Break started off with a date. Phillipa was going to South Africa for her whole break, so I knew the last time I would get to see her would be the night of my last day of desk warming. We had a surprisingly romantic evening eating Italian food and drinking at a hof. We said our goodbyes for the month and parted ways. Since she has been gone we have not been able to talk on the phone or chat for more than a couple minutes, so any correspondence we have had has been through emails. Call me a sap if you want, but I am counting the days till she gets back here. It is kinda boring and quiet around here without her, and boring and quiet aren't my favorite things. The good news is that in South Africa it is summer, so she is having a nice winter vacation filled with beach trips and barbecues. Ok, enough pining, let's get down to it.
I had decided that I was going to Berlin for the break. One of my former students named Rebecca Buhner was over there for college and we had talked about visiting each other. Me and Buhner had been friends for a few years after she graduated. She was the kind of kid who was just so laid back that you don't think anything could ever make them upset. That seemed to mesh well with my personality, and we had hung out a few times back in Dallas. Mostly our interests revolved around "The Walking Dead" which we were both huge fans of. When my Thailand plans fell through I knew that I just had to make the trip to Berlin. I left on Thursday morning at about ten o'clock, so I went up to Seoul to stay with Justin the night before. We went out and did some drinking so that I would be nice and tired for the plane ride and possibly get some sleep on it. Next thing I know I look at my phone and its three something in the morning. We go back and get a few hours sleep before I wake up at about seven and get the shuttle bus to the airport. While in line to get my ticket I am standing behind this short blonde haired girl (not something you see everyday in Korea) who I don't think twice about. I get up to the counter and they ask if I am going to check any bags. All I had was my backpack, because all I was taking was about six changes of clothes and some toiletries. "Nope" I say then realize that they wont let you take more than 300 ml of liquids on board the flight. "Oh, wait, I have some soju with me. What am I supposed to do with it?" "How much?" the nice young Korean woman behind the counter asked me. "This much." I say as I open my bag and pull out the two liter bottle of soju. Her eyes go wide and her mouth agape she says "Owa!" "I can't take this on board can I?" "No sir." "What should I do with it?" I ask her as my mind turns over the possibilities. Should I find some random Korean guy and say "Service!" as I hand him a giant bottle of soju? Should I just leave it on the ground outside or actually throw it in a trashcan? Ooooh, I have a thought: "Do you want it?" I say to the Korean woman behind the counter. "Me? Nononono." She says with a face that is now blushing greatly. "What should I do with it?" "We can check your bag." "Ok, yeah I guess we should just do that" I say, not too excited about having to check all of my clothes and my phone charger. I send Buhner a text message saying "I am bringing you so much soju that I had to check my bag" and then I hop into the security line right behind the blonde girl. The line is three or four snaking rows long and is full of people with carry ons. In America this would have taken forty five minutes, but at Incheon it only took about five. I didn't have to take off my shoes or anything. I get to my gate a couple hours early and realize that there is no way in hell I am going to be able to sleep in one of those tiny waiting at the gate chairs that they have, so I resign myself to looking longingly out the window and browsing the internet on my phone. I write a sweet message to Phillipa and take some survey about the airport that gives me a free pen. Soon enough I am waiting in line to get on board the plane, and guess who is in line behind me? The nice blonde girl again. I get on the plane and find that I am in an emergency exit seat, so I have as much leg room as you could possibly wish for. I check the in flight movies, then try to get some sleep. No dice. A combination of me having some sort of sickness going on in my sinuses and not being able to get comfortable keeps me awake. I manage to watch a couple of good movies, including "real steal" which was pretty good and "crazy, stupid, love" which was a laugh riot, and had the older Korean gentleman looking onto my screen to see what was so funny.
