I’m going to summarize the week over a series of posts this week as one post would just be way too long. There’s no way I would get around to writing all this out fully so I’m going to take the approach of just posting the SMS/Twitter/Facebook style messages I would have posted (had my phone worked over there).
If you’re not a travelogue-y kind of person feel free to skip these – There’s some conference/industry stuff that I’ll flesh out into full posts later as well.
Day One
10:00
- Leaving Frankfurt a little later than expected – Plane in Frankfurt had just arrived from Turkey and the passengers required “Extra Border Protections”.
- FYR > TEG: already missing the Boeing 777 we flew over on. The Lufhtansa plane we’re getting on now is a rickety old thing.
- Ugh. Someone on the last flight had horrendous B.O.
- Heh. Scent seems to be only in First Class. :)
11:15
- Jesus. Tegal is one long airport – especially when dragging two large @ capacity suitcases. Trying to get to information desk to figure out buses.
11:30
- Still walking. Wondering if we should have just started into town.
11:40
- Finally found info booth. Berlin Transit (BVG) has bus (TXL) we can take. Stops right in front of hotel. 2 Euros – sweet!
- Bus has also become a inexpensive tour now. Just passed Brandenburg Gate among other places of interest.
12:30
- Unpacking and Getting settled. Meeting RK in 30 min.
- Hotel room looks as if it were designed by former set designer for the adult film industry.
- T-Mobile hot spot is workin’ for free. Bonus.
- Just gonna lie down for a few minutes before meeting back up with RK
13:00
- zzzzz…..
14:00
- Just woken up by Robinson. Turns out I passed out cold. He got concerned and had hotel security open the door – just makin’ sure I wasn’t dead or something.
- Groggily head out for lunch.
14:20
- Wow. Berlin TV Tower really has that communist “Big brother”/”We’re watching you” vibe to it.
- Waitress doesn’t understand “Water” but “Still Water” makes perfect sense – what’s up with that.
- “Water with Gas” – not sounding appealing. Wonder what German for “Sparkling Water” is
- Restaurant Credit Card machine is “Kaput”. Suddenly very glad I got Euros before I came, half of them now gone.
15:15
- Walking around Alexandarplatz & area.
- Found a neat church that’s undergoing some serious renovations – interesting fund raiser idea: buy a chunk of glass and glue it on a big pane of glass in a “paint-by-numbers” kind of way – DIY stained glass, nice.
- Glue fumes getting me a massive headache heading back outside.
16:00
16:30
- Back in the hotel. Quick email check and then heading out for dinner.
- Trying SkypeOut with my funky Mouse/USB phone. Cost .15 cents to call home. Nice!
17:45
- @ dinner with Chris from Hot Banana. He just happens to be in town at the same time.
- Remarking on how it’s funny that Chris is from Barrie & we’re in Toronto yet we meet for the first time in Berlin.
- Damn. No credit cards again – Chris saves the day as we’re light on Euros. We owe Chris a dinner & drinks back on the Canadian side.
20:00
- ATM hunting. Trying to figure out how no one seems to take credit cards AND yet there appears to be no ATMs either.
- Sidetracked by Saturn, a big electronics store.
21:00
- Finally exiting Saturn we find an ATM that was under our noses the whole time – stack of Euros now in hand. Crashing for the night.
To be continued…
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A week in Berlin – Part Two | A week in Berlin – Part Four | Speaking with the World: Part II | Speaking With the World: Part III | Photo Blog Redesign & Berlin Photo SeriesTags: Blog Post