Berlin and now Amsterdam!

It has been really difficult to be productive this week. Good thing it’s another short week! Whitney, Sara, and I begin our Amsterdam journey tonight with the 12:30am bus to Madrid and a flight Thursday morning. I found out that I actually didn’t miss too much class work on Wednesday last week and was able to get notes from the classes I missed Thursday when I was in Berlin. I also found out that I did fairly well on the History midterm that I was so scared about getting back! So, all good grades, except I still haven’t gotten back my Islamic Culture one, but I’m pretty sure I did well on that. Yesterday I got a letter from my grandfather (I love mail!) and the best package from mom, full of DayQuil/NyQuil and Tylenol PM! I think I’ll be set for the rest of the semester, although I am feeling significantly better than the entirety of the past month. Alright, so while I’m off in Amsterdam here’s some light reading about my trip to Berlin last week:

April 14 (Tuesday) 11:15pm
I am currently hanging out at the bus station waiting for my 1:30am Supra bus to Madrid that will actually take me straight to the airport, so I won’t have to worry about messing with the Metro. Unfortunately, the Granada city buses, namely good old number 10 near my house, stop running around 11pm. I didn’t want to pay a lot for a taxi to the bus station so I just got here early and will hang out for a couple of hours. My flight from Madrid is at 8:50am tomorrow, so I will get to Berlin around noon-ish. I am pretty excited about traveling somewhere without anyone and yet having someone waiting for me at the airport when I arrive!

April 15 (Wednesday) 9:45am On the plane!
So normally I would just now be waking up to get ready to go to class, he he! This Supra bus experience wasn’t really what I had expected, nothing like the one on our Paris trip. First of all, around 1:30am there were two buses about to leave for Madrid and neither of them were my bus. So there was a bit of confusion there until the Supra bus pulled into the station. I took some Tylenol PM to help me sleep, but I still didn’t sleep that well, off and on the whole trip. Then the dumb bus stopped for ½ an hour half way into the journey; I thought the Supra buses were suppose to be non-stop! This journey also lacked a stewardess giving out endless snacks, like the one Whitney and I had before Paris. But what was really aggravating was that the bus went to the Madrid bus station, not the airport! I had to get off, grab my suitcase, and get on a separate bus that took me to the airport.
And I hate the stupid Madrid-Bajaras airport, it is so dumb! I did self check in just fine around 7:15am and my ticket said the flight would be out of gate M. To get to gate M I went through security, long line but not ridiculous, and then went downstairs and took a train/subway a little ways to the separate section of the airport. In the area of M gates I looked at the Departures board and all it said was my flight was at gates HJK. A couple of things wrong with this: First, that’s 3 possible sections of numerous gates. Second, I had just left HJK because my boarding pass said M! Grr!! So I just went into the bathroom and tried not to look like I had just ridden a bus through the night. Then I ate my orange for breakfast outside the Starbucks, which I have still resisted since arriving in January, and watched the departures board. It wasn’t too long before it showed a real gate for the Berlin flight, H6, great. So back downstairs and on the subway to get to H. Then I had to go through security AGAIN! What the heck?! Eventually I got to the correct gate and was still there about 15 minutes before boarding even started. I’ve already had to go to the bathroom on the plane, which I don’t like doing, because I was forced to down my water bottle not once, but twice, before each trip through security!

9:55pm Berlin!
This was the first time traveling between European Union countries that I’ve been asked to show my passport. Then the police man kept asking for my Spanish Residence Card and didn’t believe me when I told him the Spanish Consulate only gave me a student visa. Finally he just said “ok, it’s your choice” and handed me back my passport and I left the baggage area. Ok, jerk, it’s actually not my choice if I don’t have one. It was also the first time traveling this semester that I had someone waiting for me when I landed and that felt so good! It’s a good thing my great-aunt Claudia came to pick me up because it would have been pretty stressful locating her apartment from the airport on my own. From the airport we took about a 30-40 minute bus into the city. Then we waited about 10 minutes at a bus stop outside the main train station for another bus which dropped us off about a block from her apartment. Her building was the only one on the block to survive WWII and is the only residential building surrounded on both sides by businesses. It is also on a dead end street so it is a nice and quiet location. Their balcony overlooks the Spree River with all its boats and they live near a bus stop, train stop, and metro station. What a perfect place to live!
Peter was at home and then we ate sandwiches for lunch out on the balcony. Then Claudia and I basically just walked outside and took a boat tour at 2:30pm until almost 6pm. It is such nice weather here now, mid 70s! It’s warmer and sunnier here than what I left in Spain. Unfortunately, the tour was only in German, but Claudia pointed out important place and translated what she could for me. Berlin is so lush with grass and trees everywhere. There were tons of people sitting on the banks because of the nice weather. On the boat we had wine spritzers and just talked and caught up with each other, its been about four years since we last saw each other.
When we got back we all went out to a local restaurant for dinner; its nice eating earlier and not waiting until nine for dinner. We all had spargel, white asparagus, which was quite delicious and just came into season. Later we took a walk around the city, and went by one of the three opera houses and the plaza where Nazis had conducted book burnings. I love being with people that know they city, so I can see local favorites as well as all the tourist sites.

