Germany trip - Arrival Day

Our plane landed at Berlin's Willy Brandt airport at 7:04 AM. I'd slept a few hours on the trip over, perhaps more than I thought, based on Rachel's jealous description of watching me sleep during the flight. 

When we exited the jetway with our carry-on bags and backpacks, it was just the six economy-class family members. My parents had debarked with the other Business Class passengers about 10 minutes earlier. Andrew and I took our red passports and followed the other Europeans from our flight while Rachel, Liz, Bill and Lisa all went with the Americans to Passport Kontrol. 

In the EU Express Entry lane, Andrew and I put our passport picture page face down on the reader, scowled at the facial recognition camera, then waited for either the klaxon and the red "FRAUD" light to go off or the gate to open. Both of us were slightly shocked at the way we were just let into the country as Germans. 

This easy border privilege made little difference to us, though, since we had to wait for the Americans to catch up with us. 

Our hotel in Berlin was full of red-clad Stuttgart soccer supporters, who were in town for the national final against Armenia Bielefeld, whose fans were also filling the streets wearing blue. To an outside observer, it would appear as evenly matched as any Stratego game, but Alex's fiancé Matan figured out that Stuttgart is a heavy hitter in the top echelon Bundeslige and Armenia Bielefeld is from the third tier of competition, which includes farm teams for big clubs. This was like the Saint Louis Cardinals meeting the Akron Rubber Ducks in the World Series. We Sterns tend to root for the underdogs, and we were staying at the Hilton with fans of the Uberdogs. 

After stashing our suitcases, we commenced with our plan to get sun on our faces and walk all morning to beat jet lag. The grandparents checked into their room to nap.

In the streets of Berlin, taking tourist photos of Brandenburg Tur, the soccer fans weren't so much civil to each other as pretending the other side wasn't there. I had seen this behavior on my previous visit to Germany, when it was 40° in July and we visited a swimming pool. That day we saw 200 Germans stripping down to swimming trunks, none of them more than a meter away from their neighbor, and none of them looking at anyone else or even sensing being looked at. 

Despite the strong social contract, the streets were full of politizei, leaning on their vehicles, looking bored but alert. Matan told me that he didn't love the vision of all these conspicuously armed Germans staring at us, but I thought it was prudent considering the volatile red/blue mix circulating among us. I later would come to understand there was more going on, but that was when I still assumed the giant sound stage was for a soccer event. 

We got lunch at a currywurst stand, and I placed orders in German from a picture menu to a patient, multilingual vendor. "Eine zwie, bitte", I said, holding up two fingers in what turns out to be an obscene gesture. 

After lunch, Andrew and I detoured off to look for a particular cookie of childhood memory that my Opa would bring from a German food store when he visited us. We walked back to where we thought the others would be in Tiergarten park and found ourselves in a little rally with a heavy politizei presence, just next to the Soviet War memorial. I couldn't understand the speeches, but I deduced from the FCK AFD flag that it was an antifascist gathering. We stayed a few minutes, so as to show some support for the vibe, then snuck out the back where we inferred that we had just left some kind of unauthorized counter protest adjacent to the big one we had seen setting up by the Tur. That one, I'm still not sure about. We saw plenty of lefty symbols (doves, rainbows) and used Google to translate some posters but AFD also had a booth on the side of the road, so I couldn't be sure. Again, I had no clue what the man at the microphone was emphatically proclaiming. 

Andrew and I rejoined the larger group once we figured out which memorial park they were waiting at (we'd gone to Jews, they were at Homosexuals) and we split up again into different travel blocs, with a plan to maybe hit the zoo later in the afternoon. It felt a lot like 7:30 PM but was really just 2:00 PM local time. I checked into my room and passed out for 20 minutes. 

Back in the lobby, I learned that Liz had gone with the Boston branch of the family to the Berlin Zoo by train. My cousin Alan has always said he wished he had become a zookeeper, and we had baked time for this side quest into our trip plans. Dad said he wanted to go to the zoo too, so it was decided to get a taxi from the cab stand in front of the hotel. Matan said he would take public transportation since we were too many for a cab and I leapt to join him. 

