Berlin stole my heart....and my camera

So i shouldnt blog before I even see a city as a general rule of thumb, but i just had the most ridiculous night of aimless walking. I havent even seen berlin yet and i´m exhausted. not to mention this german keyboard is on acid. all of the characters are in different places and they dont have /'s and many other characters.

So anyway, the first night I got to berlin was quite a mess (like the rest of the trip, in retrospect). I got in at the airport around 8:30, stumbled around to find the train that took me into the city center. Took one train but where I needed to change trains, I didn't get off, so I accidentally rode the train back to the airport. Then when I got off at the right stop 30 minutes later, I couldn't find for the life of me where the train was that actually went into berlin, because everythign was under construction and there were no lights or signs, but hella people were moving around so I just stood still in the same spot trying to figure out wtf was going on. When I finally find the train I'm looking for, which is on a COMPLETELY different track and basically in another building, I ride it 2 stops before everyone gets off, even though it was supposed to end on the complete other side of town (where i needed to go). Turns out there was huge construction on a large part of the line, so the train stopped there. All the signs pointed to a bus line replacement for the lack of trains, but by this point, it'd alreayd been an hour or so, and I decided to call the hostel to get help. Poor lady heard from me like 6 times before I even got to the hostel. So i find a tram service instead of bus or subway, had to change trams at one point, and finally get to the neighborhood where I'm supposed to go. Only problem was that my map of berlin was a way too far zoomed out google maps version of berlin, so street names didn't help me at all. I basically ended up navigating the city like a maze, interpreting the shapes of the corners and angle to tell me where I was on the map. It took 1.5 hours of walking around the neighborhood where my hostel was before i RANDOMLY heard some english, stopped the people and asked if they knew where this one street was. As soon as I opened my mouth, one of the girls asked me if I was from california. didn't realize my accent was so identifiable? I always thought californians hd non-regional accents? anyway so I get pointed in the right diretion and FINALLY find the hostel.

Hostel was awesome. had free internet, great company, and a nice location. I was staying in the alternative students/artists quarter of berlin, and all the restaurants and public spaces were just really fuckin awesome. While I was walking around AIMLESSLY for the first 3 hours, i was able to witness the beer phenomenon that dominates berlin. literally everyone of all ages and styles carries a beer bottle in hand. As in, they're actively drinking it. literally everyone. I noticed at the airport, when I saw a group of teenagers get on the train with bottles, but I assumed they were just being rebels. Then at the busier stations I noticed men in suit coats, motherly looking women, kids, adults, EVERYONE had a beer! I felt left out! Then when I finally got to my quarter, it was exponentially more visible probably because it kept getting later as I was walking around. I loved that about berlin, they have no public drinking laws. There's no shame around drinking outside, but its not like people are really irresponsible. I met an american girl in my hostel, and we were talking about hwo australia, england and america have these crazy drinking problems, and those are all the countries with restrictions. fuckin europe's got it figured out, especially berlin.

BERLINS cheap as fuck. psyched for the food, it seems so multicultural, and the museums. i can tell tht i dont have enough time already. whatever. Mostly i just needed a fuckin map when I showed up, but once i got one the next morning from the hostel, I was on the go. The first day in berlin I did/saw SO many things. I'm gonna list because if not, itll be too long.

1)ate awesome pastry in a cafe in a childrens park right in front of my hostel. The cafe had a sand box inside for children
2)saw that there was a childrens market-literally, for and by children. The parents just sort of hung out in the background and socialized.
3)Found 3 different craft markets in the commercial center of the city. sunday is market day.
4)got a HUGE twice the size of my face cheese pretzel
5)saw the awesome downtown with the radio tower and all the other important buildings.
6)went into a memorial of all opressed people during world war 2 and after, really moving, and bare, just a grey statue with a red rose in front.
7)Went to bradenburg gate, which you should read about if ur interested. It was blocked off during the war and part of the death strip. now its a symbol of peace.
8)Went into a nondemonational room of silence...another nod of the head toward peace.
9)Went to the holocaust memorial, a huge series of different sized huge grey blocks. Melissa were u the one who showed me this before? it was surreal.
10)Went to the ruins of the building where the gestapo and german secret police had their headquarters. It was like an outdoor museum.
11)Went to checkpoint charlie, where the divide between east and west berlin (into the american part) was most heavily patrolled (at least thats what I gathered) It was a huge museum inside of an old house, very overwhelming, too many things on the walls, but lots of history.
12)Ate hagendaaz...lol
13)Went to the east side gallery, which is a HUGE section of the wall thats left in east berlin covered in murals, paintings/graffitti that are so beautiful...i dont even know how to explain. It was probably my favorite part of berlin.
14)Gorlitzer park-this awesome huge public park covered in grafitti, its sort of famous for its grafitti, and I went just to take pictures of it. Then i lost my camera, but im still glad I went, because the park had sucha cool vibe.
15)Went to this EPIC burger restuarant near my hostel with a girl, brook, from my hostel, and had huge pints of beer and the BEST BURGER IVE EVER EATEN in my entire life. It was called 'the works" had bacon, cheese, onions, meat, and something else amazing, as well as a huge order of chronic fries. it was kind of expensive, but a good decision.


Next day I....
1)Accidentally took the wrong train and took a detour way outside of berlin into residential countryside Germany on my way to a section of the wall
2)Went to another section of remains of the Wall in the quarter of berlin I was staying in, Prenzlauer Berg. This one was so different because you could go up into the old watch towers, where people were shot and killed if they tried to cross the wall/death strip. There was a beautiful skyline view of all of Berlin, with the radio tower, and really moving photos.
3)Ate falafel and fresh orange juice and baklava at a killer falafel restaurant
4)Found a dali museum that was open after realizing that on monday all the museums in europe are closed, and saw some of the craziest pen/pencil drawings I've ever seen. I'm a new dalì fanatic after that exhibit. The reason it was so cool was because it wasn't his famous paintings at all, it was all this sort of sketching, skulpture, and idea development stuff. I loved it.
5)bought 2 pairs of earings and new sunglasses that I really dig.
6)Went back to the burger place but only for their "Angry Hour" which is not happy hour, but the same idea. 2 pints of beer cost only 3€. I went with the girl from my hostel, and then we did a pub crawl through another hostel, and I met abunch of crazy canadians and australians.
7)Got back to my hostel at 5AM after realizing I'd lost my keys to the hostel, my eyeliner, one earring, and last but not least, my beloved DSLR camera.
8)woke up at 10:40 am when I had a 12:15 pm flight back to italy. took a cab there, and made just barely onto the flight.

I wouldn't take back a thing about berlin. Its stupid I lost the camera, but I had a great time, and I love the city. Everyone should go if they ever get a chance because it was crazy and I even had fun by myself. Its a beautiful and culturally CRAZY city.

Back to the daily grind here in italy