A cowoker of mine has been struggling with the way her manager defines success. Apparently, it has to do with being worth billions at age 35. My friend feels as though she is missing the beat, somehow, and doesn't fit it. I had to tell her a story about Roy....
Roy moved to California to marry me (lucky dude). So, he had to find a whole new job. Here he is, 44 years old and partially disabled, looking for a job as a receptionist, competing with 20-year-old waifs wearing butt-high skirts. So, he goes into a recruiting office who advertised for a receptionist for an interview, and one of the partners, who was younger than Roy, says, "Why would I hire you? You are older than I am and all you want to do in life is be a receptionist?"
Roy said, "Scott, I don't know how you measure success. For me, when I lie down each night to go to bed, I ask myself whether I acted nicely that day, whether my relationships are in good order, and whether I made people and myself happy. Did I treat people right? Did I make my wife and kids smile? THAT is success. Money is NOT success. So yes, I want to be a receptionist. And if I do a good job for you and your firm, then it will add to my success each day. The salary is not how I measure myself."
They hired him on the spot.
And now you know one more piece to the puzzle of, "What makes Janine tick?" It's all the Gospel According to Roy, baby.....
Oh yeah, and he worked there until he finally had to go out on permanent disability. Scott happily and graciously paid for ALL the flowers for Roy's funeral, and called me weekly for a while afterwards to make sure I was OK. He cried like a baby when Roy died. I think Roy made Scott a little more successful, too.
(Roy also got away with once telling Scott over the PA that 'Howie' was on the phone for him. Scott barked back, "Howie who? I've told you a million times, I WANT A LAST NAME!" Roy said softly, "Lichtenfelter. Howie Lichtenfelter." Silence in the office from every room, then raucous laughter from every direction. That man knew how to break tension.)
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
My Dad
My father passed away Tuesday afternoon, after a 15-year battle with Alzheimer's disease. He was 81 years old.
Many of my friends either never met my dad, or met him after the disease had already robbed him of his mental faculties. Since most people will never know my real dad, I want to just introduce him to you briefly.
My father was intelligent, eloquent, hilarious, and had an infinite capacity to love. He wrote poetry for my mother frequently, throughout their marriage, and would delight in sneaking a paper with a little verse onto her plate before we sat down to eat, so she'd find it there and read it while we all watched. Most of these poems were about her upper arms, which he said were amazing and better than anyone else's in the entire world. OK, he was quirky, but he wrote great upper arm poems. He allayed my sister's childhood fears by telling her that everything she was afraid of had been sent to Bakersfield. This was a brilliant ruse, but proved a bit sketchy in later years when a detour on the way back to the bay area from southern California resulted in passing through Bakersfield. That must have been an interesting car ride (I was too small to remember, or perhaps not yet born). Dad turned a mostly blind eye when the neighbors tattled to him about my brother's poker parties (held in my parents' absences) and, in fact, didn't even lose it completely when it turned out that the ringleader behind a football betting pool at my dad's high school was (you guessed it) my brother. And, when my complete horse-craziness took me beyond rides around a ring on a pony, my dad learned how to ride a horse so that I could go trail riding. He also started emulating my way of dressing at the time and began a years-long habit of wearing cowboy boots and singing Merle Haggard songs.
He let me come down to his school in the summers and hang out with him, where he taught me Pedro (a great card game) and always let me play with him and the other administrators, even though I think I was probably only ten or twelve when he taught me to play. He taught me how to pluck a chicken, candle pinfeathers off a duck, bait a hook, shoot a gun (he earned a letter at Cal for marksmanship), read the TV Guide (remember those?) and reload shotgun shells. Every evening when he came home from work (school) at about 4:00, he and I would sit downstairs, watch Merv Griffin or Mike Douglas, and have a drink together. Yeah, you heard it right. He would have Jack Daniels or Jim Beam whiskey on the rocks, and he'd mix me a highball with a bit of whiskey (cheaper stuff) and a lot of 7-Up. I have known since I was eight years old that you NEVER mix Jack Daniels; it's sacrilegious.
Dad told me once that my mother was much more generous than he was, but he never really refused us anything we needed. And his generosity came through in other ways. I remember once asking him, while we were watching an old movie, if Sophia Loren was pretty. He said yes, she was. I asked if she was prettier than Mommy, and he said that NOBODY was prettier than Mommy. I asked him some tough questions. I remember I asked him once if he loved us more than he loved God. (Jeez, what a creepy kid I must have been). Rather than pop my bubble, he simply said that it was a really unfair question to ask ANY Catholic, so he wasn't going to answer it. He never complained that I collected pet frogs who would croak at night in the family room and force him to turn up the TV to be able to hear it properly. And he saved up his "mad money", a few dollars at a time, for years until he could buy my mother a huge console stereo one year. She still has it, and always will.
