Leaving Berlin, Mayen, and Germany all together!

Hey everyone~

Sorry it has taken me so long to get everything back in order, which it still really isn't. However, I did promise that I would blog more, as well as do pictures. Pics will have to wait until tomorrow, becuase my batteries are dead, and I need batteries to upload my pics to the computer.

So lets see... Where did I leave off? Oh yes the Euro cup.

6-30/31-08

So after a very intense game between Spain and Germany, in which Spain had a completely intense defensive system. Poor Germans, they could not break through Spains defenses. Plus, Spain had Torres, and Torres is freakishly fast. Matthew noted that whenever Spain went in for a goal, it was always like a one man break away while the rest of the team stayed back and defended their goal; unlike Germany where bascially all of their defenses moved up when trying to take a goal.

Torres made the only goal that was made in this game, and it was so brilliant that I swear it was a complete and total accident.

So the game was won by Espania! We were sad to have lost, but in truth, Spain really did deserve the championship. They were just... better. No offense to Deutschland, but it's the truth.

Well after the game, we booked it downstairs in our Hostel to grab our luggage. We dragged it to the Friedrickstrasse S-Bahn station just down the road from our hostel.

We were lucky to get tehir early, so our s-bahn was relatively not full. However, 2 stops later when we reached the Berlin HautpBahnhof (Berlin Main Train Station), It was Chaos, complete and utter Chaos.

In Berlin there lives around 2.5 million people I believe. Well half a million was in that trainstation with us that night. It was intense~

Even though Germany had lost, everyone was still singing their german Soccor songs, and were blasting their horns, and making just a gerneral muck of things.

We got there about two hours before our train was supposed to arrive. However, when we got to our gate, our train was not listed. So we ended up going up and down escalators that had been shut down with our luggage. I had it the worst because I had a suit case, and matt only had a backpack, I am usure what Tyler had, but after a while, tyler kinda Chastised Matt in the fact that he wasn't helping me. Thanks Tyler.

lol. anyways. We went up and down, dragging my suitcase basically up... stair since the escalators were not operating. we finally made it to the Deutsche Bahn help desk, and I pretty much screamed at the lady in German ( I had to, it was so loud in there, but I was pissed off too). I asked her why our train wasn"t listed, and she said it was, only we needed to look at the big board of departures and not the tiny ones. So we ended up being on the same railway platform, only the train had switched tracks on us, so instead of coming in on track 13 it came in on track 14. Go figure, after all of that running around, up and down, so on and so forth.

I got so mad, I went to our platform by the easiest route, basically leaving matt and tyler in the dust and made it there before them. Matthew was not too pleased with this, but in the end everything was worked out.

I took several videos of the chaos to show to you all at home. I will post them hopefully tomorrow.

Anyways, so we waited, and waited, and waited, and waited for our train. Meanwhile our platform is getting kinda crowded, we thought that perhaps all of these people had a train that they were getting on before us.

Well when our train finally arrived, we basically realized that we were on the completely wrong end of our platform, and that basically the entire train was boarding in Berlin!

So we had to run to get to our wagon. When we finally got to our seats , we had to ask people to move, because we had reserved them and paid good money in which to do so. only like 4 Euro, but still.

They got up without a fuss and told us to enjoy our seats. lol. I am so glad we made reservations, otherwise, we would never have gotten a seat on that train. So after we all got setteled in, we started to realize how hot it really was on this train. Turns out, the AC was broken and there were hundreds of people on this train!

We fell into sweaty, miserable sleeps, until the train workers, knowing that we were all roasting like lobsters in a pot of boiling water, decided to give us a chance to catch a fresh breath of air ( the windows on the train do not open). So we made about a 10 mins stop in Wolfsburg to get off and get some loely fresh air. Let me tell you, the smokers on this trip certainly took advantage of this opportunity.

Saldy, our time was up, over the loud speakers a voice said "Meine Damen und Herren an Gleis eins, bitten Einsteigen" , baically meaning ladies and gentlemen on platform one, please board the train. Everyones heads swiveled down to see which platform we were on, and when we all realized it was us, there was a groan from the crowd and everyone, reluctantly got back on the sweltering train.

Again we fell into fitful, hot sleeps ( just go with it), and eventually there was a voice over the loud speaker of the train, it said, things in German first, like where our train was going, sorry for the inconvienience, etc. then in english it told us about 2 places where were were going when the man's phone rang. He paused for a moment, and then said goodbye, hurridley, and hung up the loud speaker. Everyone in our train wagon at least, laughed out loud, and thought it was a riot.

That phone call must have been someone telling them how to fix the AC, becuase finally after about 2 hours of misery, the AC started working.