I had decided that I was going to Berlin for the break. One of my former students named Rebecca Buhner was over there for college and we had talked about visiting each other. Me and Buhner had been friends for a few years after she graduated. She was the kind of kid who was just so laid back that you don't think anything could ever make them upset. That seemed to mesh well with my personality, and we had hung out a few times back in Dallas. Mostly our interests revolved around "The Walking Dead" which we were both huge fans of. When my Thailand plans fell through I knew that I just had to make the trip to Berlin. I left on Thursday morning at about ten o'clock, so I went up to Seoul to stay with Justin the night before. We went out and did some drinking so that I would be nice and tired for the plane ride and possibly get some sleep on it. Next thing I know I look at my phone and its three something in the morning. We go back and get a few hours sleep before I wake up at about seven and get the shuttle bus to the airport. While in line to get my ticket I am standing behind this short blonde haired girl (not something you see everyday in Korea) who I don't think twice about. I get up to the counter and they ask if I am going to check any bags. All I had was my backpack, because all I was taking was about six changes of clothes and some toiletries. "Nope" I say then realize that they wont let you take more than 300 ml of liquids on board the flight. "Oh, wait, I have some soju with me. What am I supposed to do with it?" "How much?" the nice young Korean woman behind the counter asked me. "This much." I say as I open my bag and pull out the two liter bottle of soju. Her eyes go wide and her mouth agape she says "Owa!" "I can't take this on board can I?" "No sir." "What should I do with it?" I ask her as my mind turns over the possibilities. Should I find some random Korean guy and say "Service!" as I hand him a giant bottle of soju? Should I just leave it on the ground outside or actually throw it in a trashcan? Ooooh, I have a thought: "Do you want it?" I say to the Korean woman behind the counter. "Me? Nononono." She says with a face that is now blushing greatly. "What should I do with it?" "We can check your bag." "Ok, yeah I guess we should just do that" I say, not too excited about having to check all of my clothes and my phone charger. I send Buhner a text message saying "I am bringing you so much soju that I had to check my bag" and then I hop into the security line right behind the blonde girl. The line is three or four snaking rows long and is full of people with carry ons. In America this would have taken forty five minutes, but at Incheon it only took about five. I didn't have to take off my shoes or anything. I get to my gate a couple hours early and realize that there is no way in hell I am going to be able to sleep in one of those tiny waiting at the gate chairs that they have, so I resign myself to looking longingly out the window and browsing the internet on my phone. I write a sweet message to Phillipa and take some survey about the airport that gives me a free pen. Soon enough I am waiting in line to get on board the plane, and guess who is in line behind me? The nice blonde girl again. I get on the plane and find that I am in an emergency exit seat, so I have as much leg room as you could possibly wish for. I check the in flight movies, then try to get some sleep. No dice. A combination of me having some sort of sickness going on in my sinuses and not being able to get comfortable keeps me awake. I manage to watch a couple of good movies, including "real steal" which was pretty good and "crazy, stupid, love" which was a laugh riot, and had the older Korean gentleman looking onto my screen to see what was so funny.
Soon enough we reach our destination... Finland. I have a three hour lay over and decide to kill it by hanging out at the bar/grill that they have. I don't have any Euros yet, so I buy a couple of beers with my debit card. The beer, Karjala, tastes delicious compared to the light beers I have been drinking for the past half year. The restaurant is themed around Boston sports, so everywhere I look there is Celtics memorabilia. Who would have thought that the one bar in a Finnish airport would be Boston themed. I use the bathroom and while I am in there I am browsing on my smart phone. I come out of the bathroom and think "Man, I should get a picture of this snow!" and realize that I don't have my phone. I go back to the bathroom and all the stall doors are shut. "Oh, crap, someone is in that stall that I left my phone in." And that's when I hear it. The beeping noise that my phone makes to let you know the volume is being turned up. My phone has this problem that the volume goes up automatically. It is very annoying actually, and I really need to get it fixed but am not sure how to go about doing that. The volume going up usually happens when either the phone is changing temperature (like when you pull it out of a warm pocket and use it during winter) or when you hold it tightly on one of the sides. I politely knock on the door and say "Excuse me, my phone is in that stall, can you slide it out to me?" No answer. "Excuse me. That is my phone making the beeping." No answer. I wait at the stall door for a good couple of minutes, with people coming and going, and not one sound emanates from this stall, as if someone is trying to play possum till I walk away. Well I know better than that, and will not let whoever this is out of this stall without first receiving my phone. Just then a security guy walks into the rest room. "Oh, excellent" I say "Someone is in this stall I had left my phone in there. Here that beeping? That is my phone. Someone is using it!" "One second, I will be right back." I position myself for the would be thief to bolt out at this point before security gets back, but they return rather quickly. A giant nordic man walks up to the stall "Excusemezisissecurity." He says and knocks on the door. No answer. In what is probably one of the most embarrassing scenarios I can imagine, he then pulls the door instead of pushing it, and it opens, revealing an empty stall and my phone sitting on top of the paper dispenser. I grab the phone, apologize profusely, bow deeply from the waist (force of habit) and scurry away quickly. God I felt like an idiot.
