 5
Total Hours of waiting in line = 5.5
Mexicans met = also 5

UPDATE
I was supposed to leave for Luxembourg again today and while waiting at the check in we are told that our flight is delayed 3 hours. Making it so that our flight to paris would be landing 30 minutes after my connection from Paris to Luxembourg departs.  LAME.

So I stand in a line again (this time only 2.5 hours). During this line time I made some friends with the people around me. Somehow we became the line police kicking people out who try to cut in front.
Anyway so I get to the ticket counter and they set me up with a flight tomorrow for 7am. BUT they are out of hotel vouchers. So I am paying for a hotel and I have to send the bill to the customer care at Air france to be reimbursed.  All in all this sucks and I really hope I my flight tomorrow goes off without any problems.


NEW UPDATES.
So my 7am flight on sunday was canceled... well not canceled but they wouldn't take anyone on it that was on a connecting flight (ie me) because Amsterdam airport was full. So 4 more hours in line.  I finally got to the head of the line and this random woman came out of no where and tried to get in front of me.

me : "um sorry but the line starts way back there"
woman: "no, no it's ok that's my friend working I just need to ask here a question" *continues to walk forward*
me: " ma'am, we have all been waiting a long time, some of us for days. If you want to talk to your friend then wait in line"
Woman: "I just have one question, I will just be a minute it is my friend"
Me: " well, your friend is working"
woman: " Just one question"
*a window opens and the woman walks forward toward it*
me "  I DON"T CARE IF IT IS JUST A QUESTION! I only have one question too, and it is how can I get to Luxembourg, so wait in line"

The woman then walked over to a couple of other people all holding luggage and walked towards the back of the line.
SO i get the the ticket counter and the attendant tells me to catch the 11:05 departure to amsterdam (at the time it was 10:50). I ran to the check in and got there just in time. Apparently Amsterdam was taking people again. So I get there and everything is great. The are cots everywhere from the night before when hundreds of people had to sleep in the airport (crazy).

So I am relaxed and relieved. I got to my gate and grab a beer. until about 4:30 when I receive a message telling me that my flight is canceled. But not to fear, the airline is trading boarding passes for train tickets to luxembourg. Fortunately the wait for train tickets was not too long, unfortunately when I look at my itinerary the trip will take over 7 hours and I had to change trains 5 times.

Also, The Dutch train system is total crap. There is no one around to tell you where to go, the trains are not marked so you know where they are going. Fortunately I met a couple people going the same direction as me. One was Arnold a Luxembourg native that was going to Manchester for Chemical engineering. And some old guy from Belgium.

So the old guy knew the trains well and I showed him my itinerary. He told me that it would be a lot longer because on Sundays they do work on the train tracks. This wouldn't be so bad, but that meant Arnold and I would be missing our connecting train in Brussels to go to Luxembourg.  The man assured us that there would be a later train to get us there that night, right before he started talking about how he goes to Amsterdam every two weeks for all of the girls.... and discussing the various places in Europe and how they few prostitution... oooook.

The creepy guy leaves us somewhere in Belgium and Arnold and I head to Brussels. We get there around 11pm and find out that the next train to Luxembourg is at 6am.... Shit.

So we left the train station (where there were a lot of creepy guys asking us if we needed a taxi and eyeing our bags). And went outside in search of  a cheap hotel to spend the night (outside there were a lot of scary guys just eyeing our bags).

I am sure that parts of Brussels are very nice, but the part I was in was terrifying. The cheapest hotel we found was 80euros (the room was about 5 square meters), had only one bed.  Both starving we headed across the street to fry place. The guy called Arnold a little bitch because he only had Birtish pounds and couldn't find a cash machine. NICE.

We headed back to the hotel and slept. Knowing each other for a total of 6 hours now Arnold slept on the floor and gave me the bed. Four hours later we were up and getting ready to catch the train.

We got the train and 3 hours later got into Luxembourg, Arnolds drive was waiting for him and he left, but I had to call my aunt still.
None of the pay phones took coins though, you have to pay 6.50 to get a phone card and use that in the pay phones. Only problem is that none of the receivers on the phones worked. When I called, I could hear my aunt, but she couldn't hear me... at all.

"Is that you Chris? if your at the train station just stay there, and I'll try to find you"
Good thing it was me.

So I'm good now right? Wrong. My luggage from Berlin was still somewhere. It was pretty easy though, in the morning flights were heading into luxembourg again so I was able to grab my Luggage in the afternoon. And that was teh worst travel experience I have ever had. I am at my aunts now and it is great. I hope my return trip is much better.

