The College Years

So I graduated. Not only did I graduate, but I somehow managed to graduate third in my class. Oh well, I guess this confirms that I was a nerd. Personally, I never actually thought of myself as a nerd though - more of an independent thinker... Whatever the case, graduating third in my class and doing very well on my ACT actually got me a full merit scholarship to Wayne State University. Yeah, I know, it was Wayne State ... but, it was a full ride. All I needed to do was maintain a B average and pretty much all of my college was paid for. That was pretty sweet...

I decided to study electrical/computer engineering. Why? Well, I really don't know... Computers and math just always seemed interesting to me and I figured that engineers are pretty respected and well paid individuals. I was wrong about the 'respected' part, but I wouldn't find this out until it was way too late; however I must admit that being an engineer does pay a bit better than flipping burgers. Not to mention that it could give you an opportunity to basically get paid a bit too well by living in a foreign country - say Germany, perhaps... But I digress ... that's not until much later in the story.

I was going to Wayne State University to study engineering. My friend Eric (you remember Eric...) decided that it sounded like a good idea and decided to enroll himself. He was also going to study ECE and that way we would be able to help each other out when needed. I believe he even bought himself a physics book of some sort to get a bit of a head start on the studies through the summer. Yeah, this was a perfect plan.

Half way through the first semester, Eric had a change of heart and decided that engineering was just a bit too much for him to handle. Heck, I give the guy props for even trying; and I still believe that he could have done it if he really wanted to. Unfortunately the workload was more than he was willing to do and he decided to change his major to CSC (Computer Science). I was a bit bummed out as I had just then lost my shoulder to lean on and was now in the game alone. Oh well, often times in life things don't turn out exactly as you were expecting. This was one of those times...

I continued taking the required pre-engineering courses and met this guy in my chemistry class during my freshman second semester. His name was Otis (known as Psycho to most) and he asked me if I would be interested in stopping by his frat house some time. Now you've got to realize that I never even considered joining a fraternity - especially at W.S.U. Ya see, Wayne State has always been regarded as a commuter school. Nobody lived there - it was located right in the middle of Cass Corridor, a ghetto of Detroit. I mean the usual plan for attending Wayne State was to continue living with your parents and drive the 15-30 minute drive to class each day. The thought of joining a fraternity in this environment never even entered my mind. Not to mention, I pretty much despised the typical frat guy - they were almost always stupid jocks that apparently needed to pay dues in order to guarantee that they were always surrounded by other stupid jocks. No, the frat life wasn't cut out for me - or, at least, I wasn't cut out for the frat life. Here I was though ... darn near friendless and living a life of ritual routine ... taking classes that the 'normal' kids were doing their best to avoid. So I figured I needed to do something and decided to take Psycho up on his invitation.

The first night I stopped by the Theta Tau house I really didn't know what to expect. I was told that it was a professional engineering fraternity and that you needed to be currently enrolled in an engineering curriculum with at least a C grade point average. Was this place going to be a bunch of geeks? Was I a geek for deciding to even show up? To be honest I really didn't know what to expect and I thought that I was just stopping by to check the place out and visit with Psycho. I was a bit surprised when I drove up to the house...

Now bear in mind that we're talking Wayne State University here. Back in 1989 nobody actually lived there. I mean it was in the middle of a ghetto. Don't get me wrong, the campus was actually kept up very well, but walk two blocks away and you were in the slums. The Theta Tau house was located something like 6 city blocks east of the campus - surrounded by abandoned buildings, crack houses and a variety of bums, bag lady's and prostitutes. Mind you, these were not the same caliber of prostitutes that one finds in Amsterdam, these were the prostitutes that were often guest stars on the show C.O.P.S. The funniest thing about all this is that I would actually end up living in this house for five years. Now there's a situation that I never even considered finding myself in...

As I drove to the house that evening, I was taking in all the sights and considering that I may just have gone mad. What the hell was I - your typical suburbanite doofus - doing in this part of the neighborhood? Amazingly, that all changed when I got to the house and started to meet the people there. I mean these were some good guys. Every one of them welcomed me as a friend. They knew what it was like to be a freshman in college - they were all just recently through the same experience themselves. And these weren't the typical frat guys that I had been expecting. They weren't a bunch of mindless jocks trying to come up with the next big stupid thing to do. They were all engineering students. They also had a Coke machine on the second floor of the house stocked with beer. I mean that was pretty cool when you're 18 years old!

So I spent the evening with the guys and had a real good time. Little did I know that this was actually a 'rush' event. A few days later I received some mail at my parent's house informing me that I had been selected as a possible pledge for that semester and, if I so desired, I could join the pledge class to become a member. I decided to do it and I will still say that it was probably one of the best decisions I ever made.

This was where I was given the name 'Coriolis'. The guys just called me 'Cori' most of the time, but my actual pledge name is Coriolis. Coriolis, for those not in the know is defined as “a fictitious force acting upon objects in motion with respect to a un-inertial, uniformly rotating point of reference." It's basically what makes the water drain down the toilet in a counterclockwise swirl north of the equator and clockwise south. I was named after the toilet force - like I said, these were good guys... Now, if you're wondering about the 364 (from my username), it was my roll number after I got initiated.

Now I feel that I've basically given you the wrong idea about the Theta Tau brothers from what I have written thus far. Yes, we were all college students studying engineering; however, the main point to get from that is that we were all college students. I'm sure you've heard the expression "there's a time and place for everything ... and it's called college." I can tell you that we truly lived this. I mean yeah, we were all engineering students; but that only meant that we were a little bit better at figuring things out than the average student. Mix a bunch of guys like that together - all pretty much experiencing their first true taste of freedom - and just sit back and watch the show... I mean you've all seen Animal House, right? Minor leagues...