April 16 (Thursday)
I slept in this morning until about 10, awesome! My first thought was, “ha! I’ve already missed a class and should be half way through my 2nd one of the day.” Today Claudia took a city tour on top of a double-decker bus. This one was in German and English, so it was much easier to understand! It was a hop-on/hop-off bus ticket, so we got off at the Holocaust Memorial to look around a bit. The memorial is basically hundreds of coffin-like blocks of concrete at all different heights; some are flat on the ground, some you can sit on, and some were about 3 times as tall as me. The new American Embassy is also right there across the street and Claudia told me about getting to attend its opening gala. Then we got back on the bus and drove around the Reichstag, where the government meets (it has a large glass dome you can walk up through) and by the Hauptbahnhof, the main train station. We went through a roundabout with a large column in the center where apparently Obama spoke before the election (or maybe inauguration) and thousands of people attended. (Too bad no one famous has come close to Granada this semester. Tom Cruise was in Madrid at one point promoting “Valkyria,” but I think he’s crazy.) We also passed tons of embassies; there are at least: American, Australian, Mexican, British, Dutch, Finish, Saudi Arabian, Moroccan (I was able to name that flag after my last trip!), Italian, Korean, Chinese, French, and Japanese embassies in Berlin (and those are only the one I actually saw). We ended our tour at Checkpoint Charlie and then met Peter at a chocolate store, yay! So I did some damage there and then we went to a café and had iced coffees outside. I’ve decided this is how coffee should be drunk from now one, with ice cream, whipped cream, and through a straw!
After our coffees we went back to the apartment and Claudia and Peter were going to do some work, so I grabbed a map and set out about the town. I discovered the huge mall, but didn’t go in, a synagogue, and took the metro back to the Holocaust Memorial to get some more pictures. For dinner Peter cooked pasta (my favorite!) and we had Chateau Tessyier wine, which was cool because of the family name, Tessier. After dinner Claudia and I went up into the Reichstag dome and saw the city at night; the dome itself is also very architecturally interesting.

April 17 (Friday)
This morning I had a Berliner for breakfast, a jelly donut that JFK called himself during his infamous visit. We didn’t have any definite plans for the day so we headed over to KaDeWe, a huge department store, we think bigger than Harrod’s in London. On the way we stopped to have a bratwurst. KaDeWe certainly was huge with at least six floors. The 2nd highest floor was entirely of food; it was like Central Market on steroids, with sections for everying: cheese, pork, ham, seafood, and more. Within every section was a bar/eating area specializing in that type of food (a potato one, seafood one, etc.). We ate lunch at one of these bars in a meat section.
After lunch we went to Alexander Platz to go up into the TV tower that overlooks the city, for a daytime view of Berlin. We bought tickets, but you can’t enter until the number on your ticket is called, and our number(s) wouldn’t be called for 2 hours! So we headed over to the Galeria department store to kill some time the female way. We also went to a café for a drink and there was an interesting group of German men nearby. We saw them go through many rounds of beer and a few shots and even heard some singing. There was even a nice rendition of “It’s Raining Men” when it began to sprinkle.
Eventually we got up into the tower, and I had though the Reichstag was high, it looked almost flat from up there. It was cool to see the city during the day and point out all the places I’d been too. On the way back home on the metro we were checked for tickets. (I really like the system in Berlin. There are no turn-styles to go through, so you are basically on the honor system. You have to buy a ticket and validate it in a separate machine and then hold onto it. Every now and then there are random checks and if you don’t have a validated ticket it is an immediate 40 Euro fine, without excuse.) Once the doors to the train closed and everyone was securely inside a man dressed in everyday clothing whipped out his ID and stared checking everyone. A man and a woman had to follow him off at the next stop, so I think they were busted.
A little before 7pm we walked to the restaurant we had dinner reservations at. It was a local place with each room decorated differently; we were in a room decorated like a kitchen and the room next to us was like a dining room. Friday and Saturday nights they have a man come and play the piano and sing. He began shortly after we were seated and, according to Peter, was singing a bunch of old songs about Berlin, that was one word that I could identify. The music was nice with dinner, which I had duck! It was really good, but I wouldn’t say it was exactly like chicken. I also tried some of Claudia’s pig’s foot and Peter’s venison, both good. Good thing I’m not picky and adventurous, at least when it comes to food. We walked back home by the river and under some apple blossom trees, a very nice way to end the trip.

April 18 (Saturday) 1:45pm On the plane to Spain.
Berlin trip over, back to Spain. Claudia and I left a little after 9am and said goodbye at a bus stop where I got the bus that would take me to the airport. The line for check-in was pretty long; I’m definitely more of a fan of self check-in, but there were none. I still set off the metal detector through security though there was no metal on my person. So I was able to get pretty friendly with a nice German security lady that patted me down/felt me up before letting me leave the country! Eventually we got on the plane, boarding at the scheduled time of take off. The plane is suppose to land in Madrid at 3:30pm and I would like to make the 4:30pm bus to Madrid. It takes around 45 minutes to navigate the metro from the airport to the bus station, but hopefully I can make it if I run.

5:45pm
I did not make the 4:30pm bus, ugh! Even with rushing off the plane and practically running through the airport and metros, I got to the bus station at 4:40pm, how frustrating! So I had to wait for the 5:30pm bus, but it turned out alright. Normally Madrid to Granada buses are full, but I have my own row. Sometimes there is even a bad movie to watch, but today it’s X Men 2!