Solo Stina

My desire to see my sister as soon as possible when she arrived at Tegel airport in Berlin did not outweigh my budget concerns about spending 25 euros each way to get there and back. It did, however, outweigh any apprehension I felt about hitchhiking alone. I knew the apprehension was illogical, anyway, based on all the conversations we've had with solo female hitchhikers, yet it was still there. The best way to get over it was just to do it, hitchhike alone, and yesterday I had a really good reason to try. I figured if I could get to Tegel for free, it wouldn't be so bad to spend 25 euros on the return trip since it meant I got to spend that much more time with Amelie.

I set out from home around 7:45am and took the #5 tram to Opernhaus, then the #9 tram to a stop at the north end of town, Krähenstieg. I was trying to get to an Aral gas station where Brendan and I had once tried to hitchhike to Hannover. We gave up that time after waiting for two hours and being offered several rides to Berlin but none to Hannover. I figured this was the perfect spot to hitch at yesterday since Berlin was exactly where I was trying to go.

The only trouble was finding the gas station. I took a wrong turn and wasted about 20 minutes wandering up and down the wrong street before I found the right one. By 8:45am, though, I'd made it to my spot, sporting a thumb on one hand and this nifty sign in the other:


As soon as I was standing there in that familiar position any remaining anxiety disappeared. Cars passed me by and the people in them looked just as friendly and safe as they do when I'm hitchhiking with Brendan. Ten minutes later I had a ride with an on-the-younger-side-of-middle-aged man. He said he needed to make one short stop on the way, but after that he was going into Berlin.

We talked only in German and I was really proud of myself for what I was able to communicate to him and what I understood. He told me he had a twenty year old son and that he would like to travel to the US with him, but he wanted to improve his English first. I offered to speak English with him so he could practice, but he said "Überlegen und fahren geht nicht," which means "Thinking and driving don't mix."

I asked him at one point which city in Germany he thought was the most beautiful and had a little embarrassing moment where I didn't understand his response.
"Essen?" I asked.
"Nein, __________." (I still didn't understand.)
"Ezden?"
"Dresden."
"Oh, Dresden!"
Then we talked a little about Dresden.

He dropped me off at an U-Bahn station in Berlin around 10:30am. I didn't know to get from there to the airport, so I approached a young man and asked him, in German, what to do. He gave me clear instructions, I got a ticket, and hopped on the next subway.

The subway ride was long. So long, I worried I might miss Amelie's 11:10am arrival. I had to switch from the subway to a bus and by that time it was already 11:10am, so when I got to airport it was 11:25am. Thankfully her flight was a little late and had just landed at 11:19am. I asked at Information where I could find her, and got to the spot where everyone was waiting just five minutes before she came through the doors.

Together we navigated the bus to the train station and the train back to Magdeburg and now have an exciting week of visiting and sightseeing ahead of us.

A family of five

On Thursday, Stina and I bought the Quer-Durchs-Land ticket (39€ for 2 people), and took a 6 hour, 3 train trip to Frankfurt (am Main) to meet our friends Lena, Adam, and their 1 1/2 year old daughter Ilya. We had hoped to get their early enough to meet them at the airport, but there were no reasonable options for that, so we got there at 6 PM, and found them moments later across the street at their hotel. After a quiet evening including some Chinese food, hugs, and this (see the video halfway down), we all bedded down for a few solid hours of sleep.
The next day started pretty early. We went out to see the city as soon as it was light enough to see what was there to be seen. We walked along the Main for a bit, and then saw some ruins from the 1st century C.E. From there, we wandered to the main square, Römerberg, and found some breakfast. Walking around after breakfast, we happened upon a street market, and about halfway through it, were accosted by a man asking "Thema der Woche?" into his ZDF mic. I told him the theme of the week was Americans in France, er Frankfurt, because WE were Americans in Frankfurt. He wondered if I cared at all about German's deficit, and I told him America also has one that I'm worried about, and that the solution is to spend less, not more, because, and here's my quotable quote for the day "Consumerism breeds consumerism". Later we decided that what I meant was that, since any economic problem is only really a problem if people are not getting the things they need to live the happy lives they deserve, the solution to the problem is to make more goods available to them. Aside from increasing production, that can also be accomplished by not consuming the goods yourself. then they'll be available for other people to consume. This is contrary to what capitalism teaches, which is, if you consume more, everything will be okay. I generally find that when something is counterintuitive, it is, in fact, wrong.
But that was just a brief moment of our day.
We asked a security guard for directions to the Apfelwein. He directed us across the Main, where we enjoyed the company and giant glasses of Apfelwein. From there, we went to the park near the river, and we demonstrated the powers of the fulcrum and lever and pendulum.
Back at the hotel, everybody crashed, conveniently in phases. First I passed out, then Lena went, then Adam. Then I woke up and Stina passed out. Then Adam and Lena woke up. Then Ilya and Lena went out. Then I went for a walk to get some Döner Kebap and Falafels for us. When I got back, Stina woke up and we scarfed them down, read a little (I'm reading about the moon landing, and hoping I can someday be in a position to travel to the stars, or maybe write a show that compiles faux news articles about life aboard the generational starship), then went for a walk. Having Lena and Adam here really reminded us how much we want to travel, so we're figuring out budget stuff and where we want to go. I theorized that in order to enjoy our travels and live in the moment (as we haven't been as much), we both need to know that at the end of the moment we have a place to belong, and that nothing stressful is waiting for us at that end. So, we need a home base. We have a home base. Awesome!
We came back to the hotel, and went to sleep. Then Lena woke up, ate, and then we ALL slept.