On weekend mornings, he and I would get up early and go to the bakery, and then when we came home he'd make eggs - the best. The only person who can cook eggs as well as my dad did is my son. At night, if we were sitting downstairs watching TV, and one of us simply gave him the puppy-dog eyes and professed a hankering for a fried egg sandwich, he'd get up and go upstairs and cook one up. My dad loved popsicles, and squid, and pickled pigs' feet, and pineapple upside-down cake, and anything my mom cooked. He could grill a steak like nobody's business, but his BBQd chicken was always blackened (hey, nobody's perfect!). He hated casseroles, and would never eat macaroni and cheese. Once in a blue moon when he would have a meeting that took him away at dinnertime, we would have mac 'n cheese or TV dinners (which he also eschewed). He drank his evening coffee from a glass (sometimes with a bit of brandy,sometimes not), but the morning coffee from a mug (sans brandy).
He would send us upstairs to get properly dressed before dinner if we had no shoes on or if my brother had on a white t-shirt (Dad said that was underwear). Going barefoot, ever, for any reason, was against the rules, as was wearing flip-flops or most sandals. No makeup was allowed until about age 16, and I got in trouble once for wearing nail polish. The only thing that saved me from serious trouble when I got my ears pierced at 15 was that my mom got hers done, too. My curfew was midnight until I got married.
Dad worked for years at a job that he ended up hating because of the political bullshit and dealing with parents and students who no longer had respect for the school system or the teachers. He retired at 55, as soon as he could, and spent the rest of his life with my mom in their house at
Clearlake, at one point writing the fishing column for the local paper there. He taught Spanish at a junior college nearby for as long as he was able to remember how, and he tutored people in Italian. He spoke a few languages, and it was very common to have a dinnertime conversation that revolved around the etymology of some word or other. He learned English as a child, when he started kindergarten; Italian was his first language. In the end, he spoke Italian more easily than English.
My dad used to call me "motor mouth," "machine gun mouth," and "The New York Times." He told me that, ultimately, my mouth would get me into trouble throughout my life (and he was right). He used to say to me often, "Come le fai lunga," which means (or would mean, if I knew how to spell it all correctly), "How you make it long," a constant reminder that brevity was NOT one of my strong suits. Clearly, he was right again, since this has gotten way too long....so I will stop here. Thanks for reading.
Many of my friends either never met my dad, or met him after the disease had already robbed him of his mental faculties. Since most people will never know my real dad, I want to just introduce him to you briefly.
My father was intelligent, eloquent, hilarious, and had an infinite capacity to love. He wrote poetry for my mother frequently, throughout their marriage, and would delight in sneaking a paper with a little verse onto her plate before we sat down to eat, so she'd find it there and read it while we all watched. Most of these poems were about her upper arms, which he said were amazing and better than anyone else's in the entire world. OK, he was quirky, but he wrote great upper arm poems. He allayed my sister's childhood fears by telling her that everything she was afraid of had been sent to Bakersfield. This was a brilliant ruse, but proved a bit sketchy in later years when a detour on the way back to the bay area from southern California resulted in passing through Bakersfield. That must have been an interesting car ride (I was too small to remember, or perhaps not yet born). Dad turned a mostly blind eye when the neighbors tattled to him about my brother's poker parties (held in my parents' absences) and, in fact, didn't even lose it completely when it turned out that the ringleader behind a football betting pool at my dad's high school was (you guessed it) my brother. And, when my complete horse-craziness took me beyond rides around a ring on a pony, my dad learned how to ride a horse so that I could go trail riding. He also started emulating my way of dressing at the time and began a years-long habit of wearing cowboy boots and singing Merle Haggard songs.
He let me come down to his school in the summers and hang out with him, where he taught me Pedro (a great card game) and always let me play with him and the other administrators, even though I think I was probably only ten or twelve when he taught me to play. He taught me how to pluck a chicken, candle pinfeathers off a duck, bait a hook, shoot a gun (he earned a letter at Cal for marksmanship), read the TV Guide (remember those?) and reload shotgun shells. Every evening when he came home from work (school) at about 4:00, he and I would sit downstairs, watch Merv Griffin or Mike Douglas, and have a drink together. Yeah, you heard it right. He would have Jack Daniels or Jim Beam whiskey on the rocks, and he'd mix me a highball with a bit of whiskey (cheaper stuff) and a lot of 7-Up. I have known since I was eight years old that you NEVER mix Jack Daniels; it's sacrilegious.
