The past few days were full of touristing, eating, and planning. Brendan and I have (penny pinchers that we are) committed to spending the next few weeks traveling together. Our itinerary so far goes something like:

Dresden, Germany (June 27 – 28)
Prague, Czech Republic (June 29)
Olomouc, Czech Republic (June 30 – July 1)
Bratislava, Slovakia (July 2)
Dubrovnik, Croatia (July 3 – 4)
Hvar Island, Croatia (July 5 – 6)
Split, Croatia (July 7 – 9)
Ljubljana, Slovenia (July 10 – 11)
Lake Bled, Slovenia (July 12)
Graz, Austria (July 13)
Munich, Germany (July 14 – 15)
Cologne, Germany (July 16)

It’s going to be a LOT of moving around, but we really tried to keep the long travel days to a minimum. Most of the destinations are only a couple hours apart, except for Bratislava -> Dubrovnik, which we are flying, and Split -> Ljubljana, where we will take an overnight train (I’m also flying from Munich to Cologne, without Brendan, to make my flight home).

As for a recap of the past few days…

Saturday

We headed down for Kreuzberg Saturday night to poke around and grab dinner. We managed to stumble right into the middle of the Christopher Street Day celebrations, which included mobs of people, a stage for music, a bunch of loud drums, beer stands in the street, and more mobs of people. Many of these people were wearing absurd outfits, silly wigs, etc.

While eating some funny crunchy pizza, Charmaine called to tell us she was headed for the parade grounds at 10pm. We finished at just about that time, so we headed one U-bahn stop up and stumbled right into her and a group of her friends. They were all so exceedingly friendly. One kid, Billy, was from the same part of the Bay Area as Brendan. Charmaine described Billy as “the archetypal American guy:” large, muscular, blond, and utterly lacking in social inhibition…running around, chatting, trying to remember everybody’s name (not really caring when he got them wrong, just assigning the person a new name), flirting with girls. Brendan and I found him pretty hilarious, although we were totally overwhelmed by so many chatty, hyper people. We had been pretty antisocial.

We headed back into the heart of the parade and danced to the drums for a bit. There was a band singing ska covers in German on the stage, which was great. After an hour or so Charmaine and her friends headed towards a club. Brendan and I were getting up early in the morning, so we demurred and headed to Prenzlauer Berg to grab some drinks on Kastanienallee before calling it a night.

Sunday

We woke up early and headed to Potsdam.

I decided I want my own palace. I’m not sure gold-gilt Rococo everything is my style, but I wouldn’t turn it down.

After donning floor-protective booties to shuffle through the palace, ladies’ wing, and kitchens, we grabbed some wurst and schnitzel and wandered around the gardens. Everything was lovely and decadent.

The city of Potsdam was really cute and featured another Brandenburger gate. The similarity between Brendan Berg and Brandenburger still hasn’t old…at least Brendan doesn’t think so…

We perused a long shopping street and ate Fanta and gummy bears and then headed home.

Monday

I do not relish the task of shopping, but I needed new hiking sandals to replace my old Nike ones that snapped. I headed over to the shopping district in Shoneberg and wandered around for what seemed like all morning. I tried on lots of shoes. I found some Campers and Mephistos that I liked, but the concept of expensive and pretentious hiking sandals seemed a little absurd so I settled for a pair of Timberlands. All the ladies models (of which there were far less variety than mens) seemed to feature leather of some sort, but these had the least of it. Still not ideal for swimming.

That task done, I met back up with Brendan to tour the Jewish Museum. Only a few floors covered the Holocaust, much of it was about the history of the Jewish community and culture in Germany. I thought it was a little odd that it would cover some of the same time periods and topics as the German History Museum in this segregated way. They extended the building’s modern architecture with “modern” approaches at displaying information…often featuring kooky interfaces like blowing on screens or pushing buttons. One installation in a massive vertical void in the building (the architecture encompassed a few such spaces) was lit only by windows in the ceiling. The floor was piled with big cast iron tokens that had faces punched out of them (eye, nose, mouth holes) and the whole room echoed with mournful clinking when you walked over them. Kind of eerie.