To give you a basic understanding of what I am talking about, there were two parties every year at Wayne State that were the 'must attend' bashes. One, the Wild Turkey Bash was held annually on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. The slogan was "It ain't Thanksgiving without a hangover..." The second was called The Atomic Beach Bash and it was held every year on the Friday either just before spring break or The Friday after spring break - I forget which one. Both of these parties were at the Theta Tau house. I mean for the Atomic Beach Bash, we would actually get three cubic yards of sand delivered to the house and completely cover the dance floor. Like I said, we were engineering students... To give you an idea of how popular these parties were, we would order up 20 kegs of beer for these parties and would always need to send out for reinforcements well before the 2am cut off time came around. The house was packed on these parties. Good times ... good times...

As I mentioned earlier, I actually moved into the frat house in the fall of 1989 when I was starting my sophomore year at college. I once again have my parents to thank for that. Not only were they willing to let me live in an area that most sane people wouldn't even want to walk through, they were even nice enough to pay my rent. I'm sure they're going to be reading this blog and I would just like to thank them now for giving me that opportunity. I learned far more about life by living in that frat house than I could ever learn at any school. Thanks.

I will admit that my grades did actually continue to drop while I was living at the frat house, but I was somehow able to keep the average above the required 3.0 B and was therefore able to keep the scholarship.

Man, there are just so many stories that I could write about during my college years but it would be way too much and I really don't want to bore you with the details... There are, however, a couple of people that I feel I must mention...

Unfortunately you are going to have to wait for the rest of this story as it is now approaching 9:30pm here in Braunschweig and I need to get something to eat and head on off to bed. Thanks again for reading my silly little stories. I don't really know how interesting this is for most people, but it has been great for me to even attempt to share some of my experiences with you.

bis später,

Coriolis

Let me introduce myself (the early years) ...

I've decided to take a little breather from the ole travel journal and give my readers (all two or three of them...) a little background on exactly who I am. This might not interest many of you, but I know I'm always interested in learning a thing or two about the people that write things that I read. If you were hoping for more of the European experience, bear with me for a bit ... I'll get back to that soon enough... Oh yeah, I'm also a bit under the weather and this seems like a good way to tick away the moments that make up a dull day. (Yeah, originality is not my strong point ... and if you get that, good for you.)

As I stated earlier, I'm just your basic nobody from nowhere. I was actually born a poor black child ... oh wait, no I wasn't. That was some other jerk. I was born in the mean streets of Lincoln Park - a suburb of Detroit. Never actually lived in Lincoln Park, but I was born in the Lincoln Park hospital. At least I think... I actually don't remember but, according to my mother, I was... I grew up, however, in Allen Park - Northern Allen Park to be exact. I mention this because the part of Allen Park where I lived was actually in the Northern Allen Park / Melvindale school district, so I attended jr. high and high school in Melvindale. All of these places are, of course, suburbs of the highly energetic city known throughout the world as Detroit. (Try to catch the sarcasm here ... Detroit is a burned out hole of a town...)

There's really not much to say about my adolescence. I was one of those "couldn't do anything wrong" honor students. At least that was the impression that was given off – and I used this impression to basically get away with anything. I hung out a lot with Eric in my pre-teen and teen years and poor Eric took a lot of shit that was rightfully due me. It was all for stupid little things - lighting fires, shoplifting, staying out past curfew; you know, the stupid little things that stupid little kids do. Heck, there was at least one point where my parents decided that Eric was a bad influence for me and banned me from hanging out with him. They were completely unaware that I was actually the bad influence. Oh well, that's all water under the bridge now and I appreciate Eric taking the fall for me. He's a good guy. I still make it a point to visit with him whenever I make a stop back in the old neighborhood.

I was an honor student throughout high school. To be honest with you, I really can't tell you why. I never studied ... I guess I was just good at figuring out the curriculum that was taught in public schools in the mid to late eighties - that and the fact that I really didn't have much of a social life until I was basically a junior. That's when I finally got myself my first real girlfriend, Conny, and started to realize that there was more to life than just the endless treadmill of trying to do your best and becoming the wealthy old man. I was starting to realize that life might actually be worth 'living'.

Unfortunately fate can often be a twisted little beast and I got into a rather major car accident while driving to band practice a week before my senior year was set to begin. Yeah, you read that right - band practice. I was actually the drum major for our pathetic waste of a high school band. You see, back in the eighties, being in the Melvindale High School Band was really nothing to be proud of. However, I was in it. I was first chair clarinet pretty much throughout high school. I was given second chair as a freshman - although the band teacher told me that was only because the girl, Holly that was given first chair was a senior and he didn't want to upset her. I think this might have been a line because I always thought that Holly deserved the first chair. I mean, as far as I was concerned, she was better than me... Oh well, you didn't come here to read about the politics of a less than mediocre band, so that's all I'll say about that.

The accident. From what I have been told, I was making a left onto a typical five lane highway - Allen Road, to be exact. There was apparently a bus making a right onto the side street that I was exiting from. Whether I was waved on by the bus driver remains an unknown, but I went. As I passed the front of the bus I was met, rather chaotically, by a car that was speeding around the bus as it waited to turn. I was hit broadside – directly in the driver side door. My car then basically spun around and came to a stop hitting a telephone pole on the opposite side of the street. I was wearing my seatbelt, so I didn't get thrown from the car. This was good. What was bad about it was that I apparently ended up in the passenger seat still wearing my seatbelt.

You never really understand exactly how much momentum a car has when it's driving down the road until you try to stop it. I actually saw the car that I was driving months later in the junk yard. The entire driver's side was pretty much gone. It looked like it was put in a car smasher sideways and pulled out half way through. Somehow I lived through this. Of course the account I just told you is only my repeating of what had been told me. I don't remember the accident at all. In fact I don't remember the day before the accident or about one full month after the accident. You see, while my body was making that very sudden move from the driver's seat to the passenger's seat, my brain was coming along for the ride. The thing about the brain is that it's surrounded by fluid and when the seatbelt did its job and stopped my body from flying out of the car, my brain kept traveling through the fluid and smashed directly into my own skull.

The result of this is that I slipped into a coma at the hospital that night and stayed in the coma for three days. While I was in this coma, I underwent surgery and had my spleen removed - yet another gift from the seatbelt. The rather abrupt stop actually tore my spleen open. As I mentioned before, I remember none of this. The first vague memory that I have was actually a half month after the accident when I woke up in the hospital bed and had no idea where I was or what had happened. Luckily for me I was basically clinically insane, so I didn't really give it too much thought. I just relieved my bladder and went back to sleep. There was a catheter - which I was unaware of - so things didn't get out of control...

