Berlin: Day 1

We left for Berlin this morning. I was running late, and almost missed the bus to the station. I had to race out of my apartment, with armloads of unorganized or unpacked stuff and untied shoes coming off my feet, to yell at the bus as it started to pull off - one minutes early, I might add. But the driver stopped, I got on, and we all made it to the bus station in plenty of time to catch our 8 am bus to Berlin.

The bus ride took 8 hours, but wasn't as bad as it sounded. We slept some, watched a movie that I didn't like, talked, and tried to eavesdrop on the Danish guys sitting at a table across the aisle from us. They translated what the bus driver told us, which was kind of them. We got to Berlin around 4:15, and Emily's friend Nick was waiting at the bus station for us. He's an American whose been studying in Berlin for 6 months. He acted as our tour guide and translator for the whole weekend, and was really nice and really really knowledgeable.

Nick started our Berlin trip off with a vital part of Berlin - döner. It's a Turkish food, and it tastes sooo good. It's veal, lettuce, tomato, cabbage, onion and sauces in this homemade bread that's similar to a pita. I wish they had them in Denmark, because besides being really good, they're also very cheap - 2 euros. In Aarhus, the most similar food I can think of, schwarma, costs at least twice that. Why did I decide to come to Scandinavia, one of the most expensive areas of the world?

After getting döner from a street vendor, Nick took us to an Irish pub he liked. While we were there, an Irish guy came up and chatted with us, and especially with Nick. We assumed he was a friend of Nick's, but Nick had never met him before. Anyway, this guy was really friendly and we enjoyed talking with him. It was open mic night, and the Irish performed a few songs that sounded pretty good. He left us for awhile, and came back less than half an hour later with two other girls from Norman. They were OU students who studied in southern Germany, and they were visiting Berlin for the weekend, too. They were nice girls, we had a lot of fun that night. The open mic was kind of led/organized by this band from Boston. I wasn't impressed with the music the two guys played, but they were pretty cool, they talked with us some. Then Emily told the Irish guy it was my birthday. He told the Boston guys, and 10 minutes later, the entire bar was singing Happy Birthday to me. It was a pretty good feeling, I had such a blast that night. One of the Boston guys dedicated the next song they played to me. It was flattering. This night made up for my lousy, boring night at Mellow Cafe.