I’m Trying Really Hard Not To Take A Nap Right Now

It’s 2:00 pm (14.00 Uhr) here in Berlin (I haven’t yet figured out how to change the time zone on this blog to correctly reflect my time), and at this same time yesterday I was just checking into the Heart of Gold Hostel and breaking all of the rules of avoiding jetlag by collapsing for a nice four hour nap. So, now that it’s that time of day, again, my body’s all, “Hey, let’s fall asleep!” I figured I’d try some blogging to keep myself distracted.

Yesterday’s travel was fairly uneventful. All the planes went on time, and I ended up getting into Berlin Tegel at about 11:30. The flight to Amsterdam was shorter than I expected (about 6 hours), and I tried to get as much sleep as I could on the plane. Unfortunately for me, I’d gotten into the recent habit of not being able to fall asleep until about 2:00 in the morning, which is 8:00 am this time. And my plane touched down at, you guessed it, 8:00 am, just as I was ready and willing to fall asleep. My efforts at sleep on the plane were further bungled by the SHRIEKING child in the cabin. There’s always a fussy baby or two on any of my flights (just my luck, I guess), but this was something different altogether. This kid sounded less like a human and more like a New Year’s Eve noisemaker. It was intensely annoying. Still, I got in a couple of hours of dozing after watching The Nanny Diaries (it was either that, or The Comebacks, and the Rock and I don’t mix well), and got to Amsterdam without dying of fatigue. I had a pretty short layover, just enough time to get my passport stamped, go through security, and navigate the vast labyrinth of airport that lay between me and my flight to Berlin. On the way, I learned that Dutch is a pretty fantastic-sounding language. I fell asleep for pretty much the entire hour to Berlin, since there were no more screaming babies to hinder me. I was surprised to learn when I arrived at Berlin Tegel Flughof that you can pick up your checked luggage right there at the gate, without going to a baggage claim area. Pretty cool! My bright yellow suitcase was pretty easy to pick out, and while it looked a little worse for wear, everything was in order. Now the fun part begins!

Like I said before, I had no idea what I was going to do with myself once I actually arrived in Berlin. I hadn’t yet contacted my Gastgeberin (host), so I couldn’t move into my permanent lodging just yet, and I hadn’t arranged any alternative. It was going to be an adventure, indeed! I took stock of my situation in the main hall of the airport. I could try to catch the bus, but to where? I could find the closest U-Bahn station, but then what? I had enough Euros in my wallet to take a taxi, but where was I headed. I figured all along that I would stay in a hostel, but I hadn’t actually made a reservation or taken down any addresses. But I knew that a couple of girls with the Macalester program had stayed at a place called Heart of Gold before moving in with their Gastgeberen the next day. Now if only I could find out where it was. I took out my laptop to find that while I could connect to the THX wireless network, it wouldn’t let me do anything. So I dropped a couple of Euros into a T-Mobile internet station, and did a quick Google search. I found the address (Johannisstraße 11), but didn’t have a pen to write it down, so I had to memorize. My heart sang, though, when it saw the magic words “free wireless internet.” That’s exactly what I needed to get everything sorted out. I also took the opportunity to shoot off an email to my parents, letting them know I’d arrived safe.

Then I was faced with the transportation issue, again. I decided to take a taxi, since public transportation would take effort to figure out, and I could feel my jetlag starting to catch up with me. I told the driver Johannisstraße 11, but of course it wouldn’t be that easy. He seemed confused by my pronunciation, and tried to punch the name into his GPS. But of course, this is Berlin, so pretty much every street begins with Johann-something. He asked me to write it for him, but I couldn’t remember how to spell it, so we weren’t sure what to do after that. Eventually I thought to tell him that it was near the Hauptbahnhof (main train station), and that seemed to switch on a lightbulb. I did all of this in German, by the way, which I was pretty proud of. Of course, I couldn’t have done that well, since once we started moving he asked me in English where I was from. Oh well. We wended our way through the city, turning at, it seemed, every intersection, and just as I was beginning to wonder whether he was just pretending to know where he was going, there it was. Heart of Gold.

