Sam #4: May 23

This morning was unlike any other thus far on the trip. I woke up, looked out the window, and discovered that the world I had so lovingly known in Paris had passed me by and was many hours long gone. Instead of seeing the adorable little house cats of our proprietor Fred patrol the 100 square foot kitschy garden, I saw the lush German countryside flying by the window at 80-something miles per hour. My bunk on the night train had served surprisingly well as a facilitator of rest, and the soft lulling of the engine several cars up was very relaxing as well. The soothing side-to-side swaying of the traincar seemed to defy the laws of physics, combining the sheer unbridled horsepower of a monster train engine with the delicate, sensual grooves of a sultry jazz club singer. The beautiful clash of two forces so inherently opposite was breath-taking, romantic, and elegant. Time stopped around me, and the train seemed to move in a most perfect cadenza, cutting iron brushstrokes across the delicate rolling hills and dabbing a touch of civilization on uninhabited grasslands; the sun's warm embrace deftly moved through the veneer curtains that stood in my window. Quite frankly, the curtains were a nuisance, but my other bunkmates were still under the spell of the train's mechanical Ambien, so instead I moved to the hallway and watched life out the great glass window. The occasional cow slapped the silliest grin across my face while I stood there, enjoying the simplistic peace that the cow enjoys on a regular basis. Our trip to this point had been extremely fast-paced and it was a breath of new life to slow down and enjoy the mesmerizing aura of the night train. I realized that I had 2 more hours of sleeping time left so I took advantage of that and lulled peacefully back to sleep.

My morning of wisdom and meditation came to an abrupt halt when my 8:30 alarm went off and all 5 of us had to pack our bags and be ready for an 8:49 departure from the train. We hustled to clean up food crumbs, repack overnight accessories, and mentally accept the fact that sleep was over. This last item was quite difficult as it seems my fellow bunkmates had shared common sentiments about the traincar sleep. We got our bags to the door of the train as the train pulled into one Berlin station; however, we were unsure of what exactly was going on. Just as we were opening the door to get out of the train, I saw the tracks beginning to move underneath me, and I quickly shut the door and we immediately accepted the fact that wherever we stopped next would be our exit no matter what. As it turns out, this was a lucky break, and we ended up just a few U-Bahn stops away from our hostel.

We got off the U-Bahn near our hostel, only to discover that we still had to walk across a bridge with our bags and down some street. The first thing that is immediately obvious about German is that there are very very few cognates, and the rules of grammar are indiscernible to an American. We lugged our baggage to the hostel, got them stored behind the desk until the rooms were open, and headed to a cafe one block from our hostel that we had seen on the way in. We all ordered fantastic breakfasts, none of which were immediately derived from American culture, so we were able to defend our totally-not-tourists-at-all status, despite the disproportionate ratio of cameras present in the group.

From breakfast, we decided to start our stay in Berlin with a guided bus tour in English, which turned out to be a brilliant strategy (that will be repeated in future cities) for two reasons. 1) We saw a large number of city landmarks, and we were able to decide which ones were high priority and which ones were sauerkraut. The bus tour drove us by many international embassies, but as any other member of the group can tell you, I am obsessed with the American embassy everywhere we go. The one in Berlin is a brand-spanking new symbol of American pride, complete with the highest security measures in all of Berlin, as well as a gorgeous 50-starred flag waving in the wind with bold colors and shiny new stars. This gave me new motivation to see the Brandenburg Gates - they were right next to the US Embassy. This brings me to my second point. 2) The bus tour is a great way to get a sense of absolute and relative orientation in the city. When we were given a map of the city by a touristy office, the unfamiliar layout confused me to no end. However, with the bus tour, Cedric was able to orient himself to the map, and the other 4 of us simply tagged along to Cedric's boy scout instincts.

Once the lively prerecorded tour was complete, we decided to browse the mostly-destroyed cathedral a stone's throw from the bus stop. This cathedral, which was built in honor of Kaiser Wilhelm I, had been reduced to a single tower, and was clearly war-torn (as is a lot of Berlin). The facade was a blackened, charred dark grey color, which I found much less appealing that the faint heavenly grey of the Notre Dame in Paris. However, the inside was quite pretty, and it rendered a sense of imagined regret in me because I wished that I had been able to see the original cathedral in its entire grandeur. Here I must also interject my suspicion of a cathedral built in honor of the kaiser. As I see it, any church is built in honor of God, so why it should be dedicated to the kaiser instead is not immediately certain to me. Perhaps a years-long publicity stunt by his PR people? Most likely the doing of Gloria Allred.

After an interesting buffet lunch near the cathedral, we returned to the hostel to stow our bags in the proper room and get our things situated. We were placed in a room of eight bunks, only 3 of which had fresh clean sheets for us. Cedric and Henry took it upon themselves to ask the front desk for more sheets, which turned out to be a frustrating exercise in customer noservice. I never understood the issue completely, but apparently the hostel said that there already were clean sheets when there clearly wasn't, and some people had left stuff in the room and we had no idea who they belonged to. The desk guy told us they belonged to some Australian women, but they weren't there at the moment, so we decided to keep touring and deal with the issue later.