Merry Christmas all.

Police, and protests and Santa? Oh my

Ok, So not sure if you heard about this, but a couple of weeks ago there was a bit of a terrorism scare in Berlin that put a lot of things on high alert. Mostly people were warned to be carful around all of the touristy places (weinnachtsmarkt and the like). So I did not know this and I went wandering around these places. most looked pretty normal, but Brandenburger Tor was littered with police.

Super long queue of Police vehicles, and yes they are all VW and Mercedes

"No Biggie, just blocking off this very public area you can go that way"

Actually the Police were really friendly despite their intimidating feel. They were just directing people away, letting them know what was up.  The Assault rifles that some of them had were a bit much, but hey, they have them in the airports as well. So yeah. 

As I meandered that day i also saw the periodic person with a sign. One one the subway, one on the street. It seemed like I just missed a protest or something. Although I did catch the tail end of it. Or at least one  of them. These folks are from Die Linke, or "The Left" a political group that is very critical of the current Merkel Government. It seemed pretty messy though, and a lot of trash was left on the ground. I was not pleased with these activists. So I passive aggressively picked up some trash while glaring at them (thats right, I am that hard-core).

Although I also ran into random's with signs and flags, heres one guy just wondering around the park. 

I have no idea what this guy is protesting (or if he actually is protesting), but there he is full of vim and vigor and ready to... walk some more. 

So i made m way to Ptsdamer platz where I saw something I had forgotten. A fake building. I saw this earlier but I did not have my camera and then I forgot about it. So yeah, they put a giant tarp over a building that they are... building, of what it will look like (maybe I think), complete with Ipad ads. 

The reason I came to Potsdamer Platz is for the Weinnachtsmarkt that is there.  This is one of many little Christmas markets that open up around this time of year and it is pretty sweet. They have food, sweets, Gluhwein (it like a warm fruity spiced red wine they drink this time of year). Plus these places just look delightful. I'll have some more pictures later of a bigger one at night with all the lights on, but for now just have a taste of this. 

And because I needed some pants I went into the mall and no mall would be complete this time of year without Santa. 

Oh hi Santa

Except this Santa wasn't inviting children to his lap, but he was cracking jokes and working the crowd. When I started to leave he sang a few songs. HE was really more of a lounge act and less of a Santa, but still awesome

Potsdam CITY OF KINGS!!!

Sooooo Potsdam. It is a very pretty place and I would definitely like to see it in Summer, but it wasn't summer when I went so tough luck me. Potsdam is a smaller city about 40km away from Berlin. It is when the Kaisers and all the Royal people lived, far away from those rabble rousing peasants. It has some... not castles, but palaces I guess? and other stuff. I didn't get to see much of it because when we left it was like 1pm and the sun sets at 4pm so yeah, lame.  This was back when I was still in the Hostel and I went with some of my hostel buddies (Vin and Brynn). They're pretty cool. We  started at the main palace (Sanssouci). There was not a whole lot of information around to tell us what was what and I really can't be bothered to look things up on wikipedia. But here was the view from the bus stop

What's all this then

Looking kind of cool huh? So we take a couple steps and BAM! Cool fountain.

Sup, I'm a fountain

You'll also notice ruins in the back right. So we cam to this ramp that looked like it went up into a court yard. But when we got closer it looked like there was a fence so Brynn and I decided there must be a different way in. Vin was not as convinced.

"C'mon guys, lets just check out. I am pretty sure we can get in*"

"Ummmm, not looking good here, but maybe*."

"Yeah, we can't get in through there*."

*maybe not actual quotes

So we continued our search for a way in. As we turned a corner in the road BAM! (there are a lot of BAM's in this one) Windmill?

Yes, a windmill.

So once again I do not know what this particular windmill is for, or why it is right beside a palace (of course the answers to those two questions are probably related), but I liked it so have another picture why not.

Oppressive windmill

So we did find a way into the palace (well the courtyard parts, you had to pay for the rest).  So here are some pictures for inside. I really do not have much to say here. It was cool and all, I just don't have much  information to go with everything. Next time Gadget, next time.

ummm yup

Cool path

Well my front yard may not have a reflecting pool, but it does have a novelty mail box.

Front steps

Oh, so yeah they had a bunch of Fig tress, no biggie

So we checked out Sanssouci as much as we liked and still had a little bit of time left, so we headed over to Potsdam University. 

This building is actually used for classes. I think more Universities double staircases and gothic statues, just sayin' 

So thats what little I saw of Potsdam. I will try to give a little bit more next time. 

and Scene!

