Day 5

My brother always used to say it was cute when people slept with their mouths open a little...

Our lovely friend Hardy let us come stay at his place. Bless him, first order of business... food. He took us to what he called ,"the best Kabob shop in Berlin" I was skeptical, but let me tell you. I think it was the best food I've ever had.. I know... bold statement.

We hung out on Hardy's beautiful veranda for a while then decided to head to Treptower Park, where there was a digaredoo festival going on.

It was a beauitful park and we could hear the digareedoo's from far away. Unfortunately we couldn't get in without paying, so we just hung around and enjoyed the sites.

Later we went to a bubble tea shoppe that my brother's friend was opening up. Very cute location, I wish her all of the best!

We went and got some Kabobs, met a random lady whose name escapes me (Allana?). She had recently moved to Berlin and spoke primarily English. It was a welcomed event, as traveling around a city knowing the language can be a bit exhausting, even if most young people speak a little bit of English. Anywho, we ended up going with her to a slightly sketchy, underground club. We met her very interesting friends and a two man band. Unfortunately, I couldn't take pictures in there, as we already stuck out as Americans.

After about an hour of listening to the band we decided we were tired and returned home to hit the hay

Berlin Day 4

We visited an amazing restaurant called White Trash Fast Food. It was a truly unique space complete with a Drag Queen DJ, garish decor/art objects, and later live music. We had a long wait as it was Friday night and the place was completely packed. Unfortunately, I snapped an image of some shots and the bartender thought I was taking photos of him. He got really pissed, we ended up getting into a bit and he ended up calling me a cunt and flipping a tray at me. We left, got some delish currywrust and after a bit of persuading we came back in to listen to the music, luckily in the basement.

Unfortunately, I let the incident with the douchy bartender get to me. After a while it was clear that my mood wasn't going to change so we headed home and hit the hay.

Day 3 - Berlin

Honestly, things begin to blur here. The time difference was a huge factor in all of this. Lost in Translation. We went to sleep early the night before and I woke up around 2:30 am. Everything felt far away and a bit lonely.

I went back to sleep and woke up around 6am, my brother was still asleep.

The hotel was in a what seemed like a suburb of Berlin, although they claimed it was part of the city. I walked for over a mile to find some breakfast at a gas station. We (and by we I mean me because my bro was usually sleeping long after I woke up) ate the same thing for breakfast everyday... Good lord I have grown to love sandwiches for breakfast..

Later in the day my brother and I met up with my long-time penpal Hardy! I believe the story of how I met Hardy goes like this.. I was in middle school, lonely and frustrated. I wanted to find a penpal in a different part of the world, the idea of connecting with someone so far away was exciting. I had tried writing other people, but every time I would find someone, we would eventually stop. Hardy and I wrote each other for years! I remember looking forward to receiving letters and the occasional photograph. I am pretty sure that I still to this day have a shoebox full of every single letter in my room somewhere. Recently, I found him again through facebook and was ecstatic to learn that he had moved to Berlin!

He showed us many of the great sites around the city from the iconic Brandenburg Gate to the Schloss Charlottenburg (an elaborate Rococco and Baroque Palace) Unfortunately, I decided that I was going to stick with my moody self centered photography for the day and didn't take very many images of the sites. Here are the few images I did take..

Hardy had an appointment so my brother and I lounged by the river for a few hours.

Later we met up with Hardy and his com padres... they were all very nice people but we felt a bit strange as (obviously) everyone was speaking German then we decided to go out. Perhaps a bad idea as I think we both felt a bit alienated already.

It is in fact true that Germany has no open container laws and beer is cheaper than water.

Also, couples seem to show their affection much more publicly, which I thought was great.

Club Pictures- Let me explain myself here. First off I was a bit drunk and had no shame. Secondly, I think I was perturbed by the vanity that a lot of people displayed. So I decided to go Rambo-style running around taking photos and trying to destroy the fake facade until my camera died.

As I progress further in this journal I realize that I am caring less about taking a "good" photograph and more about truthfully documenting this amazing journey.. Both the good moments at the bad.

Day 2 - Berlin

May 4th

Day two of the Berlin trip started out very early for me. I woke up in the middle of the night but then tried to read myself back to sleep. By 4:30 I couldn't take it, I got up and walked around the city for a bit. Throughout the trip I was struck by the contrast in architecture. The dichotomy of the old and new.. the beautiful ornate buildings of the past sitting right next to the more modern, blocky and efficient structures that seem to dominate current German structures. Plus it was lovely to be up so early, without people around to explore this mysterious place.

Later in the day my brother and I decided to move to a cheap hotel. As I said, I love hostels, but both of us had expensive equipment that we didn't feel comfortable sitting out in a room full of strangers.

After we settled in, we decided to visit the a piece of the Berlin wall.

It was definitely a mind blowing experience, thinking about how recently Communism dominated East Berlin. My brother interviewed people around the site that had experienced life during the wall. In need of some light-hearted tourism, we walked around the city for the rest of the day and took in the sites.

We had done a lot and we were getting extremely tired. (as you will be able to tell by the images) We grabbed a Berlin specialty, currywurst and headed back to the hotel. Which happened to be extremely long trek as it was on the very outskirts of town. When we arrived, there was a crib in our room..