Sunday, October 26, 2014

Questionable airport security and preppy pickpockets, Guten Tag Berlin

My host family was nice enough to invite me to go along with them for their family vacation to Berlin. I wasn't really planning on going to Germany on this trip but couldn't turn down a pre-planned partially subsidized vacation. It was nice to just be able to go along for the ride and not have to be the one reading all the travel blogs and figuring out accommodation and transportation. Having not put a lot of effort into researching or planning I really didn't have that high expectations but it seemed that everyone I talked to raved about Berlin so I was willing to give it a shot. The plus side of going back to Germany was that I would be reunited with some of the drinks I discovered the last time in Munich. I do love me some German Radler (aka beer brewed with lemonade).

We drove a couple hours to Nice to take an easy jet flight to Berlin. I can see why Nice is ridiculously expensive. It looked amazing as we drove through and the airport was wedged in a harbour of the beautiful Mediterranean sea with runways launching you over the Alps. We found our gate, snuck my oversized "carry on" bag past the inspection and boarded the plane where we sat, and sat and sat, long past the time we were supposed to depart for Berlin. Suddenly a couple of  armed airport security officers marched on the plane, casually strolled down the isle and grabbed a guy a couple of rows behind us. They made him get up, grab his stuff and marched him on a long embarrassing trip down the aisle and out of the plane with them. There was a long awkward silence followed by the flight attendant making an announcement that there had been a security incident (no shit!) and that in the interest of security post 9/11 all passengers in the rows around his old seat would have to identify their bags. There were several problems with this strategy in my mind. Firstly they announced solely in English, on a plane full of French and German people. So more than half the plane didn't understand the instructions including my host family who I had to attempt  to translate for. Additionally for those who did understand them, referencing 9/11 was not exactly the best way to calm a plane full of anxious passengers. And finally in my mind at least if they legitimately had a security concern with this gentleman and they had allowed him on the plane by mistake I don't think having  a few rows of people point to their bags was a sufficient strategy to safeguard the plane. What if he had stowed a bomb or something in a different overhead cabin or under his seat. I was quite surprised and a little uncomfortable with the fact they let the plane take off with out some sort of additional security sweep. I think we all would have been willing to be delayed and inconvenienced a bit more in the name of safety. But maybe I am just a little paranoid, after all I am here writing this so clearly we made it :)

After that excitement on the plane we landed in Berlin and hopped on the S-Bahn and then U-bahn trains to make it to our hotel.  The S-bahn is the mostly above ground regional train system and the U-bahn is the German equivalent of the metro.

As we traveled there was a nice looking, well dressed guy in a preppy button up sweater who changed compartments on the train and came to stand next to me. This was weird as there were available seats and plenty of space in the compartment he left.  He then proceeded to lean closer and closer to me while looking out the window behind me. This made me uncomfortable so I moved away but didn't really think too much of it and stopped paying attention to him.  Clearly I should have thought more about it as he then proceeded to move towards the door, near Chloe, and when the metro stopped he grabbed her cellphone out of her hand and ran off the train. This is unfortunately common practice in most trams/metros across Europe. It is really quite smart. Why learn pick pocketing skills and risk being noticed when they can just grab a $600 phone out of someone's hand while they scroll through facebook or Huffingtonpost.They usually time it really well too, waiting until the doors are just about to shut so that by the time you  react the the doors have shut, the train is moving, and your phone is long gone.  The same thing happened to a girl in my french class last week on the trams in Montpellier. Luckily for Chloe this guy didn't time it well and as he dashed away he ran into a crowd of people just outside the train one of whom heard her scream and blocked the theif's path. He panicked and threw the phone away before making a break for it. Chloe was able to grab her phone and get back on the train before it left. No harm done except a scratch on her phone and another ominous introduction to Berlin.
Laurence, Chloe, Herve and Mathis on the U-Bahn
The bad luck continued at the hotel where the machines would not accept any one's credit card meaning we had to stand at reception with all our luggage creating a massive line trying and retrying card after card. Embarrassing and time consuming but we managed in the end and FINALLY got into our hotel room. I was exhausted and miserable after the long day and the beginning of a cold that I had been feeling for a couple days chose this day to turn into a full on nose dripping, sinus aching, sneeze inducing germfest. But after dropping our stuff off we headed out to eat and clutching our purses and phones tightly we took the U-bahn to Potzdamer platz.

We came up out of the metro and walked out into the square to find all the buildings and all the streets illuminated with bright colourful lights and beautiful intricate patterns that changed and moved. We were lucky enough to have arrived during the festival of lights and all the different districts of the city were illuminated like this. It was breathtaking and there was such a fun atmosphere as tourists and Berliners alike sat and watched these patterns move across the buildings and listened to music.

Sony Center

Inside the Sony Center

  Just like the fountains at the Bellagio in Vegas I could have sat and watched it for the rest of the night.  But stomachs grumbling we found a nearby restaurant  and sat down to enjoy our first German  meal and first German beer.


The festive atmosphere combined with my Radler was enough to make me forget the day's drama and get excited about the coming days in Berlin. And in the following 5 days Berlin would continue to amaze and make me fall in love with it. Surprisingly I think it ranks up there as one of my favorite cities and there was still lots more to see and do. I will have to follow up with a second blog post tomorrow as there are just too many amazing Berlin sights and experiences to pack into one blog. I am continually surprised with the number of people that seem to be following along (surprisingly not just my parents) and I wouldn't want to push my luck with a 6000 word essay.


We <3 Berlin



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