ZOO, ZOO, and more ZOO!

So when Jo was visiting me we went to the zoo. I love zoos, but I have a problem where they also make me feel really depressed. I'll be looking at some animals and then start thinking "they're probably cold, do they have enough space, THEY LOOK LONELY I WANT TO HUG YOU!!!!!!!" and so on. Usually what happens when I do this is I need to look in some other direction and see something different and the process starts over again "poor elephants.. OOOOOOH GOATS!" So the follow are just some pictures from the Berlin zoo.

The Berlin zoo (Zoologischer Garten) is the oldest zoo in Germany and has one of the most comprehensive collections of animals (almost 1500 speices). It is pretty much in the middle of the city near Charlottenberg. 

When you get in, pretty much the first thing you will see is elephants (ELEPHANTS!). They were actually kind of sad, but still awesome. Here we have Jo making a new friend.

Brand New Besties

The elephants are pretty goat adjacent. The goats were cool, you can't see much of it from the picture below, but they had a whole artificial rock hill mountain thing with a cave. The goats know how awesome they are and make sweet poses. Pretty sure they are thinking "Oh, you're taking a picture, I guess thats cool, I'm just going to hop effortlessly between these rocks and around that cliff face. No big deal." So to summarize: I like goats.

Goats looking epic

Next up we cam to the lions. Most of them were inside, but a couple were outside, giving off a goat like attitude. At this point I would like to mention that there are pretty much no cages. There is a trench and a railing, but it would not be all that difficult (in my opinion) for these animals to make a leap of fate and try to make it over. I am also left wondering how many stupid children decided to just wonder into one of the animals pens. 

Stupid child: "Grrr I'm a lion too"

Lion: "ummmm no you're not, *CHOMP*"

Maybe that's how they get rid of all the stupid children here.

Lion being all nonchalant 

Don't worry child, Come closer. I'm only going to clean you... with stomach acid

So we venture on and see more things and then some sweet giraffes. This is another picture where I want you to see more, but whatever. So the Giraffe house is like an Arabian palace and looks awesome. There was a way to get inside of it, but we couldn't find it. Very sad I know. Also in with the giraffes were these smaller guys that looked a bit like reindeer, but without antlers. they were pretty cool too

Good hay today

My favourite part was when we found the  Hippos. If you don't love hippos then check out the first picture below.

Yeah I know, awesome. This lazy guy above is one of the most dangerous african mammals, and he's adorable.  We spent a lot of time here, so much so we even saw a fight between a parent and there sassy adolescent child (pictured bellow), They were speaking hippo so I just ventured a guess as to what they were fighting about.

"You are too young to go to a concert alone"

"But it's Bieber, I have to go"

It's sad when families fight, moving on. So a little background for the polar bears (Eisbäre). A few years back the Berlin zoo picked up a baby polar bear (I don't know where from, just somewhere. Maybe ebay) and it was the star of the place for a long time. Knut (Ka-noot) as he was named, was a big deal. He's grown up now and chills with all the lady bears *high five*. I'll come clean with the picture below. My plan was just to say that it was Knut and play it cool. The truth is that I have no idea, there were four or five polar bears and I could not tell which was which, but hey this looks like a guy who is a stud. So if your a good physiologist and can tell male polar bears from the female without making them flip and spread then let me know.

"What's up, I'm just chillin' out water side"

While wondering around we started to here some sweet howling, we walked toward the sound and found a pack of white wolves all huddled close with a couple standing on a large rock all howling away. It was sweet. What wasn't sweet was the fact that I couldn't get a picture because 15 other people had the same idea and kept on getting in front of me.  I was able to get this picture below though, post howling party. One of the odd things about the wolf pen was that some guy was just wondering inside of it. He had a shovel and a zoo t-shirt so I'm guessing he was working, but it looked more like he was just killing time and hanging out with wolves

From the people that brought you "Where's Waldo" we now present "Where's Whitefang"

So penguins are awesome right? No one is going say otherwise, or fifty others will probably bust out a Morgan Freeman impersonation and break into "March of the Penguins".  But yeah awesome. These ones were not very energetic though, they were almost perfectly still. I took like ten pictures of them and they were in al the same position for everyone. It was crazy, maybe they were fake.

"Is it humans or t-rex that need movement to see?"
"I told you Todd it's humans! Now stay still and they'll go away"

Seals, clowns of the sea... Yeah I have not a whole lot to say about the seals. They were doing laps and jumps and it was pretty cool.