Dad told me once that my mother was much more generous than he was, but he never really refused us anything we needed. And his generosity came through in other ways. I remember once asking him, while we were watching an old movie, if Sophia Loren was pretty. He said yes, she was. I asked if she was prettier than Mommy, and he said that NOBODY was prettier than Mommy. I asked him some tough questions. I remember I asked him once if he loved us more than he loved God. (Jeez, what a creepy kid I must have been). Rather than pop my bubble, he simply said that it was a really unfair question to ask ANY Catholic, so he wasn't going to answer it. He never complained that I collected pet frogs who would croak at night in the family room and force him to turn up the TV to be able to hear it properly. And he saved up his "mad money", a few dollars at a time, for years until he could buy my mother a huge console stereo one year. She still has it, and always will.
On weekend mornings, he and I would get up early and go to the bakery, and then when we came home he'd make eggs - the best. The only person who can cook eggs as well as my dad did is my son. At night, if we were sitting downstairs watching TV, and one of us simply gave him the puppy-dog eyes and professed a hankering for a fried egg sandwich, he'd get up and go upstairs and cook one up. My dad loved popsicles, and squid, and pickled pigs' feet, and pineapple upside-down cake, and anything my mom cooked. He could grill a steak like nobody's business, but his BBQd chicken was always blackened (hey, nobody's perfect!). He hated casseroles, and would never eat macaroni and cheese. Once in a blue moon when he would have a meeting that took him away at dinnertime, we would have mac 'n cheese or TV dinners (which he also eschewed). He drank his evening coffee from a glass (sometimes with a bit of brandy,sometimes not), but the morning coffee from a mug (sans brandy).
He would send us upstairs to get properly dressed before dinner if we had no shoes on or if my brother had on a white t-shirt (Dad said that was underwear). Going barefoot, ever, for any reason, was against the rules, as was wearing flip-flops or most sandals. No makeup was allowed until about age 16, and I got in trouble once for wearing nail polish. The only thing that saved me from serious trouble when I got my ears pierced at 15 was that my mom got hers done, too. My curfew was midnight until I got married.
Dad worked for years at a job that he ended up hating because of the political bullshit and dealing with parents and students who no longer had respect for the school system or the teachers. He retired at 55, as soon as he could, and spent the rest of his life with my mom in their house at
Clearlake, at one point writing the fishing column for the local paper there. He taught Spanish at a junior college nearby for as long as he was able to remember how, and he tutored people in Italian. He spoke a few languages, and it was very common to have a dinnertime conversation that revolved around the etymology of some word or other. He learned English as a child, when he started kindergarten; Italian was his first language. In the end, he spoke Italian more easily than English.
My dad used to call me "motor mouth," "machine gun mouth," and "The New York Times." He told me that, ultimately, my mouth would get me into trouble throughout my life (and he was right). He used to say to me often, "Come le fai lunga," which means (or would mean, if I knew how to spell it all correctly), "How you make it long," a constant reminder that brevity was NOT one of my strong suits. Clearly, he was right again, since this has gotten way too long....so I will stop here. Thanks for reading.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Black Friday
I am spending the Thanksgiving holiday with my mother in Clearlake. For those of you who aren't familiar with the area, it's north of the Napa Valley and there isn't a whole lot here. But there is a huge lake (the largest in California, actually) and some interesting folks.
For some insane reason, I decided to go to the WalMart Black Friday sale this morning. At 5 am. My mom was going to go with me, but her heart clearly wasn't in it, and I sent her back to bed. Off I went, driving in the fog, and I arrived at the closest WalMart (about 20 minutes away) at 4:47 to find a huge line of people already standing outside the store. As I had left the house, my mother admonished me that "there are people around here who aren't from trailers" (my mom is an example of one of them) but I didn't WANT to stand in line with a bunch of classy people. If I get out of bed at 4 am to go to a WalMart, I want to be entertained by some hicks, dammit!
As I trudged along the line to get to the end, the first thing I heard was a woman saying, "You're lighting your damn jacket on fire!" and I looked over to see a guy batting at his jacket while a lit cigarette dangled from his mouth and a match fluttered to the ground. My wish had been granted.