For dinner we had our first doner kebaps. Contrary to Brendan’s insistence that “the guide book never has the right restaurants right where you want them,” his Germany guide seemed to think the best doner in town was right at our U-bahn stop. Very convenient. We managed to pick up a (very weak) wireless signal from our table and made more reservations with greasy greasy fingers. It was quite delicious, I’m just hoping it digests.

Now

I’m still trying to figure out my options for mailing the suitcase, but if it’s going home it’s going today. My friend Lea from Vassar is from Germany, and he might have friends I can mail it to in Cologne. I’ll miss my little computer if it goes with, but lots of the hostels say they have computers available so I should be able to keep posting and checking my email, so keep in touch!

Brendan brought rain with him from Copenhagen, and it won’t go away. It was fine for today, since Thursday is free museum day. We spent the morning and most of the afternoon sifting through Germany’s version of its own history. There appear to have been a few wars and things. After German history we tried to hit up the science museum. It was closed, so we settled for the Pergamon.

We worked very hard at being tourists, so this evening we headed for the Internet bar for dinner and communications. On the way down the stairs from the U-bahn I heard a girl’s voice cry “Anna Henningsgaard!?” from the middle of the crowd. My name has this nice feature of being pretty unique, so I knew she must be talking to me. It was Charmaine (an ‘08 Vassar student who lived in Noyes with us), and she’s apparently been in Berlin for the whole month as well. What a funny coincidence. I made her promise to meet up with us for drinks or something this weekend.

Nobody came online during lunch, so you can’t give me a hard time for not trying. Now Brendan and I are going through all our guidebooks and trying to figure out the next few weeks. The harder it rains the nicer Croatian beaches sound. I still haven’t figured out what to do with my suitcase, but I’m seriously considering packing my extra things (a sweater, finished books, my *gulp* computer) up and mailing the whole thing home. It’d lighten the load, both physically and emotionally, as I wouldn’t have to worry about expensive things being secure as I trek through Eastern Europe. I’ll have to check out prices and options on that one.

We’ll probably head for Potsdam tomorrow, although the rainy weekend forecast is pretty bleak for our touristing prospects. Brendan hasn’t hit the Tiergarden or Zoo yet, so maybe we’ll spend the last of our sunshine on that. I also need to shop for a new pair of sandals (my flipflops simply do not function for anything requiring traction), a belt (I’ve walked off so many calories my pants are falling down), and a coin purse or wallet.

I did not compose that subject line.

But yes, Brendan arrived safe and sound yesterday afternoon. My buzzer didn’t work and neither did his cell phone. Neither of these things should have been a problem, as I sensed his presence nearby and ran downstairs to let him in, but he has a short attention span and wandered away while I was on my way down. He called me from a nearby cafe just as I stepped back into my apartment, so I had to go all the way back down…but it worked out.

We spent yesterday and today wandering around and looking at things and eating things. There was a major tragedy today, as my beloved shoe-sandal things that I’ve been beating up since sophomore year of high school fell apart on my feet. Luckily I was almost home, so I didn’t have to hobble very far, but it was still heartbreaking. Again, my fear of having over-packed was soothed, as I have my backup pair of Vassar flipflops available as a sockless option.

Brendan and I also met up with Lara’s friend Jen for coffee, which was quite pleasant. Jen graduated from Vassar in ‘05 and has spent the past couple years traveling through Europe. For the last 7 months she’s been an English teacher in Paris. She was very cheerful and friendly and full of traveling advice and funny stories.

Time to make and eat dinner.

