David Goes All Odysseus on Berlin

I know I haven't introduced anyone to my host family or even mentioned my basic living arrangements in this country yet, but that will all come in time. Before I get to those, I feel the need to remind the adoring faithful that the absurd happenstances which define my life know no bounds, and are neither slowed by international borders nor dissuaded by oceanic distances. Fret not, little ones. 
With that being said:

Thursday nights in Berlin are a little weird. We don't have classes on Friday, so they're almost like Friday nights in that respect, but the trains stop running after 12:30 and alot of the buses shorten their routes around then too, meaning you can go out, but coming back could be an adventure. 
And in the course of the two Thursday nights I've gone out in Berlin, I have had a 100% success rate in turning the return journey into an adventure.

I'd tell you what happened during the first journey, but I've only heard second-hand stories. I understand it involved getting thrown out of a bus and PTFOing in a taxi cab, but all I know is that I ended up in my bed and the next morning people were looking at me funny. 
This Thursday's adventure, however, I remember much more clearly. And holy Christ was it terrifying. 

We started to end the night at a relatively early 2-ish, at which point we left the Oscar Wilde bar and, aided by an off-duty student assistant (AKA German person), waited a half-god-damn-hour for a bus to whisk us away to some döner place that was, remarkably, in the vicinity of where we'd been the week before, which, as you might recall (I sure don't), didn't end so hot. 
If nothing else, I know there's a bus here that will take me home to Grunewald. I am pleased. 

So we grab some döner (imagine shwarma, but called "döner"), and our student assistant takes two of the students in the program with him to another bus stop. I quickly realize that is not the bus stop at which I need to be and mosey on over to the one that serves the M19 to Grunewald, the neighborhood where I live. I wait for 20 minutes in the ridiculous cold across the sidewalk from a titty bar, and finally the Grunewald-bound bus waltzes on up. Or, more specifically, the Grunewald-Rathenauplatz-bound bus, which I took to mean "Grunewald via Rathenauplatz," but would've been more accurately translated as "you get the fuck off of my bus at Rathenauplatz, Dave Wile."

Not knowing this, I made the rookie mistake of getting onto the bus. Come Rathenauplatz, the bus tells me in German that I have no choice but to gather my things and figure out my own damned way home. I do so. I realize that I've been to Rathenauplatz before. Not on foot, but by car. In fact, both times I was in a car in Berlin, I was in Rathenauplatz. In even further fact, both times I was in a car in Rathenauplatz, the driver ran the light there. Not that that's weird here or anything: I've only been in a car twice and have run red lights a total of 6 times. Regardless, rather than chalk up my appearances at this specific traffic circle to coming from and going to the same place, I decide it must have been because it's so close to where I live. 
So I figure I can just walk the bus route home. Go time.

I'll give everyone a map so they can keep up. Also, so they can see how idiotic this idea was.

Yes, those are lakes.

I begin along Kurfürstendamm, which runs all the way into the middle of Berlin. I walk about a block and half to the Rathenauplatz, where I have a decision to make. I decide to keep going straight. Now that I have the benefits of a map, I see this decision was remarkably incorrect. At the time, I felt like a gangsta. 

I now found myself on Hubertusallee (the vertical yellow one), where I realized I was both cold and walking. In order to kill two birds with one stone, I decided running at 3 in the AM down the street would be a fantastic idea. So I'm running guns blazing in a direction that for all I know has nothing to do with getting me home (and, as luck would have it, didn't) in my H&M jeans, sexually-ambiguous form-fitting Macy's sweater, and gigantic winter jacket until I happen upon Herthastraße. That's the one right above the Hubertussee in your map, for those following along at home.

DASHING young lad - eh? Eh? Ross, see what I did there? Bazik? Anybody?

I find a bus stop with a map on it and decide to check my coordinates. I realize that, although I have been going in the generally correct direction of "south," I'm not exactly close to where I need to be. I need to hop onto the Herthastraße, hang a left onto Bismarckstraße, and eventually hit up Koenigsallee. Easy enough. 

Unfortunately, upon turning right onto Herthastraße, I realize that my chances of getting home on well-lit roads just tanked. I tell myself to sack up and go on with my journey. Along Herthastraße, I realize that I'm in Berlin's rendition of that neighborhood behind AU where all the diplomats live in comically large houses, diplomats included. Now although walking amongst wealth in the daytime might seem like a safe place to be, I can't say I found wrought-iron gates to be exactly as comforting as one might assume. Plus, I had the additional fear now that any of the 6 trillion security guards stationed around the area could misinterpret my frantic walking and snipe my ass at any moment. I understand that makes little sense now, but I was also in the state of mind where I thought walking the distance of 3 S-Bahn stops was a grand idea.