So, I stood in line for about 15 minutes and learned some cool stuff. If you are "a total broke SOB" you are lucky because people do not ask to borrow money from you. It pays to bring your entire family to a sale like this, give each person a cart, and then plan a strategy of "divide and conquer" so as to get as many great sale items as possible. Somebody's Aunt Irene is going to really get her "come-upance" soon because Uncle Jack isn't going to stand for her drama any more.
Damn, just as I was really getting into the story about Aunt Irene, the line moved because the doors were opening. And then I realized some other cool stuff. The line was really organized, and almost nobody tried to line jump. A really nice woman who was about six feet tall and I joined forces at the huge bin of sheet sets: I found her a king set in every color, and she used her long arms to grab me the one set of full sheets there was because I just couldn't reach it (might I say this was for my mother, who didn't want to come with me! Hah!) A lady who rolled by with a BlueRay player in her cart gave me really good directions on where to find them (I got the very last one). Nobody pushed or shoved, everyone was in a decent mood, and I was out of the store by 5:23 am with everything I had gone there for.
The only thing that I wish I had now is the rest of that story about Aunt Irene....
For some insane reason, I decided to go to the WalMart Black Friday sale this morning. At 5 am. My mom was going to go with me, but her heart clearly wasn't in it, and I sent her back to bed. Off I went, driving in the fog, and I arrived at the closest WalMart (about 20 minutes away) at 4:47 to find a huge line of people already standing outside the store. As I had left the house, my mother admonished me that "there are people around here who aren't from trailers" (my mom is an example of one of them) but I didn't WANT to stand in line with a bunch of classy people. If I get out of bed at 4 am to go to a WalMart, I want to be entertained by some hicks, dammit!
As I trudged along the line to get to the end, the first thing I heard was a woman saying, "You're lighting your damn jacket on fire!" and I looked over to see a guy batting at his jacket while a lit cigarette dangled from his mouth and a match fluttered to the ground. My wish had been granted.
So, I stood in line for about 15 minutes and learned some cool stuff. If you are "a total broke SOB" you are lucky because people do not ask to borrow money from you. It pays to bring your entire family to a sale like this, give each person a cart, and then plan a strategy of "divide and conquer" so as to get as many great sale items as possible. Somebody's Aunt Irene is going to really get her "come-upance" soon because Uncle Jack isn't going to stand for her drama any more.
Damn, just as I was really getting into the story about Aunt Irene, the line moved because the doors were opening. And then I realized some other cool stuff. The line was really organized, and almost nobody tried to line jump. A really nice woman who was about six feet tall and I joined forces at the huge bin of sheet sets: I found her a king set in every color, and she used her long arms to grab me the one set of full sheets there was because I just couldn't reach it (might I say this was for my mother, who didn't want to come with me! Hah!) A lady who rolled by with a BlueRay player in her cart gave me really good directions on where to find them (I got the very last one). Nobody pushed or shoved, everyone was in a decent mood, and I was out of the store by 5:23 am with everything I had gone there for.
The only thing that I wish I had now is the rest of that story about Aunt Irene....
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
How??
Today, one day after our elections, I am completely proud to be an American and totally ashamed of my fellow Californians.
HOW can people in this state forget that our constitution is not a religious instrument?
HOW can we inject our religious beliefs into dictating other people's lifestyles and freedoms (or lack thereof)?
HOW could churches, who are there to support and uphold people, give so much money to taking away the rights of people who are doing them NO wrongs?
HOW can I ever set foot in a roman catholic church again, knowing that those people's money was instrumental (along with mormons, fundamentalist christians [I can't even bring myself to use capital letters here], and other churches), in negating my sisters' marriage, a union that is strong, and beautiful, and a glorious celebration of their love for each other?
HOW can I ever, ever apologize enough to Paula, Julie, Jacqueline, Melissa, Jill, Barb, and scores of others for the absolute close-minded pig-headedness born of some unnamed and stupid (yes, stupid!) fear held by people who profess love and acceptance every Sunday and then go home to promote hatred and discrimination?
God help us, people, because my God, a God who is merciful, and loving, and giving, and perfect, wasn't behind this campaign of moronic hatred.
Shame on us.
HOW can people in this state forget that our constitution is not a religious instrument?
HOW can we inject our religious beliefs into dictating other people's lifestyles and freedoms (or lack thereof)?
HOW could churches, who are there to support and uphold people, give so much money to taking away the rights of people who are doing them NO wrongs?
