This is the Berlin Hauptbahnhof (main train station) from the outside during the day (can you figure?). I had not had this view of the station until this walk. I made the trek over from my hostel at Freidrichstrasse to save on the transit cost and to just get more of a feel for the city. I eventually got my reservation to go to Amsterdam the next day, which was great, until I realized that I was actually supposed to reserve for the next next day. As I contemplated what to do about that I walked across the river, sat in the grass, and wrote on postcards. I had a fat wad of them in my back pocket and I noticed that they kept creeping out of my pocket as I walked. Afterward I think I came up with one person that likely had their card lost with this issue. If you did not get a card then you can be sure it was during this disaster. Anyway, the weather was nice and I somehow even got enjoyment out of watching the tourist boats go by, churning up the water, and doing their touring thing. There were lots of Germans out by the water with lawn chairs taking in all the sun too.
I eventually decided I would go ahead and use my train reservation and take the hit on one night in the hostel. But, when I told the hostel about my plans they refunded me for the last night because I gave more than 24 hours notice. It may have also helped that I had already joked with the girl at the desk but I think it would have been fine with anyone.
The hostel during the second half of my stay in Berlin was really interesting… I stayed in two huge, joined rooms that had 16 people in each one. They were serviced by what seemed like too few restrooms too, but it turned out to be one of the cooler hostels I stayed in. Even when I went to bed at 2 or 3 in the morning there would only be a couple of people asleep already and I would dread everyone returning from their parties during the night. But then I would wake up at 10 to discover that they had somehow stealthily snuck 13 people into my room while I slept. I never did see the bathrooms crowded either. I still can’t figure this out. Interestingly, there was an old lady staying in the room the last two nights that I was there and I suspected she was homeless (well, most of the time) but I’m still not sure. She had a cart of stuff but it wasn’t too crazy and she would lie in bed in the early- to late-evening hours listening to a handheld radio. It struck me as strange but, hey, no harm no foul. Eventually she tried to turned the lights off when we were both crashing out for the night but she accidentally hit the button to close the automatic windows. She freaked out and asked for help in German, of which I only understood “fenster”, but thank goodness I got that (I don’t even know where I learned that word! That’s fun… hehehe). Well, I had done the same thing with those darn windows the day before so I went through the same process of guessing which button it was until they opened up again.
My hostel during the first half of my week in Berlin was super nice too. Did I mention that in my last post? Long story short: it was super cheap, immaculately clean, and it probably had the best wi-fi of the whole two months in Europe (and it was in the whole building!). Incredible, I know.
Want to hear a story about the amazing powers of thought, philosophy, adventure, and intellect in the people you find at hostels? Too bad… But you can read about it, and right here nonetheless.
I don’t even know what I was going to do. Oh wait, I was going to ask the desk for food recommendation and then… “Hello” from some random person in my room as I walked by. I have noooo idea what we started talking about but we had a fun chat and within several minutes we had 1 American, 1 German, 1 Turk, and 1 Australian. A great mix! I had to wait a while for everyone to get hungry enough but then I all of us but the Australian walked together to a falafel place and then he joined us later after he met up with some strange old lady he had met while traveling somewhere in the world. I bet she was actually really cool but she looked like those earth-child type and I didn’t have a chance to talk to her to remove that initial judgment :-)
The falafel was awesome. It was cheap (we were in Berlin), extremely good, and presented very nicely. Here’s something though: An emaciated man with dirty and tattered clothing limped up to our table and begged for food with contorted and strained body language, showing his hunger and need for food. He got very close to us and then made praying motions toward my German friend and then even moved in to place his face on my friend’s arm as a show of desperation and pleading. We all just looked at each other for a minute feeling more awkward and terrible than I can think of in recent memory. It made my stomach turn. He then made it over to the Australian guy, grabbed his hand and kissed it. It really made me uncomfortable even from a few feet away. It was obviously disgusting but also extremely heartbreaking. The man subtly started moving away and just as he did the waiter came back out, noticed the man, then shouted and moved toward him rapidly to get him to leave. There was an instant sense of a little relief along with a sense of guilt. And then… and THEN the emaciated guy holds up his index finger to his mouth to try and silence the waiter and he walks away normally and swiftly. Are … you … freaking … kidding … me?
