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Kita Schlümpfhausen. The original Smurfs were Belgian and they romped around an unnamed European forest,
tickling each other's armpits and eating fungus. Or not.
But apparently, modern East Berliners still derive inspiration from these enigmatic blue ne'er do wells.
Ping-pong in Kollwitzplatz. Soph played a few rounds with a 72-year-old dude who spoke no English.
The old dude CREAMED Soph. Twice.
OUR BIKES!! Soph got his for free from an expat friend on a Fullbright. I bought mine for 35 euros from this pack of
sketchy old German dudes sitting on folding chairs on the sidewalk selling various
used crap spread out on blankets. No English.
We communicated with grunts and gestures.
Our bikes were kinda crappy, but kinda wonderful. Everyone rides crappy bikes in
Berlin. The streets are constantly filled with the music of loose fenders and slipping gears.
Our first sighting of a sign indicating where the Berlin wall used to be. Spooooooky.
Awesome huge flea market in Mauer Park. Where all the cool kids go. So much crap here... clothes, antiques, records, snuf bottles, strange political marching bands... well, only one. They wore farm animal masks. ????
The view from our sublet in Mitte. Great view of the "Alex". Note that the globe part is dressed like an effeminate soccer ball in honor of the World Cup the previous month.
Me standing in front of a huge asprin. As we approached I was like, "look at that asprin!!" thinking I was being funny, that it wasn't a sculpture of an ACTUAL asprin...
because that would be sort of strange, right? But it really is an asprin. I think there is a nearby medical complex, which I suppose makes more sense. But still. Right?
Brandenburg Gate. Famous for once separating the East and the West. They built the wall right in front of it.
This is one of the many Jewish memorials in Berlin. We didn't realize it was a memorial at first...
we thought it was a public sculpture, so we honored it by scrambling around the blocks and squealing like ninnies.
Then we read about it in our guidebook later and were like, "Oh. Those were COFFINS. Well, wasn't THAT wildly disrespectful..."
Checkpoint Charlie! Leaving the American Sector, bitches... suck it.
Soph's bag got lost somewhere in Layover Land, and didn't get to us until five days later.
Aer Lingus supposedly owes us a bunch of money, 60 euros for each day our bag was gone.
We went out and bought a bunch of clothes with our future money. Then we washed them.
Great story, Sheila.
New jacket. New scarf. New(ish) bike. Thank you, Aer Lingus!
European garbage is cooler than American garbage.
HILARIOUS fountain in the Tiergarden.
Why Los Angeles?
Wrong on SO MANY LEVELS.
Bombed out church left over from World War II. Modern Berlin has a very complicated relationship with World War II (as one might expect).
At every turn there are jewish memorials, nazi exhibits, wall remnants, buildings riddled with graffitti and bullet holes
that have never been repaired or cleaned...
One such memorial. At Humbolt University, in the square, you walk to the center and look down and you'll
find a glass plate that looks down into a white room filled with empty shelves in remembrance of the Nazi book burnings.
Pretty stunning at night.
Also found in the square.
So, Soph and I had bought our bikes with the idea that we'd ride them from Berlin to Copenhagen.
There is a very well-established network of bike trails connecting the two cities, and the land is relatively flat the whole way there.
We had done a little research before we left the states, but not a ton.
The day we decided to leave Berlin, we put our bikes onto a train, got off a half our later at a tiny town called Dannenwalde, and just started riding. We couldn't stop laughing... we were like, "We have absolutely NO idea where we're going!!!
Why are we still pedaling?" No map, no directions,
just a vague sense that things would resolve themselves. Luckily, peppered throughout Germany are little places called "Bett & Bikes", which are bed and breakfasts geared toward bikers.
That little flag saved our lives.
It rained EVERY SINGLE DAY of our bike trip. We were not prepared at all. We wore thin slickers that were not waterproof and regular street-clothes. Soph wore his backpack beneath his clothes to keep it dry, and I covered everything else in shopping bags.
The other bikers on the trail had this GEAR,
like thousands of dollars worth of saddle bags and water booties and rain visors... they would whiz past us, glancing at each other like, "what the hell was THAT?"
Okay, the sign on the left is a one indicating the bike trail. The one on the right is pointing to a concentration camp for girls.
The bike path runs RIGHT THROUGH a concentration camp.
How's that for turning a leisurely journey through rural East Germany into a painful exploration of the dark recesses of the human soul?
Found inside the camp. Could someone translate? Heidi? Larissa?
Typical German meal. I had breaded white fish smothered in cheese sauce. Soph ate steak and pork smothered in cheese sauce.
We actually had no idea what we ordered... we just pointed to words on the menu. (Very few people speak English in East Germany.)
Good thing we were riding upwards of 60 km per day, so we could burn off all that fucking cheese.
German cat.
Along the trail.
A stop in Ankershagen, home of Heinrich Schliemann, the fella known for discovering archeological sites named in the Illiad and the Odyssey.
This photo reminds me of that old joke, "'Beware of Greeks bearing gifts???' They ought to have said, 'beware of gifts bearing Greeks!!'" Nyuk nyuk.
During one particular heinous downpour, Soph and I abandonned our bikes at the side of the road and fled to a shelter on a small playground...
this was the grafitti found inside. Yes, that naked lady with the strange hips and the torsional deformity is peeing.
You ever hear that thing about Germans and porn, that Germans go for the bodily function stuff more than the average porn enthusiast?
Here's some evidence that this tendency might manifest itself at a very young age.
Sweet little coastal town called Waren. We were the first Americans that the staff at our pension had ever met. That's a lie, but it
did seem that we were a bit of an anomaly along our journey.
Americans generally don't do the Berlin-Copenhagen bike thing. Perhaps because they don't come prepared and then it
rains on their asses for a week.
A sweet home in Waren.
I like to think that Wolf-Dieter is actually dreaming of loving McDonalds.
We decided we were sick of getting rained on in Germany and took our bikes on a train to Denmark
(a train, another train, and a ferry). Because it doesn't rain in Denmark. Right? Anyone?
Outside the train window. Air is a huge resource for power in Germany. But these things also kill thousands of birds a year...
We tried to record everything into that little book during our train rides. We only got as far as Denmark. Because we're lazy idiots who can't hold a pen for more than twelve minutes without cramping up.
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