Ich möchte eine bier bitte

Last Minute Lauren strikes again...

Last week it was raining (again!) in Paris. My trip to Normandy slowly was dwindling down to a day at Paris Plage (they put an oversized sandbox next to the siene and call it a beach for a month in the summer), and I really needed to get out of the city, so I decided to come to Germany last Wednesday instead of Friday like I planned. Despite maybe paying a bit more than I should have to come here on top of a 6 hour car trip from Stuttgart to Berlin, I am totally glad that I came early! In Germany they have a ride share deal where you can hook up with travelers going your way for really cheap. I ended up riding with a woman called Barbel and two other random passengers in an old beat up German car with no airconditioning for 25 euros. She was a bit stuck up and told me that she didn't really like Americans. Can you believe that! My response was something to the effect of I wouldn't generalize just from California and Wyoming (which is where she was filming documenaries or something). Very diplomatic, but I kinda wish I would have said something more snide now because it still earks me when I think about it even though it was three days ago. I slept most of the ride anyway since I only had about two hours of sleep the night before, so I didn't talk to her much anyway. It actually sounds worse than the way she said it, but I don't think I'll be staying in touch with her. For the most part in my travels so far, I haven't come into too much contact with people who flat out don't like Americans. I can't count the number of conversations I've had about Bush and where in the US Oregon is. No one realizes that we have good beer in America. Bummer for them.

So, I'm staying with my friend Steffi in Berlin, whom I met while in Paris. It's a bit of a long explaination how we met, but basically she was the au pair for a woman that I took French lessons with. Hm, ok, not that complicated. Anyway, she's back in Berlin now trying to find work before going to University next fall and is just hanging out in the mean time. I dig this city a lot! The people are friendly and more relaxed, there are places to just chill in the sunshine and on the grass, their fake beaches are much nicer, and everyone walks around drinking beer at all hours of the day. Seriously, the beer here is cheaper than buying vegetables. We went to the store to buy stuff for dinner last night and a 1 liter bottle of beer was 25 cents three tomatoes and a cucumber were 70 cents. What a great country! The weather isn't actually that great right now, but that's ok cause we all went out last night and aren't really in the mood to do much anyway. I'll be in Berlin until Monday and then my friend Timo is driving up from Stuttgart. We will probably hang in the city a bit then drive back there. Perhaps a trip to Prague may be in the future, but it is far to early to plan these things...