German Soap Opera Star

Berlin Day 2 - Sat 25Christopher Street Parade

Things not to do when you need to wake up at a decent hour: take sleeping pills. I wasnt tired at about 3  am last night so i thought it would be a good idea. my doc said itll knock you out for about 6 or 7 hours, which would let me wake up around 10-11, perfect.

I wake up at 1:48 pm with all these messages from people going "where are you? i thought we were  going to meet today!" shiiiiiit.

to make it even better, my phone wasn't working. apparently sim cards from the UK won't work in Germany, so not only did I have to buy more time, I had to buy a new card. I wonder if I wouldve been better off sticking with rogers and buying an int'l package from them...

Like I said yesterday, another thing I'm realizing is how much I should've spent the extra bucks and bought an ipad with 3G. it is not as easy as I thought it'd be to find public places that have it, and it wouldve been really useful consideriing the amount of times i've gotten lost already on this trip. ugh.

Today is the Christopher Street parade in Berlin, or as we know it in Toronto, Gay Pride. Apparently the road by the Brandenburg Gate fills with like 400,000 people celebrating. I think I'm gonna head down there in a bit and check it out. 

Right now, I'm sitting outside a cafe having penne alla norma and drinking a Berlin beer. This is the life!

Tonight, my friend Johanna, who I'm staying with, has a friend's birthday to go to, and I think I'm going to tag along. A few of my other friends are also in Berlin, so they'll be there too, and itll be great to catch up! We may go to a bar, or Johanna has a friend who's DJing one of the Christopher Street afterparties at like 3 am haha so If we stay up that late, that should be interesting to say the least!

I didn't realize my German was so rusty, but  I guess that's what happens when you don't use it for 5 years. It's almost intimidating to be here, because it used to be so easy when all i spoke was German for a couple of months, and now I know what I want to say in my head but I can't figure out how to say it out loud. Hopefully it'll get better.

I talked to my friend Jamie from Guelph who is also doing the backpacking thing, but he's been here a couple months already. We decided to meet up for a bit, so on the 28th, I'm meeting him and his friend in Vienna for 3 days, and then we're heading to Budapest for a couple of days. After that I will probably do Prague or Romania (depends which is cheaper) and then end in Istanbul on the 8th. I'll spend a couple of days there, and fly to Dubai on July 10!

When i fly  back to Istanbul on Sept 1, I am so tempted to venture down to Jordan--I've heard it's spectacular. But I'm pretty sure I'd have to cross through SYria to get there, which is just a terrible idea. Oh well, maybe in the future the world won't be so messed up and a little girl like me can travel wherever she likes without fear of being kidnapped (I'm looking at you, Somalia).