On the ride to the zoo, Matan and I were amused to see that the very orderly German natives were losing their inhibitions as match time approached. The Zoo station, which is adjacent to the football stadium, was covered in Stuttgart stickers. The floor was littered with beer bottles and the aroma of pee was obvious. We heard the Germans singing and chanting and roaring long before we turned the corner and saw them. I could not have told you which songs were for which team, but I saw both red and blue throngs on the train, now riding in different carriages.
    

Matan and I got to the zoo at 4 pm. It closed at 6:30 and the entrance gates were mostly shut. I wondered if it was like the subway, where you are supposed to buy a ticket on the honor system. The listed admission price was €25 per person, which I probably would have walked away from, but Matan plunked down his credit card and asked for two (no finger insult). I had treated him to subway ticket fifteen minutes earlier and made a show of refusing his offer to pay me back, and now felt outmanned.

Inside the zoo, we immediately saw lions and felt like we'd gotten our €50 worth, so the pressure was off. We used our phones to track Liz' location and reconvened the group in time to see lots of birds, which is my favorite part of any zoo trip.

We heard from the taxi team that they had not pushed through the admission price inhibition and immediately set about finding a cafe to eat at. We sent them bird photos for the next two hours. 

     

We probably would have joined the group waiting for dinner a little earlier but as Alan's wife Lori confided in me, it's difficult to get Alan to leave a zoo. I was mindful of Liz' stamina, as her vascular anomalies sometimes make her legs hurt, but our first attempt to follow Apple Maps direction to the rest of the dinner party were thwarted by zoo fences. A crow could easily have flown from our location to theirs, but we had to walk the long way around. 

When we arrived at the beer garden Alex had chosen for us, we found it to be the perfect spot. It was outdoors but not too hot or too cold. It was not loud (no ambient music) and there were vegetarian, gluten-free and zero-alcohol options to complement the abundant fleisch und bier menu. Once again, The Germans around us acted as if we weren't there. Before we left for this trip we had wondered if anti-American sentiment would be palpable but at least in Berlin, it's an unnecessary worry.  

Alex told me that she ordered two plates from the window using her basic German, and when she received an arched eyebrow about the vast quantity of food she was requesting, said "ist für mein Grossvader" which engendered an even more skeptical look. She said she was fairly sure that she used the work grandfather correctly but perhaps she had said "large father" instead.   

After a pleasurable meal, we started thinking about how the very long day should end. Dad said he was interested in walking back to the hotel with Mom. Rachel also wanted to walk but lacked the confidence to make the trip with her phone battery at 2%. I attached myself to the party, and the four of us strolled through the park, along embassy row, inching towards the hotel. At the 60% mark, Alex texted me and Rachel and asked us to consider a cab, because the gang was gathered in the lobby to mark Andrew's 24th birthday with cake, and was in danger of falling asleep before we arrived. I called an audible and marched my posse to the U-bahn. It came within 90 seconds of us arriving on the platform, which would be a karmic miracle in the United States but is simply the way transit works in the rest of the world.

The reassembled family ordered beers and drinks from the hotel bar. Rachel tapped out, exhausted, and skipped the birthday song (sung in Spanish, since none of us knew the German words) but I managed to stay conscious until 9 pm before I bade my leave and went up to the room to crash.        

Stray observations:

• Printed English is everywhere in Berlin. Is it because of the Allied presence after WWII?
• There are many tall, blonde women in Germany who from the back can be mistaken for Rachel
• Andrew and Liz suffered little ill effect from their first international plane trip. Liz often has to adjust her wake-up time to match a day's schedule regardless of when she went to bed, so it's fair to say she's no stranger to jet lag.
• Our trip includes the use of a 40-passenger coach bus that we can summon anytime we want it. I'd prefer to ride a subway, but it is definitely handy for moving people from a beer garden.