I was basically regressed back to an infant. But it was weird - I was an infant with access to many of my long term memories. My short term memory was shot and I would not even be able to remember who was in my room if my attention was pulled in a different direction for even the shortest period of time. It was then that I needed to re-learn the simplest of activities - walking, talking - you know, the basics.

I believe I spent a month in the hospital, perhaps it was longer, I don't actually remember; I was then released into a rehab center. This was bad. I didn't want to be there and I wasn't what you would call a model patient. I think I was only there for a couple days before my parents demanded they release me; but in that short period of time I punched out a nurse, tried to escape through the fire exit and considered jumping out of a third (or possibly fourth) floor window to get away from that place. I most definitely was one that flew over the cuckoo's nest. My parents though, bless their hearts, quickly came to the realization that this was not the place for me and pulled me out even when all the doctors were telling them that they shouldn't. Just because some dude decided to spend years upon years 'earning' a PhD doesn't always mean he knows what's best.

Once I returned home, my actual healing began and I was soon able to return to school after basically missing the entire first quarter of my senior year. Amazingly enough I was actually able to do the work pretty easily and, even after missing a full quarter of my senior year, graduated third in my class on schedule the following spring.

The funny thing about all this is that that experience, as traumatic as it all was, wasn't the worst part of my senior year. To this day I still believe that the much larger tragedy was that I lost the first true love of my life, Conny. And it seems strange to me. She stayed with me throughout the entire hospital stay and rehab experience and actually waited until I was back at school again before she dumped me. Now that sounds a lot more mean than it actually was. I mean I actually don't really blame her. Even after returning to school there were still side effects from the closed head injury. For one thing, I was rather weak and I had this real bad habit of breaking into uncontrollable laughter for no apparent reason at times. Who the hell would want to be associated with that?

Strangely enough, we - Conny and I - got back together for a short period of time right around graduation. That was cool as I was able to take her to the senior prom and everything. Unfortunately fate came back into the picture and shortly after graduation we split up again and this time it would be forever. She's moved on with her life and went and got married. She's now the proud mother of a couple of kids. The funny thing about this is that Conny was actually German. I think she moved to the states at age 7 or something and was always telling me how she wanted to move back to Germany. She did this for a few years, I think, after graduation but ended up hooking up with an American soldier and is actually now living in California; and here I am, living in Germany. Life is weird...

Now I just need to make it clear that I really don't have any ill feelings toward Conny and I honestly wish her nothing but the best. I have actually rather recently started communicating with her again via IM and I think that has helped me to finally put a close to that period in my life. Life's far too short to waste it wondering what could have been. You are where you are and you've got to somehow make the best of it.

Well, folks, what started off as being a simple little introduction to your author has turned into more of my little biography. I apologize for that but this has been probably more interesting for me than it has for you. I will, therefore, continue it on another day. Unfortunately, it's getting a bit late over here and I do need to get to work tomorrow so I need to be heading off to dreamland for a bit. Thanks for reading and I'll be sure that I type at ya again...

bis später,

Coriolis

Berlin – you need more than 8 hours...

Yesterday I decided to head on over to Berlin. Everyone was saying I needed to go and I figured heck, there’s no better time than the present. I actually booked the train ticket a couple weeks ago – just before heading to Amsterdam. Since I booked it early enough, I was able to take advantage of this “Sparpreis 50” deal from die Bahn website and got the roundtrip ticket for €50. Since it’s only a 1 ½ hour train ride to Berlin, I was able to get myself a trip where I left Braunschweig at 10:00am, got into Berlin around 11:30, got on the return train at 7:37pm and was back in Braunschweig by slightly after 9:00. This gave me about 8 hours to spend in Berlin and I figured that would be plenty of time to take a tour of the city. 8 hours should have been enough, but I made the mistake of getting on the Berlin “City Circle” tour bus – a decision that I would later regret.

When I arrived in the recently built Berlin Hauptbahnhof (this means the main station), I was amazed! I mean what a station! This place was huge and it was all encased in a glass structure. You basically had the main train platforms at the top, three floors of shops below this and below the shopping levels was a U-Tram station (Berlin’s subway). And people – there were people everywhere. Although I later found out that this wasn’t just limited to the train station; apparently Berlin is the place to be on a Saturday between the hours of noon and 8:00pm as everywhere that I went had endless crowds of people.

Now that I think about it, Amsterdam was filled past the rim with people on the Saturday that I was there and even here in Braunschweig the streets get rather crowded on a typical Saturday. I’m sure there are many reasons behind this but it looks to me like Europeans just like to get out on Saturdays. The reason I bring this point up is for your benefit. I would say that if you were interested in visiting a city in Europe and basically just doing the tourist thing (going from site to site taking pictures and learning a bit about the city’s history), try not to do it on a Saturday. Way too many tourists are already doing this and it would be best to stay clear of the chaos. For Berlin I would suggest heading there on a Tuesday in the middle of winter. Something tells me that it might still be a bit crowded but you might then actually have some hope of getting things done on schedule.

So I arrive at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof at somewhere around 11:30am. This is a good thing as I actually got off the train at the Berlin, Spandau station. I quickly noticed that nobody else was getting off the train and checked my ticket. It said on my ticket that I was heading to Berlin Hbf and from looking around; this definitely didn’t look like the main Berlin station. Luckily I was able to hop back on the train before it continued on its way and ask a guy on board whether this was my stop. He informed me that the Hauptbahnhof was the next stop and I thanked him and sat back down. I came awfully close to making an already hectic day a hell of a lot more hectic…

I have this T-shirt that my parents gave me that says U.S.A. Poker, Established 1776 with a graphic of an eagle ripping through a large ace. It’s a nice enough T-shirt to wear around those days where you really have no reason to dress to impress and I actually wear it on a rather regular basis as it is cycled through with the rest of my “bum day” shirts. This shirt was sitting on top of my T-shirts in my closet and I instinctively grabbed it and put it on. It didn’t even occur to me that this probably wasn’t the best shirt to be wearing to go site seeing in Berlin until well after my journey had begun. Oh well, I figured … whatever… I was wearing the T-shirt and if anybody had issues with it then that’s just their problem. I had no direct confrontations directly related to the T-shirt throughout the day; however the reader should bear in mind that this was the shirt that I was wearing throughout the rest of this story. Did it have an impact? I doubt it, but I’ll leave it up to you on whether or not you think things may have been a bit different if I had been wearing a different shirt.