Getting entrance into Europe was kind of funny itself. There was another giant Nordic man with a dirty blonde flat top of a haircut and a tattooed arm sitting at the counter. "Vat iz ur purpose in Europe?" "Vacation." "Vere ah you staying?" "With my friend in Berlin." "Ah you going to any uzza countries?" "No." "How many times have you been to Buhlin before?" "None." "Ahh, first time in Germany, eh? Plenty of new experiences and all that. Enjoy your stay here in Europe and eat our delicious food and see our beautiful sights." I then made my way to the gate where I would be leaving from, and guess who was standing right in front of it? Yep, the short blonde haired girl who I had seen a couple of times back in Korea. This time she recognized the coincidence of us taking flights across the globe to get to Berlin. She gave me a big warm smile, and I shot it right back. She put her stuff away, came over to me, and in a kind of soft, high pitched voice said "something something Deutsche?" I made this face :-/ then said "English... sorry." "Hi! Are you headed to Berlin?" "Yes ma'am." "Do you live there?" "No ma'am, just visiting a friend. Why were you in Korea?" "I was working at a school that teaches German." "Oh, there's a market for that?" "Yes, apparently the two countries are very close when it comes to engineering." "Makes sense." We proceeded to shoot the shit about what it was like for her. She had lived there for three months, having to sublet a place, and make it all on her own. She was very jealous of my apartment size, my salary, my Korean language skills and my fire-tressed significant other. She recommended a few places for me to hang out in Seoul, and a few places for me to see in Berlin, but I forgot the names. She helped me once I landed by explaining how to call the number that I had for Buhner and explaining how I should take a bus if I was going to do that. The flight over itself was kind of rough. It was only an hour and a half, but like I said before I had a sickness in my sinuses, so my mouth and throat were totally dried out, while my nose was totally plugged up. At one point a stewardess came around asking if we wanted anything to drink and I couldn't even form the word "water." I had to swallow a couple times and even then it came out as a hoarse whisper. The guy next to me looked at me like I was a leper, but didn't say anything, probably because he had an entire roll of butcher paper that he was trying to do some sort of architectural planning from, and he knew it must have been a pain in the ass to sit next to a dude trying to open a whole roll of butcher paper every thirty seconds. There were two very loud Finnish women sitting in front of me ordering and drinking champagne and laughing very loudly, so sleep was not to be had on that flight either.
