Day 92 – to Berlin
- Alarm, dress, cook, clean, pack. And then we rested until checkout so we’ll be right on time for our train.
- I thought I lost my Hero Clip. It wasn’t where I needed it and I couldn’t picture it elsewhere. I crossed my fingers that I’d find it.
- The ride to Berlin was pretty. This area of Germany has a lot of rolling hills with many trees (even some logging areas), and fall had just started to turn things golden. (We don’t post many pics of our train views because the window reflections make them pretty bad.)
- We had a seat with a real table (to share with two strangers), so I was able to work while he stared out the window. I can look up once in a while and enjoy the view, but as soon as we are in a tunnel or flanked by dense trees or protective walls, I need more to do….and this route has a lot of tunnels.
- For a quiet car, the people across from us were awfully chatty. They were mostly whispering, but it was near-constant giggles. They moved and another couple joined us. She’s from Chicago and the four of us were chatting, and then he had to remind me that we were in the quiet car, we had pulled away, and things had settled back down. Oops. As we got to the first (not ours) Berlin station, it got loud again. About half the train got out, there. On the way out, I found my hero clip, right where it belonged!
- After a subway ride and a short walk, I started looking for food for us. Staying in a triangle among a lot of things like two subways and several restaurants/hotels made that easier. But our courtyard view did face some construction. The hotel even included ear plugs.
- On our way to dinner at Ännchen von Tharau, we saw a funny bird. I declared it to be Magpie. He said it was another “Dugeon” and we jokingly argued. A woman going the other way heard us and said he was a hooded crow.
- After a schnitzel dinner, we made the hike to the grocery. We walked much farther than necessary because the Google map took us to the front door of the mall instead of the to the entry of the grocery.
Day 93 – Berlin wandering
- After breakfast, we got an email from the hotel about fire inspections that would take all day the next day. We should get a massive discount for that day.
- I spent part of our morning working on a personal project for a little while.
- We made/packed simple lunches to head out for the afternoon. We walked over to a plaza, under the road across the river, and stopped for a drink. We also sat in a nice park that would be the weed park if recreational weed was legal in Germany.
- After we’d had enough, we took a train and a subway back to our hotel to cool off. It wasn’t that hot out, but the humidity was killing me and wearing him down, too. In hindsight, we probably could have walked it easier. There were a LOT of stairs (and a lot of go down just to have to go back up or vice versa) compared to the train/underground combo. It was faster, though. 5,000 steps sure felt like a lot more.
- And then we couldn’t be convinced to go back out. It was to be an early night so we could wake up earlier for the damn fire inspections. So, we did our usual screen stuff and tried to tuck in a tad early.
Day 94 – Berlin fire & Futurium
- Ugh. Alarms. The little fuckers.
- As we were waiting for the fire inspections (and shaking loose the cobwebs of morning), I said, “If I start cooking breakfast, you know that’s when they’ll come.” We were starting to be ready for food, so I got everything out. And then, while I was putting our meat in the skillet, I said, “I also think they are just going to use that long stick to test the detectors. It will take a minute, tops.” The meat was about half way done when they knocked on the door. Sure enough, they had the long stick, poked at each sensor for less than five seconds, and were gone. Y’all, I can see the future! LOL. Yay for them going just early enough that we were dressed and going about our (slightly early) day. We have the rest of the day to do whatever we want. (And yes, we could have left, but the hotel advised us to take “all our valuables” with us, which is absurd.)
- One underground stop came out at a tiny Oktoberfest. He bought a sticker and I admired a gorgeous silk scarf. We saw, for like the sixth time, someone wearing a Camp David tshirt. We couldn’t figure out why. After the seventh one, I googled. It’s just a brand over here.
- It was 63⁰F and gorgeous. The number of people bundled in jackets and scarves was crazy.
- Futurium was very cool. Covered in mostly rude and tt addicted teens, but very cool. After we saw it all, we sat in an outdoor garden to have our lunch. Fall is starting to hit this area and the patches we saw were gorgeous.
- We then walked 600m to a modern art museum, Staal Museen Berlin. They had a whole floor devoted to stacking wooden blocks to build things. The galleries were too weird for us. We abandoned 6 half way through, skipped 5 altogether, and 3 & 4 were closed. On the way out, we saw a “fuck nazis” sticker. Hell yeah. Fuck them up and over. That was especially nice to see in Berlin, of course.