My first mission upon arriving in Berlin was to find where I could buy a ticket for one of these Berlin bus tours that I had read about online. There were apparently several to choose from varying on locations visited and other items like whether or not you could leave the bus at various stops and such. I had no idea which bus tour to look for but did want to get the tour where you were free to explore the various areas that the bus stopped at. I found the tourist information shop and went in to see if I could buy a ticket on one of these bus tours. Sure enough, the guy working there told me I could either get the 2 hour bus tour where I just sat on the bus or, for a little more money, I could get the all day “City Circle” tour where I was free to get off the bus at any stop I wanted and stay there for as long as I wanted. Since I had 8 hours to spend, I went with the “City Circle” tour and paid my €20 for the ticket. I was then told that I could catch the bus from the other end of the train station and that was all the details I was given on exactly where to catch the bus. I figured this probably wasn’t an issue and that there were probably signs outside that clearly show where to go. I wasn’t worried…

I started heading through the train station to the other side and stopped off at a Burger King for some food. After eating, I continued on to the exit and walked outside hoping to see some sort of indication as to where I was supposed to catch the “City Circle” bus but there were absolutely no signs pertaining to this. What was out there was a large stage and concert style seating as if a show was going to be starting sometime soon and a bunch of tents that appeared to be some kind of African festival - nothing that even looked like a bus stop nearby. Oh well, it had to be here somewhere, so I started walking out toward where I was seeing a few buses passing by and kept my eyes pealed for the “City Circle” emblem that I was told to make sure the bus had before boarding. I must have been walking around aimlessly, taking pictures of random things that looked interesting for at least an hour before I finally saw a “City Circle” bus. Not only was there a bus, but there were actually two “City Circle” busses traveling one right after the other. The only problem was that I was now rather far from where the bus stop (completely unmarked, mind you…) actually was and needed to backtrack a bit towards the Hauptbahnhof. This I did and I waited at the location I saw the other buses stop for the next bus to show up.

I finally got on a bus around 1:00pm. This was a bit later than I had expected but I still had 6 ½ hours or so before I needed to get back for my train ride home. Let’s see, 6 ½ hours and this tour had something like 15 stops on it. I was figuring that I could jump off at pretty much every stop, explore around for about 15 minutes and still make it back to the drop off point to catch the next bus. You see, the way the “City Circle” bus tour is set up is that there is supposed to be a bus stopping at each of the 15 stops every 15 minutes. I say “supposed to be” because in reality (at least on a Saturday afternoon) this is definitely not the case. Unfortunately, I was unaware of this at the time and was actually still planning on getting off the bus at each stop for at least a look-see.

My plan quickly changed when I got off at the first stop – actually the 14th stop as the tour didn’t even start from the Hauptbahnhof but started across town somewhere else and I was just sold a ticket to get on the tour already in progress at stop #13. I was never told any of this; I just kind of figured it out on my own. Another thing that I quickly figured out at this first stop was that there was no way in hell that I was going to be able to get off the bus at each stop for any length of time if I even dreamed of making my train ride home that evening. The worst part about it was that this first stop was just some open market thing – not at all interesting to me. Definitely more of a woman’s paradise – you could walk around and spend money on a bunch of crap that you really didn’t need and then be forced to take these articles with you on the rest of the bus tour. I suppose that’s probably why this was stop #14 on the tour as there was only one more stop before you would complete the tour – unless, of course, you bought your ticket at stop #13 like I did…

What made the fact apparent that I was not going to be able to be getting off the bus much was that I was stuck at this silly market for somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour. Not because I was gleefully walking through the market and buying things I just couldn’t live without. No, this I was not doing. I was basically standing at the bus stop waiting for a “City Circle” bus to get my ass on to the next stop. As I was waiting I noticed that the group of people apparently waiting for the same bus around me was steadily growing. Finally, a “City Circle” bus shows up but the damn thing is already filled to capacity. Nobody on this bus departs and the bus just leaves the stop without picking up any of the horde that is now waiting. I begin to wonder if I’m ever going to be able to leave this market but in time a bus finally shows up that actually has enough room to pick us up – barely. I didn’t care that the bus was crowded, I was just happy enough to be on my way again and I really needed to start doing some planning. I took out the map of the bus route and basically started trying to figure out the fewest stops I could do and still see as much as I was hoping to. I think the next stop I got off the bus on was stop #5 – the Banhof Potsdamer Platz. I walked around a bit taking pictures (you can see these at my Yahoo Photos page) and trying to find a bathroom.

Time was passing and bathrooms are hard to come by in Berlin. I honestly don’t know if that last statement is true or not (the part about the bathrooms…) but I sure had a hell of a time finding any… In fact, I decided to just hold it for a bit and get back on the tour. The next stop was the Judisches Museum and I was planning on stopping there. I was sure they’d have a bathroom. I hopped on the next bus and rode on to stop #6. I then got off the bus and walked across the street and into the Judisches Museum, Berlin. I had already been to the Judisches Museum in Braunschweig, but the one in Berlin is much larger. Another difference between to two museums was that the one in Berlin was secure. There were actually guards (well, police, I think) on constant duty around the exterior of the museum and anybody entering the museum had to go through a metal detector much like getting on an airplane. I’m not exactly sure why all the security is necessary at a museum, but I suppose there are probably groups out there that wouldn’t mind seeing this museum go away. Heck, there are still people out there that claim that the holocaust never really happened and museums such as this make it very difficult for these people to convince others. Politics aside, I was going to see this museum, so I headed in.

