Europe Trip, Part 3 - Berlin.

So, Germany wasn't exactly high on my list of travel destinations. I don't know why, but it was just a country I never gave a shit about seeing. I guess sausages and Nazis aren't my thing. But, they do have all the of qualifications I usually require in a destination:

1. They have a tourist site or two.

2. They like beer there.

And getting from Riga to Budapest was an expensive flight that involved going through Berlin anyway...so why not? I decided to just stay one night and see what Berlin's all about. I'm glad I did, because it completely blew away my expectations.

The flight over from Riga (after the drunk dude drove me to the airport) was uneventful thankfully, since no one wanted to murder me on this plane. Berlin airport transportation is a little bit lacking, so I just took a cab to my hotel. Apparently every cabbie in Berlin has to be able to speak fluent english to get the job...sweet. My driver had one of those impossibly large moustaches that makes you wonder how he even gets food into his mouth, but he was nice enough. The ride to the hotel went through areas that looked sort of dreary and beat up, which reinforced my prior opinion of Germany...blah. That would change though.

I booked my hotel on Priceline and got a really good deal, but it was a straight up business hotel. It took me 25 minutes just to check in, but everyone spoke english perfectly and my room was really nice. I immediately headed out to see what kinda cool shit Berlin had to offer. And I wanted to see if the rumors about German girls were true...are they either really ugly or really hot? Is there no in between? These questions needed answers, dammit. Unfortunately for me, I didn't study at all beforehand...just grabbed a tourist map from reception and got to steppin. Not so smart.

Directly down the street from the hotel is the 2nd coolest park ever - the Tiergarten. Obviously nothing can beat Stanley Park, but this place was pretty sweet, and fucking huge. I walked along the edge of it for a while until I came upon a bunch of the touristy stuff - the Holocaust Memorial being the first. It was the strangest memorial I'd ever seen. It was thousands of these concrete blocks that you can walk around. I didn't see any inscriptions or anything....just blocks. Very odd.

After that, I found some big statues and arches and stuff, but since I hadn't studied, I had no fucking clue what I was looking at. I still don't. There were a whole lot of flags for some reason. Woo. The city is laid out very well for tourism though - even without the map I would have found my way around easily, due to all the street signs pointing out directions and distances to each tourist site. It's something a lot of cities should invest in.

As for the girls so far...I don't know. I was surrounded by tourists, so I have no idea if I actually saw a German girl or not. How was I supposed to tell? Do they smell like sauerkraut or something? This is why I should have studied first, so I would have at least known how to sniff out a German girl or two.

Wow, that sounded a little creepy.

Anyway, after wandering around for a couple of hours, I was really hungry, but couldn't find any restaurants around. Kinda weird, but whatever. My hotel had food, so I figured I'd head back there. The quickest way back was through the mother of all parks, so I cut through. I can't really do it justice with words...it's just really nice. Since it was covered in snow, not a lot of people were cruising through it like me, so it made it feel like I had the whole place to myself. Little bridges cross frozen rivers all over the place, and there were big statues and sculptures everywhere...it's just really cool. There are pics somewhere on my FB page if you care. But if you're ever in the neighborhood, I'd highly recommend checking it out.

My only problem with my trip through the park was the stupid fucking hole in my shoe that I acquired in Stockholm. It kept getting packed full of snow, so I'd have to stop and dig it out every 5 minutes or so. The only 2 times I saw other people in the park, I just happened to be hopping around on one foot like a retard doing just that. Joyous. The first encounter was normal enough, but the 2nd one...not so much. While hopping and trying to watch the first German girl I'd seen so far walk by (I could smell it!)...

I hopped the wrong way, tripped, and ate shit into the snow face first. Yeah.

I didn't even get a chance to see what she really looked like...because I was face down in snow. Well, that sucked. I'm still trying to figure out how that happened to me...I mean, it's the Germans that are supposed to eat shit, not me! Ehhh? Amiright? Scheisse!

So after chalking up embarrassing moment # 12 on the trip so far, I dragged my cold carcass back to my hotel. I walked into the lobby, and there was nothing going on...totally dead. I went up to my room and chilled for a bit, then decided to come down and get some food. Not even an hour had passed, but when I emerged out of the elevator back in the lobby, it was PACKED with people.

I guess it was some sort of convention. I had never seen anything like this in person (because I'm a scrub), so I found it highly entertaining. It was straight outta the movies...all dudes in nice suits with stupid German nametags stuck to them, BSing with each other in groups. And hot chicks in little skirts walking amongst the crowd, carrying trays full of flutes of champagne and hor d'oeuvres***.

***Yes you bastards, I did have to look up how to spell that, because I've sure as hell never had one before.

I just stood there outside the elevator for at least a minute, watching this controlled insanity. At that point, one of the hot chicks walked by with champagne, and just sorta stopped in front of me, looking at me. I'm not sure why...maybe she was trying to figure out what the hell a guy in jeans and a hoody was doing standing there. Either way, I wasn't about to pass up an opportunity for free booze, so I reached out to grab a flute of champagne. You would too, right?

Yeah, that didn't go over well. She yanked the tray away and made a very audible sound of German disgust (which sounded more like a sneeze), and scurried away. Denied again. It was probably one of those "had to be there" moments, and I'm not describing it very well here...but it was pretty funny to me. I just burst into laughter, which earned me an even more disgusted over-the-shoulder look from booze girl.

I do have a way with the ladies.

I dunno why, but that incident made me kinda goofy for the rest of the night. I was actually chatting with the waitress at the restaurant, who shocked me by cracking non-stop German jokes...and she's German. After that I went to the hotel bar for a bit and had a few beers. A woman across the bar, probably 45 and verrry American, asked if she could charge the drinks to her room right after I had asked for my bill. The bartender said okay, and asked her room number. "3308" she said. He then printed my bill out and asked if I'd like to charge them to my room as well. I agreed, so he asked which room. Easy answer, right?

"3308", I said, and looked at the lady. She was halfway off her stool on her way out, and just stopped dead and looked directly at me with bewilderment in her eyes. The bartender busted out laughing, but she hadn't clued into the fact that I was kidding. She bellowed "He is NOT staying in my room." This made the bartender laugh even harder, and me along with him...and she STILL didn't clue in. She just stood there staring at us until I said I was just kidding and apologized, and gave him my correct room #. She gave me a final death stare and left. The bartender gave me a free shot for making him laugh, which was very cool of him...so I did a shot of Jager. Hey, I was in Germany...it was an easy choice.

After all that amusement, I decided to go for a buzzed nighttime Berlin walk. I just meandered around for a couple hours, down main streets all over the place, seeing what was going on. Folks, Berlin is really nice, especially at night. It just has a very cool vibe. Maybe it was the jager, maybe it was that Berlin was way cooler than I thought it'd be, I dunno...but I was very happy with my decision to go there.

Not much else happened that night. I had to get up early to fly to Budapest, so I just chilled in my room and watched some CNN. Debated going back to the bar, but it wasn't worth the money and the hangover. In the morning, I took a cab back to the airport. I'm pretty sure he took the exact same route I had taken in the first cab to get to the hotel, but it's amazing what an altered perspective can do. Everything seemed so much...nicer. Strange how that works.

Next up, mawfuckin Budapest. Which was fucking awesome.