As it turns out, I didn’t speak as much English as I thought I would that night Lindsey came to get me to go downstairs.
The new English friends Lindsey had made were gone by the time we got downstairs, so after a stroll around Berlin, we decided to drink some beers in the bar downstairs in the hostel.
As we were drinking, a guy who looked a lot like Silas from the AWESOME television show Weeds looked over at us and said something like “shkol” (though according to this it’s spelled like skal or something in Danish). I tried saying it a few times, then finally went with “Prost!” and when he realized I spoke German, he seemed to get excited. Unfortunately, Lindsey doesn’t know any German, so I told him “Cheers” and asked him if he spoke English.
He came over at that point and we all hung out for an hour or so. He was really friendly–sometimes a little too friendly. He tried kissing me once, and then on the way to the club he tried to hold my hand. When I said no, he started to protest, only to crash and fall on top of a table. Then he asked if he could have a “chin kiss” and I had to help him realize he meant “cheek.”
Also, he forgot my name a lot. The first time he asked I was Marycruz, the second time I was Jackie (“Jackie?! That’s a real American name!”), the third time I was Marycruz again and by the fourth time when I told him I was Penelope, he gave me a weird look and went “No…that’s not your TRUE NAME!!!” Then later when he asked me my name again, my friend goes “You’ve asked her like five times!” and he goes “Fuck you, baby, I KNOW her first name! I wanted to know her LAST NAME!”
Overall, a pretty interesting guy.
The crappy thing is that we could actually go INTO the club because SOMEBODY ^cough^yours truly^cough^ forgot their ID.
The next morning was freezing, rainy, and miserable, though it seemed very appropriate considering we were going to Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp. I’ll give more details once the pictures are uploaded.
I will say, though, that I felt like such a jerk while we were there because I could hardly focus on the terrors that took place at Sachsenhausen. I think it was because it was so cold and rainy. At some point, I was standing there with wet feet, when the tour guide mentioned a time the men had to stand in formation for 16 hours, in the snow, with a lot less clothing than I had on that rainy day. It put a lot of things in perspective.
Oh shoot, but before Sachsenhausen, we had a mini taxi crisis. See, one of the girls on the trip has a hurt ankle, so instead of taking the 20-minute walk to Sachsenhausen in the cold rain, we decided to take a taxi. Unfortunately, we couldn’t seem to get a clear answer from the taxi drivers we called. We decided to go inside and ask for help.
I saw that Jennifer Doty, the lady with the hurt ankle had just been snapped at by this older woman sitting behind a desk at some company in the station called Ameropa. I thought maybe the lady was annoyed because we were Americans or something, but I thought if I spoke to her in German she’d feel better.
I explained that we called the number for the taxi but it wasn’t working, and then I asked her what we should do. She decided to start yelling at me about how she didn’t DEAL with the taxis, that we had to go OUTSIDE to call a taxi, yada yada yada.
Now, at this point, I had about had it with people being catty with me (I’m on a trip with eight other girls after all), so I started off with my fake polite voice, which turned into me yelling at this woman about how I was soooo sorry to have upset her but goddammit, was she rude. Yes I did tell her that. No I don’t feel bad.
Anyway, we saw this taxi van with lots of room, so we ran up to it at the same time as one man and we got in. I told him where we were going and he told me I would have to wait because this man apparently had dibs. I asked if we could go together because after all, there were about six of us and one of him, so we’d all fit. He said we’d just have to wait, so we got out and waited for another taxi.
Another one came and we ran to it, only to have it hijacked by some people who were closer.
We decided to stand where they had been and as soon as another taxi came, we raced some other tourists and grabbed it. Haha, suckers!
We ended up having a really nice taxi driver, so maybe it was worth the wait?
I stayed up pretty late that night because it was Karaoke Night downstairs at Goldman’s bar, and there were a ton of people. Jennifer Doty, an older student, was especially having fun. I think she knew every song that played and she had seen about four of the bands that played in concert (ACDC, Def Leppard…Led Zeppelin? and Metallica I think). She was freakin awesome.
I didn’t drink anything, but I had a blast, and towards the end of the night, Jennifer and I sang “Dancing in the Streets.”
I felt bad when we came back to the room because I’m certain we kept waking everybody up, especially our newest male roommate who was right by the door. I went to check on Jennifer in the shower a lot because she was taking a really long time, and I didn’t want her to slip on the wet floor or anything and hurt her ankle even more.
The first time I checked on her, she goes “I’m okay, baby! Just puking everywhere!”
I explained to the girls later that that was why the showers smelled bad in the morning. It was kinda funny…
The next morning, I slept for two hours on the bus ride to Dresden. I felt bad because I slept through most of what our male tour guide said but most of the girls from our group did. I did manage to hear a question he asked though because I remember raising my hand.
Dresden itself was beautiful. There was no graffiti everywhere, just a ton of amazing architecture. It was interesting how you could look straight on at the city and on one side, you’d have modern (crappy looking) buildings and on the other, you’d have these majestic buildings with statues and sculptures and emblems.
We took a quick tour (once again, you’ll get more details with the pictures) and then we had three hours to kill some time. I tried to visit a gallery that had apparently been closed for two years, so I decided just to walk around and buy some souvenirs. I got two. (Abe, Mom, that’s you!)
We heard that the Dixieland Festival was in Dresden that day, so we tried to see that, but we couldn’t find it. We did manage to find a one-man band by the named of Honky Tonk Hugo. He was singing in English, but I’m pretty sure he wasn’t American.
After we got back from the day trip, we spent some time in the bar. I got to talk to Pablo for a few hours, which was nice. He even stole me a lemon slice. Woot!
Also, the bartender’s name was Luke, and he played Tenacious D for me. =)
Yesterday we visited a Stasi prison, which was very interesting. We were supposed to have a tour guide that used to be a Stasi prisoner, but that ended up not working out.
After that we went to a Resistance Memorial, where we learned about The White Rose, saw a documentary, and stayed in the office of the actual Valkyrie.
I’ve been trying to upload my pictures, so that you can actually get some more details on all this awesomeness, but it’s not working for some reason.
In the mean time, I’ll just keep writing! Not now, though, I needs my sleep.
