"That sounds like a Frenchman!"

so basically the owner of the hotel I stayed in hated me. when I checked in, he said he didn't know any english, so we did the whole hand guestures and fragmented language to get across what we needed to say. the first morning I was in the hotel, I go to breakfast and he wouldn't let me choose where to sit. I had to sit at the table for 1 since I was by myself...and I was totally sensitive about being by myself. mealtimes aren't really fun alone. I was at breakfast at 7:45am and I was the only person there. 10 more people would have had to come to breakfast for it to be a problem that I was sitting at a table set for 2 people. grr.

so the next day, I have to change rooms. from 7 to 9, no big deal. his wife comes and changes front door keys with me, from the one labeled 7 to labeled 9. I guess so I remember which room I'm supposed to sleep in. and frau hotel lady tells me that I can leave my bag on the floor because the room is not ready yet (told to me in half german, half english). so I go and grab the #9 key to put my bag on the floor and all hell breaks loose. she starts fussing in german and so I stop what I'm doing...and then the mean hotel owner yells at me in english! ENGLISH. did you manage to learn a new vocabulary overnight? I don't think so....you're just a jerk! this same morning I also used the telephone in the "lobby" of the bed & breakfast. I used the german toll free number to use my phone card just like in every other place I've stayed in europe. all's well, I have to leave my bag in the hallway (because that's the safest place for it, not to mention, anyone could pick up any key they wanted) when I came back downstairs I was fussed at again! and in english fyi, because the phone didn't say how long I had been on it, so he didn't know how much to charge me. I tried to explain that it was a free call and that it was toll free, but that didn't mean anything to him. "there's no free calls! I have to pay for it!" grr.

so check-out day: I turn in my key and it's like he's trying to talk as little as possible. my bill is for 3 nights, with no phone calls. I decide not to question it because I think he's a stingy whack-o. but I know that he's not the type to forget when someone owes him money, so I think that he called the phone company to see what phone calls were made from his b&b. and surprise surprise my call didn't cost a thing. and while he didn't charge me, I didn't get an apology either...


traveling alone is supposed to teach you about yourself....mine was more of a smack in the face reminder of what I already knew. I know I don't like being alone in general, so traveling alone in a new place definitely wasn't the best thing for me to do, but I'm really glad I did. a little bit of personal annoyance and the bad luck of the hotel owner was majorly better than sitting alone in tautenburg with my computer or sitting in my hotel because I'd managed to at least get away from the telescope. besides, I know I'll come back at least to italy and probably won't make it all the way north to france.

if you can't trust the tourist information center, you can you trust?

so I was off again in Heidelberg. I wanted to take a boat tour at 11:30 so that it would be done in time for me to walk around a bit by the river and still make it to the train station in time to meet Christina after her conference. so around 10:20 I make my way down Hauptstrasse to Bismarckplatz to catch the bus to the Altesbruecke. well, as usual, I miss the bus every time by about a minute, so I decide to walk. yikes. after an entire day of walking around france, my feet were not keen to walk around germany as well. so I walk to the river and then along it for for-ev-er, limping a bit from the gi-normous blister on the ball of my foot. I get to the platform for the boat tour around 11:15 but I ended up not taking the tour afterall becuase it just wasn't up to the standard that I expected after the boat tour in france. it was lacking...lacking a boat. I arrive with my brochure to have a nice seated relaxing ride on the river and getting to see all the famous parts of Heidelberg and hear about the city, but no. bad information/incorrect brochure from the lady in tourist information. strike 2 against her. I had fun in heidelberg, just a bit of bad luck with the people I met. then I decided that I would walk around in that section of town because I hadn't been this far yet. coincidentally, a few blocks straight from the river, put me in about the place I had been when I started out for Bismarckplatz. so I went the opposite direction in hopes of finding *something* new, and I totally stumbled across the big church and Dem Rot Ochsen, both places Christina and I were supposed to go after we met. I made it back to the Bismarckplatz to catch a bus to the Hauptbahnhof, but as usual, just missed the busses that went there, so opted to wait for the 1:29 even though I was supposed to meet Christina at 1:30, but I figured she would understand since her blisters had recently healed from Berlin 2 weeks prior. Christina arrived about 5 minutes later than I did and we both had the complaint that the busses just took forever to go anywhere so no harm done in being late.

we dropped her backpack off at my hotel and got an extra room, because the hostel in heidelburg is NOT good, and this was fortunately done with hotel owner guy's son-in-law. we hopped back on the bus and headed to Bismarckplatz and walked all the way down to the Heidelberg Church. We went inside and sat down to admire the architecture and the stained glass. this building was truely unique because of the stained glass. the windows on the right were done in traditional stained glass, save the one in the very back which was traditional except that is said E=mc^2 which we guessed to represent the unification of theology and physical science. (we didn't go as far to assume that they were trying to represent the church accepted all science....) the windows on the left side of the church were done in a style of modern art. pieces of broken glass and computer images on cellophance were placed between two sheets of clear glass. One window was a stack of books with a laptop and a comet. evesdropping on the tour that was sitting nearby told us that the window was supposed to represent the advances in technology and the comet for how the wisemen found the baby jesus.

since we're in germany, everything has to close by 6:30, so we head on over to dinner at the Red Ox Inn. we didn't get the whole college tavern feel I was hoping for, but it was still a really cool place. there were drinking songs and these ladies were taking shots and so there were all sorts of screams and such, but basically yay for german drunk people.


new food:
jagersnitzel
spaezle
pfefferlingen

Where to today? Miles (kilometers) away.

ahhhh....public transportation.

