Ugignadl

Although I have made some amends with the BVG (Berlin Public Transport, Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe), on my first evening in Berlin we were not friends. Not friendly in the slightest in fact. But before I began that trip I had to somehow make my connection at Frankfurt in zero minutes… a mean feat ;).

I did have some things to calm me down initially. The baby panda and mother mentioned earlier here…

…the clouds, views of Frankfurt from the plane…

…and so on. Some of these are frozen lakes, not clouds, from over Russia, but I never managed to get a good shot of them. Oh well.

Regardless of these things, I was pretty much freaking out. Vomit woman returned just before we landed and I stared at her with the weight of 40+ hours of travel: attempting to communicate to her the question of, did you really have to vomit? Was it worth it? Do you feel better now?? NO! You don’t! I’m sure she understood my meaning with the look, eschewing all that messy wordiness of verbal communications.

OK so I leapt from the plane. Things going through my head. It’s 6:10. My plane leaves at 6:55. Boarding is to begin at 6:25. Checking closes at 6:10. Perhaps my only hope is to get to the check-in counter before 6:25. I must hold on to that hope! Now before I get any beratement over my choice of connecting flight here, let me put things into perspective for you. I was not being cheap or stupid in my choice of flight. I found out on the 21/01 this year that I was successful in obtaining the scholarship to study in Berlin for some time. Kate and I searched high and low for good airfares, since my travel subsidy was not infinite. Eventually, with a lot of work, Kate found a great deal but it only went as far as Frankfurt. We booked the flight. Kate leaves sometime in June, so there were still plenty of FRA->TXL flights remaining. I assume Kate has chosen a flight which leaves 2 hours or so after her plane lands in FRA. I however could find only this flight with seats remaining. It left an hour after the plane landed from Korea, and yes I figured it was possible that I could be buggered by it being late, or whatever. But I had to take it. I wasn’t going to stay overnight in FRA if I could help it. And, if I missed it, I only wasted 60E or somesuch. So it wasn’t hugely expensive.

OK now that that is sorted, back to the story. So I fly out of the plane, grab a complimentary chocolate (much needed sugar rush for my poor body, who by now thinks it is in fact 5AM, as it would be in Australia, or perhaps 3AM, which it would be in Korea) and run on down the hall following the baggage claim signs. A staff member is asking for people who have connecting flights. Problem solved! I make myself known and she is like, oh, I mean international connections. I tell her when my flight leaves. She looks at me like I am about to combust. Ehhh she says I need to hurry. No shit! Then she tells me I need to get to Gate Lounge E as soon as possible. Aye aye gate lounge E. I run off for my bags.

Eventually I find a huge room with the familiar (and loathed) conveyor belts of bags. Ehhh no bags yet. I see a bunch of desks, and some woman is there with a Lufthansa logo. I run on over and ask her if she thinks I’ll make the flight. She says, well, you need to check in. I say I haven’t got my bags yet. She says, it looks bad for me but maybe I will be lucky? Ugh. Thanks lady.

I go over to wait and after a painful 6 or 7 minutes my bag comes. I grab it and run off towards the stairs. Shit, I had forgotten how friggin’ heavy this thing is! With my satchel and the luggage, combined weight is about 31kg (and thanks to the maths fan at SYD I wasn’t charged for being over the allowed 20kg total). I figure best case scenario is I pay a bazillion Euro for the weight and somehow make the flight.

I get up the stairs and there are swarms of people everywhere, speaking der Deutsch. All my German comes flooding to my mind, but I can’t seem to vocalise it. I also can’t seem to understand what people are saying at all; it’s too fast, and I don’t know enough words to catch up after I miss something. In German, the focal point of a sentence is always the last word (unless it is a really simple sentence). So if you don’t know that word, you’re stuffed. Also, even if you know the word, but don’t hear it properly or don’t understand where the end of a sentence is and another one begins, you’re stuffed. Essentially I was in Korea again, but everyone looked a lot more like me.

