Making Acquaintances

We have arrived in Berlin!  After a car ride, three flights, three movies during the flight, two short layovers, a bus ride, a tram ride, and a walk we made it to the hostel!  We just stayed long enough to drop off our bags in the waiting area and headed off to lunch.

Today there is a soccer match at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin.  It is Munich vs. Borussia Dortmund.  Apparently this is a very important match!  We ate lunch at Hofbrau Munchen which is a Beer Garden.  That restaurant in particular is Bavarian in origin and so is the Munich soccer team.  Therefore all the Munich fans were at Hofbrau starting their encouragement of their team.  Now, I'm friends with plenty of international people, and especially those who have a passion for soccer.  I have never experienced anything like these fans.  They were all singing cheers, and the whole restaurant would join in!  They were all dressed in the team colors and clearly anticipating a win!  After we left lunch walking back to the hostel there were groups of people chanting and cheering randomly in the streets.  Ben plays American football, so he isn't much of a soccer fan.  He was asking me why the fans are so enthralled by the sport.  There are many reasons, but the primary ones being it is an international sport and therefore a common ground for many, and also the teams are related to their nationalities or groups with which the fans identify.

Munich fans

A former student of Dr. Freeman's is living here in Berlin and he joined us for lunch.  We talked about the Department of Defense (which he works for) over weisswurst which is a white sausage served with a pretzel and sweet mustard.  Our conversation was a little strained over the excited singing coming from the Munich fans.

After lunch we decided to check into our rooms at hostel and rest.  The room is tiny, tiny, tiny!  However, we don't need a lot of space.  The hostel is painted crazy colors: the lobby is lime green and purple, our room is red, white and blue, the doors are spray painted with the room numbers spanning the whole door vertically.  The hostel is hosting some kind of "party" tonight to watch the Munich v. Borussia Dortmund match tonight.

The S bon train is above ground, and is very nice.  The U bon train is underground and is a typical subway system.  The bus is interesting-- very packed with a myriad of people.  We took a bus from the airport to the S bon and then the S bon to our hostel.  On the bus there were young and old, foreign and national, dogs, gypsies begging for money, and more.  Our suitcases took up so much room on the bus I felt bad because people kept trying to walk by but just couldn't make it.

More people than expected speak English.  German is very difficult to pick up on for me, and I find myself wanting to speak to people in Spanish just instinctively.  But we are certainly managing.

My roommate and I spent about an hour talking.  We were discussing how traveling abroad makes us appreciate our own culture and own lives more.  And also the surreal feeling that we are on "vacation" where the people of this city wake up here every day and have their whole lives here.  While it seems like such a simple, obvious statement when you look around it's strange to think that the person walking next to you knows the perfect place to eat and you're just searching for a street sign.