hookay, so.
i write you all from berlin, where i'm staying in the lovely home of yitz. he's currently in england with his sister, but that hasn't stopped his parents from being gracious hosts (i even have a house key!). but. i shall begin at the beginning.
i left chicago a week ago. after staying up until 4 at mia's, i slept there and (rather begrudgingly) awoke in the neighborhood of 9 or 10. i then went home, proceeded to throw shit in a bag, and petted kittens with mame and igor until mia, my knight-in-shining-suv, came to my rescue and took me to midway.
a few days in lancaster brought me 3 medical/dental appointments, plenty of pizza hut (my older bro's a delivery driver), chillaxing, a diner trip, a long-overdue viewing of
anchorman, and quality time with the fam. but you don't care about any of this; you're here for the european adventures.
let me first say that i usually dislike it when blogs get that "and then i did this and that and this!" chronology. it's like, dudes, i don't CARE what time you woke up or what you had for lunch! get a muhfucking LIFE already! unfortunately, every time i try to compose an entry in my head it sounds like that, and i get disgusted and stop. so, uh, my apologies for a likely entry of sucky chronology.
my flight to paris was uneventful. i saw
the sisterhood of the traveling pants, plus the ending of two other not-so-good movies,
monster-in-law with j.lo and
kicking & screaming, with will ferrell. i say the latter two movies weren't so good because, though i hadn't seen the entire movies, i felt as though i had just from seeing their crappy, predictable endings. (the former i saw in its entirety, and i'm certain it was not-so-good.) then again, airlines probably try to pick movies that appeal to mass audiences, and movies with mass appeal almost unanimously suck.
i was sitting between the window, which provided a spectacular view of sunset over the states (not to mention a good view of early sunrise over europe), and theresa, a french teacher from virginia who gave me some helpful hints about paris's public transit system and european night trains. the plane arrived at about 7, and customs and baggage were both a breeze.
getting to the RER wasn't challenging per se, but it was rather disconcerting since most signs were in french. i finally got to bus line 2, a free shuttle that took me, my shitloads of luggage, and some fellow dc-paris passengers to an RER station. a huge-ass line and 8 euros later, i was prepared to board the RER (the equivalent of chicago's metra; it's a train line that goes into the city from more peripheral locations). the thing i don't know about the RER, though, is that there are two steps to get onto it. which means i can't roll my big-ass duffel onto it. which means that i--as the doors were beeping that they were about to close, burdened with my backpack, my laptop case on my left shoulder, and my small duffel bag in my left hand--had to hoist my awkwardly-shaped, 60-pound bag up onto the train. and i ended up falling, people. yes, falling. not a bad fall onto the ground, just against the little wall that separates the seating area of the train from the doors. but still, i felt like a tool.
and speaking of feeling like a tool! there are chairs that fold out of the little walls near the entrance. i decided to sit on one of these, so that i would be as close to the door as possible when it came time to leave the RER. i got up to let some other passengers off, and then proceeded to sit back down on what i thought was my chair. little did i realize, however, that the chairs spring back up into the wall if there's no weight on them. so, there i was, falling AGAIN, when a strong french hand grabbed my upper arm to keep me up. once again, feeling and looking like a tool.
oh, oh, but it doesn't stop there. the toolage continued once i got to the stop where i was to make my transfer. still unsure of the french system, i didn't know if i needed to get another ticket for admittance to the metro. after a brief frommer's consultation, i decided that i didn't, and proceeded to insert my ticket and walk through a weird door-barrier. as i was pulling my bag behind me through the doors, they decided to close. so. there i am, looking like a tool, my backpack on, my laptop case on my left shoulder, my small duffel bag in my left hand, yanking as hard as i can on a big duffel bag that's stuck in the doors. the doors are not letting go of the bag for anything, so i was very relieved when some dude inserted his ticket, opening the doors and freeing my bag. good times.
