Itinerariat 5/10 through 5/24

Querido readership grande:

Because this blog is in part a record of the time I am spending here, I thought it would be helpful (for my purposes, anyway) to have one post just list the main events in the past few days. Travel is great but as with normal life it's easy to let the days slip from memory if there's no written record. And unlike with normal life, these are days I'd really like to remember. Thus:

5/10: Depart DCA, struggle to sleep on plane despite use of sleep mask and earplugs. When did airlines depart from policy of free drinks on international flights?

5/11: Arrive Schipol/Amsterdam bescummed by lack of sleep and eight hours on crappy USAir flight. Struggle to avoid sleeping throughout day in effort to avoid jet lag. With aid of caffeine and various brushes with death (see near-collision with bike, below), am successful. S makes delicious, if ersatz, pad thai.

5/12: Re-visit Amsterdam for first time since October 2003. Is much as I left it. Amsterdam Historical Museum surprisingly rocks. Old faves Wagamama and Benjamin Falafel do not disappoint.

5/13: Linger in Hague, practice German. Visit S at ICTY, then attend party given by S co-worker at ct. Drink Hoegaarden and converse with Czech guy who tells me much useful information about CR that I fail to remember. Dinner at sushi restaurant in Scheveningen. Japanese people speaking Dutch? They should rename it Crazyningen.

5/14: Arrive Amsterdam, wander streets of city early in AM, then succumb to fatigue and sleep in afternoon. Before day ends, more wandering and dinner at Wagamama. Visit to Dampkring, now famous thanks to appearance in Ocean's 12. Struggles to sleep lead to watching way too much darts on Eurosport.

5/15: Vitesse v. Ajax in Arnhem. Expensive but victorious daytrip. Also see La Mar Adentro, in original Spanish with Dutch subtitles. Comprehension: 60%. Damned Galician accents. Also, more Wagamama.

5/16: Obscenely early trip to Berlin, arrival at Krausnickstraße. Meet with J for quick tour of major city sights--Brandenburger Tor, Unter den Linden, Reichstag, Tiergarten, Tower of Victory, Potsdamer Platz, Holocaust Memorial--and dinner at delicious Thai restaurant where I embarrass J by eating rudely (was starving).

5/17: Begin German class, am not outclassed as feared. Relief at this is so strong that after class and delicious falafel, I end up sleeping for hours in afternoon. For dinner, find American hot dog stand that I saw w/J previous night. Hot dogs not, as promised, as good as in USA. Day lost, sadly.

5/18: German class, fantastic falafel-und-schawarmateller, then massive Berlin wall tour. Visit to first museum (Documentzentrum?) interrupted by strange attack of dehydration so severe that I leave museum and spend frustrating half hour unsuccessfully searching for store to sell water. Finally succeed and return to museum, which has fantastic contemporaneous evidence documenting Berlin wall period (photos, movies, etc.). Then across town to part of Berlin wall near Stadtmitte and Haus am Checkpoint Charlie. Latter is also great, though for different reasons: is devoted to strange ways people tried to escape DDR (in boats, car trunks, large appliances). Finish up by going to dinner at Irish bar and watching UEFA Cup final, about which the less said the better.

5/19: German class, then visit to spectacular Pergamonmuseum. Not so many items because all are so monumental that they take up too much space. Love classical pieces and end up taking far too many photos. Free audioguides rule. Find man selling the best diet coke I've ever had (probably b/c deprivation).

5/20: German class, then visit Altes Neumuseum, also on Museuminsel. Great paintings and sculpture from 18th and 19th c. More pix (esp of impressionist and expressionist stuff) but am dogged by annoying school tour. Dinner w/J at Henne for delicious fried chicken and berliner beer. Afterward, visit Turkish bakery for pastries (also delicious) and then run into trashed Americans (who ask "Parlez-vous Anglais?"), with whom we go to floating bar on canal. Drunk Americans buy drinks, talk politics, deprecate homeland.

5/21: Awake with horrible horrible cold! Despite illness, go to Deutsches Historischmuseum, which is pretty great though not as good as some of the others b/c is only rotating exhibits. One on 1945 is fantastic, others meh. Also attend Hertha game (see below), and get healthy vegetarian soup and salad on way home. Am too exhausted by illness and long day to do anything more.

5/22: Despite illness, travel to Potsdam to visit park sansouci. Spectacular grounds and buildings built by Frederick the great of prussia. The Neues Paleis is breathtaking in size and scope, the Schloss Sansouci more interesting historically (room where Fred. died, and where Voltaire slept). Park itself a marvel and full of astonishingly beautiful buildings. Sun comes out during visit and I walk to train station through park and town center, where I buy freshly squeezed OJ and a Bratwurst. Utter yum. Only black mark on day is annoying train incident (see "Travel Tribulations," above). Doner kebap at Shark Doner for dinner.

5/23: German class, lunch at cool bagel place around corner from Tandem where I read lots of CE book (WWI period). Then had to run annoying errands (again, see "Travel Tribulations," above), including visit to Ostbahnhof where I learned that making international train travel reservations requires at least 45min wait at most times. Finally, got to Jewish museum, which was great and strange. The whole place is built at odd angles which seems fitting to me because the whole idea of antisemitism and the extremes to which it has been taken just seem bizarre.

5/24: German class, lunch at Intersoup (thai soup with wontons) sitting outside in sun on Prenzlburg side street. Much blogging, plan-making, phone-talking. Saw Aggasi lose terribly in first round of french open. Bought paperback of The Corrections for when I want to vary history with lit. Dinner at Italian restaurant (pizza mediocre in absolute terms but I was really hungry for pizza so tasted better than it actually was).