I find an information counter. I ask about Air Berlin checkin. She looks at me again as if I am Shrek and points around the corner. I run around the corner. I am faced with another huge open space which is shaped like this:

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And I’m standing at the bottom (I hope that comes out properly). Anyway I go to the thing in the middle since there is an air berlin sign there and find a dude on the phone. I’m like, hey man, can’t you see I’m confused and in urgent need of assistance?? I bounce about a little and eventually someone else (the guy never gets off the phone) tells me this is TICKET SALES. Ugh. OK so I go around to the right of the thing in the middle, and find another air berlin counter. Huzzah. I run on over. I give the guy my passport, go through the normal steps…tell him my flight time and number. He looks at me again, like I am escaped from bloody Alcatraz or something. Then he asks me, do I mean 6:55 tomorrow night? No I don’t. Tomorrow morning? No I mean tonight! He then tells me that I am mistaken; this check-in counter is only for people who are checing in for flights greater than twelve hours away; it is called moonlight check-in.

What??!?! Random! Anyway I ask him, point me to the checkin counter! He points back to the ticket sales pillar. I’m like, dude, I seriously have already been over there and my flight leaves like super soon. He insists it is over there. FINE.

I storm off to the pillar, and notice that slightly to the right of the pillar, just to the left of where I was originally standing, there is exactly ONE check-in counter for air berlin. I run over to it, and an old woman is like, hello I am German or I am someone who can speak German unlike you. Aye, something I would learn to get used to. I tell her which flight I am on. She points to the checkin counter and I bone off to it. The dude takes my passport, listens to my sob story about how my flight was late and I was at ticket sales and then moonlight checkin and so in….he takes my passport, I put my fatassed luggage on the scales. I notice the weight has somehow increased (retarded scales) to 25kg. Oh beautiful. So if he weights my hand luggage like he is supposed to, it will now be over 32kg.

He looks at my passport, types something in the computer and then this red light flashes on the screen. I presumed this meant I was utterly boned and would not be able to get anywhere near Berlin tonight. He looked at me, gave me back the passport and said.

“I’m sorry sir, but we only have middle seats left.”

“Wah? You can check me in? Do it, goddamnit do it now man do it do it do it!!”

And I was checked in. I don’t know if this guy was just levelling me (there you go, poker content) or what, but then he said:

“Your flight will board at Gate E21, at 6:25. You can… you are probably going to have to head there now.”

Errr? DUHH! Of course right now with all the bunting around it was about 6:35. AAHHHH! At least I was checked in I kept telling myself.

I run off to the security area, and the line is friggin’ massive. I go to the little feeder area and wait for about a minute. (Hey, I remember these minutes :). ) A frumpy German woman takes my boarding pass. And yes, again with the look. I wish I had a huge black paintbrush and could paste to my forehead a big freaking sign which said “MY FLIGHT WAS LATE, I HAD NO CHOICE, STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE I’M SOME KIND OF FREAK.” Anyway, she rambles off something in German. Errr great. I look at her like a goldfish gazes at it’s favourite flourescent pebble. She says something else. I think of five billion phrases in German but can’t say any of them. She says again, do you speak German? (In German.) I start to say “No…” and then she just points and says “Come with me.” (again in German). She lets me skip the huge queue, and I only have four guys in front of me who are being checked by the security team. OK I just have to wait for these four guys.

Wait. Wait. Wait. WAIT! OMG PEOPLE LET ME THROUGH GODDAMNIT! Seriously I can’t convey how freaking freaked out I was becoming with every passing second. It got to 6:40 before I could get through the scanner. Also, I should mention that for the last five minutes an announcement had been running that boarding for my flight had begun. Actually, that’s not completely true. It changed halfway through to: boarding for the flight is finishing, this is the last call, etc. I essentially strip prior to going through the scanner, since I was watching everyone else and they were being caught up and delayed by very minor things, like belts and buttons and so on, so I just thought screw it, and took everythng off already. yeah yeah stare at the sideshow, bitches, stare! Go on! Yeah! Do what I tell you!!! Damn I really wanted Stuey there with me… although, in my state of near delirium, I probably would have seen him if I looked hard enough.

