So Cori's with us right now, and will be for a little while longer, before she goes home to get settled back in for her sophomore year of college. When we were planning the move, she was looking around for things to do and found that some of her favorite bands were scheduled to play in Berlin the second week that we'd be here. Once we landed, figuring out how to get tickets and get over there was really high on her list of priorities.
She and I left Tuesday morning, taking our normal bus down to a metro station, then metro-ing over to the main train station. We rode the train to downtown Berlin, then metro'd to the stop nearest our hotel. We checked into the hotel and relaxed for a couple of hours, then took the metro to the Wuldheide station and followed the throng to the outdoor amphitheater. The walk felt like close to a mile on the way there, but it was a nice walk on a cool summer evening through the woods. Really neat location for the venue. The theater is generally shaped like a horseshoe, with benches leading down to a large standing room only general admission section. I didn't feel like dealing with the crowds, and Cori was happy just being there, so we stood up on the pathway that encircled the venue. Over time, she pushed and wriggled her way up to the railing, so she was immediately behind the top bench; I moved back to the far side of the pathway (about 20-30 feet behind her), and just tried to stay out of everyone's way.
The opening band was one I'd never heard of, Mercyful Fate. They're a Danish death metal band that's evidently been around since the 80's. They didn't do anything for me... many, many moons ago, I listened to metal, so I didn't find the music offensive or intolerable, it was just a band that didn't do much for me.
The second band was also one I'd never heard of, Volbeat. After the first band, I was truly expecting another metal band of some sort, especially taking into account the dress of the fans around. I was surprised that they were more of a rock band - they had a few harder songs, but I was quite impressed with them overall. Reminded me of a cross between a huge arena type rock band like Bon Jovi with someone a little harder, like Queensrÿche. 10/10 would see again.
After the show, we walked back to the metro with the rest of the throng - it didn't feel like a mile coming back, but it was still a ways. We rode it to our stop and went back to the hotel, eventually going to sleep.
Woke up the next morning with nothing on our plate until the concert. We had breakfast at the buffet downstairs - really impressive spread for a hotel breakfast. Hotels in Italy usually didn't offer breakfasts at all; if they did, it was croissants and juice. This one had normal breakfast foods - scrambled eggs, (real) bacon, pancakes, a waffle iron, all kinds of breads to toast, bunches of kinds of cereals... very good breakfast fare, all things considered.
I was looking around for things to do until the concert. I happened to think of the Berlin Wall, and was looking to see where it was, finding a map on a web site that was devoted to the wall. The map didn't have streets on it, more just the layout of the city, and where the wall ran through it. I knew where the hotel was, and was tracing the line of the wall on my phone - evidently, the wall was quite near our hotel, and I'd probably be able to go see it. I was standing outside while looking at the map, and while orienting myself, decided that the wall was probably in a specific direction... turns out, our hotel was on one side of a street (Muhlenstrasse), and the wall was immediately on the other side of that street. Standing out front of our hotel, I could literally see the wall from where I was standing. D'oh!
Later that day, I dragged Cori over there and took a couple of pics, then stopped in a tourist shop and bought one of those little shards of the wall... there's a Certificate of Authenticity on the back that says it's actually from the wall, but in truth it's probably just construction debris - as many of those little shards have been sold over the years, the wall would have had to be tens of thousands of miles long, I figure.
Growing up in the Cold War, the wall just occupies a weird place in my head - I can't really explain it. If you're in that same head space, you'll get it... if not, just chalk it up to me being a little odd, and we'll move on.
That night's concert was originally supposed to be at the same venue as the previous night, but it had been moved to the local arena... which just happened to be around the corner from our hotel. Yeah... total accident on my part, what with me picking the hotel and all, and knowing about the venue change before we booked everything.
Since the concert was supposed to be at the other venue, all of the seats were GA. When we headed in (on the floor level), the lady checking tickets asked if we wanted to stand or sit. We chose to sit, so she sent us up the escalator to the concourse, where we could pick seats in the bowl (rather than standing the whole time). We ended up sitting in one of the corners, on an aisle, about 20 rows up from GA. Cori was glad that she had a straight sightline, and didn't have to stand the whole time.
There were three bands that night... the opening band was a rap metal band from Austin called Fire from the Gods. Rap metal wasn't a thing back when I was into metal. Honestly, didn't do much for me. Cori had only heard one of their songs, they did play that song, so she was happy.