HOW can I ever set foot in a roman catholic church again, knowing that those people's money was instrumental (along with mormons, fundamentalist christians [I can't even bring myself to use capital letters here], and other churches), in negating my sisters' marriage, a union that is strong, and beautiful, and a glorious celebration of their love for each other?
HOW can I ever, ever apologize enough to Paula, Julie, Jacqueline, Melissa, Jill, Barb, and scores of others for the absolute close-minded pig-headedness born of some unnamed and stupid (yes, stupid!) fear held by people who profess love and acceptance every Sunday and then go home to promote hatred and discrimination?
God help us, people, because my God, a God who is merciful, and loving, and giving, and perfect, wasn't behind this campaign of moronic hatred.
Shame on us.
Monday, October 20, 2008
England (Not) and Home
So, after my one hour of sleep my last night in Copenhagen, I woke up feeling really ill. I knew that I needed to be home where I had my own bed and a massive bottle of antibiotics, so the following ensued:
I got to Heathrow and BEGGED the United ticket counter to get me home. They did. And kept my upgrades. I love them.
I got disconnected three times while trying to call to cancel my hotel reservations, after which I couldn't use that credit card in the pay phone any more, so had to dig out another one and read it to the operator. I noticed that some guy a couple pay phones away was paying way more attention than he should be, and looking suspicious. Hmmmm
I ran to the gate just as my plane was finishing boarding and got my seat (yay).
I got home, took a megadose of Cipro, and slept for a day.
I got called by Wells Fargo that the jerk in Heathrow had, indeed, stolen my credit card number and was trying to use it over and over for long-distance phone calls. Wells Fargo denied every single bogus charge. I love them, too.
So, now a few weeks have passed, and I am back to work on my contract and thinking about the holidays. Life is good, and my fingers are exhausted from updating my blog all afternoon. More news as it breaks. Thanks for reading!
I got to Heathrow and BEGGED the United ticket counter to get me home. They did. And kept my upgrades. I love them.
I got disconnected three times while trying to call to cancel my hotel reservations, after which I couldn't use that credit card in the pay phone any more, so had to dig out another one and read it to the operator. I noticed that some guy a couple pay phones away was paying way more attention than he should be, and looking suspicious. Hmmmm
I ran to the gate just as my plane was finishing boarding and got my seat (yay).
I got home, took a megadose of Cipro, and slept for a day.
I got called by Wells Fargo that the jerk in Heathrow had, indeed, stolen my credit card number and was trying to use it over and over for long-distance phone calls. Wells Fargo denied every single bogus charge. I love them, too.
So, now a few weeks have passed, and I am back to work on my contract and thinking about the holidays. Life is good, and my fingers are exhausted from updating my blog all afternoon. More news as it breaks. Thanks for reading!
Sunday, October 19, 2008
At Last, Copenhagen
So, on to the reason I booked this month-long journey in the first place: to see Sara speak at the Internet Research conference in Copenhagen.
Sara was on a panel of four speakers, all of whom (except Sara) are PhD'd academics. They were boring, I have to tell you. And no, I am not being objective, but a couple other people told me the same thing. Sara is a natural speaker (I wonder where she gets that from?) and did an incredible job not only speaking but also being the moderator for her panel.
She's well-organized, brilliant, personable, and wonderful. Ask anyone who was there. Really.
So, after seeing Sara, the rest of Copenhagen was fairly anti-climactic. It was horrifically expensive; lunch was never less than $20, and dinners were astronomical. I felt lucky to get a tiny hotel room for only about $150 per night. Definitely not a place I would like to go back to, but I'm glad I came to see my munchkin speak. (Sara, can you please do a conference in Fiji next time?)
Oh yeah, poker balance at the end of all this: Janine $11,220, Val $10,840. He's catching up, folks...
To top off my Copenhagen experience, I got exactly one hour of sleep my last night there, because a) some idiot was singing at the top of his drunken lungs in the street and b) I was getting sick. Not fun.
Sara was on a panel of four speakers, all of whom (except Sara) are PhD'd academics. They were boring, I have to tell you. And no, I am not being objective, but a couple other people told me the same thing. Sara is a natural speaker (I wonder where she gets that from?) and did an incredible job not only speaking but also being the moderator for her panel.
She's well-organized, brilliant, personable, and wonderful. Ask anyone who was there. Really.
So, after seeing Sara, the rest of Copenhagen was fairly anti-climactic. It was horrifically expensive; lunch was never less than $20, and dinners were astronomical. I felt lucky to get a tiny hotel room for only about $150 per night. Definitely not a place I would like to go back to, but I'm glad I came to see my munchkin speak. (Sara, can you please do a conference in Fiji next time?)
