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.