25 Dec:
When last I left off, we had attempted to fall asleep with two very noisy children in our sleeper compartment. I was all comfy because they provided a pillow, a sheet, and a blanket for us. I kept on my sweatshirt because it had all my valuables in it, so I was quite warm. The kids weren't THAT BAD at first because I just figured they'd quiet down eventually and fall asleep because it was dark and still and somehow the stillness would get to them. They must not pay attention to their surroundings that much.
No, wait, the compartment wasn't still. It was still for a while before we stopped and I figured it was just a stop along the way. Ryan asked how we would know which stop is ours, and the train staff person said that ours was the 9:00am stop. So I set my alarm for 8:00am so we would be awake and ready to get off at the right place. I stuck in a pair of earplugs and fell asleep. For the record, I could still hear the children through the earplugs, but it was a lot quieter than without them. I don't know which was worse though, the children's singing or their mother constantly saying "Be quiet! Other people are trying to sleep!" She even threatened to beat them but I didn't hear anything that sounded like beating throughout the night. Perhaps they would have shut up if they were hit? That is a very cruel remark. I'm sorry.
So I got some pretty decent sleep, what with earplugs and all. Ryan didn't want any because I think he wanted to listen to what was going on outside our room. I slept through most of the night and woke up when Ryan got up to check something out, because by this time it was nearly 6am and the train hadn't moved since midnight. Not a good sign at all.
As it turns out, our engine broke somewhere around midnight and we weren't moving because we were waiting for a new engine to come all the way from Berlin, which was 8 hours away at midnight. At around 7am, Ryan set out to see if we could find some food, and this is where he met a German girl who spoke proficient English and was able to translate German for us. Hooray! He, her, and a few others followed a member of staff to a small room that had food, but most of it was already eaten. But there were a bunch of water bottles so Ryan grabbed a bunch. The staff was also handing out packaged butter croissants to everyone, so Ryan got two of those for us. We set them aside to be eaten later because we weren't sure when we would get moving again.
Ryan was more upset than I was that our Berlin plans were thwarted by the train. He really wanted to go to Berlin, and I didn't mind Christmas on the train. It kept me moving and moving makes me less homesick and I didn't want to spend Christmas in tears. Besides, my phone died so it wasn't like we could call Mom and Dad from the train to complain to them about the problem. Which means we didn't get a chance to talk with everyone from home about our Christmas Adventure.
The train finally resumed its path at around 10am. When this happened, we were like "I guess there's nothing for us to do, really." So we sat down to listen to some more Harry Potter. The old woman and her grandson on the bottom two bunks disappeared to find the grandfather so Ryan and I moved our stuff down there and sat down to listen. It wasn't comfortable at all because we couldn't sit up straight. We had to lean forward to avoid touching the bunk above us. Besides, the bunk above us came up to Ryan's neck when he was sitting down, so it wasn't like he had a lot of room in the first place. So there we are, trying to listen to our book, when the smaller of the two boys came and started tapping Ryan on the head. His mother tried telling him to stop, but we all know that wasn't going to happen. Even Ryan turned around and said "Cut it out" but the kid still kept on poking. I almost wanted to get into the kid's face and seethe something fierce at him, but I wasn't quite that angry at him. I was surprisingly chill throughout the whole ordeal, to be honest. I didn't feel worked up about anything. But the kid and the sitting arrangements were enough for Ryan to suggest that we move to a compartment. So we did.
We found the German girl Ryan met sitting with a Chinese girl in a compartment of their own. We asked if we could join them. Ryan had another motive though, because he thought the girl was cute. And I guess she is cute. Go Ryan. Anyway, we could join them. So we got our stuff and brought it back. For the first while or so, it was like there was a wall in the compartment. Ryan and I listened to more Harry Potter and the two others were talking amongst themselves. I forget what got us talking as a group, but we did finally get to talking as a group.
We didn't get everyone's names until much later in the day, but I'll tell them to you know to avoid confusion. Ryan's German crush is Mirijam (the 'j' is pronounced like an 'h'), the Chinese Girl is Natalie, and eventually Natalie had a friend that joined us named Michelle. And it was the five of us, hanging out and complaining about the lack of food and information and how it's ridiculous how we're spending Christmas day on a train when Christmas is so important to Germans. So the staff would want to get home and they're probably overworked and overtired. Mirijam translated the German announcements into English for us so we could understand what was going on, but more often than not the conductor repeated the announcements in English as well.
Mirijam is a German actress who was in Paris because she was called to be in a movie joint-produced by Bollywood and France. The scandal here is that one of the producers or someone told Mirijam that she might have to sleep with somebody if she wanted the role. She told that someone to send the contract agreement to her agency, and she told her agency that she wasn't a common whore and that she wasn't going to sleep with anyone to get a bigger role. And if that's how she was going to make a name for herself internationally, then she'll just stick with German things until she can get a role cleanly. Good for her and her morals. I hope she gets this Bollywood role.