Regardless, I get to Bismarckstraße, hang my left, and find what must be the Disneyland of Biergartens. Lit up like the 4th of July on a Thursday night after 3 AM, I figured I'd stumbled upon the residency of the diplomats from the country of Beer. I resolved to go there one day, and continued on my odyssey. Looking back at our maps, I get to the part where it bisects the Herthasee and Hubertussee (oh I forgot to tell you, Bismarkstraße is the one that bisects Herthasee and Hubertussee), where I come across two giant stone carvings of sphinxes with eerily realistic features of the top half of a naked woman, one on each side of the bridge. In the shadows of night, I was convinced they would each come to life and either ask me to answer a riddle to which I would not have the answer because I suck at riddles or just eat me. Neither scenario seemed fun. Yet still I passed, went over the bridge which, like everything else here, must have had a beautiful view had I not been trying desperately to avoid shitting myself, and hung a right at the next street, Delbrückstraße. I take into account the fact that there are 2 streetlights on the entire road and run the length of it just to be safe.

Still clutching my bowels, I turn from Delbrückstraße onto Koenigsallee. From here, I just have one more turn to make, "right onto a street that starts with an F." I was practically home, and I could smell it. Once again, Athena would put my ass in its place for such unwarranted hubris.

This divine ass-whooping first manifests itself when I round a bend and see an actual person. My heart freaks out, but I resolve to keep walking and just cross that bridge when I come to it. Fortunately, I realize he's standing next to a little "Polizei" booth, so he's a cop. Unfortunately, I'm also aware I'm just the sort of ruffian the police don't want scouring this absurdly wealthy neighborhood. I'm walking by gargantuan monolithic buildings that Google Maps says have their own goddamned names. For example, allow me to introduce you to Löwenpalais (Lion's Palace):

I reiterate: Daytime, sweet stuff. Nighttime: JESUS CHRIST LIONS.

I march on despite having inadvertently walked onto the set of a Stanley Kubrick film. I get ridiculously confused at a little triangle island in the road called Hagenplatz, but ultimately continue marching on down the Koenigsallee. I pass Douglasstraße. Doesn't start with an F. I pass Oberhaardter Weg. Doesn't even think about starting with an F. The road is starting to smell like a zoo, and that makes no goddamned sense. The streetlights are becoming sparser. I continue down the street until there are no more fucking streetlights. I stop for a second and analyze variables. Something had to go wrong. I freak the fuck out.

I turn around and sprint as fast as I goddamn can because I'm certain some animal or hunter á la Jumanji has been sitting in that spot for years waiting for just the right person who can't find streets that start with F to gallivant on up the road at 4 AM and kill his ass. Or, specifically, kill my ass. So I find myself sprinting like the wind, looking over my shoulder every few strides, convinced that some awful, masked, machete-bearing murderer will be nonchalantly walking towards me yet still gaining ground because horror movies have taught me that that's right up there with gravity as a physical law. I begin to question the decisions of the past hour and a half that have led to this predicament. 

Luckily for me, I come across some nice stone steps that might be my ticket to finding a street that starts with an F. 

These steps. At 4 AM. Safety first.

I come to the top of the stairs (or, more specifically, I run to the top of the stairs) and find myself at the corner of Höhmannstraße and Regerstraße. I hang a left onto Höhmannstraße. This street is slightly better lit, so I'm only checking over my shoulder every fifth step or so. After a couple houses, I find myself at Oberhaardter Weg again. Well, thank God I'm at a familiar street. I hang a left there, whereupon I come across good ol' Koenigsallee again. I bust a right at Koenigsallee. I'll find that street that starts with an F if it's the last thing I do. And, at this point, that is a distinct possibility. 

I find myself back at the Bermuda Triangle that is Hagenplatz again. I decide to see what the bus stop at Hagenstraße has to say about where the street I'm looking for is. I am appalled at what I see there.

There's a funny thing that Berlin does with its street names sometimes. Whereas DC treats street names like they take the genius of a generation to create and will stop at nothing to make sure they don't go to waste for something as foolish as giving a completely different street a different street name, Berlin is the exact opposite. They've got names literally just coming out the wazoo (literally!), and they actively hunt for any opportunity to throw someone's name on a street. And while Hagenstraße was Hagenstraße this side of Koenigsallee (you know, the side I was walking on for the last hour), it was Fontanestraße on the other. And would you look at that. Fontanestraße starts with an F. No shit.

