Today in Berlin

Jacob and I attempted a self-guided tour of West Berlin, but we only
made it a far as the Reichtag before it started pouring rain.
Overall, not extremely sucessful.

We took took the S-Bahn back (do they ever check for tickets?) to
Warschauer and hit up our new favorite doner restaurant before we
retreated to the hostel to dry off.

The only thing I'm hoping to achieve tonight is to pick up our train
reservations and finally book tickets for Dubai.

The thing about getting to Dubai is that flying out of different
cities effects wildly varying prices (Istanbul is over five times as
much as Beirut, for example)... but I have a feeling the cost includes
how likely you are to receive bodily harm. So maybe it's worth it to
pay extra.

I will be online all night so feel free to email!

Hello everyone

Welcome to all the new readers out there.  I'll try my best to write about more interesting things from now on!

More Berlin

Sunday, so everything is closed. I really wish the optimitrist would open so I could buy Renu. I haven't worn my contacts since the airlines confiscated my solution for the second time.

Travel essentials #2: Put contact solution in your pocket instead of your toiletries bag because it's impossible to find a small enough bottle to take on board.

Anyway, we checked out the remaining Berlin wall today and took some band photos. It's funny what people decide to graffiti on there.

And to answer your question, Amanda, they're not skinny jeans, but they're the untreated kind of denim that you have to break in yourself.

Tonight

Loaded like a freight train
Flying like a aeroplane

Jacob and I just chilled out today. As cool as the night train is, you end up getting into Berlin at 7:00 am with no sleep. So that's actually not cool.

The hostel we're staying in (the Sunflower) is surprisingly livable for 14 euro a night. We met a few other people from the hostel who seemed cool enough. .

East Berlin is kind of the counterculture Mecca of Europe. In a city of 7 million people, that means a huge amount of alternative-type bars and venues geared towards young people. They're very reasonably priced (for Americans even) and open late.

Right now we're waiting for a show to start at a venue called
"Bastard". Despite the name, it's a nice place. A few of the walls
are covered with soviet-era televisions. The performer (goes by the
stage name "Blow") is from Portland. Go figure.

The openng act was a local guy called Noisy Pig that was reminded me of a childrens show gone horribly, horribly wrong. He wore a pig- shaped bicycle helmet and sunglasses on stage.

---

Blow had been sick recently was losing her voice (just like me two weeks ago! I wonder if she had the same thing) but she managed to put on a great set. Jacob talked to her after about Portland and things. I made friends with a dude from Long Island named RJ.

We made it home by about 2:30 and spent a few blissful minutes on the Internet before it stopped working again.

Chronology

I might be having some issues in getting the order of my blog posts correct. This is because they tend to come up in reverse chronological order when I write multiple posts with no Internet access.

So if you see something that doesn't make sense, just try to switch the order of the posts around and maybe it will.

Berlin night train

I thought I'd write a few words while I'm on the train. Here they are:

This is awesome.

Linkoping

I got in at about 7:00 last night, and through a very complicated series of events met up with Jacob around 9:00.

We saw a great band playing at the local Student bar. They're calledPacific. I'm not sure if they tour outside of Sweden but if they did they could easily be headliners anywhere in the US. Another example of Swedish excellence.

Now I'm watching Married with Children on Swedish television. Earlier they were airing American Gladiators. More Swedish excellence.

Doing laundry and things in preparation for the next couple weeks. Free laundry facilities for students!

Languages

One thing that's hard to get to get a feel for in the states is the way people of different languages interact. As Americans, we're used to only hearing either English or languages that are strongly related to ethnicity (i.e. Spanish, Japanese, Chinese). Tourists are obvious and rarely speak only English anyway.

Europeans can't rely on appearance to distinguish native tongues (to the same degree). Therefore it isn't particularly surprising if someone doesn't speak your language. You just communicate the best you can and move on as quickly as possible. No offense taken.

This must be why Americans annoy people overseas.

Chili nuts- Best snack ever?

All signs point to yes.

