Further adventures in Germany
Sunday, July 20, 2008
I got lost - again!
Travelling with a group of us going to Berlin, I made arrangements to stay at a hotel outside the city proper. I made this decision based on the fact that I am an Awards member at this particular hotel chain, and I'm trying to gather up points for my next vacation. The group made a tentative decision to meet at 5pm Thursday for dinner, and I immediately got lost. The Berlin HBF is big enough to easily lose one's bearings, and it took me a couple of days to realize just how extensive the transit systen is - more complicated than New York's system, and that's saying a lot.
I rode the S-Bahn for three hours, from the East side to the West side. I originally thought that my hotel was near the Schoenfeld airport because the street, or a street with the same name, is near the airport. After conducting some research, I concluded that the hotel was not near the airport at all, but across town in Wannsee. Ninety minutes later, I determined that the hotel was not in Wannsee either. Wannsee is a rather pleasant and upscale neighborhood with street names based on characters from the Wagnerian Ring cycle: Tristanstraße, Isoldestraße, Niebelungstraße and so on. Now, my hotel is on Warthestraße 20, and in Wannsee there is a Waltharstraße 20, and that's where I ended up. It was a very nice house in a lovely, quiet neighborhood, but it was certainly not my hotel.
On Niebelungstraße there was a group of people chatting at the threshold of their home. I approached them and asked if they spoke English. Luckily, one of them did, and between their English and my German we were able to figure out that I needed to be in Teltow, not Wannsee. They gave me detailed written directions on how to get from their house to my hotel. That required a 1kilometer walk beck to the SBahn, a ride to Zehlendorf, and a bus ride to Teltow.
It only took me six hours to find my hotel.
BTW, I was able to make our tentative meeting after all - on Friday. I was only a day late, but oddly enough they were there making plans for the evening.Labels: berlin, blacklieder, lost
blacklieder /
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