PAM AND BOB IN EUROPE Y2K
BERLIN
Date:
Sun, 20 Aug 2000 04:59:22 -0700 (PDT)
From: Pamela Rentz
To:
ALL
Subject: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Hey Everyone
I found the question mark. It's up here by the zero. I wanted to try to compose this on the notepad and hopefully it wouldn't look so much like a message written by a crazy person, but I can't get the thing to work while I am running telnet.
Right now it is Sunday and it is 130pm. I am hung to the gills. Oh, we are still in Berlin. Last night we went to this club called A Trane to see this band called Da'koda play the music of Jim Pepper. At least two of them were American, in case you're wondering. Several gallons of beer were involved. We left the club at 2am and went to the hotel and decided to go back out to this cheesy disco near our hotel. I think this was a place for teenagers, which was the theme of yesterday, but it was fun. The dance floor was stainless steel and sort of a challenge -- I have a blister on my toe which I suspect came from dancing. We got home at 4:30am and totally upset the precision housekeeping team at Hotel Hoeacker by sleeping until Noon. (Well, I did. Bob got up and tried the breakfast buffet. I still haven't eaten which probably explains why I am so spaced out. Also, oddly enough, since I got here the only thing that sounds good to eat is meat.)
My first insane message I sent from KaDeWe (Kaufhaus Des Westens) which is this gigantic department store. Now we're at the website cafe which has about 40 terminals and serves food and drinks.
Yesterday we started the day by going to Potsdammer Platz which is a complete brain fry. When we were here 3 years ago it was basically a mud pit and about 200 cranes. Now it's like Blade Runner-- wild architecture, odd angles, glass and steel and humongous neon signs that say Sony or Daimler-Chrysler. They have a big info box -- which is a big red box bldg on stilts and they tell all about building it -- Potsdammer Platz and they are constructing the mother of all railwaz stations. It's imposslbe to convey how impressive this place is.
Then we went and got our museum card 3 day pass which apparentlz not many people do, because the lady was very surprised. (Drei Tage?) And we went to the most boring museums you've ever been to in your life. In the old museum the museum guard was hassling me about mz umbrella -- like what am I going to do? Ruin those ugly pictures by whacking them with my umbrella? There were rooms filled with ugly paintings of ugly people -- who in the hell were the Künstlers and why were there so many paintings of their parents? After that place we went to the Pergammom or something like that and this was all cool Greek stuff that was impressive but I couldn't help but think that the Germans just stole all that stuff. And I'm thinking this is going to be the worlds longest vacation if I am bored sick after just two museums. I remember loving the museums on my other trips.
So I refused to go to any more museums that day and I haven't eaten so we decided to walk towards the Brandenberg Gate and then head back to the hotel.
My first clue should have been the kid walking in front of us wearing this 'ganja wear' clothing label and smoking a doobie!! I'm whiffing the air and I'm like, hey, wait a minute.
As Bob and I were walking there was this sensation of humanity being drawn towards the gate and we were sucked along with it. Then I heard the music. It was the Legalize Pot Parade and Outdoor Festival! We joined right into the parade and found a street vendor to sell us a couple of tall cans of Becks (a buck fifty, is this a great country or what?) So we followed the parade to the festival and listened to some reggae and German hip hop and I was like THIS IS THE MOST FUN EVER.
Finally we left there and continued on down to the circle where the angel from Wings of Desire is and just as we face her, boom! lightning and then basicallz 2 million gallons of water fell right on us. This storm would put a good PAC NW store to shame. We were soaked to the bone in an instant. I had to wring out mz watchband. And we were wearing our raingear. I had hailstones in my shoes -- and these were big stones they hurt, but we were laughing, because what else can you do?
So that was yesterdays adventures. Today is more museums, hopefullz the good ones.
I can't tell you how long it has taken to type this, but I fixed most of the mixed up z and ys.
Will check in again soon.
love, pamela
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NOTES ABOUT THIS PAGE
Background from http://www.eosdev.com/. This page was made on September 30, 2000. Featured artist: Def Leppard. Featured beverage: Henry Weinhard's Private Reserve. All photos are courtesy of Robert L. Hughes of Vancouver Washington. My computer is a much loved lime iMac named Yoda. My software is BBEdit 5.0 which I am barely competent at using.
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