They have a huge aquarium as well and this is were pretty much anything with scales are. I will warn you, if you do come to the zoo, the aquarium is extra so just know that before sashaying on into the aquarium without paying. There were so many cool things in the aquarium, but I'm not sure if you have ever taken pictures through glass before, it doesn't always go as planned. Any way check out this... Alligator? That may also be a crocodile. Don't worry about it. 

"What's up"

One thing was this large swamp area where they had all kinds of animals inside. Including a bunch of crocodiles. Now that doesn't seem like the best idea ever, but I didn't see many random animal corpses so it must have turned out all right.

"I know I said I didn't want fast food, but this is ridiculous" 

So thats the zoo, much more to come. Hope the two or three people that read these are enjoying them.

summary

penguins = awesome

Hippos = more awesome

crocodiles = something that does not eat turtles

me = conflicted between delight and depression at zoo

and Scene

An American Thanksgiving in Germany with the French

Thanksgiving, it's all about football, family and being on the last Thursday of November. Ours had none of this. A friend of my roommates is American (kind of), he was born in germany because his Dad was posted in the American section of Berlin before the wall came down. That being said he has no accent whatsoever, when he speaks english it's like an American, when he speaks german it's like a German and when he speaks french it's like the French.  In any case Steve's family always celebrated Thanksgiving together here. Unfortunately this year his entire family bailed on him. Fortunately they had already bought all of the food for the meal. So Steve called up Marine and Tobi to see if he could have it at our place with a few friends. A giant free meal? I guess that's okay.

SO I'm out all day doing.. well something I don't really remember. To make the story more interesting we will say that I was out training chimps to use jet packs while operating surgical lasers. Yeah that sounds about right. When I get home it is about 4:00pm and steve is pulling into the driveway just as I am getting in.  I help him bring everything in and then it turns out that the Turkey is still completely uncooked. Just so we are clear, it wasn't cooked and still needed more time, he had not started to cook the turkey at all, or even prepped it.  It turns out steve had never made a turkey before or any other part of a thanksgiving dinner. Don't get me wrong, Steve can cook, just he underestimated the amount of time everything takes. So me with my, "helped make a couple turkeys" busted on the cooking scene. Steve had planned to have dinner at 7:30-8:00.... that wasn't going to happen. I show steve all the tricks I have learned about making turkeys: butter and seasonings underneath the skin, basting, some other things I think I made up, you know all the staples of making a turkey. So we finally get the bird into the oven at about 5:30, and know to attend to everything else to be done. Here's a list of the things that needed to be cooked (all from scratch with nothing prepped).

1. sweet potatoes
2. cranberry sauce
3. potato roasties
4. peas in some weird white sauce that was really good
5. Carrots
6. Gravy
7. Stuffing

So Steve and I took the initiative and booted everyone else out of the kitchen for most of the night. To be honest most of the things did not take very long, it was a lot of waiting for the turkey. The Cranberry sauce was awesome, it have orange zest in it so it was a really nice mixture of sweet, sour and bitter citrus. The sweet potatoes were done with garlic, which doesn't sound like it would go together, but it very much does. The Roasties were just simply tossed in garlic, herbs and olive oil and baked. Carrots were just boiled, because that is how carrots roll. The gravy was really good because we basted the turkey with a maple sauce and that was al in the gravy. The stuffing in my opinion was kind of gross, it was mostly ground pork, and I am used to bread crumb stuffing, but thats me. Then there were the peas. I don't understand it all that much, but after the peas are cooked you add ingredients into them to make a white sauce that is mostly flour, and somehow it turns delicious... My guess is witchcraft, early american pilgrims were all about the witchcraft.

So we wait for the turkey, and wait, and wait. Everyone got to the house and were all waiting (expecting dinner to have been ready at 8:00) and staring at Steve and circling the kitchen. In attendance were the four of us who live in the house (Marine, Tobi, Bertron, and Me), Steve, Jessie (friend of the house. fun fact: She's from poland), and two of Steve's friends who were visiting (I don't remember their names, they were french and they rolled with that). So almost half of those in attendance were french, not so bad. The problem is that everyone except for Jessie and I spoke French ( the two nameless frenchies spoke english but no german). So you would think that seeing that sue to all the language problems that english would be the way to go so that everyone could understand, but no. French dominated that night, and nothing against the language (it's next on my list of languages to learn), but Jessie and I were both sitting pretty awkwardly doing what little we could to steer the others toward english, or at least german, I can keep up sometimes when it's german. Neither of these happened. The food was good (as was the wine) but the conversation remained out of reach. It's one of those odd moments when you really wish that you had a more multicultural upbringing, especially when it comes to language.