I go down Fontanestraße, sensing my bed ever nearer. There's an occasional streetlight. I'm seeing signs for the S-Bahn station. The possibility that I could survive this ordeal has increased exponentially in the last five minutes. I get to Am Bahnhof Grunewald, which is right before the tunnel to get to the train station. I enter the tunnel. I'm like 98% certain of my survival.

I'm an optimist.

I somehow come out the other end, onto the side of Grunewald I know like the back of my hand. I start thinking about how unfortunate it was that no one was jotting down every thought I had throughout my journey, because were I to be murdered now, only I would be aware of the irony. But I'd be dead. And I'd hate to see some good irony go to waste.

I mosey on down Dauerwaldweg, make my right turn onto Falterweg, and slip my way inside #15. Ultimately, this was my final trajectory:

Look closely and you can kinda see the constellation Draco.

Google Maps estimates the distance at 5.4 km, or, for those of us who have the sneaking suspicion that kilometers are an entirely fictional unit of measurement like myself, 3.4 God-forsaken miles. 3.4 cold, terrifying, lonely, foreign miles. 

And I didn't shit myself once. Like a champion.

David Goes Abroad

As I type these very words, I am spending my last night for the next four months breathing the free air that floats above these United States into my beautiful, pink, American lungs. I've spent the last two weeks soaking up every bit of Americana I could find. I went to Pittsburgh, where I watched first the Penguins then the Steelers destroy their respective opponents. I went to Atlanta, where I watched my South Carolina Gamecocks get beat up on by Florida State in some good old-fashioned college football. I came back to Columbia, where I got kicked out of a bar for daring to enter into it at the tender young age of twenty goddamned years old, ate lunch at the Hooters, and dined on a New York Strip with Maw-Maw and Grammy. God bless America. 

So, with that being said, let's have a look-see at all the things I love about these United States of America, and how I plan on replacing them with poor, balding, unimposing substitutes in the Old Country.

And mercilessly reminding them of their inadequacies.

I'll do so with an homage to my blogging hero, Tara: a list.   

#5. Temperate Weather
Last year, all of us DC-ers gained firsthand knowledge of the wrath of a vengeful God as the aptly-named Snowpocalypse dumped four feet of snow upon America's capital as a warning sign of punishments yet to come for, I assume, continuing to allow politics to happen. It was the worst winter I ever experienced. We were trapped and, after a meager 2 days, booze-less. Washington lies just north of the 38th parallel.

Replaced With: Tundra
Compare that to Berlin, which lies just north of the 52nd parallel. For those of you who aren't intimidated by large differences in numbers, how's this for some perspective: the 52nd parallel demarcates the northern border of Quebec. In Canada.

Or, for those "glass-half-full" kinda guys, the southern border of Labrador.

For those of you unaware, Labrador is best known as half of the rock and soul duo that is Labrador & Newfoundland province. Despite being twice the size of Newfoundland, bearing a name not comprised of words comically just added onto each other and said in a funny accent, and lending said name to the most popular dog breed ever, Labrador is home to just 6% of the province's population. Why, you ask? Because Newfoundland is to the fucking south, and right around the 52nd parallel is where people begin to realize that they're slightly less comfortable than a polar bear's left testicle. 

#4. Football
I'm going to Germany literally the day after the end of the NFL's regular season. This unfortunate circumstance means I'm going to have to scramble around Berlin at odd hours looking for playoff games. Bear in mind that I'll be doing this in what I can only imagine will be subarctic conditions. 

Replaced With: Fußball
As anyone with a pretentious white friend will tell you, American football isn't even the most popular sport in the world. In fact there's another sport called "football" that they play overseas, but you've probably never seen it. Oh, you call it "soccer"? Typical American. Do you even know where overseas is on a map??? 
Since international popularity is the only factor one should use to determine whether or not one should pay attention to a certain sport, I'm going to have to get alot more into this "football" thing. WHAT'S THAT YOU SAY??? They even only use their feet to play, and, therefore, the sport they play is more deserving of the name "football"?!?! Preposterous.

I, for one, am glad they don't do this pansy shit anymore.