We took the U-Bahn to the Brandenburg Gates, which is the famous passageway that used to be one of many gates into the city of Berlin in the 18th and 19th centuries. Between the sheer size of the columns and the intimidating bronze statue on top, it's clear why this is such a hot attraction. The area in front of the gate is filled with American military actors, street musicians, international super-strict embassy police, and gypsy women who always ask "Speak English?" in the exact same tone of voice. We're currently debating what would be a funny but not rude response to these women, who according to travel sources are actually sneaky pickpockets who distract you with an index card. From the gates we walked over to the Reichstag, which is the present-day national parliament of Germany. On top of the building there is a glass copula, which is accessible to the public most of the day. The copula offers a great view for a small price, so we figured it was worth checking out. Unfortunately it did not seem worth the 75-minute wait to get inside, and thus upon seeing the line run down the Reichstag steps and through the courtyard we bolted for different entertainment.

As usual with this motley crew, we tackled dinner with a stumble-upon approach, and thus we started walking towards a district with lots of people and lots of lights. On the way there, we made a most beautiful discovery: a Bugatti Veyron dealership on the street. For the uninitiated, the Bugatti Veyron is the world's baddest production car. And when I say bad I mean baaaaaaaaaaad. All of us could instantly rattle off a few key numbers. 1,001 horsepower. 253 mph (407 km/h) top speed. W16 engine. Burns an entire tank of gas in 12 minutes at top speed. $1.2 million purchase price (not sure what the European chiffre is these days). Simply seeing it through the window on the street was most certainly an out-of-body experience. I'm 95% sure there were fireworks and backup dancers for Shakira that appeared from heaven. Our hunger was immediately forgotten about and we went inside to watch it turn behind a glass railing on a beautiful turn table. Barack Obama was sitting in the driver's seat and Megan Fox was sitting in the passenger seat. Michelle and the girls were off serving the poor in Africa for the evening, but Booman assured us that they would return for breakfast with us.

Our bodies came back down to Earth from the Plane of Enlightenment and we walked on solid ground over to some really traditional German restaurant. It was near Checkpoint Charlie, and it was the first place that we were able to order legit German sausage in Germany. Once we got there, it was pretty good fare, but the whole stumbling upon process is not nearly as laissez-faire as you might think. We're a very democratic and politically-oriented group; thus, making a decision as important as a dinner restaurant is never a simple "Let's eat here!" We walked around the square and saw 4 different restaurants. For each one, we stopped to read the menu, analyze prices, judge the legitimacy of the German cuisine and environment, and determine a cost-benefit analysis of each locale. I won't be surprised if big scary words like "standard deviation", "chi-square test", and "Scoville rating" enter the conversation later in the trip.

From dinner we rode the U-Bahn home to find yet more "interestingness" going on at the hostel. Of the 3 mystery roommates (who unfortunately were not single Australian women), only one was at the hostel when we returned around 8pm. He was a dapper young chap from Sheffield, England, with a prep/grunge/disheveled dress style that came off as the classier side of Brad Pitt post-Fight Club. He was quiet and reserved, and we never actually caught his name. Thus I shall heretofore refer to him as He-Who-Might-Not-Be-Named (or HWMNBN, as his mates call him). HWMNBN is an avid reader, and spent much time in his bunk reading. He enjoys short walks on the beach, Nic Cage movies, and light green ballpoint pens from Morocco. He claims to have slayed four dragons last week, though I think he's blowing smoke - he only had three crystal dragon teeth on his necklace. HWMNBN had a celebrity crush on Janet Reno in the 7th grade, and swears his life on PG Tips. He is currently dating six women, two of which have business connections to Atlanta, and another one whose previous romantic entanglement is the subject of a yet-unpublished Nicholas Sparks manuscript called Christian the Lion plays a Harpsichord.

Later in the evening, a young Italian couple stopped by our room to get their stuff. Apparently, they stayed in room 213 (our room) last night, but the hostlier decided to move them to another room tonight, so they came and grabbed two bags, a white sweater, and a red unidentified garment. I kid you not about the red thing - it was far too big to be an intimate item, and it did not resemble a top or a bottom. Perhaps it was an avant-garde shawl. They took their things and went elsewhere; in the meantime Henry and Cedric had received two pairs of clean sheets in addition to the dirty sheets that still remained. We started to make up our beds, and not five minutes later the Italians returned, looking equally flustered as before. The hostlier had re-re-assigned them back to our room, and they set up their beds again. We were finally able to get cleaned up and ready for bed, and then around 11:58pm, Parker and I decided that we wanted to watch a movie, so he and I watched Crash on my bunk with a headphone splitter. I've always heard great things about it, but until then had never seen it. It was even better than my expectations, and I highly recommend it to anybody seeking an emotionally mature, intense movie that will restore your faith in humanity and your faith in God. Be sure to pay attention though, because if not you'll miss a lot of connections in the movie. As soon as the movie was over, he and I immediately went to bed.

That's all for now. Blogger-in-Chief will be cracking down on late blogging with threats of baguette deprivation. You readers are my reason for writing and I deeply wish you continued enjoyment of the blog.

Yours Truly,
Samuel Johnstone