happy travels

All in all my travels have been going well, but I was about to lose it a few times during this segway of breaking off from my family trip and going off on my own. I took a train from Paris to Ulm, Germany, yesterday to meet with the woman whose dog I was going to watch while she was back and forth in Berlin and I have to day, I just got a pit in my stomach and couldn't do it. I almost stayed on the train to go to Munich, but I got off and headed to a cafe for a glass of wine. It was so depressing to see chain after chain and ugliness everywhere. I was coming from what I truly believe is the most beautiful city in the world, Paris, and just could not imagine myself in this place (not to mention that if I had accepted this pet-sitting situation I could not be gone for longer than 2 to 3 hours or after dark plus the lady was coming across as rather harsh in her emails--red flags??). So I got on the next train to Berlin and didn't arrive until after midnight. I thought I knew European cities well and could just get off and find a hotel. Not the case. Berlin is very spread out. I got off the train and felt like I was in the middle of nowhere. But after picking up a random brochure in the train station for a hostel and giving it to the cab driver, I made it to the Odesse Globetrotter hostel. There were no beds but I was able to get a no-show's bed at 2am. I think the guy behind the counter felt sorry for me and could tell that I was probably going to get mugged if I continued to walk the streets of Berlin with luggage in tow. A bit strung out? You could say so. And while I was waiting, I had a lovely conversation with two Australians that were telling stories that are much too inappropriate to retell. But they made it clear that Berlin is for partying. It does seem to have quite the nightlife but I unfortunately will not be able to enjoy it. After my night last night I ended up with a splitting headache all day today and felt like I was floating around on another planet. Lost myself walking around the city all day in the rain. I swear the streets kept morphing into new streets and I could not use my map properly. I wanted to find the Brandenburg entrance and checkpoint charlie, but could not find it with my street reading impairment. I started out going the complete wrong way and almost walked out of the city limits. This seems to happen to me from time to time. Lots of graffiti, not many pedestrians, lots of kebab places. But I had just thought, hey, I'll walk along the river, this will be nice. Not quite. I started praying that I would not be mugged and left on the side of the road. But I found my way to the U-bahn that could take me to the center of things. More shops, chains, ugliness. I kept wondering what people thought was so great about this city? It felt like Bladerunner's wannabe cousin. But I kept walking and walking and did see some really neat parts of town. And one of the craziest things was all the cranes everywhere. I had heard this before, but it truly is the case. Anyway, I saw a lot today. The city is very spread out which surprised me. I'm used to cities in Europe being centered around either side of the river that runs through it. This was not the case. So all in all, I did not see the sites of Berlin, nor did I experience the crazy nightlife everyone seems to be raving about--all these über-hipsters everywhere. And then there's the girl at the hostel that seems to carry a bag of fruit around with her all day and sit at various tables sketching. But who knows. This has been one weird day and I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep.