Boy, is it ever hard to type in a German keyboard..!
I'm going to type it on the iTouch and then transfer the note here...
Please stand-by, having technical difficulties,
Hehehe
Europe - Day one
Berlin, day one.
It's a cool Saturday morning.
I had a good night rest. The Corsis sleep in, while I am up reading the Spanish/German dictionary (worterbuch - book of words) first word i looked up was snore (schnarchen) i wanted to ask if i snored too laud (laut) and then I read the Lonely Planet's intro to Germany and the whole section of Berlin. So much to see, so much history to take in.
Signs of life are heard at 9ish when lovely Maru wakes up and takes a bath, no shower in das Corsi Hauss.
Maurissio is next to wake up sometime around 10:30am, followed by Sabri at 11ish. I see they are nothing like Marioto.
I've unpacked, well, moved my stuff from one backpack to another, and the bathroom stuff out.
So far, I've learned two new words, breakfast = , and pepata (sp) that I don't know what it is yet, but is some kind of fruit (now I know it's dragon fruit) - Coffee is good, pressed and strong, and just one spoon of sugar. I can get used to this!
By this time I've taken a bath, might take a while getting use to this after I'm used to my 18min showers and very hot water.
Now Maru and I start our walk to the S-train station towards East Berlin. The train station is very similar to the ones in Mexico, wide halls, and ads on the walls full of graffiti.
Alexander plaza is our first stop. Big as plaza with stores every where, a street car stop and the famous TV Tower. To my surprise, there was a Starbucks, a Burger King and a KFC which made me dislike the New World some.
Maru was great, she spoke in very simple German, used hand signs and even some English. I understood 70% and guessed the rest.
We walked fast, and for ever. She showed me gorgeous streets that looked like old movie sets. We walked alone side where the Berlin Wall was, there is a stone line that traces the Wall, in some areas there are some pieces still standing and there is a small memorial for a few people that were killed trying to cross the wall. The streets were icy, the weather was cold and the wind was blowing, but the City was very much alive, and the people seemed warm. Graffiti is everywhere! and I mean Everywhere! There is mo trash, but the streets are not clean, cigarette butts everywhere. I even saw a dead rat.
Berlin is big into cultural things, they have an area called museum island. New Art, Old Art, film, Egyptian, anthropology, film, history, Holocaust and film museums are there. Some are in old buildings and some are still being done.
The Opera House was gorgeous, the square where the embassies are, are all less then 5 yrs old, the arch of ... is on my birthday's plaza - march 18
Not too far from there is the Berline Dom, a gorgeous cathedral. I think I need to find a new word besides Gorgeous, but everything is gorgeous here.
I'm going to bed now, but I will comeback to finish this first day.
Ok, back to day one...
Mary and I managed to have a great tour of East Berlin and made it back on time to go with Sabri to Patty's home for dinner. Patty is Sabri's friend from Napoli.
On our walk there Sabri showed me an old bunker that still standing and around the bunker they built a "luxury apartment complex" that was never luxurious, to the contrary, it's low income family condos called Pallast. This area has a lot of history. In 1910, the Germans built a huge (and first of it's kind) indoor winter game stadium - das SportsPalast. They used to play hockey there. Years later it became the gathering place for political party rallies, Hitler made a few speeches there. It was also the site for the four nations headquarters. After WWII, it was recondition and once again was a sports centre, concert arena and convention place, but the bad economics forced them to destroy it and build the apartment complex.
Back to Patty's home... she had a full house. I drank one Budweiser, The original Czech beer, and we all ate Gernitzels.
After the dinner party, we walked to the train station and went to a coffee place, where Sabrina had a meeting to work on her group project. We walked in front of a Mexican Cantina, and of course I took a picture.
After the meeting we came straight home. I was going to go to a party, but I'm still jet lagged.
Once we made it home, i checked my emails, and I was able to connect the iTouch to the net, no more writing notes, emailing them, and copy/paste to the blogger.
Time to call it a night, the iTouch battery is a little low.
Guten Nacht!.
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