These two sausages are surprisingly large!

I was awoken around 11:30 EST, 5:30am German time, as they served breakfast. I skipped it, preferring to wait until 9 when I landed in Berlin to eat... Body hack, remember?

We had a small bit of rough air en route, and the landing was a bit rough as well, but the flight was generally smooth, and we landed in Dusseldorf at 6:50ish.

Breezy deplane, and only a 10 minute or so walk from my gate in terminal C to B33, where my connection was. There wasn't even a line at passport control; the benefits of arriving before sunrise. I got my first stamp in my brand new passport!

I tried to turn on my phone, but quickly realized that I had forgotten to call AT&T and let them know I was going abroad so I could get the $5.99/mo international package they offer... Basically I was without phone access.

I paid an exorbitant 6.95€ for half an hour of Internet, got on Skype,and made a few calls. First to AT&T, who gave me a runaround, then to my parents, to ask them to make the call in their morning. I woke them up... It was 1am back home.

I tried AT&T again and lucked out. But just as I was about to activate the international features on my phone, my 30 minutes ran out. I paid for another 30, and called back.

Success. Phone access!  I could have waited for my parents to do it in the morning, but I had agreed to text Judson when I got to Tegel airport in Berlin to make sure he had made it to our agreed-upon meeting place, Burger King (classic Americans!) so I could find him.

I used my first German (I'm impressed I even know any, even more impressed with how much I understand!), asking for "Ein croissant bitte," or "one croissant please," at a cafe. I paid with the 10€. My dad found for me before I left. I devoured it, having not eaten since 10am EST, 14 hours earlier and a continent away.

My connecting flight boarded at 7:50 on schedule, and we took off more or less on time, amid the sunrise and a light rain. I had seat 18D, another aisle, with an empty middle seat next to me. Win.

We landed at 9:23 in TXL in Berlin. On the way out the stewardesses kept saying some slang word for either thanks or goodbye that sounded suspiciously like "Jew". I was, well, confused. Especially when they then herded us into a bus en masse. Commence the first of many WWII references.

Having agreed to meet Judson at Burger King, I picked up my bag from baggage claim, then wheeled it all towards terminal A. But I saw a BK soda cup in an elevator by terminal B, so I ventured there first, and found Judson within a minute or two.

We asked for some advice at the info desk about how to get to the hostel I booked online. She said it was right next to Alexanderplatz, which sounded right, I thought I remembered (correctly as it turned out). We were told which bus to take and we went outside.

Judson found the TXL-Alexanderplatz bus as it pulled in. We got tickets for €2.30 each and boarded. It was sparsely populated.

I spaced out while Judson watched the bus stops, but Alexanderplatz was the last stop so we weren't too worried about missing it.  It was on this bus, though, we discovered the city scam.

Every city has a scam. In Barcelona, a gypsy might ask for you to help her bring a carriage with baby down the stairs, then rob you blind while you refuse to drop the baby -- or a man will drop fake bird shit on your shoulder and strip you in a doorway (dad).

The scam here is - you get approached on the street and someone asks you in perfect English if you, too, speak English.. When you respond in the affirmative, they hand you a card which explains their poor Bosnian origins, then beg you for money. You deny, and they mob and harass you. We discovered it on the bus from the airport, but there were only two or so people, so no problem. Now when we hear the question (4 times since) we just respond нет, or "no" in Russian.

We disembarked, and found ourselves already on Karl-Liebknecht-Straße, the road our hostel tonight is on. It was number 34, not too far north. The. Place is called Pangea Hostel, and it's cold... Not in temperature.

We paid for a single night at the hostel in a dorm, since we realized quickly that we might want to move out. The place is just a little too dreary. The lobby is a tiny room with a little couch. The social area is upstairs on the 6th floor, and quiet. Just doesn't have my expectation of a hostel feel.

We couldn't check in until 3, and it was just past 11. So we dropped our bags in the luggage room and had a beer on the 6th floor, a Schöfferhöfer Hefeweizen. Then we walked outside and explored the neighborhood.

We stumbled into a hostel on Rosa-Luxembourg-Straße, called Belushi. It is a late night bar that was packed at 11:30 with a hostel upstairs. It seems like fun - more fun than Pangea.

We wandered some more, looking at a few nice buildings nearby. There was the 360 Berlin tower (we called it the Fake Oriental Pearl, because it so resembles the TV tower in Shanghai), and a couple churches. One of them seems to have been bombed heavily in WWII, as it has a foundation that's clearly hundreds of years old, but newly applied bricks. On the edges and near the roof, and a brand new steeple to hold up a clearly refurbished clock apparatus. Beautiful, but painfully obvious what it's been through.

We walked for a while, and made it back to our neighborhood around 1:45. We returned to the Belushi at 2 and ordered food. This was my first real food since 21.5 hours earlier at my breakfast with Katie. My body was not happy... So I ordered Currywurst (curry-soaked bratwurst). It was amazing. But I kept falling asleep - my body hack didn't work...

We got back to the Pangea People hostel just before 3 and checked in to our room. We claimed two top bunks in room 513 and locked up our bags. I downed a redbull to stay awake and we played on our iPads for a while, checking emails, calling home, and researching things to do this coming week. We came up with a prelim itinerary, but it's subject to change so I won't report it here.

At 6 we headed out to find a place to eat. I looked up some restaurant neighborhoods and we settled on a direction to wander.

East down Mollstraße, then south on Otto-Braun-Straße. Just before we crossed the Spree river, we stopped off into a tiny charming neighborhood. It was a little too touristed for my tastes but we were hungry and found a place that looked good.

Mutter Hoppe is on Rathausstraße 21, in Nikolaiviertel, a small little community. We walked down a long spiral staircase into a little hole in the ground. Took a seat at the bar and ordered a beer apiece. After a short wait we took a seat and ordered. Judson had bratwurst, I had duck. Both wonderful.

By the end we were stuffed (as Judson exclaimed, "these two sausages are surprisingly large!") and walked back to the hostel. We got back around 8:30.

We spent some more time in the hostel social area, resting off my jetlag. There we met an Aussie, Brad, and two 16-year-old Italian guys, Andreas and Daniel. We talked for a while.. Good talk, interesting enough, not much of note though.

Around 11:30 we went to bed. Big day in the morning.