I got through security, put my clothes back on, and ran to the gate. I managed to get to the gate by 6:45. The ticket said the boarding finished at 6:45! I run into the gate lounge, psycho flustered, and there are like 8 billion Germans staring at me. Hey guys! I made it! No need to wait for me anymore!

Of course you know what happenned, right? They were all waiting to board the plane. The same plane. I have no idea why the AV system said it was the last call for boarding, or that boarding had begun. In the end I made it with a shitload of time to spare. We only took off at 7:10.

Plane ride nothing special. Took a bus to the plane with peoples, got on super cramped plane, watched someone hurt themselves with crazy large hand luggage (i.e. a suitcase!) and bowl over a million other people. Asked for water from the flight attendent instead of carrot juice (yeah I know, WTF) and I get mineral water. No big deal, just something weird eh? I have later realised that here in Germany people are madly in love with mineral water. Mineral water = water = life healing fluid = all that anyone drinks. Odd eh.

Anyway, plane goes fly fly fly oh look, we are late, how did that happen?? UHHHH maybe because you took off LATE! Ugh. Am in Tegel. Get off plane. Go to customs. Errr there is only an EU line? Walk around for a bit. Grab my luggage. Decide to go through the EU line anyway. Nobody checks my passport and I am through!

Well, now it is 8:25 and I have 35 minutes before I need to be at the apartment where Klaus’ secretary Ann Bjoerner is waiting for me. I don’t want to piss her off, so I message her to tell her that I will be a few minutes late. Now anyone who has spoken to me about my phone recently knows it is pretty much broken. As in totally amazingly broken. Well, it wouldn’t turn on for more than a few seconds but I wrote a message and managed to send it, or so I thought, before it completely failed and wouldn’t turn on.

OK so I was in Tegel, Berlin, and needed to get to Goethestrasse, Lichterfelde. The instructions I had were

Airport Tegel (Berlin) Bus X9 direction: S+U Zoologischer Garten
Jakob-Kaiser-Platz U7 (underground number 7) direction Rudow Berliner Strae
U9 (underground number 9) direction S+U Rathaus Steglitz
S+U Rathaus Steglitz Bus 186 direction S Lichterfelde Sd
Bogenstrae: walk to Goethestr. 29, 12207 Berlin

Yeah. I asked Ann, who wrote them, to explain a little better and she said instead, if I can’t use buses and trains then would I like her to pick me up from the airport instead? I wish I had said yes but I didn’t want to inconvenience her so I said no, I’ll be OK. Idiot!

I have to admit, the next while is a little hazy in my mind. I was in such a state of panic and confusion it was incredible. I somehow went into autopilot mode and found the stand for the X9 bus. Everything being in German isn’t helping, and it’s like I am a complete n00b in German because in my current frame of mind I couldn’t read anything, not even simple words which I knew instantly just a week earlier. I found the ticket dude and purchased a ticket. Which was difficult. Since they pay using this tray thing, oddly enough, and I didn’t have any Euros. WHOOPS. Off to exchange money. I exchanged $400 AUD for ãbout 195E, which I knew was a complete rip off, but took it anyway; I just needed to get some cash. I went back and purchased a ticket. As I purchased the ticket, an X9 bus came and left. Oh sweet, thankyou luck. I waner over to the bus stand dragging my retardedly heavy luggage along with me.

Now is when I almost cracked, it saddens me to recall. I waited about 9 minutes for the next bus (yes yes BVG is good, but I had a very unique perspective that night and couldn’t see the good points…) and as it arrived I waited for everyone to get on, and then I got on last with my friggin’ baggage. I step up to the bus. I hold the extended handle to my bag, roll it over. Handle snaps off. Forgive the language, but the handle snaps the fuck off! OH MY GOD is this really happenning? Bag falls UNDER the bus. ARGH I say something in English to the bus driver who looks at me like, why are you wasting my time with your idiotic ramblings? Sigh you just wait bus driver, you will get what’s coming to you… anyway elaborate plotting comes later, I bend down and recover my bag. Now I have to carry the fatassed thing everywhere. ARGH. Did I mention I was carrying half a bookcase of mathematics texts?