Also one small moment to be judgement about the french couple that came (they were together by the way). The girl was 20, and the guy looked to be in easily in his mid thirties. I've been watching Mad Men lately and some of the relationships in that show creeped me out less then this one. OK judgement time over.

So re-cap

Me = still unable to understand french
thanksgiving = delicious
Steve = now knows how to make a turkey
the french couple = kind of creepy

(PS: Sorry I forgot to take pictures of any of this, do not worry the next few post I have planned have pictures. YAY!!)

Scene

Just some pictures

So I have been taking photos sporadically and have shared none. I will be putting more up soon (as well as taking more) but this should tide people over for now.

The first two pictures are from the Hertha BSC game at the Olympia stadium.  The first shows the teams taking the field with their flag wavers going strong (no joke many of the fans had flags twice the size of the ones you see these official guys with). The second is just a random action shot from the game... I mean it was taken just seconds before the winning goal. 

So what in the hell do we have here? This is a picture of a mirror cone inside of the Reichstag (federal government building). It reflects natural light into the chambers below so that they do not need artificial light, well during sunny days at least. 

And here we have the Reichstag itself, standing very strong and all imposing. What up Angela Merkal, how are things going? Oh yeah, not that great.

This was just kind of cool. It is an art school near Oriengenburg str.  I like it.

Once again, just a picture I like, we were in Mitte when I took it, but I could not find this place again if my life depended on it. The big statue in the corner had a coin operation on it, but it was out of order. I really want to see what it does (it's about 15ft high). 

So there you are. More to come, maybe tomorrow 

3 weeks later

Ok some my last post just wen up today but mostly because I forgot to post it before, most of that happened like 3 weeks ago. so I'll do a quick recap to now

Saw gas light anthem and they were sweet
Went to a bar with a bon fire
found a place to live YAY!!
Two days later my Canadian friend dropped by (what?)
We went to the zoo (sweet)
I need a job badly (not sweet)

So I'll go back about a week and start then. My friend from University Jo came to visit me and it was super fun. It stalled a lot of my ability to look for work, but the probability of me doing that wasn't great so whatevs (yeah I busted out an abreve what are you going to do about it). So I went to pick her up at the airport and she walked in and there were hugs and oh my gods, and then I had to give her an ultimatum. I had been invited by some people to join them to go see a football game (not american football, but soccer football... also not soccer baseball). We did not have enough time to both go to my house  and then to the game so we had to choose a quiet night in, or a rowdy football game (while carrying luggage). Obviously we went to the game. It was fun, there was giant sausages and litres of beer all over the place. The game was in the olympia stadium which housed the 2006 world cup championships... and also the Olympics in the 1936 olympics I guess).  We decided that seeing we were in Berlin we should cheer for the home team (although I have no idea where the visitors were from so it was probably for the best). The  home team was Hertha BSC (I do not know what the BSC stands for), there was a huge fan base for them and all of them were synchronized which was almost as fun to watch as the actual game. It was kind of sad to look over at the visitors section of the stands and see a patchy group of people holding one raggedy banner. So in any case we (Berlin) won so who cares about those losers.

Unfortunately for Jo the entire time she was here it was raining (at best misting) so a lot of the more fun things to do went undone. Although I did teach here the fin art of what has become known as (by me at least and maybe one other guy who I think said it and I stole it from because i'll never see him again) "Riding Dirty". What is this you ask? Well in an earlier post I mentioned how I have no idea how the transit works here, since then I have been enlightened on the matter. Here is a brief tutorial.

First you buy a ticket from an automated machine, these can be for hours, days, months or even a year. Once you have bought your ticket you can just hop on a train or bus right? WRONG, you need to validate it, (get a stamp, these machines are also automated) the stamp tells you where and when the ticket was validated.
Now you might ask "if it's all automated then why would I even bother" well sorry there impatient Irene, I was getting to that.
So you do not need to show your tickets UNLESS you happen to be there when one of the random ticket checkers bust out into the scene. These guys are dressed in casual cloths and have nothing to let you know that they are legit other then a badge (well maybe a laminate). If they check your ticket and you either don't have one, or it isn't validated BAM! 40 euro fine.