Unfortunately for me, Berlin's premier fußball team, Hertha BSC, was relegated to the 2.Bundesliga at the end of last season, so I won't be seeing top-flight competition anytime soon. Regardless, I still haven't worked out the economics that allow the country to survive commercially without the stimulus of Super Bowl advertising.

#3. Fatty Foods
American ingenuity is one of the rare virtues we extol that has historic bearing. When the time calls for a genius to step up, America generally has a newly-imported genius to do just that. Everything (this is a false generalization, but I'm running with it) that defines the modern era was invented by an American: industrial assembly, airplanes, computers, nukes - all America, baby. Defining the very mantra of "come the hour, come the man" were such prodigies as John von Neumann, Albert Einstein, and Thomas Alva Edison. With the popularization of automobiles, the nation and the world demanded a means by which to get fat while driving. Come Billy Ingram and Walter Anderson. 

Heroes, all. Here's a short list of my last few meals: 

• Double quarter-pounder with cheese
• Chick-fil-A sandwich
• 2 Georgia Dome hotdogs
• 6 Krystal cheeseburgers 
• Hooters bacon cheeseburger
• 12 oz. New York Strip steak
• Sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit from the Waffle House

There's more grease in my digestive tract than there is atop Pauly D's head.

Maybe not.

Replaced With: Traditional Fatty Foods
If there's one thing I know about Germans, it's this: every German is apparently thin until their early thirties, whereupon everything they know and love about their dietary lifestyles turns against them.

Above: Tragedy.

So instead of my wonderful soul food, I'm left with German soul food, which I assume is just a ridiculous amount of meat. And I'm not one to turn away a schnitzel. 

#2. English
English is pretty much the best language ever. It's the closest thing linguists have had to an underdog success story since Aramaic somehow sweet-talked its way into becoming the official language of the Assyrian Empire (it still makes no goddamned sense!). 

English had humble origins as the tribal language of some northern Germanic tribesmen who'd grown tired in their ordinary Germanic lives and decided to bond over a merry little voyage to the future England. Along the way, they made English - Old English to be exact, which would achieve immortal fame in the epic of Beowulf. It actually doesn't seem a damned bit like English, but we'll give linguists the benefit of the doubt here.

Then the nasty Normans came (themselves old Vikings whose fathers had grown tired of vikinging all the time and retired instead to northern France), beat up on the drunk-ass godless Saxons at Hastings, and threw crappy Old French all up into the language. 
Eventually Shakespeare grabbed English by the balls and made it cry "Uncle," added his own words to it, and generally improved its reputation. By the time the 19th century rolled around and everyone was throwing in whatever Greek-chic they could find and jump-starting the thesaurus industry, English - supported by the world's most pretentious navy - was all up in e'erbody's respective grillz. 

Including my own. And I couldn't be happier.

Replaced With: Old Old English
Let's face it: whenever you hear someone say "Was ist das?", you're aware they're just speaking English with the most contrived accent possible. And that, friends, is really all German is: English that never got to be English. The howler monkey to our homo sapien. The Gary Coleman to our everybody else who doesn't have what Gary Coleman had. 

Here's my favorite two stories about the German language:
1. The word for "head" is "Kopf." This doesn't sound like "head." It sounds more like cup, actually. Well guess what? Back before Aenglisc and German were two separate languages, Kopf meant cup. The Angles just chucked deuces a little early on the party, and missed the whole joke that would later ensue: EVERYONE back in the fatherland started referring to heads as cups, like we do in English when we refer to a "mug." Only it wasn't Hollywood's portrayal of 1920's gangsters using the term, but every damn person in the country 800 years before Internet memes were available to spread jokes to the farthest reaches of nerddom. 

At least English waited until the Internet to destroy itself.

2. This is actually the exact same story, but with different words. In German, if someone wants to give you a "Gift," you shouldn't take it, because "Gift" means "poison." How did this come about? Well, as it turns out, the entire German nation is composed of facetious little hipsters, because they all, once again, went along with the same nation-wide joke. That's right: they all collectively thought it would be hilarious to ironically refer to poison as a little "gift."
If Germans had been as intent on political unity as they'd been on humor unity, maybe they'd've been a part of a unified country for more than 94 years in the 3 millennia of their entire history.  

#1. Patriotism
Just hit play, and let Toby tell you all you need to know.

God bless us, every one.

Replaced With: "Is It Still Too Soon?"
Judging from the German track record for starting World Wars, I expect at least one to break out while I'm over there. 

Looks like there's some solid support. Except I can't find a comparable song advocating forcing footwear into any orifices, so I think America would still have the upper hand.