Berlin, Germany

Friday morning Melanie and I said goodbye to Dusseldorf. We enjoyed our time spent at the adorable Hotel Haus Hilleshein which was run by the nicest people ever. Before I get too far into this post, I would just like to say that I don't know how the stereotype of the unfriendly German arose (well, I kind of do...that whole Nazi thing certainly put a damper on foreigners' perception of Germans...hmm), but so far that's all it has been, a stereotype. Everyone we've encountered either in Dusseldorf or Berlin has been extremely welcoming and warm, particularly when we make an effort to use the little German that we know. Even the TSA man at security in Dusseldorf complimented me on my necklace. I guess people just respond well to respect and kindness? What a notion! Anyways, we left Dusseldorf for Berlin on Friday. We weren't far from our hostel so we took a cab to our hostel the Jetpackers Downtown Berlin.

After checking into our hostel we decided to walk around and get to know the area. We are staying in a quaint neighborhood in former west Berlin. There are shops, cafes and restaurants everywhere you go. Since we've been in Germany we have certainly been eating well. Between Dusseldorf and Berlin we've eaten Thai food, Italian food, Japanese food, Indian food, Greek food, German food (currywurst, ja!), ice cream, and of course, as two admitted coffee addicts, drank gallons of milchkaffee and espresso. My preconceived notion that I'd be eating twice a day and mainly from markets to save money hasn't come to fruition as most of our  meals here have been well under 10 Euro each. Danke schoen, Deutschland!

Yesterday morning we got up early, because the people working in our hostel told us about a free walking tour that takes you all around the major must-see sites in Berlin. After mastering the public transport system, we arrived at Branderburg Gate where the tour was to start in front of a Starbucks, which was right next to a Dunkin' Donuts (Really, America? Really, Germany?). Our tour guide, Jonny, moved from England to Berlin in November, because he was so in love with the city, and, bonus, he majored in European history. Presto, amazing FREE tour of Berlin. Winning! Over the period of 4 hours Jonny led us around the major sites (below are pictures) and was so knowledgeable of the history of each of them. Although Melanie and I were the only Americans on the tour and thus had to take some blows from Jonny much to the amusement of the rest of the tour go-ers, the tour was very informative and entertaining. It really made me fall in love with this crazy/beautiful city. I am totally learning German and moving here someday.

Today, Melanie and I decided to check out the former east Berlin, because we had heard from numerous people that they preferred it over former west Berlin. Maybe we didn't go far enough, but I didn't find it particularly beautiful, interesting or even weird. The buildings were plain (duh, it used to be communist east Berlin). A lot of the younger hipper people live in east Berlin, I'm told, but I didn't like it very much, although Melanie did. Maybe they're trying to be ironic by living in an area filled with plain buildings instead of the gaudy, glamorous west Berlin. So decadent, ugh.

Tomorrow: Budapest!

 Brandenburg Gate

Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe

Apartment buildings where the SS lived;

Below our feet is Hitler's bunker

Nazi headquarters, swastika flags used to hang between those columns

Nazi HQ again. It's now used as a tax buildings so Berliners

can continue to hate it.

The Berlin Bear is everywhere. Like the hearts in SF.

Remains of the Berlin Wall

 Remains of the Berlin Wall

Recreation of Check Point Charlie

Recreation of the sign at Check Point Charlie. The same frame is used from the original.

At Gendarmenmarkt

Gendarmenmarkt, Huguenot church straight ahead

French Huguenot church in Gendarmenmarkt

Das Konzerthaus in Gendarmenmarkt

Melanie posing in Bebelplatz, where the Nazi book burnings happened in 1933

Bebelplatz

In the middle of Bebelplatz there is an empty underground library meant to represent the amount of books burned. They could have filled up all of those shelves.

Statue of a mother cradling her dying son. Meant to represent the horrors of war.

The Berliner Dom

More bears

Winged Victory

TV Tower in former east Berlin

Currywurst

Dusseldorf, Germany

Hello all! Melanie and I arrived safely in Dusseldorf, Germany yesterday around 2 pm local time. We took a cab to our hostel, which is quite possibly the most adorable place I've ever stayed in my entire life. We are staying in a little room complete with a double bed, a little table and chairs, and a shower and sink ensuite. Not only that but the room comes with a television. We are definitely roughing it. The first time we turned on the TV late last night, the first channel to come on was a porn channel. Ah, Europe, I've missed you. Outside of our room is a little garden area. Given the porn channel, the cute garden, and the quiet locale we're starting to think that our hostel is a little honeymoon getaway. We kind of are on our honeymoon, too, Mel and I. Ah, love.

After getting set up in our room yesterday we decided to go find a place to eat. Neither of us knew too much about Dusseldorf, given that the reason we decided to fly here in the first place was because the flight from SF was under $400, but as it turns out, Dusseldorf is adorable and has tons of cafes, restaurants and shops. Normal, IL, take note. We ate dinner and drank amazing mojitos outside at a cute restaurant near our hostel. Although neither of us speak German, it hasn't been difficult to communicate, and, funnily enough, a couple speaking Russian sat down next to us at a cafe and were commenting on how delicious my pasta looked. Even though my Russian is a little rusty, it was fun talking it again. Fun fact, the man we were talking to was a part of the Bosnian resistance once-upon-a-time and the woman used to live in LA. Small world.

