Berlin- Part 1

We arrived in Berlin at 8:30am on Thursday morning. To our surprise, it was really cold and rainy which we thought was weird because it was almost July. But that's another story that I'll get to later. We go through customs and then get out the computer to email Dave, but couldn't connect to the airport wifi. So we tried using the pay phone, and even though the instructions were in English we couldn't figure it out. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, yeah....I'm just going to blame it on that. We decide to take a bus to Alexanderplatz because we know he lives near there. The bus pass is 2.50 euro which is pretty sweet and we are doing this whole trip on a tight budget so the bus was def the way to go. We get to Alexanderplatz and start walking around looking for an Internet cafe, which we find above a dunkin donuts. Awesome- I get a coffee, we email Dave. He says he didn't leave his keys at the bakery next to his house because he never heard back from bill, but his landlady could meet us there at 11:30 and let us in. By this time its 10:45, we haven't slept, and I'm getting really tired, and it's freezing and raining. Literally very cold, I had to put a jacket on. We cab it to daves house because we don't want to miss this lady. Get a couple of pastries and wait. And wait. It's after 12. No lady. We leave the bakery and wander around looking for an Internet cafe, find one in the back of a small deli, and squeeze ourselves into the booth. We book a hotel near the center of the city and take another cab there. So we've pretty much blown our budget for the day on cabs at this point, but both of us are exhausted. The kind of tired that only jet lag brings, the kind where your head gets really cloudy and your eyes feel like they are sinking into your head. We check into the best western on neue grunstrasse, bill checks his email to find that Dave had been emailing us the whole time saying the lady was running late. Crash into bed at 1:30pm and sleep a couple hours before meeting Dave for dinner. So all in all, a bumpy day but it's the kind of thing you just have to accept with a smile and keep going. We checked out the next morning, went back to the bakery where a key was waiting for us and made ourselves at home at daves place while he was at work. Friday night we went to a party in a park where Dave, his friend Piet and bill all dj'd. Had a ton of fun, danced like crazy and went home happy. Berlin is pretty laid back. There is no way a person could show up with a sound system and 100 people in a park in new York. Not gonna happen. And there are no open container laws like in NYC either so everyone just hangs out with their beers. So far the trip is a success, its great to see a friends face after 2 years and I spent hours catching him up on all the gossip from home. It's also nice to have someone who knows the city and speaks the language, although bills German is coming back to him pretty quickly. We have today and tomorrow to do some sightseeing then off to Croatia where I'm looking forward to some warmth and sun.