So in getting back to the point, riding dirty is using transit without tickets and taking your chances. But I have become pretty good at this. I got Jo to also ride dirty with me, after most of the trip having to buy tickets. Obviously the first time we do this is when one of the inspectors comes out. So they start checking tickets on the end of the train car, Jo and I are in the middle, he is getting close. Suddenly the train reaches the next station and the doors open, the checker is two seats away from us...
Me: "well this is our stop Jo"
and then we make a break for the door and make in time to elude the checker, living to ride dirty another day.
So that was a close call and we were lucky, but I may not also be so I have since compiled a short list of tips for riding dirty in Berlin.

1. Look at your fellow commuters
Check around to see who is getting on the train car. Do they look like they are actually going somewhere? All of the checkers I have seen to date fall under this description (disclaimer: I doubt all checkers fall under this description so be safe): Male, 25-35 years old, riding alone, no bags or other personal property.

2. Look for where the most people are
If you're in a crowded train car it is less likely that a checker will take the time to check tickets closely so you could get away using an old ticket (although this is not the best choice at any time). Also if they are checking the tickets properly then you will have more time to make an escape.

3. Never sit on the ends
So yeah, go to the middle of the train car, this way no matter which the checker starts at you should have enough time to get to the next stop and get away.

4. Stay away from the bus
Some buses you can get on the back door and you're golden, but most you need to pass the driver and show your ticket as you enter. If you have an unused ticket then the validator is right behind the driver and they will know if you didn't do it.

5. I don't speak no German!
Yeah so guess what, the fines are not immediate, so if you get caught plead ignorance (and act it out like no ones business). Do you know a few phrases in German, well you better forget them. Even if you still get the ticket it is pretty easy to have it bumped down to 7 euros from 40, but even easier to throw it out and leave the country. If you are just visiting then this is my suggestion.


So yeah that's about it for now... except I'm finding it hard to find peanut butter here, which sucks because I put it on everything.  Also I do need a job so if you know anyone in Berlin who wants to hire someone with poor German and a winning smile then send them my way... No? yeah I figured.

So
me = unemployed
Riding dirty = better believe it.
Jo = Back in the Canada
Ha Ho He = Hertha BSC

SCENE

Finding a home

For a little while (about 1 week) I wasn't sure if I was going to be staying in Berlin. It doesn't have a lot of jobs, everyone speaks english  most people speak english and I'm not used to staying in actual cities. After a week I was hooked, it is such a fantastic place and the people are great and it is all in all amazing.  The hard part is that I cannot afford to live in a hostel forever (and I wouldn't want too either), thus I needed to find a place to live. I was fortunate to run into someone who was doing the same thing and they knew of a good website (wg-gesucht.de). Basically it is a site where people who already have apartments will place adds for free rooms (this is not only for looking for a long-term place to live but some people will seasonally rent out rooms). So no lease to sign (woo). In case you are wondering a wg (vee geh)  is what they call a place where people rent out the rooms in a shared apartment or house instead of renting the whole place.

So I spent about a week running all around Berlin ( I got to know the transit pretty well). Most places were in the main city part and were ok. Although my favourite viewing was one place in Pankow (incase you know where that is) when I was invited to check it out by the owner, but the owner was in India, so her sister was going to show it. No problem right, well yes. Her sister spoke no english at all, once again no problem,  I know enough german to get the gist of what is happening, Wrong. She did not speak much german either, she was Russian, and as a result that is what she spoke, a language I know nothing of. So she pressured me (I think) the entire time about "denk Sie schnell" pretty much telling me to decide quickly. I had, the place was terrible so the answer was no. In the room where I would be sleeping there was a giant furnace. I know what your thinking "thats great, you'll be so warm" but unfortunately it was a coal furnace, so I would have to occasionally feed it coal (ridiculous). Then there is the bathroom, this room was about one square metre. You could sit on the toilet and wash your hands at the same time. When I saw my first thought was "ummm, wheres the shower" a question that was soon answered by climbing a small ladder in the kitchen that went into a small room above the bathroom. There is was, a five foot high ceiling over a tiny tub with a removable nozzle. Living in the ritz indeed.

The next day I went to see another place in Blanchenfelde (once again in case you really want to know). I didn't know until I got here but it was a family who rents out rooms to students and the like. So I get there and it is a pretty nice place: back yard, beautiful kitchen, bike included, close to the city trains. But once again things took a turn. The family consisted of a mother and a daughter, there was already a guy living in one of the rooms, but he wasn't around so whatever. The daughter was 14 and her and the mother were non-stop fighting the entire time I was there. Now I have lived with two teenage girls in the past (my sisters) and I really did not plan on willingly going back into that. But the mother could not take a hint. I was trying to leave and she kept on pressuring me "you know sometimes I get concert tickets, maybe you could have some", "maybe I know people that could hire you... if you stay here". Then I told her I would be in contact but I had a couple of other places to look at, that was a poor choice.
"Where are they! No you don't want to be there.", "that place isn't so nice". It took me 2 hours to get out of the house, I was half convinced something from the movie "Hostel" was about to happen.

