Well, that was my first skipped day or two of the trip. The good thing is the fact that if I don’t write, it probably means I’m having too much fun doing something else. This was definitely the case in the past few days. The best part was my first experience in the couch surfing network. For those of you unenlightened by the couch surfing idea, it is a website that lets you request to stay on peoples couches in cities all around the world for free, rather than staying in a hostel. I think I’m in trouble because I’m going to always compare every other host to Micha and he was probably one of the most generous and interesting guys in Berlin. Micha has his masters degree in engineering of some kind hand he is now doing work with short films. I was joined by another couch surfer, Peter, from Australia, also I prime pick for a guy that I had to share a floor with. I don’t want to bore you to death with background about people that you don’t know and therefore probably don’t care about but Peter was a very an awesome guy. He was from Australia, but his parents were from the Netherlands and Spain. You would never know he had Spanish blood because he has bright red hair and definitely resembles the Dutch side, which makes it really funny when he speaks perfect Spanish as well. It was great to be able to have real conversations with people again! And now I have an open invite to Australia!
Yesterday, I broke down and Peter and I ended up taking a tour of some of the sites that I’d already seen but not taken the time to actually learn about like the German Parliament, Holocaust memorial, Checkpoint Charlie, the site of Hitler‘s suicide and also the square of the famous book burning (Unfortunately this square was covered over by a stupid white tent for Fashion Week). There is a great tour company in a lot of major cities in Europe that offers “free tours” and the guides work strictly off tips. Our guide, although a little monotone, was very informative and a down to earth guy. It was funny because his accent sounded so American that I had to ask him and it turns out that he’s from Amsterdam but his mom is American. I’m not sure if I’ve ever come across any Europeans with “American-English” accents.
As I write this I’m sitting in a coffee shop in the train station in Potsdam. I literally only got here about four hours ago but I’ve seen what I want to see of this city. Unfortunately it’s not quite “Germany’s Versailles” in the winter months. The main attractions are the great gardens and parks that also house a few summer palaces. The garden’s were brown and bare. I guess I should do more research! Luckily it’s only about 45 minutes outside of Berlin by train. I’ll be staying with my newest CS (this is what I’m going to call “Couchsurfing from now on) host, Jo-hannes for the night and then probably heading back to Berlin for another day or two.
I’m hoping to finally make my first attempt at uploading some pictures in the next few days. And everyone knows that pictures are worth a thousand of these damn things.
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