Virtually Home

I'm not sure exactly when this side-adventure took place, but at some point we took the U-Bahn out to the Olympic stadium that had been built for the 1936 summer games.  You know, the games where Jess Owens claims Hitler "didn't snub him". It was interesting to see, and imagine all the things that were starting to happen in Germany at the time -- and what all the droves of tourists around for the Games might have felt about it. There wasn't really anywhere to go in, but I was interested to see the grounds. Some of them had been knocked down and other things built over them, so that was kind of sad. But then, there were gold mines like this attractive, modern bathroom structure! This was one of the several moments during the trip I thought to myself "What the hell, Germany?" I mean, I thought Germans were all about tact. Or something. I guess that brings us to the part of the program where we return to a chronological account of matters. The mornin...

Berlin was cool. And by that I mostly mean cold. Freezing cold. It was -5 Celsius the first few days we were there (and all you Americans change windows to convert to Fahrenheit), and the ground was covered in snow. The first thing that happened on arrival was that the crew played Monsters of Folk's "Dear God" on the airplane's speakers. I was amused. The shuttle from the airplane to the terminal had a set of crazy doors that opened and closed and opened and closed for about a minute and a half, often seeming to spasm, or to close almost entirely and, at the last second, spring open again. I compared the sight to some kind of crab mating dance, to Hunter's vast amusement. I wish we'd gotten it, and the reactions of the people around us, on tape. We managed to get the right bus from the airport to our hostel, and left our stuff in the luggage room while we went wandering around the city in search of something to eat. We found nothing that looked remote...