- There is a big bicycle culture here, like much of northern Europe. I commuted this way for several years and it is quite nice until the weather is awful. He saw a guy in a wheel chair with a front “bicycle” wheel he could pedal with his arms. We both suspected that once inside, he ditches the front wheel like anyone else would park a bike at work.
- On the way back to the big train station, we stopped at a cool burger joint, Peter Pane (a Neverland-themed place – and if there was a crocodile, he was in the bathroom) for drinks and a salad.
- We saw a “Silvercifer” horse at the train station. (But we don’t know if he also killed his maker.)
- We rode again to a Plaza, but it was basically a protest area. At another stop we got a few groceries. Leaving from there, we walked past some giant, enormous, 5-6 storey apartment buildings. There were so many that that were on multiple blocks (but all exactly the same). And then it hit me, they were post-war construction. They needed to build a ton of housing really quickly, so of course they built giant buildings and multiple copies. And then I regretted that we didn’t get a pic of any of them. Sorry, y’all.
- And then finally, after taking the “U2” underground train and after 12,000 steps, we made it back to our hotel in time to cook dinner and enjoy our evening. Whew. What a day!
Day 95 – would-be day of rest
- 0645 drilling, jackhammering, and more sounded like it was about to come through our wall. I’m sure it was further away, but there was very little way to ignore it. I was up for about an hour before it subsided. Then, I was able to go back to sleep until after 11am. I even recorded the sound for our review. There is a giant difference between 0645 and 0800. There is a big difference between them doing interior electrical work and whatever they were doing before 7am. Assholes.
- This was a rest day for us. I worked on some data, edited our Oktoberfest clips into a video, learned some new stuff, and fought with some tech.
Day 96 – to Hamburg
- Alarms suck, so does construction. Breakfast was “throw it all in” eggs, so they were cheeeeezzzzzeeeey, Packing went quickly, and then we were early to start our day. We sat for a while until it was time to make our lunch and pack the last bits. I used the time to work on a recipes project.
- It was humid AF and I was afraid that it was going to make our short train journey seem long. But when we stepped outside, it was nice and cool, so that made a big difference. Later, among hundreds of people at the station, we were among the very few wearing tshirts and no jackets or sweaters.
- At the transfer from the Underground to the train, a very smelly guy got on with us all. He needed real help….in the form of a shower and treatment for a mangled foot that seemed to be rotting. At least here, cases like that seem to be more rare instead of quite common like in the US.
- Once in Hamburg, we found ourselves in the Little East neighborhood again. Yay for good food near us. Our lunch didn’t sustain us; we wanted a snack. A couple of blocks shy of our hotel, there was a Lidl, so we made a “little” run inside and found a couple of salads. The lines were very long. I don’t know if things key off the first of the month in Germany the way they do in the US, but it sure seemed like it. Carts filled to the brim with groceries, flats of bottle water, and large packs of toilet paper seemed to be the bulk of the shopping. There were also some Friday afternoon beer runs. At least the lines moved quickly.
- Getting into our hotel came with some hiccups while he was making cards for our room. Then a woman I was nice to was rude to us. But that’s quite minor compared to what we found: a hot room with no AirCon. We even have a west-facing room. He asked; they were full and we couldn’t switch. There are also loud door slams (because people are assholes) and a constant beeping outside (that sounds like a door left ajar). yippie.
- For dinner, we found an Italian place around the corner where I had a spinach gorgonzola pasta that I’m for sure going to recreate at home with zucchini instead of pasta.
- Next, we made a medium-size grocery run. By this point in the evening, Lidl looked like it had been hit by a tornado. It’s kind of like Aldi and boxes were strewn everywhere. Products were missing. Things were massively picked over. There were no carts or baskets. I saw one woman shopping with a child’s shopping cart, and not ironically. We found the good Australian Shiraz for €2. He called it “two euro chuck.” We got a few things to survive a couple of breakfasts and a lunch or two and carried what we could in our broken bag that I keep in my purse. When we got in line, it was the same cashier. He had been going for hours at that point. At least cashiers in Europe sit down. Our kitchenette had a kettle and a microwave, but no cooktop, so we’d have to get creative with dinners.