Vasteras

So far, so good. Vasteras is a city about the size (and skin color) of Bellevue. It too is centered around a shopping mall and is home to many stylishly dressed young folks. Unlike Bellevue, everyone rides bikes.

There are fields of them. Endless fields.

Right now I'm chillin' with an espresso at a Wayne's Coffee. It's kind of a Starbucks ripoff, right down to the logo.

I've got a train to catch to Stockholm in 30 minutes. That will make the third type I vehicle I've ridden on today (bus, plane, train, and I might sleep in a boat tonight).

Stockholm (cont.)

I bought some jeans, even though I don't really have room for them. Hmm.

On the way back to the city center, I stumbled across some interesting sights, like the Royal Palace and some really cool, old streets filled with antique shops. Stockholm, as you know, came out of WWII unscathed and as such is full of well preserved old buildings.

The shopping here is excellent and full of great winter clothes. Mom, you would like Stockholm a lot.

I'm leaving here on the 4:40 train to Linkoping, then I meet up with Jacob.

Stockholm

And I thought London was expensive!

So happy to be here. Stockholm is absolutely beautiful at this time of year (and others, probably). The autumn colors with patches of fog blowing through. Wow. It's also one of the greenest (as in Eco- friendly) cities on earth, and it shows in its cleanliness. Even the subway tunnels are immaculate.

It's a very stylish city, I reckon moreso than even New York. There's no shortage of tight jeans, anyway, nor square glasses. Also, everyone is crushingly attractive.

I like the culture here, at least, what I've seen of it. The Swedish
expect more from people. For example, the escalators here go like
2,000 miles per hour. There's very little room for error.

Everyone is fluent in English, and is quick to respond to my token swedish phrases in my native tongue. I can see why not many people end up learning Swedish later in life.

Right now I'm in a cafe called String in Sodermalm, which just happens to be across the street from Nudie Jeans. Whoops!

Itinerary

A lot of people have askes about my travel schedule. So to save myself
some time Ill post it here.

I can't figure out a better way of posting an itinerary, so Ill just
type it out:

Oct 24 - Vasteras, Stockholm
Oct 25 - Linkoping
Oct 26 - Malmo
Oct 27 - Berlin
Oct 31 - Amsterdam
(the rest is tenative)
Nov 5 - Frankfurt
Nov 6 - Munich
Nov 8 - Vienna
Nov 9 - Prague
Nov 14 - Budapest
Nov 17 - Istanbul
Nov 20 - Dubai
Dec 5 - ???

Museums and such.

I've fallen behind in the last few days. I'll try to summarize.

Mans had the last couple days off. We elected to "violently chill
out" and visit a few pubs and museums. A good way to spend my last
two days here.

Monday, we spent most of the day indoors either in the apartment or at
a sleazy (by London standards) pub in the city center. I had really
nice night just hanging out with the French guys and the new Polish
roommate. Great people, great conversation. I said reminded me of
L'Auberge Espangnole.

The next day we went to the imperial war museum (so many exhibits!)
and I made some farewell Gumbo for my roommates.

I'm definitely going to miss that place. It's time to move on,
though-- On to Vasteras!

I sure hope these Ryanair jets are airworthy.

Ryanair

30 pounds to fly to Stockholm? I'd fly on an early 90s 737 for that!

Conclusion: Aer Lingus is much better.

Flickr

I just realized that I was out of space on my flickr account, so all of my most recent photos haven't been showing up.  It should be fixed now-- Everything from the huge metal spider onwards is new.

Housemates

Ok, so Lee is a stand up guy with a knack for getting into trouble. Multiply this by six and you can start to imagine the house he lives in. His housemates (the louts, as they self depricatingly call themselves) remind me a lot of some of my friends from Willamette. They're great kids- all really friendly and happy to offer me a place to stay- with no real drive to accumulate a lot of posessions or money.

Which might explain why they didn't get their damage deposits back for their last house. Apparently it was nearly destroyed during a party in which one of them yelled "Hezbollah" and broke everything.

They're also fans of Loutball, a game of their design that basically no-holds-barred indoor soccer in their halls and rooms.