Oh yeah, poker balance at the end of all this: Janine $11,220, Val $10,840. He's catching up, folks...
To top off my Copenhagen experience, I got exactly one hour of sleep my last night there, because a) some idiot was singing at the top of his drunken lungs in the street and b) I was getting sick. Not fun.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Berlin
So, in Berlin we stayed in a hostel. But, the room we had was more like a studio apartment, had a great bathroom, a working kitchen, eating area, sitting area, balcony overlooking the city - in short, it was a great hotel room at hostel prices. Yay for Wombat's City Hostel!
Things of note that happened in Berlin:
When stopping to offer to take a picture of a large group of girls from Italy, one of them began to talk to us about the most-discussed subject (our election) and they really wanted to know if it was true that Obama was a Muslim! Amazing that rumors and crappy journalism reach so far so fast. I set them straight...
The wall is mostly gone, but you can buy pieces of it in museums, souvenir shops, and from street vendors. However, those pieces are pretty much manufactured in China, so no more authentic pieces are really being sold. If you want one, you'll have to go to the East Side Gallery on your own, preferably after dark, and break a piece off while nobody is looking. I would never do that. Never.
Berlin is built mostly in a very dull, gray, concrete-block style - especially the eastern part of the city, where we were staying. Still, it has a character all its own. The people are great, it's very much like San Francisco as far as being very funky in spots, and it has....shawarma! This middle-eastern staple has become the number one fast food in Germany, and oh how glad I am! It's fantastic, and cheap, and I love it.
I decided one day to take a day to myself and go see Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp located some miles north of Berlin. To do this, I had to take two different metro lines and a train, but it was worth the trip. While waiting for my second metro, I felt a hand going into my jacket pocket and stared right into the eyes of a pickpocket as I pushed his hand away. The truly surprising thing is that the guy same BACK at me and tried again! At this point, I pulled out my pocket contents (a used kleenex) and offered it to him. He walked away, totally unashamed. Sheesh.
I did prove to myself, with my day trip out of Berlin, that I can get around on my own when necessary. Of course, the train and metro systems in Germany are fantastic, and always on time. Believe me, when they say the train leaves at 13:56, it LEAVES at 13:56. The doors will close on your ass if you are late. Be on time!
Oh yes, and I also fell in love with some sort of pastry in the bakery near our hostel that was filled with pudding (the pastry, not the hostel; sorry for misplacing my modifiers). I am seriously going to have to go on a diet when I get home, but for now I am ON VACATION!!!
Things of note that happened in Berlin:
When stopping to offer to take a picture of a large group of girls from Italy, one of them began to talk to us about the most-discussed subject (our election) and they really wanted to know if it was true that Obama was a Muslim! Amazing that rumors and crappy journalism reach so far so fast. I set them straight...
The wall is mostly gone, but you can buy pieces of it in museums, souvenir shops, and from street vendors. However, those pieces are pretty much manufactured in China, so no more authentic pieces are really being sold. If you want one, you'll have to go to the East Side Gallery on your own, preferably after dark, and break a piece off while nobody is looking. I would never do that. Never.
Berlin is built mostly in a very dull, gray, concrete-block style - especially the eastern part of the city, where we were staying. Still, it has a character all its own. The people are great, it's very much like San Francisco as far as being very funky in spots, and it has....shawarma! This middle-eastern staple has become the number one fast food in Germany, and oh how glad I am! It's fantastic, and cheap, and I love it.
I decided one day to take a day to myself and go see Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp located some miles north of Berlin. To do this, I had to take two different metro lines and a train, but it was worth the trip. While waiting for my second metro, I felt a hand going into my jacket pocket and stared right into the eyes of a pickpocket as I pushed his hand away. The truly surprising thing is that the guy same BACK at me and tried again! At this point, I pulled out my pocket contents (a used kleenex) and offered it to him. He walked away, totally unashamed. Sheesh.
I did prove to myself, with my day trip out of Berlin, that I can get around on my own when necessary. Of course, the train and metro systems in Germany are fantastic, and always on time. Believe me, when they say the train leaves at 13:56, it LEAVES at 13:56. The doors will close on your ass if you are late. Be on time!
Oh yes, and I also fell in love with some sort of pastry in the bakery near our hostel that was filled with pudding (the pastry, not the hostel; sorry for misplacing my modifiers). I am seriously going to have to go on a diet when I get home, but for now I am ON VACATION!!!
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