I also ventured OUT of Berlin too. I will tell you all about the sites I saw in good time. BUT first things first, I am not after all going to die of toxic fumes. The toilets have been addressed and despite the men’s room being in constant need of attention, we now know how to keep the smell under control. It sucks that the responsibility will ultimately fall into the hands of me and my office mates, but venturing into the men’s room once a week to pour water down a drain, flush the toilets, and open the windows is a sacrifice I will make and gripe about to make sure I don’t gag while I’d rather be working ☺
OK, so how about some of the trips I alluded to?
The last week of March, Jen O. and I went to London to work at the Natural History Museum. We ended up overlapping only slightly while at the museum, but the first day we arrived, we made like tourists taking pictures of anything we could.
I only scratched the surface of the fish collection at the museum. You should SEE the tank room there. It is outrageous. Biggest coffins I've ever seen -- they require pulleys and heavy duty chains to lift the lids and reveal what lies beneath ☺ A few museum patrons were in the tank room when the curator took me downstairs so we had fun with them showing off dead fish of all levels of freakiness.
My last night there was great. Julia and I stayed out late after a Wild Life Photography exhibit only to drink more wine at a nearby pub. She got me to Victoria Station safely and I paid for the bus (10 pounds) as I walked on and I got a receipt right there. The station was a little difficult to find because it is not right there when you get off the tube, but there were signs that take you to it. Also, there were notices that say not to stand outside alone because it is dangerous. If you can wait with somebody, I recommend it... In general though, you should try and avoid being drunk at the airport. I arrived around 2am on the bus and found a rest room (they are on either side of the airport) then tried to find a place to sleep as did dozens of other travlers. I got a little hungry, wandered, ate a sandwich, bought two books, found a better place to sleep and woke up at about 4:30/5:00am when people were starting to check in. I did so then went to find another place to sleep until boarding. At this point I sobered up and felt really sick -- great! I did everything I could not to completely lose it in the queue. I walked outside with my INCREDIBLY heavy bad and struggled and nobody offered to help me -- I must have looked really sick because I was so tired and very pale -- like I had plague or something. I had a one bag restriction so everything was inside my suitcase, but as soon as I got on the plane, I took half the shit out into my backpack and kept it that way after. I fell asleep almost immediately again and was the last person off the plane, and through customs. I got home fine after that to a cold apartment around 11am and felt good by about 5pm... I ate nearly an entire frozen pizza by myself and talked to my mom. It was a great week ☺
Two Days Later, Jen D. arrived. She conveniently has a very German last name, which impressed the locals. That didn’t get them to speak much English to here though, so there were some stressful moments on our Tour-de-Deutschland. We rented a car in Berlin and drove to Potsdam then onwards over the next three days to Rosdorf/Goettingen, Kassel, Bremen, Cuxhaven, Hamburg, Kiel, Lübeck, and back to Berlin. It costs us 98 Euros for the car and roughly 150 Euros for gas. Sheesh. Of those places I will intentionally visit Goettingen, Lübeck, and Bremem again. OK, a little more about each maybe?
Potsdam is a town just outside the city limits of Berlin and it is known for its incredible castles -- we were there late however and did not want to pay full price to see a castle for one hour. Instead we wandered the city, ate sausage, and found strange statues like the floating rhino...
Goettingen was a great town – the epitome of German Education in its day. Ryan works/studies there now as part of a German exchange fellowship. We started Deutsch 607 together at the same time, but he speaks it WAY better than I do, and he gets to learn Italian too because of his cohort ‘Romans’ in the same program. Wicked.
Next we took a drive to Kassel – there was nothing there. Except rain, a little sleet, and a sweet old lady who recognized our license plate as Bavarian and said she came from the area we did… I was reluctant to tell her we were not from there but she seemed pleased that I had understood her and that we were traveling in her country. That was the only good thing about Kassel this trip, I am afraid.
On to Bremen. We arrived really late and I was a fricken space cadet. The girl at the desk of the Hostel spoke the fastest English with a British accent I suddenly affected a very sloooooooow British accent to counter her trying to get her to calm down because my brain could not handle it. She suggested a place to eat once we were settled in and we walked towards the Italian place she likes. We decided on a little pub nearby instead and had a delicious dinner of Jaeggerschnitzel, Fish, and Pasta. We were ready to go to bed, except that we were in a 6 bed mixed suite, and the other people staying in the room were two Mexican men who were traveling during the break from studying in Spain. They wanted to chat for a while so we obliged and finally I said, “I am going to bed.” 
A couple hours later I was woken by the most disgusting example of sleep apnea and hardly slept at all for the gasping, gagging, and snoring. I got up really early, got ready to go, and was paranoid about getting the car towed so I moved it, and of course I did not put enough money in the meter so when we returned from a rather COLD morning out on the town, I had a parking ticket – grumble! I did like the town square a lot though and I need to learn the story behind this statue with the donkey, dog, cat, and chicken. P.S. I don't know why they are sideways.Cuxhaven, a.k.a. expensive version of a north shore port town. What? You didn’t think it was possible to be more expensive than Northport, Port Jeff, or Greenport? Well it is, and what is worse, there are less people and thus less to do… Moral of the story, don’t go back.
During the drive to Hamburg, we went north along the coast and took a ferry from Wischhafen to Glüchstadt and that was a lovely break. I wrote a couple postcards and drank a Mezzo Mix. Life was good. The drive from Glüchstadt was pretty good until we got to Hamburg…HAMBURG! The worst city to drive in since Boston! And on an empty stomach after traveling for two days. That does not make a happy Jen – I was in the car solely to prevent her from going insane. The awesome GPS system in the car was dubious in getting us to our hostel. I finally made her pull over and we called to find out where they were. It turns out we were a few hundred meters from it, so not so bad. WRONG! I took over driving for a while and after about 30 minutes, we found our hostel and went inside to get our beds. EXCEPT, they couldn’t find the reservation, had no idea what we owed, or which room we were supposed to be put in, if we were getting breakfast… Thus, six bed mixed dorm without breakfast turned into a 3bed private sweet for the two of us with breakfast. Only after two tries – the first room we got had some girl’s clothes EVERYWHERE. Grumble grumble. We had McDonalds that evening for breakfast. It was real chicken in the McChicken Sandwich. I was impressed! We left straight away the next morning without bothering to view the city. It took me 45 minutes in bumper-to-bumper rush-hour traffic, driving a standard (as I pat myself on the back) to get out of the city. Kiel was bound to be better.
Kiel was not much better – it was another let down. We literally drove in and drove right back towards Lübeck on some back roads. It was a pleasant drive and Lübeck turned out to be a splendid city if not for the cold rain in the afternoon. We had a good curry for lunch and later Jen picked up a piece of art and I got ot practice some German when I tried to find the Toilet in a shopping center.
The best part maybe was the drive back from Lübeck to Berlin though. It was mostly green farmland with small, identical looking villages scattered along the way. We even saw a rainbow. We made it back to Berlin in great time and I drove the car back to the parking garage and backed into a space all by myself ☺ I am a pro I tell ya – except that I stalled out twice cuz I was in third not first after waiting at a traffic light! Thanks to Jen D for pointing that out.
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