I put my belongings (cell phone, lighter, umbrella and camera) in a tray to get x-rayed and stepped through the metal detector – setting it off, of course. It was my cigarette case and I quickly showed it to the guards standing there. I got wanded, opened my cigarette case to show them everything was cool, grabbed my stuff from the x-ray tray and headed over to the counter to pay admission. It was €5 to get in and they asked if I wanted to also see the special exhibit (the Freudian exhibit) and I said, “Sure.” I paid my €7.50 and headed in. It looked to me like going to the right was for the exit and gift shop, so I walked on to the left. This hallway headed out into a courtyard of some kind and there was a guy standing there. I asked him how to get into the museum and he said to go back the way I came, check my umbrella at the coat check and continue down the stairs. This I did and when I finally got to the bottom of the stairs I finally saw a sign for the WC (bathrooms). It had an arrow next to it pointing up the stairs I had just walked down so I turned around and walked back up and found the bathroom. I walked back to the stairs and headed back down to the museum.

The layout of this place was a bit confusing as, down there is the basement, it looked like there were only two hallways of exhibits. One was called the “Axis of Holocaust” and the other was called the “Axis of Exile”. I walked down both hallways and noticed that the “Axis of Holocaust” ended at the “Holocaust Tower” and the “Axis of Exile” ended at the “Garden of Exile”. You can see the photos of these on my Yahoo photos page although there really isn’t much to see (especially in the “Holocaust Tower”). It’s more of an artistic representation based on your senses and art is what art is. To be honest, I wasn’t really that impressed with either…

After walking around these halls for a bit I finally found the entrance to the actual museum. It was up a couple flights of stairs and the Freudian exhibit was also up these stairs at the halfway point. I started to realize that I was spending way too much time here and needed to get a move on if I was going to be able to see much else this day, so I quickly checked out the rest of the museum and headed back out to where the bus had dropped me off earlier. It was somewhere around 3:30 when I began my wait for the bus and noticed that there was another guy standing there at 4:15 looking at the map of the “City Circle” bus path. I approached this man and asked if he was waiting for the “City Circle” bus and he informed me that he was. I then told him that I had been standing there for 45 minutes waiting so far and he mentioned that he remembered seeing something on the map about final leaving times. Sure enough, we found on the map where it said that the “Final Departure” time at the Judisches Museum stop was 16:00. We weren’t exactly sure what this meant though as the “City Circle” map documentation is not clear at all but I was starting to think that there might be a very long walk in my future. As we were discussing the possibility that we might need to start walking over to the next stop – “Check Point Charley” – a “City Circle” bus was heading down the street towards us. Sweet! The buses hadn’t stop running yet.

This bus that now pulled up and stopped in front of us looked to be already pretty darn full. Nobody got off the bus and this man and I tried to board the bus. I showed the driver my ticket and was told that the bus was full and that another would be coming by in about 10 minutes. I really didn’t know why he was saying that as we had already gotten on the bus and were standing there waiting to leave. I even tried to ask him how late the busses ran and was only told that another bus would be by in about 10 minutes. No matter how I phrased my question, this guy wasn’t telling me anything more than another bus should be arriving in about 10 minutes. After a short period of silence, the driver asked us to get off the bus. What?! Get off the bus? Whatever… So the guy that was waiting there with me and I get off the bus and it drives away. I will say this – that bus driver sure as hell didn’t want us on his bus. The question remains as to why he stopped in the first place if he wasn’t going to let us get on the bus to begin with. Oh well, whatever… I got the impression that another bus would be showing up in about 10 minutes anyway and I was just hoping that this next bus would let us on.

Sure enough, about ten minutes later another bus arrives. Luckily for us, the bus wasn’t nearly as full as the last one that just left us stranded there and we were able to get on. This was most definitely going to be the last bus I was riding that day. There are still a lot of sights in Berlin that I would like to see; but there was no way I was going to miss my train back to Braunschweig that evening due to getting stranded by the “City Circle” bus tour. I then rode this bus and took just random shots of buildings I thought were interesting looking until we were once again approaching stop #13 – Berlin Hauptbahnhof. This was where I was planning on making my exit and heading back to the train station. Unfortunately, the Scorpions were about to be having a concert on that stage that I mentioned earlier and the streets around this stage were now beginning to be closed to traffic. Although the bus was still able to drive directly past where I originally boarded this nightmarish tour, the bus did not stop there. Well, it did stop there for a bit and the bus driver was chatting with the people that were closing the roads; but the doors were never opened – even though I was pressing the stop button and very obviously wanting to get off. After the driver was done speaking with the other guys, the bus continued on toward the next stop. It was at this point where I quickly ran up to the front of the bus and asked the driver if he was planning on heading back to the Hauptbahnhof and he said that the streets were getting closed and that nobody would be able to pick me up from there. I then explained to him that I had a train to catch in a couple of hours and wanted to exit the tour there and got him to pull over and let me out. Okay, everything was cool. I still had a couple of hours before my train was scheduled to depart and the Hauptbahnhof was now easily within walking distance. I walked to the train station to get something to eat before my trip back to Braunschweig.

Oh yeah, one thing I forgot to mention: While I was waiting for the bus over by the Judisches Museum I got a phone call. Jon (you’ll notice that I no longer say Jon and Cindy as Cindy has decided to leave the apartment that she was sharing with Jon and is now out on her own … these kids nowadays…) apparently discovered this DnB (Drums ‘n Bass, or something like that … heck, I don’t know, I’m an old man…) show that was happening in Berlin that night and he was calling to inform me that he was on a train heading toward Berlin. He said he would be arriving just after 6:00pm and that the show was supposed to start somewhere around 11:00pm that night. Unfortunately I wouldn’t be able to join him for the show as I was pretty much beat and planned on making my 7:37pm train back to Braunschweig.

