The Complete Idiot's Tour of Berlin

I've only taken 2 trips  without Tom since getting here  and I feel like my blog might turn into more of the lessons in what NOT to do when traveling...    Big take aways from this trip included: EasyJet is crazy, bike tours are much easier ways to see a city, check your ticket on mass transit.



Easy Jet

Easy Jet is what Southwest Airlines would be like if they were less organized.  Like Southwest, you don't have assigned seats on this airline.  So everyone rushes up to the gate and sprints (literally!  people are sprinting across the tarmac and up those stair cars to get into their perfect seat) to the stair cars located at the front and back doors of the planes.  It is utter insanity and then you realize that you are running too!!  Despite it being unorganized, it all happens very quickly, probably because everyone is running!  When Italians are involved, a group of people who don't see lines are being either steadfast or important, it becomes even crazier.  The stair car, probably wide enough for one person and their carry on, suddenly has 4 people squished in, their suit cases hanging over the side.  It's crazy!  During the flight, I was so surprised that people stood in the aisle for most of it.  They plopped into other people's seats when the flight attendants came past and then stood up again.  It made me think that American flights are so boring!  This was the noisest flight I've ever been on and when the plane landed, everyone started clapping and cheering!  Haha!  Good job, pilot, we survived!!!

Bike Tours

 On my first day in Berlin, Sarah and I walked about 9 miles!  Our feet were so sore at the end and we agreed not to do that again.  On day 2, we rented bikes through Fat Tire Bike Tours, not to be confused with the delicious San Diego-based brewing company.  Cairan, our cuddly-looking Irish tour guide, helped us all get set up on our bikes and off we went!  My bike was named Margarita and Sarah's was the Sistine Chapel.  Sidenote: when people say, "It's just like riding a bike" they forget that some of us haven't ridden a bike in like 5 years.  It took me a good 30 minutes to remember how to ride a bike!  I would change this phrase to be: "It's just like after you've ridden a bike for 30 minutes"

Sarah and I did the Third Reich tour of Berlin and it was fantastic!  It was almost 5 hours in total and cost 22 Euro!  That's a pretty good bargain in my book!  We learned so much and got to see so much of the city!  I'm trying to get a stamp in each of the four cities where they have franchises so I can get my *free* t-shirt.  (* included for the benefit of one Dr. Kristine Ehrich, lest she tell me the logic behind how the t-shirt isn't technically free.  See, Kristine!  Sometimes I learn things where we're drinking wine together!!!!)  We saw so many beautiful parks, hauntingly sad memorials and subtle reminders of the devastation of war, it was all very moving and incredibly interesting.

Public Transit: Not for the Faint of Heart

My Complete Idiot's Guide to Germany book said about 1,000 times that Berlin is a very tourist friendly city and the transit system is so easy to use!  I defy you, tour book!  I can get lost all on my own, thank you!  After taking the public transit system from the Schonefeld Airport to Zoologischer Garten and then switching trains and going to Wittenbergplatz all on my own on the way to meet Sarah, I thought I was an old pro!  We even rode the metro AND the train while we stayed there.  With my new cute shoes and my fancy Zara blazer, I felt chic and ultra European and got to the metro with confidence exuding from my every pore!  For tickets that take you outside of the city, you have to go a special travel office and they print you the ticket.  Mine was 3 Euro and had B3 15:59 on the time.  So I went up to the platform and stood next to a sign that said B3.  But noticed that many of the cities on the list were going further away from the airport so I asked an old woman waiting on the bench if this would take me to Schonefeld Airport.  She assured me that I was in the right place. 

Fast forward 45 minutes.  I was still on the train but it had stopped at Postdam, which on a map is like the exact opposite direction of the airport.  I wasn't super pressed for time, as I had assumed it would take me longer to walk to the train station and had a good 40 minute buffer, but recalling that time that I rode the DC metro to Arlington Cemetary instead of the Navy Yard, I thought to ask.  A portly family of Germans was sitting across from me and I asked the father if this train was going to the aiport.  He didn't speak English but his 12 year old daughter was learning in school.  So we started talking and she asked "Where is it that you would like to reach upon your final destination?"  My goodness, talk about formal!  When she showed me a route to take, a woman sitting behind her popped in and they began to speak at length in German.  She took the map, which I had given to the 12 year old and showed me another way to get there.  Then a German businessman took the map and he showed me a way to get there.  Then another man, who up until this time I had assumed was Italian (hereafter referred to at PI - Pseudo-Italian) began speaking in German.  So much German flying around!  So many people grabbing my map and pointing! 

In the end, PI grabbed my map (I was considering the number of germs on this piece of paper by this point) and pointed downstairs after the two business people had left.  I thanked the girl and her family and followed him.  At the platform, he yelled at a friend of his, some 100 meters (getting the hold of that crazy metric system ever so slowly!) ahead of us and they began speaking about my predicament.  The friend, in turn, grabbed the map (1,001 germs on the map by now) and told me to go down the platform and wait for the "small train."  So there I was, in the middle of a field with a train station, alone thinking "I'm going to be stuck in a random field in Germany."  Or take the most expensive cab ride of all time back to Berlin.  Either way, my 3 Euro train ticket wasn't seeming like such a bargain....

At length, three jolly German women walked onto the platform and, I think, assumed I was trying to mug them when I begged 'Do you speak English???'  'Oh... only a little.' one replied, hoping that I would take this as a failure and leave them alone.  Not on your life, sister!  In as few words as possible, I asked 'Schonefeld?  This track?'  Since moving to Italy, I have considered leaving my urban planning education behind and taking up miming as my career.  I've shown amazing potential in the last month and think with practice, I could flurish.  She nodded and smiled.  "Your English seems pretty good to me!" I said.

I finally made it onto the small train.  While it sadly was not child sized, it did only have two cars and took me, with relatively no speed, to the airport where I again partook in the absolute insanity of Easy Jet, the Italian Edition, and made it back home.  No stamps in my passport on that journey, but damn if I don't feel like I should get a gold star for making it back to Naples with all of my stuff and at the correct time!  Berlin, you were a pretty cool place, aside from the drunken German men who made a list for Sarah and I about all of the things that they don't like about Americans.  High on that list was: "You have too much of an emphasis on war."  Really, Germany?  Like you have any right to talk about world domination... I'm looking forward to going back with Tom, acting like I know all everything that I actually learned on our tour from college, and impressing him with my random facts.  Plus, I didn't have a pork knuckle while I was there and they are supposedly quite good.  Seriously, Anthony Bourdain said so!