He was an actor. Probably a homeless one, but an actor still. A couple of weeks before this I had listened to a This American Life Episode where people acted homeless and they had a whole plan where they would change from nice clothes while selling things at street markets to crappy clothes for begging at the subway because you have “to look like a bum.” I pretty much gave up after hearing that episode of TAL but this beggar in Berlin was the last straw and I haven’t been able to give money since. I didn’t do it very often in the first place, but now I just can’t. The exception I have for now is if someone is playing music that I like then I am no longer concerned about putting in a dollar or two and listening for a minute. This rarely happens, but occasionally (at least in Europe) you get someone that is playing legitimately good music on something other than an accordion or singing on a synthesizer like that dude at Pismo Beach. Oh, another exception, in Mainz, Germany there was a guy playing an accordion like I could hardly believe. If you told me he was the Accordion Prophet I would have believed you. In Amsterdam there was a guy near the National Monument (side note: that monument is so phallic I just don’t know how it happened) and he was WHALING on the bag pipes like I have never heard. He was also on stilts that looked like goat legs and even though that was very strange I think it made it more interesting because he was (1) taller which made him seem above-human, plus (2) he had two goat legs which made him seem non-human, plus (3) he was whaling on it like no human could. All in all, it was impressive and he played for longer than I could stay around. Unfortunately I did not tip him but if I see him again I’ll sit and watch for an hour and pay him well.
I have digressed far from where I started… let me get back to it.
After eating the falafel and digesting our interesting experience, we were going to head to a bar so we could keep chatting. We had many things to discuss like German/American/Turkish culture, traveling the world, women and relationships, hostels, and beeeer (duh). For example, before we were done with dinner I found out that the German had traveled the entire Pan-American highway for a year right after high school. I thought he was my age or older, but no, he was something like 20. The Turkish guy was young too. I often find that (at least in the US) the people that I get along with best are about 3+ years older than I am but here I was fascinated and having world-class conversation with guys that could not drink in the US. So we were going to head to a bar and then I had the genius idea of spending almost 2 Euro each on a liter of beer from a grocery store instead of 2-3 times that in a dark, indoor bar. Boo! We can drink outside in Germany so GO FOR IT! I also ended up learning how to open a bottle with another bottle. It’s not super complicated but I guess I never faced the challenge until this night. I had some Berlin lager that was OK but I think lagers just aren’t ever going to make it in my book unless it is after a hike in the summer. I think my other one was a Paulaner Hell and it was de-licious. It was the envy of my drinking partners. Anyway, we must have spent over an hour here (map) watching the boats go by and enjoying the sights. ‘The sights’ was mostly the building across the water but there were also some buildings to the sides in the distance that were lit up and looking rather historical. The S-Bahn was going all night and we could see that off the left too. You know, it was cool when we were there but when I describe the experience in words like I just did I can’t believe that it actually happened, and to me!
Wow, it is impossible for me to keep to one topic. I’m getting bored of this but I will summarize our conversation by saying we learned a lot about living in Turkey, religion and science (good thing we all agreed because they were smart), and more travel stories and comparing German and American culture. I like to think that I pay good attention but my German friend could articulate his observations so well that even I learned more about Americans by talking to him. As a consequence, it was much easier for me to understand the things that I have heard about German culture too. It was funny to hear about ultra-conservatives in the US and in Germany, which was kind of strange. At one point I took a mental step back from the conversation and just listened. I thought about how earnest the conversation was and how much I enjoyed it; we all wanted good things to happen and we were going to move, quit, create, or learn anything we had to for that to happen. “Earnestness” has been put under a microscope for me over the last few months as I think about a post I read by Ben Casnocha (my go-to personal development read). There he basically says that earnestness is good but keep it in check. I like to remember this because if you are 100% earnest then you are probably taking things too seriously, but that doesn’t mean you should not care. While we’re on it, I really can’t stop thinking about Ben’s post on loyalty. I haven’t come to any definite conclusions on it but it’s just another color to paint with in life. One line from the loyalty post: “Sir Walter Scott said, ‘I like a highland friend who will stand by me not only when I am in the right, but when I am a little in the wrong.’ A lot in the wrong is different; too much loyalty and soon we’re talking about a vice, not a virtue, Felten says.” There is a larger point that the post makes which is more important to me but I can’t summarize or articulate it well. Just read it if you are interested.