When I finally made it back into the train station and headed over to this Fish and Chips joint to get some food, my phone rang again. It was Jon asking where I was and I told him. He then asked if I could front him some cash for the night and I said sure. As I was sitting there drinking my beer, Jon showed up and I loaned him €25, gave him a very brief recap of my day so far and wished him the best for the show he was going to. I was going back to Braunschweig. At 7:37pm I was on my train heading back home and boy was I glad to be heading home…

Well, to anyone that’s actually reading this stuff, thanks for giving me the opportunity to share my experiences with you. I’m not really sure I can keep up with writing this much as often as I have been, but one never knows… Check back from time to time and tell your friends. This blog is open to all and it’d be cool if you could maybe drop me a comment on exactly what you think of it…

bis später,

Coriolis

Amsterdam (the trip back ... part 4)

For anybody that's just now joining this story, here's the situation: After one crazy night in Amsterdam I ate some shrooms, headed to Centraal Station and sat still as I watched my train depart back to Germany right in front of me. Oh well, I'm an idiot, not much I can do about that. There was another train heading back to Germany in two hours, so missing my scheduled train wasn't really that big of a deal.

You see, I was in Europe. The rules for taking train rides in Europe are actually very simple. Pretty much the only thing that matters is that you are a human being holding a ticket with a departure city and arrival city. I'm sure the relative times that the ticket was reserved for also come into play; but all the hassle of checking in with some arbitrary database and proving that you are who you say you are have been removed. In fact, anybody can basically get on any train at any time whether they have a ticket or not. Once the train actually leaves the station and is already on its way to the next stop is when somebody (the conductor, perhaps?) will go through the train and ask to see your ticket. But, here's the interesting part - even if you don't have a ticket, you can buy one, then and there, from the conductor. Sure, you'll be paying full price for the trip, but I guess the fact that you are sitting on the train is enough proof that you wanted to buy these tickets anyway. If you show them a ticket for a train that already left, all that matters is that the train that you are on is at least part of a series that will get you from your departure city to your arrival city and your ticket will be accepted. I'm not exactly sure why I find this so interesting; I mean it is a very simple and logical system. It just seems to me, after flying on many flights in the states throughout my life, that this would never happen. I will admit that I have never traveled through the U.S. on trains and maybe it's the same way there ... I'm just prone to think that it isn't.

That being said – about the lack of proving who you are and all – things get a little more complicated on international trips. For these trips, you will be approached by the conductor for your ticket and then by a group of police (or whatever they're designation is ... border patrol...?) that is always more than one guy for your passport. The first time this happened, I made the beginner’s mistake of actually trying to speak with these people when they came by. I now know that this is not necessary and things go much smoother if you just sit there and, once approached, listen for a key word that sounds close to "ticket" or "passport"; give the requested item to the person that approached you and just sit there quietly. If you get asked something you can then go into the whole thing about not speaking their language and inquiring if they speak English; however, in most cases, no conversation is even needed. They'll just punch your ticket or look through your passport then hand it back and move on to the next person. I think they appreciate it more if you just stay quiet and let them get on with their work, no sense in trying to talk to them and slow them down because, due to the language barrier, the conversation will rarely be short. And who needs the hassle?

So, anyway, back to my story. As I mentioned, I had just finished watching my scheduled train leave without me on it and found out that there was another train in a couple of hours that I could take. I did make this second train; however, I don't even remember waiting for it or boarding it. It had now been at least two hours since I ate the shrooms (four from when I must have boarded the train) and I guess they were now hitting with full force. I do remember being on the train though. It was the typical train ride where I basically found myself an open seat and sat down. If you're paying attention to this story, you should be aware that I was now sitting on an international train heading back to Germany with 3 THC brownies and 2 hash joints that I had purchased earlier in the day. Was I worried? No. The shrooms had basically removed all of my worry. I just needed to not be stupid (well, not be more stupid than I already was with my cargo and state of mind).

It's a good couple of hours before we would be crossing back over the German border and that time was spent by me sitting there and contemplating some weird stuff. I remember considering the life force and how our physical bodies were just mere shells that housed us and coming close to deriving, not necessarily the answer to, but a fuller understanding of what life actually is. I remember thinking how amazing it was that I was now sitting on a train in the Netherlands heading back to my new home in Germany and how fascinating it all was to me however, for the rest of the people sitting on that train, this was most likely commonplace life. I'll tell you this - when people are telling you that drugs (shrooms, in this instance) can really open your mind, they're not just trying to justify the fact that they have done them. The trip that I was on was very interesting. I only wish that I had taken my PC along with me and typed up a blog entry while still in the effects. Next time I most definitely will.

The trip went very smoothly. When I was approached I just figured out what document was being requested and handed the said document to the person requesting it. Other than an instance where I was told to change cars due to the electricity being out on the car I was on and one time where I was asked to move seats because I was sitting in somebody else's reserved seat, I really didn't interact with anybody. This, of course, was good as not only would I have had the language barrier to deal with I was also on a completely different plane of existence thanks to the shrooms.

By the time we arrived in Hannover, the shrooms were finally starting to wear off. This, of course, was some 9 hours after I had eaten them. That's pretty good for a €12.50 trip. In Hannover, I departed the train, went outside and took a quick picture of the station at night, found my next train to Braunschweig and finally returned to my apartment around 10:30 that night. That was it, my first trip to Amsterdam was now over and I would head to work the next day and get on with life as normal...

Hey, mentioning that picture has reminded me that I was going to tell you guys that you can see the photos I've taken since I've been over at my Yahoo Photos page. Unfortunately most of the photos I took in Amsterdam didn't come out, but there are some interesting pictures there and I plan on adding more albums while I am here...

bis später,

Coriolis

Amsterdam (Centraal Station - part 3)

Okay, so I’m sitting in this coffeehouse chatting with this other American that strolled in and waiting for the rain to let up. I’ve got a train to catch back to Germany at 3:12pm which gave me about 3 ½ hours or so to kill. The rain stops for a bit and I once again journey out into the streets of Amsterdam.

To my surprise, as I step out onto the street, there, directly across the street from me, is Conscious Dreams! And unlike the night before when I finally arrived there to find them closed, they were now open for business. I quickly crossed the street and strolled on inside.