Natalie is originally from China and studying French in a city in western France. She's only here for the semester and going to Berlin to visit a friend with another friend. Michelle didn't talk much, but she's also studying in France for a short time before returning to China. Natalie said that she had a friend studying at UW-Madison, and Ryan and I got excited for a couple seconds. She didn't say who her friend was, so I guess there isn't much hope in tracking this person down. Still kinda cool that we finally met someone who knows someone else in Madison.
Despite the suckiness of the adventure, it was a grand ole time. Mirijam eventually left to find more food since all she had was the butter croissant and that was no where near enough to fill her up. She had earlier said that she doesn't eat pork because she doesn't like it and she doesn't eat gluten because she's slightly allergic. So when she came back from food, she said that she talked with a staff and they gave her a pork sausage and a sandwich with ham and cheese. Not only that, but she had to eat it in a secret compartment so that no one else could see that she had food. She was in a tizzy about that, described the ordeal like she was "eating like a thief". I would have to agree, but Ryan and I had Christmas cookies, so we were alright for a while. We shared the Christmas mix though. By the time we busted that out, it would have been completely mean not to share.
We didn't get much information during the train ride either. In the beginning, there were announcements that told passengers for Hamburg and Munich to transfer trains at Hannover station, but there was nothing for passengers going to Berlin. So we figured we stayed on this train, but then one announcement said that there wasn't any information for passengers traveling to Berlin. The five of us were going to the same station, so we were all sticking together. Eventually, towards four in the afternoon, we got the notice that we were to transfer trains at a small town outside Hannover to catch a train to Hannover to catch another train to Berlin. Ridiculous, right? We all thought so.
The next two trains were nice trains, though. We mostly hung around the food cars because we were so hungry. Since we were only on the first train for only about thirty minutes, no one really got anything except Ryan and I who split a toasted baguette sandwich just to hold us over. The five of us took up a table in the food car and played Hangman in my journal since it was about time we busted out the word games.
The second train was really, really nice. We boarded and walked down until we were almost in First Class to find a seat. We didn't sit together at first in the food car. Ryan and I shared a table with two other guys, one of whom was in the same boat (or train) as us and the other kept ordering beers for himself. Dude had about three within an hour and didn't even look tipsy. You go, dude. He was also really muscular so he probably had a really high tolerance. Anyway, the four of us were at a table, Natalie and Michelle were behind us, and Mirijam sat by herself for a bit. Ryan ordered meat balls, I ordered a sandwich platter (I didn't realize it was a sandwich platter at the time otherwise I would have gotten the meatballs too). Once we were finished and paid for, Ryan went to join Mirijam and they chatted for a bit. I attempted to journal on the train but it only made my head hurt. So I took some ibuprofen and rested my head against the table until we were in Berlin.
My head didn't feel good until we got off the train and I could move around in a big space. Mirijam led us to the information desk where we could ask for our money back for the ride. Ryan and I got someone who didn't speak much English, but she understood our problem and pulled out a form for us to fill out. The form was in German so we decided to use Google Translate to help us fill it out. Mirijam and the others got the same form. We probably would have filled it out together except Natalie and Michelle met up with their friend and Mirijam wanted to get home to her daughter. So we split.
Natalie and Michelle left first without really saying good-bye. Or maybe they did and we didn't hear them? We tried to say good-bye but they didn't hear us. Anyway, they sort of disappeared once they met up with their friend. Mirijam was nice enough to show us how to use the metro system in Berlin. We took that halfway to our hostel because that's what the woman at the desk told us to do. I gave Ryan the map of Berlin because he seemed to get a better sense of his surroundings in Germany than I did. Mirijam came with us part of the way, but we parted when she was going north and we were going south. Keep in touch, good luck on the movie career, and have a good life!
So there were Ryan and I, alone in a strange city (again) with nothing but a map and street signs on the corners to guide our way. We walked along one way for a block before asking a pair of women where Tempelhofer Ufer was. Go ahead, say that. Tempelhofer Ufer. Now say it with a German accent. Isn't that really fun to say? Anyway, we were on the right track and we just had to keep following this road and take a right eventually and then we had to take another right and we'll be on our street. So onward and upwards we went.
Took maybe fifteen to thirty minutes to get to the hostel. It was really nice. A nice staircase leading up to all the levels, the reception was nice and clean and featured a bar with hopping music. There were computers in a separate lounge room off the hallway for us to use for free. We also got a complementary hot drink and the guy checking us in sat down with us with a map of the city and we were free to ask any questions about the city. So he pointed out the major tourist spots and recommended a nice Christmas Market for us to visit, circled a few museums for us to see if we had the time. We asked which areas to avoid, and he said that there weren't any really bad neighborhoods like that unless you go really far east in the city, but central Berlin is quite safe. I really liked this meet and greet because it was personal and the staff was friendly and spoke awesome English and they were just willing to help out and had a lot of knowledge to share. It was awesome.
We went to bed shortly after using the computers to update our Facebooks and send an email to Mom and Dad about our day. Oh what a day.
Merry Christmas.
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