By some miracle, I was then possessed by the hippie God of travellers, and somehow managed to make it to the apartment. You think I am skimming, right, but not really. I somehow realised we were at the right spot on the bus, lugged the luggage and satchel off there. Somehow I found the right platform to change to the right line. I got on the train, the correct train, then somehow worked out that I needed to change at a certain station. The instructions were not helpful, from Ann, since there was trackwork. I have to admit, I don’t know how I worked my way around that. I finally got to Rathaus-Steglitz station and had to catch the final bus. It was about 9:45 and I was already 45 minutes late for Ann. I felt awful but being so close to my final destination, and feeling like it was 7 am and I had been awake for 48 hours, I didn’t care enough to break down at that point.

I then did something really odd and somewhat special. I am completely disoriented in the middle of a large city. I have no idea how to read, completely illiterate. I exit an underground station. I know that I need a certain numbered bus, bus 186. I go to the nearest bus station, still on autopilot, somehow navigating my way around. I look at the sign on the stand, and indeed bus 186 stops here. I look on over, around the place, find a seat and sit down. I’m not thinking much. I look toward the direction the cars are coming from, which is the opposite to what I am used to (not helping) and see a bus coming this way. It’s bus 186. That’s fortunate. Then, for some inexplicable reason, I think, what if the buses that go both north and south are numbered the same, and they run on a loop? Isn’t it possible that this bus is in fact going North? How can I work this out? I panic a little. I look around, assess my surroundings using some inexplicable heuristic. I get the feeling, from somewhere, that this bus MAY be heading north. There is a map, of the train and surface rail tracks, that I can see the station to my left on. Unfortunately there are 8 exits from the station spaced equally and I don’t know which one I am on. For some reason though I felt as though the bus was heading North. The buildings in the direction the bus was heading were larger, somehow, and it just felt wrong to get on the bus. I let it pass me.

Then, feeling instantly like I had done something intensely stupid, I started to cross the 8-lane road. Well, highway, whatever. I lug my ungodly luggage across the road, tripping over exactly one and a half times (don’t ask) in the process, and look around for another bus stop. I find one. I go on over to it and check the times and so on… it was 10:00 at about this time and I figured I just missed a bus. I thought, how the hell can I work out if this bus is going the right way? I checked the maps again. No help, damn spartan useless parchment! Feel my wrath! (No, I didn’t break it, I merely cursed at it. Verbal abuse.)

There was a timetable and a list of stops on the top. But, they are all German street names, and none looked familiar. Ugh. I figured, perhaps I should have gotten on that last bus, and gone against my instincts? Well… hmmm. There was another bus stop a bit further down the road. I shuffled along to that one. (I say shuffled, because all I was capable of doing without dislocating my shoulder was a ridiculous geriatric shuffle down the road, due to the structure of my bag it was the only way to move it without tripping over…) I examined the timetable with a hateful eye, and was somewhat shocked to see a single stop, some twenty stops down the line, which I recognised. Also, this was a stand for the 186 bus. So perhaps I had made the right decision after all?

It did turn out to be correct. I managed to find the apartment (some further navigating weirdness occured after getting off the bus, I had a choice of four directions and no map, and somehow I went the right way to find the street). Even though it was quite late, I could tell that the surroundings were quite beautiful. The whole area is picturesque. If you have ever watched le Tour on TV, think of the French cobblestone villages, this is the area of Lichterfelde that I am staying in, it is like something out of a history book….amazing really.

I found the apartment, and rang the bell. Ann came down the stairs. We had a conversation, and she took me up to the apartment…

Oh dear this is turning into quite a tale. With my broken body, deprived of all food, thinking it is 8 am, I don’t think I was the best conversationalist. But I was there. I was there, damnit, and nobody managed to keep me away! Ha! I shake my fist at thee!!

Unfortunately I’m not sure Ann understood this behaviour…

Well! More on the apartment, including the obligatory pictures, in the next blog post. Auf wiederschreiben!

This entry was posted on Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 8:12 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.