I was able to get my backpack ok from the luggage conveyor and exchange my money. I went over with about a million Korean Won. I didn't want to use any of my credit cards and knew that I had plenty of money still in both of my accounts if anything happened. There was a funny moment when the guy at the money exchange window saw a million Won and was like "Woah! Are you sure you want this much exchanged?" "Yep." "Okay, I guess. That comes out to... 660 Euros... oh." He saw all the zeros on the end of my bills and thought they were worth way more than what they were. 660 Euros was nothing to sneeze at though. Quite a hefty sum of cash, but I was also going to be paying for my hostel which I was staying at for the second half of the week, and probably taking Buhner out for an appreciation meal and whatnot, so yeah, I think I had about the right amount of money. Turns out I could have done with about 100 Euros less, but I would rather have 100 Euros too much than 100 Euros too few, ya know what I mean? When I came back I made sure that I had a full set of Euros. I have a 50, 20, 10 and 5 Euro bill, along with a 2 and 1 Euro coin. Then I have the 50, 20, and 10 cent (I think there is a ten cent) coins, so yeah, that is all money that I won't be getting back, but I really wanted to have one of each. It was actually Buhner that gave me the idea, and I think it was a good one. I will do the same with Won before I leave here. Anyways, I hopped on a bus for the "Ring stop" and got off at "Jungfernheide" stop to meet Byoons. By this point it was about 8 something at night and I had been going all day. My day had already lasted for 27 hours and had another five to go. We bought some beers and went back to her place. I was ambitious thinking I could drink three, I made it through one, barely, then straight up crashed. It wasn't even ten o'clock and I was passed out hardcore. I didn't even get a chance to take my pants or socks off. Buhner said that we had a couple of short conversations when she came in to check on me to make sure I was comfortable, but I don't remember a thing.
So began my week in Berlin. I loved it. It was a great city. I had always wanted to visit Germany, and my only regret is that I didn't have more time to get around the country some. Buhner had an awesome roommate named Florian, who was German and spoke perfect English. It makes me so jealous, because as Americans we are only raised with one language. It isn't until at earliest high school that we are exposed to other languages in a classroom setting. I found that most Germans spoke perfect English, with only a couple of people who didn't understand. One of the first things I ate was a Doner Kebab, which was basically shaved meat in a toasted pita that had been filled with onions, feta, yogurt sauce, and maybe some cabbage or lettuce if you wanted it. I don't think I have to tell you how delicious it was, but I will anyway. It was so delicious I ended up getting two or three of them throughout the week I was there, at different places. It was nice to have food that wasn't based around soup or rice. Buhner had to go to school a couple of times throughout the week, so I entertained myself quite a bit, but the first couple of days she took me to a lot of sights. She took me to see the TV tower that had been erected in Berlin back before the wall had come down. We also got to see the Television and Film museum, which was very informative. It covered the history of film in Germany all the way up to the present day. They had many informative pieces that were playing various significant televised events on loops. They seemed to be strangely fascinated with JFK. Apparently he had made quite an impact with his speeches, and he was featured throughout the museum. There was also a theater in which they showed significant scenes from German television shows. All in all I think I would have gotten more out of it if I was more familiar with German television or the German language, but Everything you could read was also in English, and it was a fascinating museum. The aesthetics of the museum alone were over the top beautiful, and then you add the various pieces. It was by far the prettiest museum I have ever been through, and it only took about an hour or so. I highly recommend it if you are ever in Berlin. I was able to see the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, the Siegessaule, the Olympic Stadium, and like I said before, the Television Tower. Most of those things are right near the Tiergarten. Pictures forthcoming.
I spent a lot of time on my feet, and walked and stood a lot, so for a couple days during the week when I was there, me and Buhner just sort of hung out. It was good to be in the company of an English speaking person whom I have known for more than half a year, and even better to be drinking delicious German beer while I was doing it. After a couple of nights sleeping on her couch, I moved to a hostel that she had suggested. I don't blame her for wanting me out of her hair, as it can be stressful to have another person couch surfing with you for a couple days, much less the week that I was there for. She had also had to put up a couple of other people before me who had apparently pushed the boundaries of being a guest. The whole time I was there she kept saying "It is awesome that you only have a small backpack that doesn't take up my whole floor!" which was nice of her to say. The hostel was ok. The problem was that it only had wi-fi on the bottom and top floors. I had to either sit in the lobby, or in the bar to use the internet. Funny thing about that, my smart phone that I use in Korea has a wi-fi connection, so I was able to text people through Kakao talk and use facebook to communicate and upload pictures. So between the lobby and the bar, guess which wi-fi I used... yeah, you got it. The bar was on the top floor and had a great view of the city. I have already uploaded all my Germany photos to facebook, so if you are connected to me on there you have seen them. They put me in a room with five other people. Two of them were from Brazil, but I am not sure where the others were from. I didn't speak more than five words to them the entire time there. The only time I was even in the room was to sleep. They gave me a nice locker to put my backpack in, and clean sheets to sleep on. What more could you ask for? I hit up some sights on my own and had a good time before I left Berlin at the end of the week.