One thing I learned (almost completely from this one experience) is that if I am ever feeling lost, unmotivated, unappreciated, or misunderstood all I need to do is find an earnest, forward-thinking, and/or positive person and they will give me the thoughts I need to restore order in my brain and then I can restore order to my thoughts and life.
Very early the next morning the train station. The sky had a really nice purple and pink to it that can only be alluded to by this so-so picture.
I rode some 6 or 7 hours to get to Amsterdam via three trains. I went to my hostel as soon as I could and then turned right around to take the 3 hour train to Brussels, which is where I took this picture. I had almost 3 hours in Brussels and then another 3 hours back on the train. It was a lot of time but it didn’t cost me anything extra because I had already marked that day as a travel day for my rail pass to get from Berlin to Amsterdam. I was so much in travel mode that time was of no object anymore.
I basically just walked around part of the city for 3 hours, which included walking by a bunch of the UN buildings and ending up at this big arch. The arch was cool but walking there wasn’t a very impressive thing. I hope that the parts of Brussels that I did not see were much better, and I hear that this is in fact the case. Everything was painfully expensive but I eventually found a classy market and spent 20 minutes trying to decide on some food that would keep me going for a while. I got some pasta and probably something else and then ate at a park really quick.
I was running out of time to get back to the train and I still had not had any Belgian beer which was a major issue because that was 70% of the reason that I came all the way to Brussels in the first place. I took some random road through another UN building walkway and started worrying that I wouldn’t find any cool place to have beer but then I rounded a corner and found a whole pavilion with bars and whatnot. I stopped at the first one and got a great 350ml Leffe for something like 2.40 Euros. It … was … bliss, even after all of my frantic running around. I made some stupid comment to the bartender because I wasn’t sure if I had come in rudely or ordered improperly and he warmed up quickly. The funny thing was some older guy behind me struck up a conversation with me about traveling the world, living in Europe, loving Prague (he lived there 7 years), and hating Budapest, and Brussels was OK. I told him about my adventure briefly and we had a good short chat about it. And then I told him when my train was and we decided it was definitely time for me to start running.
I made it to the train station with about 15 minutes to spare and snagged this picture. I wish the sign had fit a little better and then the people in the bottom could have come in a little bit from the corners but I did everything that I could. Oh well. Next time.
Right before I got on the train I went back upstairs and grabbed a canned Leffe for the train ride. Even though it was overpriced compared to the beer I had on tap a few minutes ago, it did prove to be the best canned beer ever, but still far worse than it’s draught comrades. At that supermarket I got some delicious (and expensive) mixed nuts and then I proceeded to spill almost all of them on the dang train floor. I wasn’t mad but it did make me a little sad. It got a conversation started with two other Belgians in my compartment and they were pretty nice.
Once I got back to Amsterdam I walked a ridiculous 40 minutes to my hostel because I was not about to pay 2.30 again for a 1-hour streetcar pass. It was such a rip-off.
Something in the main plaza in Amsterdam. My first impression of Amsterdam was that it was dirty and ridiculous but if you walk out along some of the side streets you can see some really beautiful area.
A canal somewhere to the left of the train station.
John and I were roommates and fellow adventurers in Vienna. We were able to meet back up in Amsterdam and rent a car so that we could drive on “sie autobahn.” It totally rocked for the whole 48 hours we had the car. We drove 870 miles in only about 36 hours including many hours of slow driving along the Rhine river.
First stop in Koblenz to get a castle map. Our drive had two purposes: 1) Go fast and 2) See castles. We succeeded at both in great fashion.
And by great fashion, I mean BMW X1. We got it to 125 mph. We also took it on some side roads along the Rhine River and if you had been there you would agree that was the real adventure. The Autobahn was awesome but it’s not as fast and wild as you’d think.
Castle!
Thick beer was delicious. I think the foam was made out of pure velvet magic. We just ate some food and drank some beer at this restaurant before walking along the river to make sure it was good and late before we camped out in the car under a dark tree in Sankt Goar. We had paid for the car and we’d be darned to pay for a hotel or hostel on top if it.
Like a rally.
My stupid camera went dead early in our drive so I only eeked out a few random pictures. I am very bummed about this but I will pull some pictures from my friend to give you a better idea of the castles and other sites we saw.
Bridge near Amsterdam.
The crappy store version of stroopwaffels were still amazingly delicious. We ate the whole bag before we even got out of the store so then we bought another one. I never got a chance to try fresh stroopwaffels but next time I’ll make sure of it.
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