Berlin's Tropical Island & Getting Naked with Germans

We first heard about the Tropical Island south of Berlin driving down to the Spreewald. Like an enormous metallic pimple, it stood out against northern Germany's flat terrain.

What is that?!

Some kind of indoor water resort. I think it may have been where they made zeppelins or something.

Intrigued by this bizarre structure and explanation, I snooped it out online. It is indeed an indoor water park - one of the largest of its kind - and it didn't actually house zeppelins (though that is a persistent rumor).

And it is large at 360 metres long, 210 metres wide and a 107 metres high. That means that it is big enough to fit the Statue of Liberty standing up, the Eiffel Tower lying down, or all of Potsdamer Platz including skyscrapers. Damn Tropical Island - you big!

Ian's Sick Again

"Sie ist vom Pech verfolgt " or "Bad Luck Follow her Around"

Lucky Ian makes ebe angry!

It's always hard to complain to friends & family back home about how difficult it it living your dream as an expat. But it is difficult sometimes! Obtaining visas, apartment searches, scams can seriously suck. Lately, we have been dealing altogether too much with the icky stuff.

Everyone knows Ian is the lucky one. Usually I think since I've hitched my cart to his wagon I will be safe in his afterglow. But with all of our recent troubles it is unclear if he has lost his shine, or possibly my bad luck is just rubbing off.

Yesterday, a sign from above came to tell me- nope, you guys don't have bad luck (whew!). It's just you, ebe (damn it).

It has been a lovely spring and Monday was the nicest day so far at about 83 degrees F. We had a great day where we finally found some breathing room with a free book, great lunch, and we found an apartment
(we will write about that when we actually, for real, move into the place. Can't blame us for being nervous).

Hummus Plate: grilled meats, veg, & serious fries

Ian + free book

We decided to go swimming in nearby Weissensee. People lounging around the park, a fountain in the middle of the lake, boat rentals, happy dogs....Summer! All this positivity was dashed as I put my first foot in the lake. Something stabbed my foot. Startled, I sat down -plunk!- in the water as the many curious onlookers wondered what the hell was wrong with me. Ian was also looking at me.

Weissensee

"My foot!" I gasped. "Something stabbed it." Bringing it up for the inspection- yep, blood was gushing out fo a straight puncture into the bottom of my foot. Blood dripped into the suddenly disgusting-seeming lake water. As my foot throbbed, I asked Ian for guidance. German swimmers no longer cared that I had made a little scene and now just wanted me to move so they could get in. I hobbled over to the bank and sat with one damaged foot clenched to my stomach and the other dangling in the water. Ian looked at me helplessly, frozen by the awkwardness of the situation. "I don't know." he said. Stuck with a still bleeding foot and a struck-dumb husband I tried to play down the scene. "Just go swim." Thankful to be released, he frolicked into the cooling waters and I watched him swim around as my foot bled and ached.

When he had enough fun in the water world, Ian helped me limp to the blanket as people casually stared.

(I also saw later my ass had been scraped up when I abruptly sat down on the steps so another thing to feel awkward about).
Ian admitted that the swim had been great and I evily wished him Swimmer's ear. We eventually made the long walk back to the bus and all the way home. I opted for no medical care besides neosporin & a band-aid so we will be watching my jaw for signs of stiffness (just joking mum- I'm fine). Today we have to move our bags over to the new place which will be fun with my broke foot.

BUT I did make a positive assessment of our situation. Ian has not lost his luck, it's just me.

Sick Bed

On Friday Ian started feeling sick AGAIN. Those are some dirty little kids he teaches as this is the third time since we've been here.

Some friends wanted to hang out that night, just a quiet little get together, not too late- which sounded perfect. After a few drinks....we went to a dance club and danced and danced till the wee morning hours. Then we randomly went back to our friends house. Which lies in the opposite direction from our house. And took shots. Emergency sleep over. BAD IDEA.

Our usual "sick day" routine

Saturday was a bad day. In misery we glared at one another on the couch demanding the other make something to eat. Sunday wasn't much better. Monday...was the worst. This was the sick day to end all sick days. Usually we would call out sick to eat a sandwich at a specialty place in Pioneer Square or because it was sunny (gasp!) in Seattle.

We woke up and slept until 2pm. Then we sat on the couch some more and watched: Piranhas, Simpsons, The Town, Jersey Shore, Amazing Race, Boardwalk Empire, Louie, GoodFellas, Real Housewives, and so many more gems. Obviously this was time well spent, but we needed to get better.

Today we finally felt well enough to venture out. I praise Indian food with giving me back my soul. Jogi tea, soup, lamb subji, and naan. Thank you Kashmir! A trip to the library and grocery to re-stock on supplies and we're home again. 

