Berlin

After some equivocating, I ended up heading to Berlin for Memorial Day Weekend. I caught a ride there from Kaiserslautern on Saturday morning and arrived at my hostel around 5 PM. I hadn't realized it, but at some point I became much older than the majority of the Western European hostel set. If I had to guess, I'd say the median age was around 19 or 20. It wasn't like this in Eastern Europe, but I suppose that's because no one goes to Bulgaria for an epic post-high-school drinking trip (although they should, because the beaches are really nice and everything is super cheap.)

A museum that we siesta-ed in front of.

Berlin is a very cool city, though. It has a lot of the same appeal as New York, except that it's easier to get around, things are cheaper, and everyone speaks German. But, you know basically the same. There's a good culture scene, both highfalutin and underground, lots of concerts, cool monuments, walkable areas, a big central park, stores full of things I can't afford, warehouses that people have turned into lofts (with mixed results), interesting and varied nightlife, lots of international people, good food, and a lot of different neighborhoods whose names you can toss around to sound like a local.

A much-diminished Berlin Wall

On Sunday I rented bikes (only 10€!) with two new hostel friends and we spent the day cruising around to museums, seeing the city, and laying around in parks and along the river. Since one of them was Argentinian, we spent most of the time speaking Spanish. I'm awarding myself Bilingual Points for making a friend in a foreign country who I spoke to in a foreign language.

We saw the old Bauhaus workshop (the third one) and the Pergamon museum,

I was so, so excited to see this.

This is where IKEA furniture comes from.

On Friday we sort of gradually worked our way across town towards my train station. There were a bunch of really shiny buildings and a Turkish street fair. 

Turkish festival

Reflective buildings

Someone in Germany has a sense of humor! We've proved it!

Working

I've started working at the Army Public Health Corps in Landstuhl. I've spent the last three days negotiating my way through security. Things are going swimmingly.

I have yet to create any real plans for the long weekend, but I'm going to try to get to Berlin. I will keep you posted about how it goes.

A bunch of us went out for Mexican food last night. I had some tamales that were not-terrible. It was a nice surprise.

Not Dead!

I made it to Landstuhl and found my hotel! There were a lot of places I could have been derailed; my flight from LaGuardia to Philadelphia was delayed and I almost missed my connection, I realized as I was going through customs I had no idea what I should state as the purpose of my visit (I went with "civilian working on a project on a US Military base", and apparently that corresponded to one of the guard's check boxes), and I really only had a vague idea where my lodgings were. But all that worked out fine.

New York was fun; I got to go to Brooklyn twice, and went to Manhattan 0 times, mostly because of concerns about traffic. I feel like Brooklynites will look back on this trip as the moment when their borough really turned the corner and became a world-class neighborhood. The precipitating factors were probably their acquisition of my cousin Ian and a very nice art museum.

After arriving from California, I was unable to go to sleep until around 12 or 1 each morning. I can at this time confirm that, during the week, parts of New York State do indeed sleep, and in fact get up very early for school. Whether or not this sleeping pattern is reflected in the city remains to be seen. I suspect that they sleep in shifts to give the illusion of constant wakefulness.

My New York-dwelling family members are all doing pretty well. The younger ones continue to grow and mature, while the older ones have not aged a day. There are also more dogs than I remembered, but who knows whether this is just a trick of memory or there are actually three where there once were two.

The Last Trip To LA (for a while)

One of the unhappy things about leaving Arizona for school is that every time I do something, it's the Last Time (for a while). Before I left Tucson, I had a lot of The Last Time I'll See This Person (for a while), ate the Last Nico's Burrito (for a while), and took a Last Swim at the Rec (for a while, but very possibly ever). I know I could do these things in July, but I know that I'll end up deciding to do other things instead. I once tried to convince Andy that the idea that in choosing to do one thing we are un-choosing all of the other possibilities held the key to some profound insight into the nature of choice. Then he pointed out to me that there wouldn't be any need for choices if you could do everything you wanted all the time, and then I felt bad about myself and my meagre philosophical abilities. Anyway, this was the Last Trip to LA (for a while), and it was a good one.

For the most part, you can't drink on the beaches in California—unless you have the foresight to buy a 20 oz bottle of coke, drink a little of it, then pour some rum on top of it, although by the time you're old enough to buy your own rum you're probably too old to be sneaking alcohol in a soda bottle—but there's a beach in Malibu called Paradise Cove that will let you bring some drinks in. Which was good, because it was too cloudy and cold to be at the beach otherwise.

I also went to the Getty Villa, which is my new favorite place in the Universe. It's a reconstruction of a Roman villa from Herculanum (which is like Pompeii with less press) and a museum of Greek and Roman art. I know more about Greek religion than I do about almost any modern religion outside of Catholicism, and I could probably name more Roman emperors than current US Congressmen (congresspersons? persons who are in congress?) or international heads of state, so the Villa was right in my dorky, esoteric wheelhouse. 

I also ate the best vegan grilled cheese I've ever had (31st among all grilled cheeses), missed a lot of exits while driving, and hung out at a bike repair shop in Long Beach. Long Beach is like Santa Monica if they traded in all their boutique clothing stores for adequate parking and street cred. I also took the LA metro to LAX, making me one of the first people to ever use Los Angeles' light rail system. You might remember the Metro from the movie Collateral, the 2004 film where Tom Cruise plays someone his own age.

Where Is Brian?

Many of you have probably a conversation roughly similar to the following:

"Do you know what I think about all the time? Where Brian Erly is."
"Me too. He mentioned that he might make a blog for his travels summer."
"I wonder if that's happening? Do you think he forgot?"
"If he did, I wouldn't blame him. He's probably very busy with very important things."
"Do you think I should feel hurt if he did forget?"
"No. Like I said, he's very important. Does the eagle have time to spare for a mosquito? Or the Alps for a mole hill? Or the sea for a rain puddle?"
"You're right. Brian is above our judgement, or perhaps even our comprehension."

Your sentiments are understandable, but I want to assure you that, in many ways, I am much like you. I can empathize with your curiosity, even if I can never fully grasp it. Here's a rough sketch of my itinerary;

Los Angeles: Friday, May 11-Monday, May 14
New York: Tuesday, May 15-Friday, May 18
Frankfurt/Landstuhl: Saturday, May 19-Sunday, July 1

(I also have a three day weekend on Memorial Day (May 26-28) that I may use to do something fun.)

If you are feeling sad about me leaving, feel free to listen to the Kinks over and over until you feel better, or hungry, or sleepy, or just get distracted by something else.

This is mostly a test post. It doesn't really contain any useful or interesting information.

What it does have, though, is a picture;

This is a test of the Blogger captioning system. (Seems to work OK.)