Next morning, we dilly dallied until we wandered over to the train station for the ride back to Magdeburg (Schönes Wochenende Ticket-37€ for 5 people). This time, though, we had a mobile entertainment unit: Ilya. Now we're having a lazy Sunday as our first day as a family of 5.

Big ole update

Okay, it's possible we'll never finish filling out those bullet points. At some point it becomes more important to share what's been happening most recently. If we do fill out the rest, we'll post it in the original blog where they occurred, and we'll let you know in a new blog so you can go back and read some interesting stories.

But now I'll start with now and work my way backwards until I start to lose track of days. Today is Wednesday. Brendan and I arrived in Wisconsin this afternoon around 12pm. We had planned to spend the day in Chicago with Brendan's parents, but his mom is just getting better from a nasty flu-bug she got over the weekend, so we got on another train to Milwaukee where his dad picked us up. This is the view outside their house:

Snow! Glorious snow! It's really beautiful here, and we're told it might snow another 10 inches or so the day after tomorrow. Today we're taking it easy after a night on the train.

The train trip was quite fine. Leaving New Orleans by train is heaven for bird lovers. It goes through marshes, wetlands, swamps...I'm not really sure what the difference is between all those, but it goes through one or all. What I'm trying to get at is there are cranes, herons, various types of ducks, and it's such a treat to see all those birds. The cranes, especially, were everywhere, sometimes congregating in groups of twenty or more. I wish I'd gotten a picture of that.

Brendan did try to take a picture of the mist at one point. You couldn't tell where the Mississippi met the sky. But by the time we got the camera out and ready, we were no longer right on the water. But you can still see how misty it was:

Well, you can sorta tell how misty it was. On Monday we didn't do very much. On Sunday we had brunch with Jocelyn and Nate and their upstairs neighbors whose names I've embarrassingly forgotten. A little later on Sunday we went to a Couchsurfing potluck and met a bunch of really cool people, and got to know a bit better some we'd already met. We talked a lot to a fellow hitchhiker and he showed us pictures of various signs he's used to try and attract rides. This inspired us to take a picture of our most recently used hitchhiking sign:

On Saturday spent some time internetting, and on our way home we talked to Jocelyn to see what she was up to for the evening, and she invited us to join her and Nate for a tacky Christmas sweater party later. We said maybe. And then we remembered how we want to start saying yes! to things, or at least yes. About a week earlier, we had turned down an invitation to go into a halfway-house and see what it was like and as soon as we walked away from that opportunity, we realized we should have said yes. We miss out on unknown opportunities when we say no. This trip is our chance to say yes more than ever before, because we don't have any obligations or work schedules. To sum it up perfectly and serendipitously, as we just read this for an upcoming book club meeting, "Unexpected travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God," from Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.

So we decided to say yes! to the tacky Christmas sweater party. But Jocelyn and Nate weren't going until about 10pm and it was only about 8pm or so. And then Michael called. Michael is a couchsurfer we met playing tag football last weekend. He decided to stay in New Orleans an extra day and wanted to know if we wanted to meet him in the French Quarter. We, of course, wanted to say yes. So we did, and we decided that we might still make it to the party later.

We met Michael by Jackson Square and began walking towards Bourbon Street. On the way we visited a beautiful art gallery, with pieces that sold for over $150k. We spent some time discussing what we liked best and finding out the prices from the friendly and helpful curator, and then we went to Bourbon St. Our first stop:

Lafitte's claims to be the oldest building used a bar in the United States. The tall man next to Brendan is Michael, and the two outer gentlemen just happened to be nearby and when invited to be in the picture they enthusiastically joined. Suffice to say the rest of the night was somewhat debaucherous, yet fascinating. Mingling with all the drunk people on Bourbon St. is more enjoyable when one is also drunk, at least for me.

As the night was winding to a close and we were keeping Michael company waiting for the streetcar, we were chit-chatting and the word "couchsurfing" came up. A young lady standing near us asked if we were from New Orleans and we found out she is a couchsurfer as well, here visiting her sister. So our couchsurfing circle widened, and we were able to see her and Michael again at the potluck the next day.

On Friday evening we had the second installment of a World of Darkness roleplaying game Brendan is leading. We've made some new friends through this and they are delightful people as well as delightful role-players. My character turned into a werewolf!

And this is where my memory starts to fade and days run together. We probably rehearsed last week, and we probably spent some time at CC's checking our email, and we probably walked a lot. The delightful usual.