Christina and I took the 5 hour train ride to Heidelberg because she had a conference there, and I'm just about up for anything. we arrive at the Hauptbahnhof, grab maps from the service desk and head off to find the hostel for Christina and the hotel for me. now, I can handle hostels, but the one in Heidelberg was supposedly kinda gross, and it turned out to be true. so I check in and head out to spend the evening in heidelberg. I went to the tourist information booth first thing because I didn't know really where to go for anything yet. I mean, I had a map, but street names can only help so much. the "sights" of heidelberg are pretty much the castle and the river for all practical purposes, so I enquired about those at the tourist information center and got brochures for tours and such....and now off to the castle. the lady said I could take either the 11 or the 33 and that they would say castle in english on the bus. yeah right, I knew right away that there would be absolutely no english and figured they would say schloss instead and got on bus 11. well, I don't hear anything of the sort, and actually the bus I was on didn't have announcements over the loud speaker, just a sign at the front of the bus giving the next stop name. so I get off the bus at what looks like the closest bus station to the castle on the map and look for the train that goes up the mountian. no luck. ok, well I'll just get back on #11 or #33 and go a couple more stops. I took 11 the first time, and 33 just happened to be the first of the two back to the train station. well a couple more stops on 33 just happened to take me off of my map, and number 33 reappeared again on the map down by the castle so I figured I'd wait a few more stops. as it turns out, bus 33 also reappears on the map up in the mountains which is where I ended up. apparently 11 goes to the castle after the s-bahn and 33 goes before that station. great. so realizing that I'm on this bus in pretty much the middle of nowhere with no more bus stops that could help me get anywhere, I got up and asked a family if the bus turned around and went back down at the end. there response was "you want to go back down to heidelberg?" like we were really far away which equals bad situation for me. I explained the whole situation and they didn't know, and then the man went and talked to the bus driver for me because we didn't know if he would speak english. 35 or so is kinda the cut off for assuming that someone knows english. (which is why I don't like to give money to the beggers here because they all know english and could get a job, but that's and entirely different story.) so I ride the bus to the end, sit on the bus for 10 minutes for his break or whatever and head back down to heidelberg. I try again to make it to the train up to the castle. I get off the bus and head up the road towards where the train is supposed to be. I'm walking and I see a tunnel with train tracks....ok, they hid the station. back down and eventually find it. basically a bigger ordeal than it has to be, but it's ok because I made it there and it wasn't even near sunset yet. the castle was pretty cool at night/evening/late afternoon/whenever I was there. it's bigger than I thought it would be and they were able to restore a lot of it. One of the towers actually collapsed from an explosion. turns out they kept the gun powder in that particular tower. it blew half of the tower off, but the two pieces stayed practically intact. then in trying to get back down the mountain, the door to the train station was locked. how annoying.

"so the sticky part is sticky, you say..."

the last day in berlin. we dropped our bags in the trainstation and then headed out on the subway to checkpoint charlie. first we went to the museum. the exibits were of people who escaped or tried to escape east germany to west germany. some examples:
~they would hide people in cars in a metal box lined with plywood with the engine of the car (the plywood was so that they didn't get burnt)
~since a car with a person hidden in it looks heavy/weighs more, those cars would pass through the gate between two even more heavily packed cars so that they didn't seem as heavy.
~they hid 3 people inside a welding machine. the people got inside without even knowing what it actually was, because honestly, it would be difficult to talk yourself into getting inside a welding machine.
~a lady rode on top of a car between two hollowed out surfboards.
~a little boy went on a train across the boarder in a rolling suitcase. his mother had permission to go the west, but she was ordered to leave her son.
~they would use these 3 piece ladders that could be hidden in shopping bags and then hidden close to the wall. they would build it up really fast and get over and in most cases swim away from east germany.
~a family were going to escape in a hot air balloon, but something went wrong and they went down earlier than they were supposed to and when they landed, soldiers came up to them and told them that they had made it to the west and hugged them. yay.
~tons of people crossed over in tunnels. there was a group of older people that wanted to leave and they were told that they would never make it through the tunnel they knew of, because they would have to crouch down and kinda run. so, they built their own tunnel that was tall enough for them to stand up in and helped many people across as well.

there is also a memorial at checkpoint charlie for all the people that died while trying to escape east germany. each person has a cross with a description of how they died, and most have a picture. next, we headed to the pergamonmuseum, which is basically an archiologist's dream. there was a roman temple inside. I'm not kidding. it has a giant staircase into the courtyard that tells the story of a classical hero that fufills the prophesy that he will kill his father and become a king. he also almost gets involved with his mother since his dad had him sent away, but he found out about his mother in time. they also had a model of ancient Babylon and an ancient islamic exhibit.

this was totally the weekend of bad news and bandaids. I was almost arrested on the subway, and christina and autum suffer from massive blisters. not to mention that east german people in berlin just really aren't that nice...

