Volume 2, Day 7
After a long, sweaty night, the room had cooled enough by the early dawn to be almost comfortable. However, I dragged myself out of bed determined to get in a run. As I was lacing up my shoes, I fired off a text message to C to see if he was free to grab lunch.
The run was also a mini-tour of Berlin. I headed along the water around the Reichstag and through the Tiergarten as far as the Victory Pillar before doubling back to pass under the Brandenburg Gate. I paused my podcast and the run tracker so that I could spend a few minutes walking through the Holocaust memorial. Sobered up, I headed south along where the Wall used to be down to Potsdamer Platz and continued to follow the invisible wall east to Checkpoint Charlie. From Checkpoint Charlie, I cut north through the Gendarmenmarkt, marveling at the churches and opera houses before reaching Museuminsel. Not quite ready to end the run, I tacked on a loop around Alexanderplatz. Finally, I reached the workout equipment in Monbijou Park, but could only do a single set of pull ups and push ups before I completely pooped out.
I chugged several glasses of water and took a long, cold shower to recover from the run. Though it had been cool when I set off, the day had warmed up significantly. The dorm room was back to its oven-like temperatures, and I spent ten minutes standing around half naked and fanning myself.
I had to be back out the door by noon to meet C at his apartment in Prenzlauer Berg, and it was a brisk, sweaty walk over there. I didn’t realize that the layout of Berlin has buildings hidden behind buildings, where you have to pass through the street side building and a small courtyard to reach a second, hidden apartment building. As we were heading out, we ran into his pregnant wife and mother-in-law on their way back from some errand. Then, we biked over to Wedding, which is a very “international” part of town, where a lot of Turks and Arabs have relocated as they have been priced out of other neighborhoods through rapid gentrification.
C had some errands to run, so I accompanied him to a DM (drugmarkt) before we went to this amazing little Turkish restaurant. There are Turkish restaurants everywhere in Berlin, and though I hadn’t sampled any yet, I took him on his word that this place was special. After lunch, we swung by a hardware store on the way back to buy paint. He had to get back to work on a translation project, so after a quick coffee, I bid him adieu and rambled back down to my neighborhood.
At least on a bike, one gets a bit of a breeze, but back on foot, I realized once again just how strong the summer sun could be. I was grateful when I spotted a little window selling gelato and got a cone of raspberry sorbet. It didn’t last two blocks.
I returned to the hostel and plugged my phone in to charge while swiping through social media a bit. But it wasn’t too long before I decided I wanted to go hang out in a cafe and study German. I packed a bag with my picnic blanket and the remainder of the wine (for later) and headed over to the little bakery I had discovered on museum day. I ordered a coffee and a cookie of some sort and sat at a table on the sidewalk. It was very pleasant, though the sun had disappeared behind dark clouds by that point. Around 6pm, I figured I had sat there long enough and moved to the park to switch to wine. However, the trees were dancing the chacha in the strong gusts of wind as the thunderstorm slowly built up of the city.
I plopped down on a bench and continued drilling myself on German, daring the elements to open up a torrential downpour on me. It was a good half hour before the first subtle drops began to fall, but the rain didn’t begin until I was firmly ensconced back in the dorm. The Greek PhD student was around and we chatted for a bit, commiserating over how hot the room was. It was still pretty early and with the weather, no point in being outside, so I pulled out my computer and harddrive to watch a movie. I watched more than an hour of (James Cameron’s) Avatar before I started getting sleepy.
It was good to have a rest day and a cheap day. It’s still going to take at least a week to get the flight properly prorated so the daily average looks more reasonable.
| Eis | 1.6 |
| Coffee | 3 |
| Total: | 4.6 EUR (RMB 35.9) (USD 5.18) |
Running Total: 4512.4 RMB (USD 651.7)
Daily Average: 644.6 RMB (USD 93.1)