One thing I liked about Berlin. Public transportation. I am a big fan of public transportation. Dallas only had the DART rail, and that was difficult to use at best. New Orleans had a great street car system, but that didn't work so well in the rain. Korea has awesome buses and subways, but the subways are sooooo huge. Seoul subway map vs. Berlin subway map. It may look like the Seoul subway is less cluttered, but I assure you it is not. The central line in Seoul has 43 stops, while the central line in Berlin only has 27. Seoul and all of the areas within the "Seoul National Capital Area" or areas that fall under the economic and cultural influence of Seoul (this doesn't even include all the places the subway reaches) were said in 2007 to be 24.5 million people, while only 10.2 million of those reside in the heart of the city itself. To contrast that, as of 2011 Berlin had 3.49 million people with 4.4 million in the Berlin-Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. So yeah, Seoul is a little more crowded. This makes Berlin look sooooo nice. Everything about it seems less crowded. The apartments only go up about five or six floors, as opposed to the monstrous thirty something story high rises they have in Seoul. Even out where I live in the middle of nowhere they have high rises that are close to 20 stories. The S-bahn and U-bahn were easy to use and quick to arrive. I had mastered them within a day and was exploring the city like a champ. Also, something very nice about Berlin was the amount of graffiti. I never thought I would say that, but there was graffiti everywhere. Lots of it seemed like it was really really old, but it gave the city a feel that it was alive. Like every inch of the city had been explored, and the person who did the exploring had even stopped to tell you who they were. At first I thought it was a bit trashy, but as I saw more of it, I began to like it. Some of the graffiti was downright artistic.
The flight back was not nearly as eventful as my flight over. The plane was only half full, and the movies were only half as good. I left Berlin at noon on Thursday and got into Seoul at 9 AM on Friday. From there it was a couple of subways and a bus back to Gamgok where I immediately passed out in my bed. I had a couple of beers with Graham trying to decompress, but even now I feel like my jet lag is still present.
To end this post I will put up a video that Joanne Hynes shared with me by R.E.M. It is a perfect example of what the subway map looks like, and not a bad song. Here it is.
So began my week in Berlin. I loved it. It was a great city. I had always wanted to visit Germany, and my only regret is that I didn't have more time to get around the country some. Buhner had an awesome roommate named Florian, who was German and spoke perfect English. It makes me so jealous, because as Americans we are only raised with one language. It isn't until at earliest high school that we are exposed to other languages in a classroom setting. I found that most Germans spoke perfect English, with only a couple of people who didn't understand. One of the first things I ate was a Doner Kebab, which was basically shaved meat in a toasted pita that had been filled with onions, feta, yogurt sauce, and maybe some cabbage or lettuce if you wanted it. I don't think I have to tell you how delicious it was, but I will anyway. It was so delicious I ended up getting two or three of them throughout the week I was there, at different places. It was nice to have food that wasn't based around soup or rice. Buhner had to go to school a couple of times throughout the week, so I entertained myself quite a bit, but the first couple of days she took me to a lot of sights. She took me to see the TV tower that had been erected in Berlin back before the wall had come down. We also got to see the Television and Film museum, which was very informative. It covered the history of film in Germany all the way up to the present day. They had many informative pieces that were playing various significant televised events on loops. They seemed to be strangely fascinated with JFK. Apparently he had made quite an impact with his speeches, and he was featured throughout the museum. There was also a theater in which they showed significant scenes from German television shows. All in all I think I would have gotten more out of it if I was more familiar with German television or the German language, but Everything you could read was also in English, and it was a fascinating museum. The aesthetics of the museum alone were over the top beautiful, and then you add the various pieces. It was by far the prettiest museum I have ever been through, and it only took about an hour or so. I highly recommend it if you are ever in Berlin. I was able to see the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, the Siegessaule, the Olympic Stadium, and like I said before, the Television Tower. Most of those things are right near the Tiergarten. Pictures forthcoming.