Live 8

We started out the morning at an art gallery to see some matisse and van goh. the gallery was right at the charlottenburg schloss so we got to see that too as an added bonus. we met Dr. Manson at the gallery and he took us to lunch at this little outdoor cafe down the street. I think this was my favorite area of berlin. I'm not exactly sure what side of the wall it'son, but it kinda felt like carytown in richmond. I was getting anxious at this point because I really wanted to get to the live 8 concert because I knew that we wouldn't be able to stay for the whole thing....but we had to head back to staatsoper for the 2nd time of the day to try and get our opera tickets. we went there early in the morning, but they hadn't opened...contrary to rick steeves...liar. anyway we get to the operhaus and they say we have to come back an hour before it starts to buy student tickets...ugh. it really wasn't as bad as I make it out to be. Dr. Manson took us on the scenic routes on our way...and by scenic we took the bus that goes by all the famous building so we would see them before we left berlin. we got to our stop at the brandonburg gate and we were at the live 8! it was really weird because at first we couldn't hear anything, and I figured there would be at least a couple stages since there were so many artists, but no. the concert area was so huge they didn't have enough speakers to fill it. we got about halfway to the stage so that we can see a screen and hear. they weren't singing in english, so you're welcome to read my shirt and take your own guess. Dr. Manson basically just wanted to see it I guess and he decided to peace, but not before we got some blackmail...(if you know how to make it let me put it not at the top, let me know...I don't have time to fight with it right now). we had to leave the concert at 5 so that we could get home to change for the opera, but we get there and people are in jeans and t-shirts....from live 8. I would have loved to have chilled at live 8 until we had to leave to be on time for the opera...but it takes like 20 min each way on the subway, and then we're girls so *occasionally* we use a little extra time to get ready. oh well, it was still absolutely amazing and we got to be all sorts of cultural and classy. we saw La Boeme at the Staatsoper and it was really good. I know I didn't quite get everything to the story though. while it was in italian, understanding someone speak italian and understanding someone opera singing italian are completely different...plus it was supertitled in german, and we all know I'm not gonna understand that. but it turned out that I was the way dressed up one. why? you ask? because I was wearing black pants and Autumn and Christina wore jeans. slackers. and they were the ones who wanted extra time...well Autumn...in the hotel.

All in all, you're just another brick in the wall....

this morning we got up and went to the berlin wall to see the east side gallery. it's almost a mile of the wall that houses mostly political/historical art and some grafitti too. it was kinda a good day to see the wall. it was rainy and gross and since the wall's kind of a negative thing anyway, it worked out. we walked along the wall taking pictures and we found a place to sign the wall...yay! at the end of the wall we took the train to brandenburger tor to see the Brandenburg Gate. the one that that is cool about east germany is the crosswalk light. it's a fun little dude with a hat. and when it's ok to cross the street, he's all happy and jolly and walking...but when it's time to stop, he's like hella enforcer with his little arms out. We found the brandenburg gate amidst the construction (east germany is one giant construction site). they had a giant picture of what the gate looked like when the wall came down, and then a big timeline on the back of when the wall went up and came down and everything in between. leaving the gate was a bit difficult...we couldn't exactly find the way out on the other side at first so it was kinda weird how the wall came down, but there's another wall now...hmmm.... we could see the Reichstag and the Siegessaule from the gate. we went to the holocaust memorial instead. it is brand new. it was built in may and is a bunch of blocks at different heights, and we're not exactly sure what they represent because the little bronze plate was in german and we're pretty sure it didn't say anything important anyway. the memorial is for everyone who died in the holocaust, not just the jews: gays, gypsies, random killings, everyone. when I saw the memorial it wasn't even two months old, but thanks so some east jerkman schwine, there is graffitti on it. hey retard, your country was trying to apologize for idiots like you following Hitler and you had to go and ruin it. beyond tragic. I'm going to go back there and write "dear graffitti artist, you suck. love, anna" in spray paint next to it.
Our next adventure was to find the birkenstocks that Autumn wants. we've been to stores in Munich, Jena, and now Berlin, yet no luck. so we headed to potsdamerplatz to the sony center for dinner. basically it's the newest part in berlin and it was the coolest until we found out why it was the newest place in Berlin. we were totally in Hitler's Berlin Bunker. excuse me! that should be posted somewhere thank you very much! because we took the sunway there which means that we were in it. we had dinner in the bad place and then chilled at the hotel.