scary times...

Oh I almost forgot, Marge and I met up with my friend David in Berlin this other day. It was nice to see him, he's been gone. We walked down the Spree and talked about things, mainly life abroad. He was with his parents and Marge and I go to meet them and have dinner. Then we met up with one of David's friends from England and went to her friends house: a hippie jam-sesh-- "nice one," as my new friend Alex would say (Italian accent).

So now, though, I'm in Berlin. I'm here alone but I'm with the world, right? That's what I thought, anyway, and was chill with it until the first night in my hostel. Kreuzberg. That's the area my hostel was in. There are neighborhoods of Berlin, areas, distinct ones: Kreuzberg, Mitte,...(others to come). I read in this guide book I picked up that Kreuzberg is "up and coming! Arsty! International! Endless creativity!" And it is, it's super artsy, lots of indie shops, second hand stuff, indie looking kids. Everyone marching to their own drum, especially if it's a Turkish drum. There is a large population of Turks in Kreuzberg, a large population of foreigners to Germany. I ate alot of Döners. Anyway, I was nervous to take on the "thriving" bar scene by myself, so I hung out in my hostel's bar once I came back from walking around Oranianstrasse and looking at things, taking pictures, and marvelling at grafitti. I pulled my scribble book out and wrote a little, which I only do when I don't know what to do because writing by hand sucks. Or at least, my handwriting sucks. I did realize, though, that writing by hand is beneficial because it shows me what thoughts are irrelevent and especially, repetitive, cause they have to be worth my time for me to actually scrawl them out in my pitiful script. So, I learned from burdening my hand with no mental pleasure I was thinking too much, chilled out, and watched fußball. Soon, I made friends with the bar tender, had a middle aged Egyptian man on my right and a middle aged German man on my left. At first, the Eqyptian man spoke English with me. We talked about Egypt, why he left, why he likes Germany, eventhough it's harder for foreigners in Germany, unless they speak German very well. The German man couldn't speak any English so by the end of the night of talking, dirnking, and chain smoking (who have I become?) we were all talking German, which is awesome for me because half the time when I speak German to someone in Berlin (buying something maybe) they speak English back. It was cool, a German, an Eqyptian, and an American all finding common ground in Kreuzberg. It's what Kreuzberg is all about, I thought, as the bartender (a-line bob, long shirt over jeans, are you getting the vibe?) brought me a bannana beer, which both men thought was hilarious. The guy who checked me in, Flo ("flea" in English, weird) came and hung out, too. He's never been to the USA and said his friend went, and when he went into the supermarket, there were so many choices and so many colors, he forgot what he went there for.

SO, that was nice, right, but I didn't mention that our table had another guest that night: a random old woman from the street. I couldn't understand what she said but the general vibe was...weird. And that's when the Eqyptian told me Kreuzberg is a crayz place. "Full of crazies," he said. "crazies and drugs." Just then, his smile took a sinister twist. Why was I surrounded by men who worked at the hostel and knew where I slept? I suppressed the thought. I think people maybe too anxious sometimes about things like these. But then, maybe we should be. I mean, oh no. So we go our seperate ways and I head back to my room. A room with 8 beds, right, the cheapest. But when I get in there's another person in there already, sleeping. A man I hadn't met. One thing that consoled my worries about being a young woman travelling alone was that if I stayed in a room with lots of people, if one of em went nuts, there'd be others to keep him/her in check. But there I was, with this one guy. I got in bed but woke up from anxious dreams soon after by these monstorous sounds coming from across the room. Except they were so loud, I thought they were right over me. Honestly, I've never heard anyone snore like this man snored. He didn't even just snore, he snapped his teeth in his sleep and made noises like a big, blood-thirsty, clawed animal. And he kept moving around, too. I'd constantly hear his legs zipping across his sheets, he was a wild sleeper, thrashing around so I couldn't keep his sounds in check. I thought, right, if this guy gets up and tries to come over, or something, I'll hear him, grab my lamp, and defend myself. But everytime I thought IT WAS TIME, he was just moving in his sleep. From across the room, all I could see were his white sheets, and he turned into a couple of positions where one limb of the other was either sticking straight up or bent in someway, so the white blob I monitored morphed from one thing to the next. It was then that I thought I'd made a huge fucking ridiculous mistake and that I was way to confident/independent for my own good, and whatnot but finally, I guess, somewhere between 6 and 7 am, I slept.

I met the guy the next morning and it turns out, I was scared of a juggler. Yea, a professional juggler, or an aspiring one, rather. He was really nice, kind of cute, only a couple years older than me. He didn't hang out much though, he's pretty busy with the juggling conference and whatnot. The Eqyptian who works at the bar I told you about, I saw him later that day, too. He opened a bottle of wine for me and I was glad I'd made such an amiable aquanitance (although I wouldn't wanna drink with him again. He talked alot about finding a wife, I don't think I mentioned that...)