I spent a lot of time on my feet, and walked and stood a lot, so for a couple days during the week when I was there, me and Buhner just sort of hung out. It was good to be in the company of an English speaking person whom I have known for more than half a year, and even better to be drinking delicious German beer while I was doing it. After a couple of nights sleeping on her couch, I moved to a hostel that she had suggested. I don't blame her for wanting me out of her hair, as it can be stressful to have another person couch surfing with you for a couple days, much less the week that I was there for. She had also had to put up a couple of other people before me who had apparently pushed the boundaries of being a guest. The whole time I was there she kept saying "It is awesome that you only have a small backpack that doesn't take up my whole floor!" which was nice of her to say. The hostel was ok. The problem was that it only had wi-fi on the bottom and top floors. I had to either sit in the lobby, or in the bar to use the internet. Funny thing about that, my smart phone that I use in Korea has a wi-fi connection, so I was able to text people through Kakao talk and use facebook to communicate and upload pictures. So between the lobby and the bar, guess which wi-fi I used... yeah, you got it. The bar was on the top floor and had a great view of the city. I have already uploaded all my Germany photos to facebook, so if you are connected to me on there you have seen them. They put me in a room with five other people. Two of them were from Brazil, but I am not sure where the others were from. I didn't speak more than five words to them the entire time there. The only time I was even in the room was to sleep. They gave me a nice locker to put my backpack in, and clean sheets to sleep on. What more could you ask for? I hit up some sights on my own and had a good time before I left Berlin at the end of the week.
One thing I liked about Berlin. Public transportation. I am a big fan of public transportation. Dallas only had the DART rail, and that was difficult to use at best. New Orleans had a great street car system, but that didn't work so well in the rain. Korea has awesome buses and subways, but the subways are sooooo huge. Seoul subway map vs. Berlin subway map. It may look like the Seoul subway is less cluttered, but I assure you it is not. The central line in Seoul has 43 stops, while the central line in Berlin only has 27. Seoul and all of the areas within the "Seoul National Capital Area" or areas that fall under the economic and cultural influence of Seoul (this doesn't even include all the places the subway reaches) were said in 2007 to be 24.5 million people, while only 10.2 million of those reside in the heart of the city itself. To contrast that, as of 2011 Berlin had 3.49 million people with 4.4 million in the Berlin-Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. So yeah, Seoul is a little more crowded. This makes Berlin look sooooo nice. Everything about it seems less crowded. The apartments only go up about five or six floors, as opposed to the monstrous thirty something story high rises they have in Seoul. Even out where I live in the middle of nowhere they have high rises that are close to 20 stories. The S-bahn and U-bahn were easy to use and quick to arrive. I had mastered them within a day and was exploring the city like a champ. Also, something very nice about Berlin was the amount of graffiti. I never thought I would say that, but there was graffiti everywhere. Lots of it seemed like it was really really old, but it gave the city a feel that it was alive. Like every inch of the city had been explored, and the person who did the exploring had even stopped to tell you who they were. At first I thought it was a bit trashy, but as I saw more of it, I began to like it. Some of the graffiti was downright artistic.
The flight back was not nearly as eventful as my flight over. The plane was only half full, and the movies were only half as good. I left Berlin at noon on Thursday and got into Seoul at 9 AM on Friday. From there it was a couple of subways and a bus back to Gamgok where I immediately passed out in my bed. I had a couple of beers with Graham trying to decompress, but even now I feel like my jet lag is still present.
To end this post I will put up a video that Joanne Hynes shared with me by R.E.M. It is a perfect example of what the subway map looks like, and not a bad song. Here it is.
No comments:
Post a Comment