Aside from a few destructive streaks, they're really easygoing and have a lot of varied interests. At least three of them (guy, Paul, and another) are dedicated surfers (dedicated because you'd have to be to surf in water that cold).

Anyway, awesome people to enjoy a traditional English breakfast with (bacon, eggs, hash browns, sausage, mushrooms, beans, and bread, all fried. Yes, including the bread) and to have around in general. It'd be great to spend more time with them, but something tells me that this is unlikely in the forseeable future.

Now Departing Plymouth

It's been a busy weekend.

I sort of forget where I left off. I think it was at the buses. Yeah.

Plymouth, like Southampton, is a beautiful coastal town that was leveled during world war two. Being a large naval base, however, Plymouth was bombed even more thoroughly. Only small sections of the old city still exists. The majority of it was rebuilt with victorian
style architecture, so it might not be obvious at first to see how hard it was hit.

Plymouth is the southernmost port city in the UK, so many expeditions to the new world (and elsewhere) made it their final stop before embarking. In 1620, the Mayflower left Plymouth with a bunch of Puritans on it, who I understand were on their way to Daytona Beach
for spring break.

The coastal part of town (the "hoe foreshore") is a nice park full of monuments and museums and things. Also, a famous picture of the beatles was taken on the lawn to the side of the big red and white lighthouse.

The city also has a fake cliff that the navy uses to use as a secret hideout for large ships. Its made of wood.

The tour of the city was only a small part of my two days. I'll add more in my next update.

British Transportation

Geographically, Plymouth isn't more than a two hour car trip from Southampton. Once you factor in the circuitous route that buses take in order to stay on the freeways, it's a little more than 5 hours. Add a dollop of ineptitude and a dash of traffic and- oh boy!- I've been on the bus for 9 hours today.

That's actually fine by me. I've started to look forward to long bus rides because it gives me a chance to just sit around and relax (I finally have time to listen to my Learn Swedish program).

The only real problem is that Mike was supposed to catch this bus with me, but he missed it because his connecting bus was about 3 minutes too late.

Anyway, God bless the highway lobby and America's prodigious fuel consumption. If we all had own own cars none of this would be a problem.

Wait, I'm not sure if I mean that.

Activites

This is a bit of a retrospective, since I didn't really have time to write yesterday. I'm on the bus back to London now (about 6 hours total) so i have ample time to write.

Mike and I met up in Plymouth at about 11:30. He came in via train and I was on a bus, so we met in the middle of thr two stations. Fortunately for me, Mike had gone to Plymouth U for two years so he knew the city well. The only problem was finding Lee, who wasn't answering his phone or replying to text messages. We checked out a few bars, but there was no sign of him. Mike called one of his friends to see if he could track him down. He invited us over to his place- a smoky college house with some guys spinning drum and bass vinyls- and told us that Lee had actually been arrested earlier, so he'd be spending the night in jail.

It sounds bad, but it really wasn't his fault- he just ended up witnessing a bar fight at the wrong place and time. And it's Lee- who's such a nice guy that arresting him for anything just seems insane.

Anyway, we made it back to his house at around 1 but were too tired to do anything. A short nap on the couch later we went out with the housemates to try to retrieve Lee from the Plymouth police station.

The conversation was something like, "You've got our friend. Can we
have him back?"
"The wheels of justice are slowly turning. Check back in the afternoon."

Mike took the opportunity to show me around the city (awesome, by the way. Definitely my favorite of the three cities I've been to in England). We got pints at a local chill pub called Ride and waited around until Lee finally called.

He was happily out of prison and he came up to meet us at Ride. Poor kid, they'd only given him a rice krispy square and a Cornish pasty during his jail time.

So maybe it wasnt the ideal reunion, but it turned out great. Its funny how you can pick up right where you left off sometimes after a year and a half.

We just sort of sat around and played Virtua Tennis until the rugby game came on. England lost, which was a shame. The rest of the night was spent coping via Indian food and lager, then watching British comedy until it was no longer physically possible.

Ok, I see the brown cloud of pollution that is London approaching. Gotta run.