a bit of aimless wandering about the station later, i find metro 14, the line that will take me to the university's paris center. i was using a yellow paper as my main map, upon which jfried had labeled the Parc de Bercy. being the tool that we've already determined i am, i thought Bercy was the stop i was supposed to get off on, so i did. as i'm trying to get up onto the street, i see that the elevator is out of order, joy. i take a minute to prepare myself for the shit-hauling up the stairs, then get on with it. i'd gone a few steps when i felt my center of balance shift. manymany curse words went through my head, since i could just envision myself--with my backpack on, my laptop case over my left shoulder, my small duffel bag in my left hand, and my bigass duffel bag in my right hand--falling backward down some stairs in a paris metro station. i didn't immediately fall, though, and when i looked back i saw that some dude had grabbed another handle on my bigass duffel bag and was helping me carry it up the stairs. sweet.
once i got off the metro and merci'd the dude, i started to look for the streets that were on the yellow paper. i decided something was wrong when i didn't see any of them, so i examined a city map for a long while. i still couldn't quite figure out where i was or where i needed to be, though, so i went a block or two to where a taxi location was labeled on the map. once there, i saw no taxis, but i did see a hotel. the front desk lady graciously called a taxi for me, and the driver came into the lobby to help me haul my shit to the trunk. he'd put in two bags when two women nearby started throwing a hissy fit, because apparently they'd been waiting for a taxi and they were there first. the driver took one of the women into the lobby while i shrugged at the other one. i don't know what transpired inside, but i got the taxi so all was well in my monde.
everything was pure magic at the paris center, which was about a 9-euro ride away. the young man at the front desk, Gautier, stored my bags and pointed me to the computer lab and bathroom. he told me fun things i could do that day and gave me directions on how to get there, as well as directions to the train station (since i had an overnight train to berlin that evening). all of this in perfect english, might i add.
so i'm entering the metro station that's near the paris center when i hear someone say my name. i look up and see Manoah, whom i'm quite excited to see. he agrees to hang out with me, so i go with him back to the paris center, where he checks his e-mail as some paris-civ-in-french students filter in. and then there's josie!
manoah and i get lunch while josie goes to class, and afterwards the three of us walk to a gorgeous park. the park has couples making out everywhere, as well as men in speedos--so french. we chat, i nap on the grass, and then they see me safely to my overnight train.
theresa from the plane had warned me to sleep beside my bags on the train to prevent someone from swiping them. i didn't follow her advice, though, and instead pushed them under the bed, as far against the wall as they would go. i slept like a rock in the bottom bunk (there were 4 of us in the cabin), and awoke when the conductor opened the door to announce "berlin!" before too long, the young woman across from me was talking to the woman and young man who were also in our cabin in french. i didn't understand much, but i did pick out "passport" and "police." i figured they were just talking about what would happen when we de-trained, until she addressed me with, "i don't know if you understood what i just told them, but my bag was stolen during the night." eep! she'd had a small bag at her feet--away from the door--and someone had entered our cabin while we were all sleeping and swiped her bag. yikes.
i, not knowing that berlin had more than one train stop, failed to get off on the proper station, but found my way to where i needed to be with a little help from the germans. i accidentally told a woman "bitte" instead of "danke," and it took me a second to realize why she was laughing at me as she walked away. ah well, at least i brought some humor to her life! and there was a couple who spoke no english, but still helped my buy a ticket from the machine and validate it--they even saw me safely onto the right s-bahn train! and once i was near yitz's mom's workplace, a nice gardner helped me find it and even carried one of my bags for me (i left my bigass duffel in the paris center, so i was significantly less burdened than i had been in paris).
as i mentioned, yitz's mom gave me a house key, so i came back here, had my first shower in a few days, unpacked, and napped. after that, i had a great evening: yitz's friend julius showed me around some. i'll tell you all about it, but not now since i'm sick of typing--and you're probably sick of reading!
hasta luego and all that jazz.