Finally I went to a place in Kleinmachnow (you know the drill), a small suburb type area whose claim to fame is being the half-way mark between Berlin and Potsdam (woo!).  The two that were renting out the room are a young couple (late twenties) Marine and Tobi. She's from France and he is a native Berliner. the house is beautiful, with a private bathroom for me and a giant furnished room. So when I walk into the place Tobi greets me and asks
Tobi:"So you are Canadian?"
Me:"umm, yeah"
Tobi:"Do you like ice hockey?"
Me:"ummm, yeah"
Tobi"This is good"

I found out later that he plays for his work team. So I stayed for a bit and we talked and they were all pretty nice. I even met Tobis' parents while I was there.

The Next day I get a call form Marine letting me know I could move in the next day.  I was super pumped.

So recap

Russian woman = WHAT!?
The Mother = WHAT!?.. do you mean your not living here
The Daughter = something high pitched I can't decifer
My new roomies = sweet
Me = housed

and Scene

Dance at it

So I've now been in Berlin a few days and here is how it has gone. Sunday was pretty cool. I spent a bit of the day wandering up and down the street my hostel was on seeing if there was anything cool about (there was but at the time I didn't know). I was down in the Hostel bar for a while where there was a big group from a Belgium Product design course. If that sounds pretty vague to you then your in the same boat I was when they said that, the Fredric started to explain it too me
"we think of things people don't have and then think about making them"
"... so your an inventor, You can go to inventor school!!"
" Um, Yeah pretty much, engineers don't like us"

So a little later I met up with a group Aussies I met in the Hostel earlier and we went to HORST. This club in Kreuzberg. So to get the ambience, it is about 1am and  the entrance to the club is down an alley under a train bridge. There is a large man in from of a door that almost blends into the alley walls ( I don't think I would have noticed the door even if I new where it was). This man at the door looks like he hates everything that is happening around him. he pushes us on through to a dimly lit (even for a bar) space that is composed of two areas. One has a bar in it and some couches (not too interesting). The second section has a DJ in the corner (no one paying him any attention) and across from him a twenty foot high wall of speakers. No speakers anywhere else, just the one wall (this speaker wall is actually what is creating the two sections). House music is blasting out of this wall and everyone is just dancing at these speakers... not dancing by them, but dancing AT them. So we dance WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
After a while we go for a sit down where some of the other people in our group were already sitting. One of the girls is being hit on by a German guy (he introduced himself as L'arron?).
"Where are you from?"
"Canada"
"How do you like Berlin"
"Well it's only my second night, but it is nice so far"
"It's your second night and your here, very nice!"

So being there impressed L'arron, so yeah I'm kind of a big deal. We got tired at dancing at the speakers so we headed back and slept, mmmmmm sleep.


The next day I slept in to destroy some of the jet lag and then on to wondering. I decided to go on a free walking tour met someone named Ice.... for reals they told us they always wondered the meaning "So I looked it up and apparently it means frozen water" *big laughs from the group*  although the next day when I went on a different tour with the same guide she told it again. You now how some jokes just keep being funny.... this joke is not like that.

The second tour I went on was really cool (the Alternative tour). It was mostly about the street art scene and the varying forms of underground culture and art. One stop that made a pretty strong impression on me was at Tacheles. This is a building that has been around for a long time (1800s... ish) and has had uses ranging from sticking it to department stores, housing prisoners in world war two and a few other crazy things. When the USSR fell in 1990 like many building in east Berlin this building was abandoned and then like almost every single building in East Berlin at the time artist came and squatted. The building became a hotbed of art and culture for Berlin and the city liked that. After awhile the company that owned the building at the time gave the artists a ten year lease (1 dollar a year). The lease has been up for some time and over the course  the deed came into the hands of a bank that wants to sell the building to some hotel. The artists have been fighting it ever since, even though everyone is in their favor  the main problem is that no one (including the Berlin government) has enough cash to pay off the bank. So if you get a chance I urge you to come to Berlin and check out this landmark of culture that could soon be housing fat tourists (I'm not fat so i can say that). Or better yet  go to www.tacheles.de and support them (you do not need to pay money to support them, moral support more then welcome).