I was starting to feel really sleepy by this point (about 12:30pm), so I paid the driver, and arranged a reservation at the front desk (in English, unfortunately; I chickened out). The guy at the desk told me that I couldn’t check in to the room until 2:00 since they were still cleaning, so I sat down in the reception area and made use of the free wireless. I sent mom and dad a real email (the last one had been in all caps since the keyboard seemed to be in permanent caps lock with no way to turn it off), sent an email to my Gastgeberin asking if I could maybe move in earlier than Monday, and to Alice, one of the Macalester girls in the program, who’d come in the day before, just to touch base. I chatted a bit with Meghan, too, who was on AIM while getting ready for work. Once 2:00 rolled around, I was fully incapable of keeping myself from sleep, and made my bed and passed out. I didn't wake up until 6:30, at which point I got up and brought my computer downstairs to see if my Gastgeberin had written back, yet. She hadn’t, but there was still plenty of time. I had a couple of emails from Alice, inviting me out to the Jewish museum the next day with some of the other students, but since I wasn’t sure about my situation (whether I’d be at the hostel another day, or whether I’d be moving in with my Gastgeberin) those plans were left up in the air. I chatted with Meghan some more, this time while she was bored at work, and tooled around a bit online. Once 9:30 or so rolled around, my laptop battery started to die, and my eyelids started to close. I went upstairs and once again collapsed into my bed. I slept pretty well until about 2:00 or so, at which point I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. I languished in my bed for a while, trying to coax my brain into inactivity, but I just couldn’t relax. Finally, I turned on my bedside lamp (careful not to wake any of my roommates), and read some more of Culture Shock. At about 5:00 I finally fell back asleep.

A couple of my roommates were up and about at 8:00, and I dozed until around 9:00, but I knew I had things to do today before check-out time at 12:00. First order of business was to check to see if my Gastgeberin had replied yet. She hadn’t, so I employed some drastic measures: telephone. There was a pay phone in the back of the hostel, and I slid 50 cents into it and dialed. The phone call was kind of a hot mess. I bravely started speaking in German, and all was going well until she started speaking in German back to me. I couldn’t hear very well, and followed everything she said with a “Wie, bitte?” Eventually she just switched to English, which made me feel like a cheater, but it was certainly easier. She told me she’d just gotten back from vacation and needed to get the room ready so I could come by tomorrow at 2:00 to move in. I told her that was fine and we sort of awkwardly said goodbye, and then I went and paid the front desk of the hostel for another night. Next on the agenda was a nice hot shower. The hostel’s water pressure is fantastic, and even though the shower is somehow rigged to shut off every thirty seconds or so, I enjoyed it immensely.

Newly clean, I headed down to send some more emails, and chatted a little with Liz, who’s in Scotland and therefore very close to my time. I hadn’t chatted with her in a long time, so that was nice. Then came the first casualty of my journey. The power adapter that my dad sent with me blew a fuse while I was charging my laptop, complete with dramatic smell and smoke effects. This attracted the attention of an American guy the next table over, who told me that he's learned the hard way that adapters are for electric things, not electronic things. He helpfully told me that all I needed was an outlet converter, since my computer’s power cord already has an adapter. Apparently you can get them from any big store, and as it turned out, the hostel’s desk was renting out outlet converters for a 5 Euro deposit. So, while it’s sad that the adapter broke (I still don’t know whether all hope is lost or not on that front), it’s a relief to know that I can still use my computer.

So that’s pretty much it at this point. Now I’m just relaxing and waiting to hear from Alice about plans for dinner this evening. Writing this entry certainly did keep the nap at bay, at least for an hour, but don’t expect posts this long and in depth everyday. I don’t think I could handle it.

Tschüß!