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Okay, three weekends ago now. Also, a warning for those afraid of wikipedia holes: This post is a wikipedia vortex. Enjoy.

It was more than a weekend, actually, we were there for four days. And boy, did we do tourism. I mean it. We spent every morning (including the day we arrived) taking advantage of the hostel’s free and strong wifi signal and actually worked. Once that was done, though, we were motivated tourists full of hustle and curiosity.

Things we saw: Checkpoint Charlie, the Brandenburg Gate, bits of the Wall, the Sony Center, the Reichtag, the East Side Gallery, TV Tower, Berliner Dom, the Book Burning Memorial, the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, the Jewish Museum, the Bauhaus museum, the Memorial for Victims of War and Tyranny, the New Synagogue, Hitler’s bunker, the old SS Headquarters, and of course tons of squares, churches, and other beautifully rebuilt buildings.

A quick plug: We did two walking tours with NewEurope, one free and one paid. I also did one of their walking tours in Ireland in February. Seriously, seriously, if you are ever in a city where they are operating, DO IT. The tour guides are consistently entertaining, knowledgeable, and the tours are really complete and fascinating. I’m going to try to squeeze in one or two in Edinburgh before my time there is up, and hopefully several more on the continent. /commercial break.

So, what did I think of Berlin? Well, the honest truth is that the first few hours we spent walking around the city, I really didn’t love it. It was my first trip to Eastern Europe and I guess I hadn’t really thought too much about what to expect. The architecture was so remarkably stark, the buildings might as well have had huge neon hammer and sickle logos on them. There was unkempt parkland, dirty streets, and a feeling of unclaimed urban-ness.

But that was just the first few hours. Pretty soon, we started to see some really cool things. Then the things got cooler and older. Then we started to learn some things, and then we drank some beer. Needless to say, by the end of the weekend my opinion of Berlin had completely turned around. For the record, Paul liked it from the start. He has a thing about post-communist places.

Other things that we loved were the hostel that was actually a boat in the river, the church that didn’t get rebuilt, and the neighborhood crepe restaurant near where Pat was staying. More soon!

Another, far less poetic post about my visit to Norway. This time:

It’s not just bad PR. It really is fucking expensive.

Forgive the profanity, but I was always taught that if you know how you use the language well, then you know when it is appropriate to use profanity, and let me tell you, it is appropriate.

So, yeah, it’s pricey.

To give some context, at the time that I went to Norway, I had been in the UK for about 8 weeks. I’d been spending pounds, not dollars, and the conversion happens pretty smoothly in my head, when I need it to. Generally, I just assume that stuff costs twice as much as it does at home and I’m almost always pleasantly surprised. Not to mention the time that I have spent living in the Bay Area and San Diego, where the climate is welcoming enough to overcome a cost of living that says, “get out! go away! we don’t want any!”

The Norwegian Kroner, at the time of my visit, was 10 to the pound. Most of the time, I only did one currency conversion in my head and I told myself that this trip was being financed by my savings, every birthday gift I received, and a need to visit my cultural homeland and get it out of my system.

So, a quick overview of some things I paid for (go ahead and use the MasterCard commercial guy’s voice instead of mine):

Private room in a YHA Hostel with breakfast: 880 kroner
Tea in a YHA hostel: 20 kroner
Glass of draught lager: 67 kroner
One bed in an 8 bunk room in YHA Hostel: 220 kroner
Lefse with butter at a farmer’s market: 40 kroner

Seeing the very scenery that gave the fjords their name: priceless. (Unqualified apology goes here.)

So, just to review. Yes, I did spend well over $3 for hot water in a cup with a tea bag and a teaspoon of milk. Also, I really did spend $11 for less than one pint of beer that could be most reasonably compared to MGD. Actually, in the interest of full disclosure, I spent that $11 at least once every night of my trip, and on my very most self-indulgent moment (the night of the 8-bunk dorm that was the result of a pension house that had double booked), I paid that $11 three times.

Now, about this lefse stuff that cost me six and a half bucks. Twice. If you don’t know what lefse is, it is the only purely Norwegian food item that I grew up with. To me, it is a very, very tasty symbol of my cultural heritage. It is essentially mashed potatoes with enough flour and butter in them grill them into large pancake-y, tortilla-y things. When they sell them at the farmer’s market, they are spread with and folded around the most wonderfully tasty homemade butter. So tasty, in fact, that you recognize the price might well be reflective of the calorie content and you no longer care.

I still sort of plan to do a final accounting of my trip, though I’m not sure what purpose that will serve. In the end, I could not imagine doing it for less. I ate nutrition bars for all meals, save dinner each night, and aside from that one cup of tea in the hostel in Voss, I indulged in exactly one cup of coffee to accompany my second lefse. No kidding, I wasn’t this frugal when I was a public school teacher.

And I suppose, in a lot of ways, it is.

Things that make this real life: Today, I bought a trash can for my bedroom.  I went to the post office.  I bought ingredients for dinner. I worked a full day.

Of course, if it felt like real life, we probably wouldn’t have to keep saying it out loud.

Things that make this not feel like real life: Today, I paid for my new trash can in pounds. It cost me nearly $1.50 to mail one Father’s Day card. Paul cooked dinner. I worked from 3:30pm-11:30pm and enjoyed dinner, a beer, and some cake while I did it.

Real life is awesome.

Go look at John Riedy’s pictures of my little sister.

Get one.  (That’s right, I did.)

The conditions under which you should not buy an iPhone:

1. You live under water.
2. You live in space.