Poor but sexy

The first time I went to Berlin, last year, I was admonished on the train for planning to spend only one day there. But that's what we did, thanks to lodging prices that were mysteriously three or four times higher than I had expected. So we planned to spend two nights in Berlin and then a week in a Workaway near Hamburg, giving me (I minored in German in college) lots of time in Germany at a fraction of the usual cost.

Our train arrived late in the day. The rail passes gave us unlimited travel on the wonderful Berlin transit system, so after dropping off our bags we went directly to Alexanderplatz, home of the TV tower. From there we walked haphazardly toward the Brandenburg Gate, illuminated at night and obscured somewhat by some odd fences. I love that in big touristy cities you can find the famous sights in a matter of minutes, all practically right next to one another.

In the morning we went off in a new direction and found a bakery for breakfast. For a reason I cannot understand, in several German bakeries I've been to there are wasps crawling over the pastries. Nobody seems to mind and in fact I question sometimes if I'm the only one who can see them. Then they fly around you as you eat and try to fall into your drink. This trip, so late in the year, we saw them only in Germany. I should have studied French instead.

In a little while we began to get some answers to the mysteries described earlier. Police erected more barricades in an intersection as we watched, and crews used rubber strips to cover up the tram rails. A crowd began to form, and almost immediately applause began as some men in Lycra roller-bladed toward us at high speed. We had arrived in time for the world-famous Berlin Marathon - which apparently has a skating component the day before. First dozens, then hundreds of skaters went by, ranging from individual to team with custom jerseys. I'd never seen anything like it.

I was very excited to show Auberon the fact that there are some streets and neighborhoods in Berlin where you can walk for an hour and see a constant stream of shops on either side of the road. The same distance in other big cities we visited might have put us into suburbs or outside the city entirely. I got to see new parts of the city I'd never been to, and although the weather was a bit warm we had fine energy all day. We spent a while at the Berlin wall memorials, something I hadn't seen as much of before. They're huge and sobering, and I was able to draw for once on my history knowledge rather than my linguistic knowledge in conversation.

A single day only lasts so long, and we had split it about 60-40 between simply walking and goal-oriented sightseeing. At night we visited the Holocaust memorial - even more powerful and haunting in the dark - and turned in late to the hostel. Then it was back to the train station the next morning, to our destination of Hoisdorf in the countryside outside Hamburg.

Pictured: Blurry skaters, my new business venture, and a total of one remaining bike.