Well Ive been here for a couple of days now , This might be kinda long but we go into Camp here in 2 days so it may be a few days till i send another one so here ya go!
I arrived here on Tuesday night about 6:45 , Im sure you can get it caught in Customs but i made it through customs in both England and Germany in a combined 20 minutes. One of the guys picked me up at the aiport , and we took a cab to where im staying , Mercedes's ,BMW'S, Volkswagon's are a dime a dozen here , we ended up taking a normal cab , but I have never seen a Benz or BMW Cab and i bet i saw 50 coming out of the airport. The City of Berlin is cool , its just really different , it really looks nothing like any city ive ever seen not being , out of the states other than to mexico before. All the cars are the same , there some kind of sedan of a car made over here.
My hotel is a holiday inn , its pretty nice but the room is TINY!! Ive got a couple of pics of it , I mean it is a bathroom , a bed and a desk and thats about it!!! The bed is weird its a queen or full size bed but its made out of two twin mattresses , It aint very comfortable. Either getting used to the time or the bed , I have woke up at 4 and 5 am both days , right now its 10 till 6am. Hopefully here in the next day or two i will be able to at least sleep till 7 or 8 am .
Went to Dinner here with some YoungLife people and that was interesting , Most People here speak a little bit of english , so you can communicate and they have a menu printed in english. We went to a restaurant and i ordered a grilled chicken breast , IT WAS TINY!!!! and served with French Fries , but almost everything on the Menu was served with Fries. Having water with your meal is like anything else here so most people order drinks with there out , because they charge you for water and they serve you carbonated water , which is just weird.
Yesterday i went and walked around some , i stayed fairly close to my hotel , just kinda so i was sure where i was! Its a really different feeling to be in a place where you cant read most things on the store fronts , or the street signs , I had two random people come out and get in my face speaking German , all i could so was look confused and say sorry.
Last night I experimented with the Subway system , which Ive never been in a city where ive had to do that before either. They gave me pretty strait forward directions so it was easy to follow , i just had to be able to read what i wrote down. The subway system is interesting , I payed 3.50 cents and rode like 5 different trains probably an hour's worth and thats all you pay. You have to get a certain kind of ticket or they fine you like 50 dollars if your caught on the train with the wrong ticket.
We went and watched the Semifinal World Cup Game that Germany was playing in last night at the apartment of some of the volunteer YL leaders here , watching Soccer with people that really love it , Im a soccer fan but they treat Soccer like we treat Football at home , theyre yelling at the TV they all know the game. It was weird sitting in a room and not knowing what anyone was saying , its kind of an unnerving experience. A couple of spoke english and i talked some to them , it turned out that a couple of more them spoke english and they speak dang near perfect english , two of em ended up driving me back to my hotel about a 20 minute drive and we talked the whole way , there really nice people. We ate i guess what would be the equivalent of Microwave Pizza over there that wasnt bad , it was pretty much like it was at home , there was one noticeable difference though , A pepperoni Pizza has one big peice of Pepperoni on each peice instead of little ones all over the peice.
I have kinda felt dehydrated the last few days , and it kinda started to click last night , i think its because at home were so used to Gigantic size drinks and free refills and over here everything is way smaller , last night everyone was drinking out of cups that would be considered childrens cups there. The other thing is i think you might have to ask for Ice , i drank Sprite with no ice at room temperature last night , wasnt my favorite but 15 other people were doing it so i did it to.
You walk every where here , which will be good for me , but its a little tough to get used to , last night i walked probably a mile to the subway and then getting off the subway probably a mile to there apartment.
Its really weird Im in a place where Ive met a couple of people , but I really KNOW no one , i dont know the language , it feels really weird to think how far i am away from home , but its ok , I know what im over here for and if i gotta feel a little like a fish out of water , Im ok with that . We go to camp soon