It was an interesting shop in that it really looked like they weren’t selling anything. There were random items scattered around (don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t messy or anything … it just didn’t look like what I was expecting) and the focal point appeared to be this glass display case in the middle of one wall that had a girl behind it talking with a guy in front of it. I walked over to have myself a look at what was on display in the case.

Sure enough, sitting there in the display case was somewhere on the order of five varieties of shrooms for sale. (Shrooms, in case you didn’t know, are mushrooms that give a rather euphoric experience to anyone that’s brave enough to eat them … but I suppose if you’ve been reading my blog that I most likely don’t need to explain that to you…) I asked the girl behind the case how much these were and she explained something like they were all €12.50 but that bought you different amounts of each. You know, 0.8 grams of one variety and 1.3 grams of another – you get the picture… I asked her what she recommended and then informed her that this would be the first time I ever did shrooms and I might not want to go all out while popping my cherry. She then asked if I wanted the lightest ones and I said I could go for pretty much mid grade and was sold some of the Mexicana (if memory serves me correct).

Okay, so now things are starting to get interesting. Here I am in Amsterdam walking around with 3 THC brownies, 2 hash joints and about a gram of Mexicana shrooms. “No big deal,” I thought; however I was going to be getting on a train back to Germany in slightly more than 3 hours. What am I gonna do with all this? I know, I’ll get myself something to eat.

So I head back over toward Centraal Station and find a restaurant nearby, pop in and order myself a steak, fries and a coke. When the coke arrives I figure now’s as good a time as any to start eating the shrooms and that is exactly what I start doing. Now, when I bought the shrooms earlier, the girl that sold them to me made a point of telling me twice, in fact, that I only needed to eat half the bag. Well, I was due to be boarding a train to Germany in a few hours and really didn’t want to get caught with shrooms on me, so I ate ‘em all. Along with my steak, fries and a coke, I ate about a gram of Mexicana shrooms. Now it was time to head to Centraal Station, find out which platform my train was leaving from, walk over to that platform and wait the 2 ½ hours before my train was scheduled to depart. Simple enough, right? Well, for some I guess, just not for me.

The funny thing about shrooms is that they creep up on ya slowly. As I left the restaurant and headed over to the station I felt fine. I mean as fine as a guy who just smoked a couple of joints could feel. The thing was that the shrooms hadn’t yet kicked in and I was still fully capable of making reasonable decisions. I headed on into the station and found my train on the schedule. It was scheduled to leave from platform 11 A-B at 3:12pm (or 15:12 in European time…). Cool. I headed over to platform 11 B and grabbed a seat near the end of the platform.

It seems to me that I once read somewhere about somebody else’s experience in European train stations, but for the life of me I can’t remember who that was or where I read it. I’m thinking it might have been Dave Barry, but I’m not really sure. Heck, maybe I’m just thinking that I read this as that’s been happening a lot to me since I’ve been in Germany; some interesting situation occurs (and there are a lot of them) and I almost always immediately think that I had read about this somewhere before. Who knows, maybe this is just my subconscious trying to tell me that I need to write about these experiences. But I’m not a writer…

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that sitting in a major European train station for a few hours is a very surreal experience to us Americans. Well, at least it was to me – I’m sure the shrooms had something to do with the oddity of it all, but even without I would still find the happenings there amazing. I mean, here you are, sitting still on a bench and you’re basically taking a virtual tour of Europe. You’re sitting there and people are gathering around. The thing is that the people gathering around are pretty much all from the same country. At one time you might be getting surrounded by Italians, a train will arrive, everyone will board and the train will depart. About a half hour later, the experience repeats itself; this time with the French (or the Polish, or the Spanish, wherever…). It’s a bit much for a guy that just ate a gram of Mexicana shrooms. My train wasn’t scheduled to leave for something like 2 ½ hours so I got to experience this strange phenomena whether I wanted to or not … but I wanted to … it was pretty cool.

Another interesting thing that you quickly learn while traveling around Europe is how to spot your home country’s trains. You see, all the trains are painted in rather vibrant colors. I think I saw trains that were purple, yellow, green and I know I saw red trains. The German ICE (Inter City Express) trains where white with a bold red stripe down the sides. I was sitting there waiting for a white train with a bold red stripe…

Another side note here is that in Amsterdam, at least, the announcements coming over the PA system were completely useless for me. They were only made in Dutch – unlike Germany where all the announcements are also repeated in English. And if you happen to be an American who just ate a gram of shrooms that were beginning to kick in a bit, I have to say that although the announcements were meaningless to me, they sure were pretty funny! I remember thinking to myself that this was a perfect secret code as they had apparently created a complete language out of sounds that could only be described as white noise in the English language. Now I’m not trying to belittle the Dutch with these statements, but I was completely unable to stop myself from cracking up each and every time the lady would make an announcement over the PA. I wish I could have recorded it and let you hear it, or perhaps it was just the shrooms … who knows?

Well time was passing and I was sitting there, embarrassingly cracking up whenever the female made an announcement (yeah, that’s another interesting thing … the man making the announcements wasn’t funny at all) taking my little journey throughout Europe by sitting still. 3:00 was approaching – at least I believe it was as reading the time off my watch was becoming more and a more of a choir for me. Those shrooms can be a bit wicked at times. Another group of people began gathering around and I could tell that these people were German. Mainly because they were all speaking German and that’s usually a pretty good give away. This one lady, however, caught my eye and just wouldn’t let go.

And yet another surreal experience begins… When I was attending college many years back, I had made friends with this beautiful girl there and actually spent quite a bit of time with her during the last couple years of my schooling. This woman that caught my eye here at the Centraal Station in Amsterdam looked exactly like her! And I mean identical! It’s funny, because when I first met Karen (I don’t think she’ll sue me for using her real name) back in college I thought that she was most likely from Mexican descent. She had the long dark black hair; dark eyes and what appeared to me to be rather Mexican looking characteristics. Apparently she’s of German descent – from northwest Germany, somewhere around the city of Rheine, to be more precise. I vaguely remember a couple instances when I was hanging out with her that she mentioned that her family was from Europe but, being the close minded American that I am, I always assumed it must have been somewhere in or near Italy. Nope, I’m pretty darn certain that her family is from somewhere around Rheine, Germany. Go figure… (Now I’m sure that that last little tidbit didn’t mean much to you, the reader, but oh my god did it have an impact on me…)

Anyway, back to the trip. The Germans were gathering around and from as best I could tell by trying to decipher what the things on the face of my watch exactly meant the 3:12 departure time was quickly approaching. At this point, another announcement is aired that meant nothing more to me than another reason to start giggling uncontrollably and the people that were gathering around all started heading off toward the other side of the platform – towards 11 A. I know this now, but at the time it just never really occurred to me. I continued to sit there and wait for the white train with the bold red stripe to arrive.