Megadeth was the second band - one of two bands (at these concerts) that I'd heard of, and the only one with songs I was familiar with. They were my favorite this night - I've heard a lot of their music, but only really know two songs, and they played both of them. Never seen them live before, really enjoyed it. Cori had seen them with a friend in Nashville a few weeks before we headed over here, so she's got bragging rights over her friends.
Five Finger Death Punch was the third band, the headliner. I'd heard of them, but wasn't familiar with any of their music. The music was fine, the combination of the lighting and the volume had a weird effect on me, and I had to go out to the concourse, as I started feeling a little ill. I guess I'm getting a little old for this stuff. This was Cori's favorite act (I think... might be close between them and Volbeat, but I'll have to ask her for clarification if anyone really wants to know).
After the concert, we walked back over to the hotel (right across the street, remember?) and were in for the night.
The next day, we took our time getting up and out, and left the hotel around 10, for a 2:30 train. I've got the train app installed on my phone, and according to the app, the train was going to be very full, and they recommended that we get reserved seats. We didn't get reserved seats, and had to figure out how to find seats on the fly. We ended up finding available seats in the "quiet" section; there were entire train cars which were open, with 2 seats on each side - those are the normal seats. Then, there were train cars that were about half open seating, and about half with little glass enclosed rooms, with 6 seats inside, 2 rows of 3 (facing each other), with the aisle running along the side, rather than in the middle. I saw in the app that most of the seats that were available to be reserved were in the 3 wide sections, so we found two adjacent seats that weren't marked as being reserved in one of the little aquarium rooms. We rode the 4 hours in (mostly) silence back to Frankfurt, playing on our phones and reading most of the time.
Getting home from the train station was quite an adventure, when it was supposed to simply be the opposite of our trip in.
We pulled into the main train station and went down to the subway to catch a train to the station where we'd get the bus. Got onto the subway... and it skipped our stop. We got off at the next stop, and rather than just getting onto a train headed in the opposite direction, we decided to walk - I wasn't sure why the train hadn't stopped, but I had no guarantee that a train in the other direction would stop there either. I was (and continue to be) positive that we were on the right train line, so there was some reason the train didn't stop.
Took a little while to walk to the station we needed to be at, where we would be able to catch the bus home. We got there, and saw that the next bus should be there in a few minutes.
SPOILER ALERT: It didn't come in a few minutes.
We waited for 30 minutes for the bus - it never showed. We saw several trams go by, including the tram number that goes right in front of Becca's office. If we could just get to Becca's office, I know the bus goes right in front of there. So, we got onto a tram (which should travel the same main street as the bus).
As an aside, the tram area in front of Becca's office is under construction, so while buses can still drive in the normal lanes of traffic, the trams can't go up there. We had hoped to get closer to Becca's office, then jump off the tram and onto the bus that takes us to our town - from the station we got on at, that tram and our normal bus take the same main road all the way up to Becca's office.
ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT: It didn't take the same road that night.
The tram turned right and started going in a different direction. I immediately noticed, but thought it had been rerouted due to the construction. I looked at the map posted above the door and saw which direction it was going, and that it didn't look like it was going to end up in the right spot, so we got off. Not being close to a metro stop, we decided to walk back to the main road, where I knew the right bus should be. Took a while to walk back over there, but we eventually got back to the bus stop we'd turned right at. We checked the bus stop, and saw that our bus was supposed to come every 10 minutes. We waited there for 20 minutes, with me teaching Cori new curse words every few moments.
Finally gave up on waiting and flagged down a cab. He took us right to our front door... had to pay €25 rather than being able to use the bus passes we've been using the whole time we've been here, but we finally got home. Rather than the simple (and boring) train -> metro -> bus route, we'd used the much more adventurous train -> metro -> walk -> wait -> tram -> walk -> wait -> taxi route home instead.
When we got home, we were talking with Becca, and she was telling us about her day. She'd gone into the office, even though it was a German holiday. What German holiday? I have no idea, but as near as I can tell it's a special holiday where the bus drivers are off and random metro stations are closed, but the tram drivers have to work.
So... there's the big update I was promising. It was a big adventure for Cori and me, and now we've learned valuable stuff about the public transportation system: to wit, sometimes, it's better just to give up and take a cab, rather than dealing with all the BS.
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