Again we fell back to sleep and were awoken to see our tickets ina very loud fashion. By this time, like 3:40 am, everyone on the train was asleep. Usually the man checking the tickets would have done so at the beggining of our travel departure, however, do to all the AC hullabaloo, he was not able to. So instead he had to rouse people from their deep sleeps and ask for tickets. Matt and I woke up right away. Tyler did not, though he held his ticket securly in his hand.

our tickets were checked first, then tylers, the man shouted loudly "Mein Herr" Basically "Sir" a few times, and tyler woke up, clutching the ticket in hsi hand with a death grip and looked around like he had no clue where he was. IT was the most hilarious sight, poor Tyler. Everntually after I said, Tyler, the ticket, he looked at me for a while and eventually it dawned on him what he was supposed to do. hahaha.

However, that was nothing compared to the man across the aisle from us. It took the man about 15 mins, to come around out of sleep to even understand language again. He just kept saying um... until the ticket collectorwas blue in teh face from telling him that he needed to see his ticket.

After that excitement, we all fell back to sleep, but I must admit, not as comfortably so, because, I can sleep when I am warm, but whe I become chilled, nothing can get me to fall alseep. Well... For as warm as the train was it was that cold when the AC finally kicked in. It was so cold, I was freezing, though Tyler and Matt were perfectly comfortable, go figure.

We slept until 5:30 am when our train arrived in cologne. We got off and caught our train to Andernach. I don"t remeber anything especially from this ride, except the fact that it was long, we were tired, and they checked our tickets twice, once by the ticket collector, and a second time by a ticket control officer. (basically, if he comes around and you don't have a ticket, you have to pay 50 euro up front.)

We made it into Andernach, but wanted to catch an earlier train into Mayen, so we checked the board and it said there was one coming 20 mins earlier. So when the train came, we didn"T pay attention to the sign that said to Koblenz. Well... Guess where we ended up??? oh right... Koblenz. So after that fun time, we got off the train, found a new train back to Andernach, and caught it. By this time I had gone to teh bus depot to see when the buses for Hohr-grenzhausen left. I had basically given up the thought of going there for pottery that day.

When we got on the train back to Andernach, I basically made up my mind that it was better to sleep in Mayen then to go and buy more pottery.

When we got back to Andernach, we had missed the train we were originally going to take to Mayen, so we had to wait for an hour. Tyler and Matthew both had books with, I had finished mine Friday and given it back to Paula before she left for Turkey, so I was bookless for the first time on this trip!!!! What a nightmare!

We waited for what seemed like forever, and then, a funny thing happened. We hear a familiar voice, and there comes Felecia Lucht walking up our platform, also going back to Mayen for the day to retrieve things she too had left behind. She had spent her remaining days in Frankfurt and was too going to spend the night in Mayen and catch a plane in the morning.

We chatted with her for awhile (of course alles auf Deutsch (everything in German). Our train came, we boarded, and then took advantage of the premium countryside.

We reached Mayne Ost, tyler was getting off at Mayen west, going to his host house, sleeping, then getting back on a train the same day for Frankfurt and staying in a hotel there where he would set two alarms and have a wake up call from the front desk.

We got off at Mayen Ost, bid Tyler farwell, walke da bit with Frau Lucht until my house, and bid her a pleasant journey homeward. I arrived at my house and promptly fell asleep. Matthew went back into town, and bought some limoncello from a local aalcohol store in town. Then went home and slept.

I woke up around ... 3:40pm. Got up, decided I was definately not going to go buy pottery, talked with Laura, who had also come back to Mayen, and we would travel with her in the morning to the airport. I said bye and went to go to MAtthew's house. When I got there, Matt was still sleeping, so I decided to give him so more time and sat and chatted with his family, told them of our Berlin and train adventures. His family really is the sweetest. We had some apple juice, and some cake, it was lovely.

After about an hour or so, I decided it was time to wake Matthew up, he went and took as shower, while I went and chatted some more with his host family. After a while he got raedy and we went back into town for somemore things, while promising to be back by 7 in time for dinner. It was about 6 pm at the time we left. We went to Rewe, I bought lots of chocolate, when we checked out, they porbably thought I was mad buying 25 Euros worth of Milka, rittersport, and Bueno chocolate. lol.

After that, we walked home and had a lovely dinner of steaks, white sausage, salad, and potatoes squares for dinner.

It was nice to have a home cooked meal after the hustle and bustle of Berlin. Afterwards we had dessert of strawberryes and ice cream. It was nice, we enjoyed talking, an dthen they gave me a few parting gifts when it was time for me to go home and pack.

Got back home, saw Ecky, Marianna, and Tobi. Then went to try to call my mother. Never did get ahold of her, but left her several messages.

I went home, went upstairs and chatted for a time with Ecky and Marianna. Tobi left with his girlfriend for a week on holiday, to her house I supose.

I chatted with them for quite a long time, and then Marianna, sweetly kicked my out and told me to go pack, haha, she's so sweet, I miss her. Before I got downstairs, Ecky offered Laura and I breakfast for the morning and I took him up on it!

I got downstairs, laura had made soup for herself, having had no dinner. I had a bowl of the soup ( I was the one who bought it) and then started packing. After packing I tried desperately to go to lseep, it took awhile but, finally I did.

That all I can post for right now. My wrists are protesting from so much typing. I'll finish up the rest of the home journey tomorrow!

Biss Dann! ;)