This morning we woke up early sans too much jet lag and went to get breakfast at a cute cafe nearby. We have come to discover that food and drinks here in Dusseldorf are beyond reasonable. A croissant, yogurt and coffee cost only 5 Euro. Fueled and ready we decided to explore the city. The architecture here is beautiful. Lots of buildings look as though the buildings in London and buildings in SF got together and procreated. True story. Speaking of procreation, the men in Dusseldorf are G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S. It must be a pretty business oriented city, because every where you turn you see handsome men dressed in three-piece suits. So beautiful. I feel like a teenage boy doing a double take every time a guy walks by. It's not even funny. The women here are nothing to write home about, though. Maybe all the attractive women are hiding in Berlin (or subletting my apartment in IL *cough* Amke *cough*).

Another point goes to Dusseldorf for having an amazing Indian restaurant located around the corner from our hostel. 7 Euro for delicious chicken curry, naan, and a beer. Germany, ich liebe you.

Tomorrow is our last day in Dusseldorf and then we fly to Berlin for 3 days. For now, I've got to go sit out in the garden with my best friend while we paint our nails and drink a bottle of wine. Life's tough in Europe.

Tschuss!

 You don't hassle the Hoff!

Today:

Tomorrow:

- You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone.
- I still feel at home in my house.
- You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.
- Maybe.

Au revoir America, Hello Europe

Sometimes I feel so happy, 
Sometimes I feel so sad.

Sometimes I feel so happy,

But mostly you just make me mad.

Baby, you just make me mad.

Linger on, your pale blue eyes.

Linger on, your pale blue eyes.

Thought of you as my mountain top,

Thought of you as my peak.

Thought of you as everything,

I've had but couldn't keep.

I've had but couldn't keep.

Linger on, your pale blue eyes.

Linger on, your pale blue eyes.

If I could make the world as pure and strange as what I see,

I'd put you in the mirror,

I put in front of me.

I put in front of me.

Linger on, your pale blue eyes.

Linger on, your pale blue eyes.

Skip a life completely.

Stuff it in a cup.

She said, "Money is like us in time,

It lies, but can't stand up.

Down for you is up."

Linger on, your pale blue eyes.

Linger on, your pale blue eyes.

It was good what we did yesterday.

And I'd do it once again.

The fact that you are married,

Only proves, you're my best friend.

But it's truly, truly a sin.

Linger on, your pale blue eyes.

Linger on, your pale blue eyes.

Home is where the heart is

2 weeks with friends

The first night can be summed up as Katie: I'm going to fall asleep Flavia: Ok, that's it, we need to watch Hot Tub Time Machine.

Will you tell me once again
how we're gonna be just friends?
If you're for real and not pretend
then I guess you can hang with me

When my patience's wearing thin
When I'm ready to give in
Will you pick me up again?
Then I guess you can hang with me

And if you do me right
I'm gonna do right by you
And if you keep it tight
I'm gonna confide in you
I know what's on your mind
there will be time for that too
if you hang with me
hang with me

Just don't fall
recklessly, headlessly in love with me
Cause its gonna be
All heartbreak
blissfully painful and insanity
if we agree

Oh you can hang with me

When you see me drift astray
outta touch and outta place
will you tell me to my face?
then I guess you can hang with me

And if you do me right
I'm gonna do right by you
And if you keep it tight
I'm gonna confide in you
I know what's on your mind
there will be time for that too
if you hang with me
hang with me

Just don't fall
recklessly, headlessly in love with me
Cause its gonna be
All heartbreak
blissfully painful and insanity
if we agree you can hang with me

Just don't fall
recklessly, headlessly in love with me
Cause its gonna be
All heartbreak
blissfully painful and insanity
if we agree

Oh you can hang with me
Hang with me

All I want.

Hey kid

C'est à moi maintenant. 

Just like that

A few times in my life I've had moments of absolute clarity, when for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think, and things seem so sharp and the world seems so fresh. I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything, they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present, and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be. 

Caught in a pattern and I can't escape

Butterflies

A lifetime ago

Our songs

4 years later and I still remember most of them. Funny how time flies and then can stop short and come crashing into you.

Ripchord

  "I like the dark part of the night, after midnight and before four-thirty, when it's hollow, when ceilings are harder and farther away. Then I can breathe, and can think while others are sleeping, in a way can stop time, can have it so – this has always been my dream – so that while everyone else is frozen, I can work busily about them, doing whatever it is that needs to be done, like the elves who make the shoes while children sleep."

"We feel that to reveal embarrassing or private things, we have given someone something, that, like a primitive person fearing that a photographer will steal his soul, we identify our secrets, our past and their blotches, with our identity, that revealing our habits or losses or deeds somehow makes one less of oneself. " 

"Because secrets do not increase in value if kept in a gore-ian lockbox, because one's past is either made useful or else mutates and becomes cancerous. We share things for the obvious reasons: it makes us feel un-alone, it spreads the weight over a larger area, it holds the possibility of making our share lighter. And it can work either way - not simply as a pain-relief device, but, in the case of not bad news but good, as a share-the-happy-things-I've-seen/lessons-I've-learned vehicle. Or as a tool for simple connectivity for its own sake, a testing of waters, a stab at engagement with a mass of strangers." 

- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius