Weird. My phone did not know that cankles was a real word.
Ok, I had a reasonable night's sleep and woke a bit before 5am. So pretty standard for me. My left ankle once again shows signs of containing bone. I did a reasonable amount of stretching and wandering on the planes, kept hydrated and fed and didn't have any booze. But I still canckled like a boss.
So let me finish off yesterday.
Waiting for my last short hop flight to Berlin were a few skinny Africans. I think I can say that with impunity, especially after spending most of the trip from Frankfurt to Berlin chatting to Joseph. Whi is very skinny. And is from Kenya. My opening gambit was "you look like a runner" to which he replied "so do you." I should have gone back with "No dude, you really *really* look like a runner. I mean, you like one of those guys you see winning marathons and shit" But I didn't.
Instead we chatted about Kenya (I really should go, take the family, not all runners are fast and I'd be able to beat a load of them), his shoe-and-clothes collections for his homeland (7 tons), training, life in Australia and loads of other stuff. Oh, and I'm fairly sure he said he was hoping to run 2.10 but I was extremely tired and may have misheard him. I'll see how he went when I check on Sunday.
As I was now flying domestic the bag collection was a piece of piss, no immigration and I was right by an exit right next to the ticket machine for tickets that were not for the bus into town. I learnt after buying a ticket from said machine. So I bought a second ticket, this time for the TXL bus to Alexandwrplatz.
From here it was an old skool walk to my hotel. About a mile. Using a map. A paper map. Which worked out ok. Until I met up with Darren I was on sketchy Wi-Fi or off the grid. Deep breaths, it's Ok, you can upload your pictures later...
I dropped my bags at the hotel, used their Wi-Fi to locate the expo location which I circled on my map and I then wandered off again, keeping the blood flowing to and through my elephant ankles.
The walk to the expo is probably about 30minutes but a coffee stop and a camera in hand slowed me down. That and my confidence in my map reading skills compelling me to stop and recheck every 8 steps.
Berlin is extremely cool. I love the mixed architecture, the feeling of history all around, the graffiti, the canals and waterways, the bike friendliness, the funky hidden stuff, the fact you can take your dogs with you to hotels and into shops. It's just great. Don't know what it would be like to live here, but it is made for ambling around.
Getting back on track, I walked to the expo and found a lot of people. But with a stereotypical German efficiency the line of runners and inline skaters there to collect race bibs moved quickly and I was in, had my chip and printed-on-the-spot number in a few minutes and was ready to escape the expo.
I did do a couple of laps of not really looking at thigs I knew I was not going to buy, wandered past the Erdinger beer stand (alkoholfrie) and was amused to find a few smokers dotted about (crazy Europeans.) I pondered buying an event shirt but am a bit superstitious about buying before. The only time I did it in the past was for London. And I went on to get injured and miss the event. I went back the next year. By which time I'd moved to Sydney. I don't want to stack up too many events where the trip to the start line is long haul.
On the way back I took a few pictures, mostly of graffiti but also of Checkpoint Charlie. Well, I am on holiday. I was approached by a deaf guy who showed me a bit of paper on which he was collecting signatures for something that seemed to be to do with making life better for the deaf. I'd been up for 40 hours and wasn't too sharp. As I was digging in my pockets for change he got quite shirty about me not handing him 10euros. As I don't know German sign language for "I'm about to give you all the money I have so how about you just fuck off sunshine" I sort of staggered off with the feeling is just been fleeced. Ah well.
I stopped for some lunch before getting back to the hotel to check in. There is a friendly little laugh sound that Germans may give when you say "danke" after ordering in English. Whereas the English may think they are being polite the Germans are, I think, amused and bemused that we should bother with such a token effort. There should be a single word - German word - for that laugh.
Skipping ahead I redeemed myself at dinner. I'd wandered to locate Darren's hotel and was a bit off the beaten track on my way back. Dinner was a doner and I had a chat in mixed broken German and broken English with the guy from Istanbul who was working there. Nice bloke, chatty, has a 7 year old and makes a mean kebab.
The walk to Darren's hotel is 2.1km but tired and with a camera it seemed longer. There are some funky bars by the river and yet more graffiti for me to take pictures of. Stickering is big in Berlin. The sprayed graf is a bit ordinary. There are other interesting pieces too; posters, tiles, a small pot of flowers on top of street sign. I like it.
Last word on the day can go to Sri Chinmoy in this picture.
Ok, I had a reasonable night's sleep and woke a bit before 5am. So pretty standard for me. My left ankle once again shows signs of containing bone. I did a reasonable amount of stretching and wandering on the planes, kept hydrated and fed and didn't have any booze. But I still canckled like a boss.
So let me finish off yesterday.
Waiting for my last short hop flight to Berlin were a few skinny Africans. I think I can say that with impunity, especially after spending most of the trip from Frankfurt to Berlin chatting to Joseph. Whi is very skinny. And is from Kenya. My opening gambit was "you look like a runner" to which he replied "so do you." I should have gone back with "No dude, you really *really* look like a runner. I mean, you like one of those guys you see winning marathons and shit" But I didn't.
Instead we chatted about Kenya (I really should go, take the family, not all runners are fast and I'd be able to beat a load of them), his shoe-and-clothes collections for his homeland (7 tons), training, life in Australia and loads of other stuff. Oh, and I'm fairly sure he said he was hoping to run 2.10 but I was extremely tired and may have misheard him. I'll see how he went when I check on Sunday.
As I was now flying domestic the bag collection was a piece of piss, no immigration and I was right by an exit right next to the ticket machine for tickets that were not for the bus into town. I learnt after buying a ticket from said machine. So I bought a second ticket, this time for the TXL bus to Alexandwrplatz.
From here it was an old skool walk to my hotel. About a mile. Using a map. A paper map. Which worked out ok. Until I met up with Darren I was on sketchy Wi-Fi or off the grid. Deep breaths, it's Ok, you can upload your pictures later...
I dropped my bags at the hotel, used their Wi-Fi to locate the expo location which I circled on my map and I then wandered off again, keeping the blood flowing to and through my elephant ankles.
The walk to the expo is probably about 30minutes but a coffee stop and a camera in hand slowed me down. That and my confidence in my map reading skills compelling me to stop and recheck every 8 steps.Berlin is extremely cool. I love the mixed architecture, the feeling of history all around, the graffiti, the canals and waterways, the bike friendliness, the funky hidden stuff, the fact you can take your dogs with you to hotels and into shops. It's just great. Don't know what it would be like to live here, but it is made for ambling around.
Getting back on track, I walked to the expo and found a lot of people. But with a stereotypical German efficiency the line of runners and inline skaters there to collect race bibs moved quickly and I was in, had my chip and printed-on-the-spot number in a few minutes and was ready to escape the expo.
I did do a couple of laps of not really looking at thigs I knew I was not going to buy, wandered past the Erdinger beer stand (alkoholfrie) and was amused to find a few smokers dotted about (crazy Europeans.) I pondered buying an event shirt but am a bit superstitious about buying before. The only time I did it in the past was for London. And I went on to get injured and miss the event. I went back the next year. By which time I'd moved to Sydney. I don't want to stack up too many events where the trip to the start line is long haul.
I stopped for some lunch before getting back to the hotel to check in. There is a friendly little laugh sound that Germans may give when you say "danke" after ordering in English. Whereas the English may think they are being polite the Germans are, I think, amused and bemused that we should bother with such a token effort. There should be a single word - German word - for that laugh.
Skipping ahead I redeemed myself at dinner. I'd wandered to locate Darren's hotel and was a bit off the beaten track on my way back. Dinner was a doner and I had a chat in mixed broken German and broken English with the guy from Istanbul who was working there. Nice bloke, chatty, has a 7 year old and makes a mean kebab.
The walk to Darren's hotel is 2.1km but tired and with a camera it seemed longer. There are some funky bars by the river and yet more graffiti for me to take pictures of. Stickering is big in Berlin. The sprayed graf is a bit ordinary. There are other interesting pieces too; posters, tiles, a small pot of flowers on top of street sign. I like it.
Last word on the day can go to Sri Chinmoy in this picture.
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| Imagine a world ruled by love - Sri Chinmoy |
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