Day 47 - Road Movie to Berlin

Most of today was spent on the train to Berlin. Oddly, there are no direct trains between Berlin and Munich, so I had to spend seven hours to get here. I´m heading out now so I´ll finish this update tomorrow.

Tomorrow:

Doh. This is the second time I'll write this update because Easy Internet near the main train station crashed on me. They owe me forty minutes of vacation! :)

So what did I do on train day? I got up at seven fifteen, ate a bowl of cereal, and hit the train station. Then I napped intermittently until arriving at Berlin at about two thirty. I realized I'd forgotten to get the address to the hostel sorted out. Note to self: always write down the hostel info the second you book. I jumped on the internet and got myself straightened out. I was still about fifteen minutes late getting there. Ordinarily, I wouldn't care, but the blurb for John's Hostel made it seem like a really big deal if you were going to be the least bit early. And if you're an hour late, they'll sell your bed right out from under you.

After getting settled, a couple of the guys wanted to go clubbin'. They had a flyer for a club playing "Black Musik", and, both being black DJs, were curious as to what that meant in Berlin. It took forever for everyone to get ready, but eventually we headed out. On the way, everyone got nicknames. Nigel got the Bollywood Blaxploitation apellation "Curry Johnson". He's spicy. :) Chris tried to go with the theme and became Punjab Black. My appologies if those are incredibly offensive. I don't think they were meant to be, and I don't really know any better myself. I became Eugy, which is short for Eugene, which is derived from Refugee, which is the title of a Tom Petty song, who both Nigel and Chris think I currently look like. Fair enough, I suppose.

We arrived at the "Black Musik" club at eleven thirty or so. I was told the subway closes at one or two and starts up again at four, so I was figuring on a long night. I was pretty much right. We danced for an hour. Some other people from the hostel showed up. Theoretically that meant there were now women I could actually talk too, but it was too loud. I had fun dancing with them, though. Johanna in particular, was very fun. If it hadn't been waaaaay too hot, I would have tried to dance with her instead of just in her vicinity. Most of us decided to call it quits around three thirty. Nigel and Chris stayed longer and tried to get with some German cuties. Hey, if I spoke German, I would have been trying to talk to them too. They seemed really friendly.

The rest of our intrepid band walked halfway home, then took a taxi. We got to see the victory statue. Apparently when Germany kicked France's butt around 1871 (the Franco-Prussian War), they took gold from the french treasury to gild the giant bronze statue at the top of the column (which was originally to comemorate an early Prussian victory). The statue supposedly faces Paris, waving back to the people who gave it its shiny coat.