- The rest of our evening was our usual: working, gaming, watching, resting. I tried to find meals we could make with just a microwave and now have a couple of ideas. I even went to bed early, by about 2300.
Day 97 – German Unity Day
- Happy Unity Day, Deutschland
- I was awake from 0200-0430, but managed to go back to sleep.
- We had breakfast of cold cuts for me and a sandwich for him, fruit, yogurt for me, and our “coffee” aka Cokes.
- After breakfast, I noticed the beeping had stopped! It was also a bit cloudy/hazy so maybe the sun wouldn’t beat into our room the way it had the day before. 🤞
- We ventured out at about 1300 to see the International Maritime Museum Hamburg. It’s nine “decks” of amazing stuff to see and should not be missed if you are ever in the city. It started out as one guy’s personal collection. It is massive and takes hours to see. My watch nagged me twice to walk 500 steps for the hour while we were there. “Bitch, what do you think I’ve been doing?”
- By the time we got out of there, we were starving, so we found a bench to eat our lunch…at 1600. We walked to a bar, and did a tiny bit of shopping along the way. Next we needed to game plan our evening (dinner), our Sunday (breakfast, lunch), and our caffeine supply for those days. Because of Unity Day, it was not an easy task. We took a bus to an Underground station, and got some drinks at a convenience store there. All the grocery stores but one were for-sure closed. The one that might be open was at the larger train station, so we made plans to visit that on Sunday. I guess all of that contributed to Lidl being so nuts on Friday night.
- At a shopping mall, we found a burger joint that was about to close, but we made it in time. In addition to our burgers, we also bought some breakfast burgers for the next morning. After another ride on the Underground and another walk, and another nag from my watch “I am walking, here, dumbass,” and we were back at the little apartment. 8500 steps on the day; how is that all?
- His Aggies were to play at 0100 and my ‘Canes were at 0130. His team had a great start, so he relinquished the TV for mine. He also found vending machine beer for when I ran out! Germany is great. He crashed long before I did. Despite my sleep deprivation, I was “U”p for the game. I made it to the fourth quarter, but by then, we had solid lead. His game was quite similar. Go ‘Canes! Gig ‘em Aggies!
Day 98 – forced rest
- The first time I woke up, I checked the scores. Yay.
- I couldn’t go right back to sleep, but some YouTubes helped and we slept in.
- Because we had the foresight to buy breakfast burgers the day before, we had a nice breakfast. We were going to have to get creative for the next day since all the stores are closed on Sundays. Turns out, the reason Friday was such a mad house at Lidl was more about the holiday than anything. They didn’t stock on Friday for produce and meat to sit for two days instead of the normal one. We also learned that Germans shop “for the end of times” when there is about to be a holiday. Our arrival in Hamburg and the need to stock up hit the perfect storm.
- The Underground ride there was chaotic and packed with people going to the fußball game.
- ONE grocery in all of Hamburg was open, and it was at the train station. We were up for an adventure; we just didn’t know what we’d be in for. Shopping was a team and contact sport. And fuck the people who brought strollers, luggage they couldn’t handle, and children. The teens who “had” to hold hands were annoying AF. Stuff was broken/spilled; they were trying to stock shelves. The line was so long it wrapped half way through the outer edge of the not-small store; it moved fast, though. But we got the four things we needed/wanted and escaped with our lives and our mini haul. I had just learned about the craze that is Squishies and y’all, they had one that was yellow and shaped like a stick of butter. Ew for every reason. Hey Hamburg, please acknowledge that you have people who need or want to shop for food on Sundays. Open another store or six! Even the Jesus barker outside the station was working on Sunday. I don’t think he meant to be ironic. I was half-tempted to ask him why he was working on the day of rest.
- We spent the afternoon working and gaming. When we got hungry, we found a shawarma place. It was different and there was an odd spice on my food that I couldn’t quite place (za’atar?). Still, we were happy to support a local place. And while we were there, we saw someone out on the plaza get arrested. Since we had walked by a group of people out in the open using hard drugs (a pipe and a spoon and a needle and what in the hell were they doing?), an arrest was a little surprising.
- After dinner, the night-before football watching until the wee hours coupled with the previous night’s lack of sleep caught up to me. I crashed into a nap and woke up “hung over” from it….and then I still went to bed a bit early.