So in conclusion
Tacheles = super sweet
everywhere in East Berlin = presumably housing squatting artists (well maybe not)
Me= tired
speakers = get all the attention
djs = can sit int eh corner and do their damn jobs

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND

scene

Here I guess

So, there I am waiting for the plane at Halifax airport and who surrounds me but about a hundred German natives heading home. My thoughts on this were "great I'll get to sit next to someone and maybe talk a bit about things I can do some basic information about everyday things like: Tipping at restaurants, how the public transport works, where to get food (I have done all of these things now, but still have no idea about whether any of them were  correct, I actually just walked into the subway and onto a train without paying anyone and I don't know if I was supposed to or not). Anyway so I sit down and who do you suppose is next to me but a girl who was born and raised in the South Shore of Nova Scotia (ridiculous). She was nice enough though, but tired so even if she could have answered may questions she couldn't have due to her lack of conscience.  She did mutter something about airplane food being bad do to the pressure doing something to the tastebuds, but that was about it. So during my waking hours on the plane I chose to read "six degrees" which is more interesting so far then I had thought it would have been.

So I get into Frankfurt and find my way to where I need to pick up my next boarding pass (although I had no idea how to. Lufthansa (the airline I was using to get to Berlin) apparently only has self check-in deals which are cool, but all the ones I could find would just read yor passport and give you the boarding pass. Problem is they can't read Canadian passports (or at least not mine). So after talking to about ten members of the Lufthansa staff who all directed me to the same stations that didn't work for me, I was able to find a different one where you would just type in your name and flight confirmation. YAY!! now all i had to do was wait 3 hours. the one thing that got me through it was how delightful it was when airport staff would zoom through the terminal on small company owned bicycles. It was kind of adorable.
So I get on the Plane to Berlin and immediately go unconscious. YAY! I get into Berlin and after breezing through customs (because I'm Canadian) and hearing a woman behind me whose bags were being checked saying "but I'm Canadian too". I went outside and wondered around until I found a bus stop. So there buses are really nice and you use tickets in them... I have no idea exactly how it works but I  had a ticket and I was let on the bus... I then went down to into the subway with the same ticket...  there was no staff there  so I just went on the train and hoped that my bus ticket would be good enough for the subway too. Then i meandered down the road to my Hostel got set up in one of the Dorms and then realized that out of the 12 people in the room I was the only guy... Nice, well except for it's me so I treated them as if they were related because that's how I roll. so 15 hours of traveling make you stink so I decided to clean. Also not eating apparently makes you hungry (who knew).  I walked down the road from the Hostel to this place that on the outside looked a bit like a greasy spoon, but has a very chic dinning area... but that's not all, they had Donair.... Spinning meat slab and everything. I don't think they had donair sauce or anything, but it was there and I thought that was awesome. I had some schniztel and fries (the fries came with something that seemed like a cross between plum sauce, gray and ketchup (i don't recommend).

Today I didn't do much other then wonder and do some work on my resume. I was still pretty tired. I got food at a neat indian place down the road and got a massive beer for 3 euros so that was cool. Tomorrow I might actually do things, I am thinking about renting a bike. My main concern is getting lost but hopefully I can find a map.

So recap
Me= tired/ somewhat settled
customs= like me
public tranport= may have been stolen
beer= awesome

Introduction

Hello all,
So I have never had a blog before, or been much about talking about myself, but I am heading abroad next week and it appears most of my family and friends are convinced of two things: 1) I will have a great time and 2) Something terrible is going to happen me. So I have decided to start this up as a way I can toss information at a lot of people at the same time as say "Oh HI! guess what, I'm not dead yet. I'll report back later in case of death."

So here I am a week away from my flight buying fancy new things and getting all int he spirit, saying my goodbyes, thinking about things I won't see for awhile, and I have to say it is kind of hard. It's been really hard being excited about something that isn't immediately happening and I feel like I should be more anxious. Not only am I leaving my family and friends for around a year, but I am applying to law school at the same time. This combined should equal a wreck of a Chris, but through it all I remained relatively unfazed.

Oh well, when it happens it will be awesome and I will have to still myself out of my overly calm attitude when it does.

Today was pretty sweet and trip pumping. My Dad took me out shopping for new cloths for the trip. He's pretty nervous about the whole thing but has been super supportive.

So current re-cap
Trip= one week
Me= Trying to get excited
Dad= super awesome
You= hoping for more interesting posts in the future
Me (again)= Also hoping for more interesting posts in the future

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND SCENE!!