3:12 came and went but this didn’t startle me too much. My train leaving Braunschweig was a half hour late so I was thinking maybe something close to the same was happening here. I think it was around 3:15 when I finally saw a train coming down the track at platform 11 heading toward me; but the engine was red (if I remember correctly … whatever it was, it wasn’t white with a bold red stripe…). I thought this was peculiar but quickly noticed that this was merely an escort engine and I saw the German ICE train behind it, heading my way. I was thinking, “cool, the trip back can now begin” as the train came driving up toward me. The funny thing is that it wasn’t slowing down and in fact appeared to be picking up speed. I was contemplating this unexpected observation as I stood there and basically watched my train leave the station right in front of me. I missed my train! (Well, to be more precise, I should have easily been able to make the train if I could have only understood the announcement that was saying that it was leaving from 11 A only and not A and B as I had earlier gathered…)

I then walked back down to the main station and walked up to an information booth that was there. I showed them my ticket and asked if the train that had just left was mine and they confirmed that it sure was. Luckily for me, there was another German bound train leaving in two hours. This one, I would make.

Well, folks, it’s now about 8:00 in the evening here in Braunschweig and seeing as today is actually my birthday, I think it’s time to head on over to Braunschweig’s red light district. Yeah, here’s another interesting factoid – prostitution is legal in Germany. Perhaps many of you knew that already, but I sure as hell didn’t. Even here in the little town of Braunschweig they have a red light district which is basically an alley behind this peep show where, on either side of the alley, women are gathered in small little rooms all lit up in red trying to make some cash with the world’s oldest profession. You gotta love Europe…

bis später,

Coriolis

Amsterdam (part 2)

Okay, so where did I leave off…? Oh yeah, I had just purchased a prostitute and it was now 4:30am. I then just headed to the hotel, took the life threatening trip up the steep stairs and went to bed.

I awoke somewhere around 10:00 in the morning and really had no plans at all for the day. Jon and Cindy were pretty much out of the picture after I had said my farewell to them the night before. Turns out – as I would find out from Jon on Monday – they basically ended up staying up all night and jumped on the first train to Germany in the morning. They had their EurRail passes and this basically gave them a lot of freedom as they could pretty much jump on any train at any time without a hassle. I, however, had to book my trip and was actually scheduled to be leaving back to Germany at 3:12pm.

I had a few hours to spare so I decided to head back over to the red light district and see what was going on. At 10:00 in the morning on a Sunday, nothing’s going on in the red light district. All the little rooms that were lit up last night in red were all dark now. I then proceeded to walk north through the now dead red light district toward Centraal Station.

As I was walking toward the station I decided to pop in to a coffee shop and pick up some herb. I walked in to this quaint little coffee shop and got myself a pre-rolled hash joint. Now, the problem with buying the pre-rolled joints was that they were mixed with tobacco. If you want a pure weed joint, you can always ask the dealer if he would roll one for you and then buy some of the weed (or hash) that’s for sale and get a joint rolled. Either that or you could just roll one yourself. As for me, I didn’t mind the tobacco mixed in, so I just purchased the pre-rolled. I then headed back outside…

It was raining lightly when I began my journey for the day but it had been steadily increasing throughout my walk. And, since I had no predetermined route for the day, I decided to pop into the GrassHopper coffee shop and see what was going on. I headed down to the basement that was already pretty crowded with patrons, bought myself a donut and a Red Bull, sat down at a table and ate my breakfast and smoked my J.

I then headed back out to do some more walking around and decided to leave my umbrella in my computer bag. This was a bad choice as it started pouring down just minutes after I left the GrassHopper. I quickly jumped into this coffee shop (I forget the name) that just happened to be conveniently located directly across the street from me when the downpour began. I figured I’d hang out here for a bit and let the rain settle down. I purchased 3 skunk joints and a coke and began my waiting. I then noticed that they had brownies listed on their marijuana/hash menu and asked the guy behind the bar if he thought I’d have any trouble taking some brownies back to Germany with me. It was his opinion that it wouldn’t be any trouble and that I could always buy a sandwich somewhere and just put the brownie in the same bag to make it look like a meal deal. Sounded like a good idea, but I figured I really didn’t need to go through all the trouble. I purchased 3 brownies at €4 a pop and continued waiting for the rain to let up.

The brownies were interesting in that they came in a sealed plastic wrap that had a label on it stating something like – “THC Brownie … This is not an ordinary brownie. If you eat this brownie, you will slowly start to feel the effects. It could take up to two hours for the effects to kick in, but they will. Please don’t freak out!” I asked the bartender for a pair of scissors and quickly removed the labels from the brownies. I now wish I would have saved one of the labels because that’s just too funny – Please don’t freak out!

I stashed the brownies in my computer carrying case and noticed this younger (looked to be in his early 20’s) guy walking into the bar. His eyes were wide open and he actually looked giddy. He walked over and sat next to me at the bar, ordered up a gram of the ‘White Widow’, looked at me and said, “Can you believe this!?” He was an American on a trip somewhere in Europe and had like a 3 hour stop in Amsterdam. He was saying that he heard and read many stories about Amsterdam but was still amazed when he walked out of the train station. I know exactly where he was coming from as I too had read and heard the stories. Being there, of course, is another thing all together.

Well, once again, I got stuff I gotta get to so I am going to have to sign off for now. Remember where the story was and I’ll continue on some other day. Thanks for reading and letting me share a bit of my life with you…

Bis später,

Coriolis