Berlin

I won't lie, it just took me 10 minutes to figure out how to write a new post, because everything on the site is written in German, and after 36 hours here in Germany, I still do not speak German. I am at City Hostel in the center of Berlin, it is overcast and just finished the buffet breakfast that consisted primarily of bread meat and cheese, which seems to be the big thing in German cuisine for all meals. But let me start at the beginning of my travels and then lead up to the present. So on Monday evening I flew out of Seattle with a direct flight to Frankfurt, a 10 and a half hour flight. I sat next to a very interesting and chatty 31 year old man, who told me quite a bit about himself in the hour after take off and before the movies began. He is a successful entrepreneur who with his brothers started up his own software something company, he and his brother fly all over North America meeting with their clients, while their younger brother went back to Harvard to finish his degree. Their younger sister is midway through Law school at Stanford. He is a 100 mile marathon runner, and likes to run at high altitudes on mountains. At 15 he went to Berkley school of music in Boston and at 17 release an album. He recently became single and has been constantly propositioned by women ever since he noted 'single' on his facebook, and when he puts things up on facebook, approximately 80 people 'like' or comment on them. Clearly very successful and clearly is very proud of his accomplishments. He told me multiple stories about personal experiences with women, with an unabashedly condescending attitude. He told me multiple times how 'women are'....Thanks man, I've been waiting for someone to tell me how I am for so long. All in all, a very interesting fellow. I arrived in Frankfurt and had 30 minutes to get to my train, so I had enough time to change some money and get some water and a snack. I then had a beautiful train ride through the countryside for 6 hours, with one changeover in Naumberg, which was a bit stressful because I had 2 minutes to change trains. That neeeevvvver would have worked in Italy, because the trains were so erratic, but I am in Germany, so it was not a problem. Compared to my experiences in South America and other European cities, it seems quite safe here. People sit on trains with Ipads and leave there things at their seats in trains while they go use the bathroom. Wow! Kara picked me up at the main train station, Berlin Hauptbahnof. Our hostel the first night was near the Augsburger Strasse, Southwest of where we are now. We woke up and saw so much! We went to the DDR museum which was a really cool hands on museum of life in Eastern Berlin before the wall fell. After, we went to Checkpoint Charlie, the main point of entrance/exit into East Berlin and saw part of the wall. I felt like it should have been bigger for how much it divided the two halves. We saw the crazy TV tower, the museum Island, the Holocaust memorial site and the accompanying museum-really cool memorial, really sad museum. We went past the Berliner Dom and through Tiergarten and went to the Soviet monument. I had currywurst and Doner kebab and Berliner beer. We went out to have a drink with Kara's friend Peter from the UK who is taking classes here and had a very jolly metro ride home. All in all a very pleasant day. The only sad part is that is rained quite a bit yesterday, and my shoes got soaked through, and they smell really bad now. They were already on their last legs: holes in the bottoms, holes in the inserts...I'll keep my eyes out for replacements. Tonight we are going on a pub crawl with students from Humbolt University (here, not Northern California). I hope I can stay up late enough!!