a box of jelly donuts

It’s been a busy week, a full-on-travel-entertaining kinda week that ended in exhaustion yesterday – the week in which my brain cells have finally cooperated enough to allow me to write about it.

Let’s back up and scratch the Berlin surface. (more travel adventures of the week later … we don’t want to overwhelm our readers. All four of you!)

It started last Thursday when our first official house guest (insert applause) Eileen arrived. I picked up my redheaded soul Schwester at the train station and ventured out to the lovely town of Weiden for tales of bologna salads and liter-tall biers. (bier!)

The following day started early as we packed up the car, picked Jeremy up from work and drove the 6 hours to Berlin for a fun-filled three-day weekend.

Our tri-country representation rag tag team consisted of Jeremy, Lawrence and myself for team Deutschland, Eileen for the US of A (although rumored to be traded to the Australian team in the near future), and J.R. and Jess bringing the French flare from Paris. Jess and J.R.’s flight landed at 10:30 p.m., so the four of us checked into our apartment and took to a cool smoke-filled hipster bar called “Slumberland” with sand floors (ah … Hawaii) before rushing back at the apartment to rescue the missing links.

Now, J.R. and Jess made it from the airport to our apartment in a record time of 3 hours, 45 minutes. (exactly 2 1/2 hours after we called the airport, 2 hours after we really started to worry, 1 hour after we proclaimed they were lying in a ditch somewhere, 15 minutes before we called their mamas and 20 minutes after we shrugged and opened more bier.)

But all is well that ended that night when we spotted them sauntering down the street and collectively, we all became Berliners. (Wir sind jelly donuts!) Drifting off into dreamland, everyone cozied up like orphans in our cold and vast apartment - Jeremy and I wrapped in a burlap curtain with a cot mattress over us, Eileen and Lawrence snuggled warm in their asbestos blankets, inches away from the heater, and J.R. and Jess “just right” in their Goldilocks suite.

The next few days flew by as we explored the Pergamon Museum and existing parts of the Berlin Wall (now an art gallery), peered in the Reichstag, walked under the Brandenburg gate and marveled at the unique architecture of the capitol city. We made our way across town sampling currywurst after currywurst, Dunkel bier after Helles bier, and rocked till wee hours of the morning with other Berliners in a music-filled underground cave. A record number of people wiped sweat on me and I accidentally touched (well…) and was touched by numerous people, inappropriately. Great night indeed. (note to random girl I held hands with walking off the dance floor – I swear I thought you were my husband. You had man hands.)

Every place we hit on our tour de Deutsch was spot on. (I’d like to add, without the help of rick steves.) It was the weekend of no plans. The weekend of accidental wunderbar. The kind of weekend where you say “where do you guys want to eat for breakfast?” turn around and see a small door with the words “das Frühstück Haus” (the breakfast place) written on it. Ah ...

Like Hannibal, I love it when a plan comes together.