Berlin (Part 2)

At some point in the night, roaring staccato bursts that emanated from the only other man among my five roommates nearly sent me diving to the floor to avoid machine gun fire as my post traumatic stress disorder kicked in with a vengeance. He continued to sleep blissfully as I lay there frozen. My hard breathing gave the girls the impression that it was me who´d woken them up.

Upon waking for good some hours later, I made my way to the shower. A firehose of hot water nearly sent me through the door before shutting off abruptly three seconds later. I braced myself, held the button in place and bathed, all the while watching most of my hair go down the drain.

Leaving my bags at the hostel, I made my way out to the famed Museum Island. At first I was thrilled that the winter sun was out and blazing, but then, after walking directly towards it with it reflecting off the just-washed streets and sidewalks for fifteen minutes, I was ready not to see it for awhile.

As, beyond seeking bad times, I also seek out beauty, I spent the next six and a half hours in four museums. The most famous peices I came across where Rodin´s "Thinker" and the bust of Nefertiti. She is roundly hailed as the most beautiful woman in the ancient world, but she comes a distant second to a stunner I ran across Friday night who´s infected my mind. Tongue-tied and intimidated, I meekly and lamely told that goddess, "You look very nice," before scurrying away, when what I should have declared was "My God! You´re gorgeous!" and then made my gaze burn a hole in her soul. That wouldn´t have worked though; she looked through me like I wasn´t there, or like she wished I weren´t.

General Ripper would not be happy at all with being here as water is scarcer than coffee and alcohol (which I guess means, conversely, that law students would love it). Really. At one point in the day, I stopped at one of the museum cafes and asked if I might simply have water. The woman behind the counter said "of course" and then measured out a shot from the tap. Using my left hand to pry open my parched mouth, I threw the water back with my right, slammed down the glass on the counter, and marched out, fully refreshed.

Once I´d finished with the museums I trudged back in the dark to the hostel and picked up my bags. Yet again I hiked down the Unter Den Linden, all the while singing loudly (why not when you know that no one know you?), and under the Brandenburg gate. On the way to the station, I passed the Holocaust memorial, the former site of Hitler´s bunker, and Potzdammer Platz.

On the train, I curled into a ball and slept soundly, having taken two tylenol PMs to help me with the jet lag. A few hours later, I was pleased to discover just how right a certain silly frenchman was when he stated, "Hell is other people." Two teenage girls, one of whom was surprisingly attractive, barged into my berth, bringing with them more baggage than Imelda Marcos. They giggled, talked, and went back and forth to the hallway to smoke for some time before finally petering out and getting to sleep. Later, a man checked our tickets yet again, simply so he could get a good look at the pretty one. A few hours after that, as I helped them haul their gear out at their stop, I considered telling her she was pretty, but decided against it. Why don´t pretty girls and I ever speak the same language...even when it´s English?