We really need to rest up. No, not for work (although that too, now that you mention it)! The next few nights are busy ones as we are going to see David Sedaris tomorrow, St. Paddy's celebrations with the Irish on Thursday, and Roller Derby on Friday. So, too bad about missing work, but now we have fun stuff to do. 

UPDATE: 

We really are alive, although from pics of our outing to the library you can see how happy Ian is about it. 

Beautiful Library with nonsense entrance covered in pebbles. Es macht kein Sinn!

Across from the library, lovely Soviet design.

Angry Ian doesn't like being out of bed.

Vlad's revenge...or possibly Ataturk

We were warned. Don't drink the water. And we didn't...not much anyways. But it was so hot and we were so thirsty & everyone was doing it. So we had a couple sips of tap water in Romania and Turkey. Our last day in Istanbul we felt it. A lumbering of the stomach. An uncomfortable ache and occasional slicing cramp. Soon we were chained to the toilet.

We did the best we could and got along ok. We saw a little more of Istanbul, survived a 10 hour night-time bus ride, and sailed on into Greece feeling slightly better. We gave up today and went to the pharmacist for some blessed pills to make the pain go away, but most of the work has been done by the beauty of our surroundings in alleviating our suffering. Who can pay attention to a stomach cramp when there is a dolphin swimming alongside the ferry (yes really)? Who can feel sick when the teenager serving your meal on the Greek island of Samos tells you they can't serve the rabbit dish because the rabbit is still alive (complete with a finger across the throat depicting what would ave to be done to serve our meal)? Who can be ill when gazing into completely clear waters and watching the tiny fish swim beneath? In short, we are feeling much better.

The Trip - Itinerary, posts, pics, and insanity. 

Istanbul - Big Danger!

Ebe and I were more than siked as we boarded one of the shittiest trains we've ever seen to Istanbul. The train was cramped, crowded, and unfortunately for us, we had two old Romanian broads in our cabin with us who decided to make it their own.

We eventually made it into another couchette (a cabin with 6 sleepers) with some Kiwi friends of ours, and thought the rest of the night would be nice and relaxing. After a stop in Bulgaria where a loud cackling woman from Cyprus joined our cabin, we were informed that we had to wait in the middle of nowhere for five hours until another train joined up with us from Serbia.

So instead of getting in to Istanbul today at 8:00 AM, we rolled into town at 1:00 PM and super tired. Unable to sleep during the night, I struck up a conversation with a Turkish man and his wife, who explained to me that "Istanbul, big danger." They then charaded out the gestures of drugs and pick pocketing... thanks for the advice!

And once we were in the city, a phrase we heard too much in the beautiful streets of Istanbul was "Spend money here please?" White people walking around must look like huge dollar signs to most vendors. Luckily it just makes Ebe and I feel popular. It's when they don't talk to us that we get down and depressed.

Unfortunately they do hawk out some nice things and we've taken the bait a few times... but for a much lower price! It's hard to believe how much lower we've bought some things with a little "haglin." It's the first place we've actually gotten mementos due to the price and the fact that everything is so frickin cool (look out for our mini-rug which will really tie the room together) and fez!

Much like Bucharest, Istanbul also has domestic animals gone wild... kittie cats! That's right folks, you can't walk around a corner here without seeing an adorable little kitty witty.... or one that's on it's last legs with mange.

Which brings us to our last topic... food (some guy joked with us that we could catch a cat to eat)! We've been eating tons of good stuff so far in Turkey, but alas no turkey. But to hell with turkey, because they have much better things to eat, such as: fresh fish sandwiches, misir (BBQ corn), kebabs, olives, feta, baklava, Turkish delight, and tons of other stuff we don't even know the name of. Hopefully our next destination treats us so well.


UPDATE from the future (May 17th, 2012)

 
We loved Istanbul. A lot. I was honored to write a guest post on Perking the Pansies about our experience in Turkey, but there is nothing like a picture.

Train to Istanbul

Sleeping Car on the train

Visa to Turkey!

Istanbul pretzel vender

Mosque in Istanbul

Grand Bizarre spice

Istanbul Blue Mosque

Inside the Blue Mosque

bird seed vender Istanbul

Istanbul pigeon

Apple tea in Istanbul

cat on the beach

We can be a bit squeamish about fish, but how could we not buy a fish sandwich with them catching the fish, grilling, and selling right on the water?

We got sick the next day. Although it was probably from water we drank in Romania...probably. We became best friends with the fancy toilet in the hostel.

And every other toilet in the city. It wasn't pretty.

Istanbul squat toilet.

Turkey requires military service from its citizens and as we embarked for the coast, several Turks were on their way to train. We felt extraordinarily lucky to be able to observe their celebrations in sending off their friends and family.

Turkey

It was amazing. We loved it. Ian - when are we going back?

Full set of Istanbul photos and the trip hit list.