Ich bin ein jelly donut
This last week has been an exercise in non-communication. It's weird how different a travel experience is when there is no one to talk to, not least some who speaks the same native language.
I'm having a great time in Berlin but I am pretty ready to come home. Not for the normal reasons you might think - e.g. abundant ice and water, free refills, BBQ (ooh, BBQ...maybe I better scratch that last one), English speakers (there are plenty of those here...just no one I would want to talk to), but reasons pretty personal to me. I miss having friends to talk to. I miss having a home base that feels like home. I miss Chandler. All that sort of thing. I think as I age and my life has settled down a bit, my need to travel constantly has abated a bit. Don't get me wrong, I still love to travel, but I miss home more quickly. I have more to come back to now, which is in my mind an even better reason to travel in the first place. Oddly enough, I don't miss American food at all. I have decided to wholeheartedly embrace the European eating habits, which means in Germany eating lots of deli meat and cheese at breakfast, wurst with (way too much) ketchup as a late lunch/snack, but for the most part, small manageable portions. I actually went to an Indian buffet last night and gorged myself, let that be a lesson that you should NOT ever go back for a second plate, not least if you're not still hungry. Stupid American tendencies...
The Peanutopolis! mix has gotten some good use, as has another mix I created a few months back. Both are great for travel, I've decided. I'm happy that B&S has a specific association now, by which of course I mean the Eastern Europe train extravaganza where we went splitter-crazy.
I ended up not making it to Dresden - I couldn't find a train that took less than three hours (Lonely Planet advertised two) and by the time I got there it would pretty much have been time to come back. I ended up S-Bahning it to Potsdam, which was a cute little suburb which had a nice palace complex (with yet more plundered Egyptian artifacts) and some great gardens, if you like that sort of thing. Very nice but to be honest all the old buildings are starting to look alike. Probably just as well I didn't get to Dresden as I probably wouldn't have appreciated it as much as I might have earlier in the trip.
I am kind of excited about my send-off activity tonight...tomorrow is German reunification day and they have had a festival set up near the Reichstag for a couple of days. I think I'll head up there and see how they do July 4, German style! I think the actual moment of reunification is tonight at midnight, if I get indications as such I may stick around a little late!
OK - I better sign off - until I'm back in the states (or if I get really bored this evening), signing off!!!
I'm having a great time in Berlin but I am pretty ready to come home. Not for the normal reasons you might think - e.g. abundant ice and water, free refills, BBQ (ooh, BBQ...maybe I better scratch that last one), English speakers (there are plenty of those here...just no one I would want to talk to), but reasons pretty personal to me. I miss having friends to talk to. I miss having a home base that feels like home. I miss Chandler. All that sort of thing. I think as I age and my life has settled down a bit, my need to travel constantly has abated a bit. Don't get me wrong, I still love to travel, but I miss home more quickly. I have more to come back to now, which is in my mind an even better reason to travel in the first place. Oddly enough, I don't miss American food at all. I have decided to wholeheartedly embrace the European eating habits, which means in Germany eating lots of deli meat and cheese at breakfast, wurst with (way too much) ketchup as a late lunch/snack, but for the most part, small manageable portions. I actually went to an Indian buffet last night and gorged myself, let that be a lesson that you should NOT ever go back for a second plate, not least if you're not still hungry. Stupid American tendencies...
The Peanutopolis! mix has gotten some good use, as has another mix I created a few months back. Both are great for travel, I've decided. I'm happy that B&S has a specific association now, by which of course I mean the Eastern Europe train extravaganza where we went splitter-crazy.
I ended up not making it to Dresden - I couldn't find a train that took less than three hours (Lonely Planet advertised two) and by the time I got there it would pretty much have been time to come back. I ended up S-Bahning it to Potsdam, which was a cute little suburb which had a nice palace complex (with yet more plundered Egyptian artifacts) and some great gardens, if you like that sort of thing. Very nice but to be honest all the old buildings are starting to look alike. Probably just as well I didn't get to Dresden as I probably wouldn't have appreciated it as much as I might have earlier in the trip.
I am kind of excited about my send-off activity tonight...tomorrow is German reunification day and they have had a festival set up near the Reichstag for a couple of days. I think I'll head up there and see how they do July 4, German style! I think the actual moment of reunification is tonight at midnight, if I get indications as such I may stick around a little late!
OK - I better sign off - until I'm back in the states (or if I get really bored this evening), signing off!!!
posted by Raawwwb! at 7:21 AM
3 Comments:
I am quite sick of my feet smelling and my clothes smelling, and I totally know what it feels like to have that "no one to talk to feeling." I talk to people, but it's not the same as really having a conversation. I think that's why spending some time with old friends while I've been on the road and being able to stay in touch through the Internet has really preserved my sanity. Otherwise, too many thoughts get caught up inside and they have no place to go and it gets very frustrating and discouraging. What good is it to have awesome and amazing experiences if you can't share them? And what good is conversing when you have to explain everything so much more than you would want to. (which is why making sex jokes and talking about farting was so incredible the other night--cause it's so rare to reach that point of comfort with utter strangers...)
Peanutopolis rules! And I'm glad you've now got a happy B&S association... I have loads of happy memories for which they're the soundtrack. You probably remember that blog post (or could look it up if you were dying to remember).
I had way more fun than was justifiable on that train with you guys, and I smile every time I see the pictures. (Though I probably won't when I see yours, Rob, because there are like 300 unflattering ones of me in which I look like Godzirra coming to eat Slovakia when really I wanted to do was go as myself and drink all their pivo...)
LOL - I'm logged into Windows Live Messenger, and since the comments are emailed directly to me, I just received notification that I received an email at my Hotmail account from Sally O'Malley!!! That made me laugh even though I knew it was coming.
I'm fifty! Five-oh!
And I reckon I'm about to get another one...
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