Berlin Battles Back

The city hit us with its secret weapon on the day of our departure; Merlin from Berlin. Merlin (although not a magician, I check) was an expert on the West end of Berlin. His tour was unique to most of the walking tours offered, as it considered "the East" to be 'obvious'. He led a group of three of us passed all the secret sites in the modern wing of Berlin... at least secret to a kid from Cal town. Merlin's tales of 20th century Berlin kept us captivated as we passed through the center of the "Golden 20's", explored the special memorial signs of the Jewish quarter (over 180 signs with different decrees outlining the absurdity of Nazi Germany). Merlin called his tour "the Jelly Donut Tour" (any history buffs out there, or people older than me, or people who have studied any US cold war history), after the famous JFK speech where his reassuring "I am a Berliner" shout to the people of West Berlin, was interpreted as Americans as a bad translation: "I am a Jelly Donut". Merlin stopped part way through the 5 hour tour (a little long, but he was enthusiastic, so we got lost in the excitement) for a lunch break (something we don't normally get into). He knew a guy, this guy owned a place, this place sold pizzas for less then 3euro, these pizzas were what I was all about. (Travel tip number 12: Pepperoni in Germany is not pepperoni, nor is it any other kind of meat that one would put anywhere near a pizza, it is in fact a pepper. Luck for me it was not a HOT pepper, but none the less, a nice thing to know.) The only down side to "Berlin with Merlin" was the left us at the most unbelievably scary U-bahn station in the city. We're talking midday Red Light district kind of scary. I not only tried not to make eye contact with anyone (I did at one point, it wasn't pretty, the guy looked like he wanted to eat me, then let his dog snack on my remains), I kept moving, never stopping, so that no one could sidle up to me. Merlin is a force to be reckoned with, I don't know if Canada is ready for him...

Part way through our walking tour one of those moments happened. It was one of those 'hey look at your life, it's being lived'. One of those 'man I can't believe this' moments. It was my first double decker bus ride. Should I feel disappointed that it didn't happen in London? I guess it's all the same excitement. I did find that the ceiling on the second level was not designed for my kind, it was more accommodating for an old German lady, or a hobbit, like Frodo.


So some idiot... it may have been me, but I will neither confirm or deny such a detail... fine it was definitely me... I came up with the idea of departing from Berlin at 6:30... AM!! It never occurred to me that it might be difficult to travel across the city at 4 in the morning. But I have seen the Amazing Race, and I am a man of adventure, so I came up with a plan (as it would turn out, it was the same idiot who booked the flight that came up with the following idea). The plan was to check out of the hostel (which we did), explore West Berlin (see above's Berlin with Merlin), get dinner (dinner and lunch, what a luxury), pick up our bags from the hostels storage (no problems there), then make our way to the airport, and spend the night (just like the Amazing Race teams, right? WRONG?) Turns out Berlin-Tegel closes. We found this out in time for me (remember the idiot) to come up with yet another plan: spend the night at the central train station in Berlin. This idea was working well until about 2 o'clock when a large, very German, "police commander" in a ridiculous uniform told me in one of those voices they use for 'Demons' in bad horror movies "NO SLEEP HERE! NO SLEEP, HERE". I ended up grabbing 2 shotty hours of sleep (which would last me for over 36 hours, well into Athens). That's it right? That's the end of the excitement for Travel day Berlin-to-Athens... right? WRONG!

The 6:35am flight was set to board at 5:50am. Neil and I were at the gate at 5:15, conservative? Maybe. But none of that mattered, because we didn't board at 5:50, we didn't board at 6, we didn't even board at 6:30... we got on the plan at 6:35am. This happened only because we had a connecting flight in Nurnberg that we needed to catch at 8:25. So why the delay? I have no idea, it's all in German, no one speaks freakin English, all I know is we didn't have a plane. Planes were taking off all over the airport, but our gate couldn't get a hold of one of these bad boys. We finally started to taxi out. The captain then explained that we were 7th in line. WHAT? Who is running this airport where a plan that is 30 minutes late has to wait in line for another 25. I was freaking out (to myself of course, no one likes a party pooper on the Red Eye). It was the most nerve racking 45 minutes I have experienced all trip (it would later be out done by a certain 15 minutes in Athens, but that's still to come). We landed at 8:10. We were in the middle of the plane, and people could care less if we needed to connect, "We all have places to be" (queue German accent). 8:20 we were in our seats, on plan two, 10 minutes later we finally said good-bye to Germany. It was a fun little Tuesday.

This approach to travel may not be suitable for all travelers. Proceed with caution, and a few contingency plans.

So, next up Athens. All Greek myths, and ancient ruins? Well, not quite...