I have now seen Berlin. I am not sure what I expeced from it, but I unded up having a good time. I showed up in Berlin on the 31. with Izzy, who was just daytripping it. We ended up on the same train out of Bremen as Nick and Ahmed. We joined them for about an hour in the kiddie room where they were watching "Jackass" and taking shots of Cuban rum and Yeni Raki, then we had to change trains in Hannover.
We got to Berlin and met up with Andrey, one of my MUME friends. H ewas letting me sleep in his flat for two nights, for which I was very grateful. Izzy was astounded by this, but I guess that's a normal reaction. She and I then met up with Dimitri, another MUMEr. Dimitri, his girlfriend Lola, Izzy, and I went and got supper and then took Izzy back to the Hbf to catch her train back to Bremen, where she flew out of the next morning.
The Berlin Hbf is a very impressive structure. I has some five or so levels as well as everything from department stores to grocery stores, which is of course fairly unusual for a rail station. It's also very modernistic, having been built only a year ago. The best part though is the sign on the S-Bahn level which reads "Bombardier Willkommen in Berlin," or "Bombardier Welcome to Berlin" in English.
So yesterday I hung out with Dimitri all day. We went to the Pergamon Museum and the Egyptology Museum after walking around the city for a bit. Later in the evening we met up with Lola and Andrey, then all headed home when it started to rain.
This morning I got on a train headed for the Czech Republic, where I am now. After two days in Berlin though I didn't see most of the famous monuments, but it's okay. I did notice that the whole city is being rebuilt. I think it's in order to make it more homogeneous. Anyway, that was my Berlin experience. Now I'm going to take a nap before the German-Czech border, where I'll have to buy a ticket. More on that later. Tchüs.