It’s sunny and nice here, again. I spent the morning cleaning the apartment (sweeping, de-crumbing the stove, emptying the trash, folding my clothes). I showered and ran some errands including picking up bread from a nearby bakery. With time to kill I grabbed my computer and skipped down here, to my favorite Internet-pirating place underneath some trees. I’m trying to kill time, you see, because Brendan is coming today. His flight is due to land at 3:15. I’m a little sentimental about losing this isolationist version of independence that I’ve been cultivating, but this will be a fun and healthy respite from reading and sojourning. It will be nice to have somebody to talk to when I go out to dinner, for example.

At any rate, I had a few hours to kill, but now I only have half of one. I had so much email to respond to! Leslie wrote me back with details about Austria. I think it’d be lovely to meet up with her there. Alex wrote me a wonderful long email about life in Phoenix, and I of course had to respond with an even longer account of life in Berlin. When I have all the time in the world to write emails they tend to turn out shorter, wittier, and more direct. I’m not nearly so clever when I’m out on the sidewalk with ants crawling up my leg, people looking at me funny, and my battery running low.

I was a little worried I would waste my day by pining away for Brendan’s arrival (how pathetic would that be?) but it’s been nothing like that. In fact, I might be a little frantic when I close this computer, I still have errands to run and a lunch to eat! If I’m less attentive of personal communications (blog entries, email responses, and the like) while Brendan is around, somebody should alert me. I’ve fallen into a comfortable routine, and I have no idea what will happen when it’s disrupted. Of course this is nothing compared with two weeks from now, when I’ll be an apartmentless vagabond…

Last night was sure an adventure.

My tram/bus line is going under construction today and will be down for the next 2 weeks* (from what bits of the German notice I can make out). I decided to head out to my Internet bar in case it was the last time I could take my usual route.

It was warm when I set out around 10pm, somewhere in the mid 70’s. For some reason I grabbed my backpack in addition to my computer bag. Lucky choice.

Nothing out of order at the bar. I ordered a drink, checked my email, read the New York Times. I was hoping to catch my family, but I thought it was an off-chance since Dad was speaking at the Scandinavian Festival that evening (and I later found out that Internet service has been down in Astoria since Thursday). I wished Seth happy birthday and started talking to him and my parents did not come and it got later and later.

Suddenly the room flashed. A clap of thunder shook the bar. Glancing outside, I noticed the rain coming off the awning formed a solid sheet of water.

I tried to wait out the storm, but it was already late and it did not seem to be going anywhere. I’m convinced this was my fault, as I made some disparaging comments about Berlin rain (and the weakness thereof) in a letter I sent home. I didn’t have a coat or an umbrella, and I’m not sure those things would have helped.

Buckets of rain may be a trite expression in many cases, but it did feel like someone was dumping successive containers-full of water over my head. The sidewalks in the Prenzlauer Berg district are made of rather large round cobblestones, so I could hop safely between the tallest of these. Crossing streets, however, involved wading through a foot-deep stream. It was a 10-minute swim to the bus stop.

I was worried about the cleanliness of it all, but the sewers appeared to be swallowing (rather than regurgitating) the deluge. The street-rivers were feeding straight from the sky. Lightening lit entire shadowy blocks; the thunder was like buildings collapsing.

The bus dropped me off at my U-bahn stop, and I (feeling very clever) descended into the tunnels and popped back up a full block closer to home. The park nearest my apartment is on a slope, and the concrete stairs leading up to it bore such a strong waterfall that it was hard to cut past it on the sidewalk.

Then I was home free. Everything was full of water: shoes, pockets, backpack, hair. Only the most important trinket was spared, nestled safely as it was inside its (soggy) case and inside the (saturated) backpack. My baby computer survived undampened!

Another highlight: my anxieties about possible over-packing are assuaged. I am now very glad that I packed 2 whole pairs of pants.

* As of this morning the tram track, along with most of the street in front of my house, is a big pit surrounded by piles of concrete. It does appear that they have a bus running the route in the tram’s stead. It is also a beautiful sunny day.