Twenty-First: Zurich-Style

I saw this on the news, and I'm not sure if any of you felt it at all, but at midnight on Friday night (that would be 5pm Midwest time), a jolt went through the world. The Earth shifted a little on its axis and a buzz began to radiate out from the molten lava housed in the depths of the earth that ran to the very highest point of the Eiger, announcing to the entire planet's population that someone (that would be me) had finally come of age.

I was in bed when it happened, exhausted from looking at the high Zurich prices, and thus missed this momentous event that will no doubt go down in history as one of the greatest natural phenomenons in the world, no doubt to be called simply "ER21-2009," but I heard tell of its wonders the next morning. Halloween 2009 Morning.

It is a morning that will go down in history, not only because it was the first morning where Emily Rose was 21 years old, but also because it is the morning that Emily Rose finished an 145 CZK (approximately $8.25) bottle of Champagne before breakfast. The plan had been to bring Champagne to share with her friends Eric and Andrew, as well as the people who had been their couchsurfing hosts. But as it would turn out, it was Emily Rose's birthday and she did not feel the urge to wake up with Andrew when he went to leave for a saxophone thing, and thus missed out on giving him his Birthday Breakfast Mimosa, as well as giving one to Matt, one of the two couchsurfing hosts.

The door had hardly closed behind Andrew when Emily Rose decided that she had better wake up to make the most of her birthday, so she rolled over onto a different, colder part of the rug that she was sleeping on, and pushed herself up. "Eric! Hey Eric! It's my birthday. Want a mimosa?" Emily Rose called up to the top bunk.

Eric groaned and said, "I'm sick. I'm going to sleep."
"But Eric! It's my birthday! I'm twenty-one!"
"Do you realize how sick I am?" And he rolled over and went to sleep.

This left Emily Rose with the Champagne and Romy. As she left the room that she and her friends had been sleeping in, unopened Champagne bottle in hand, she ran into Romy. "Do you want a mimosa?"
"I think I'll have tea."

This left Emily Rose alone with 2L of orange juice and 0.75L of champagne to finish before sightseeing. Nothing could remain.

So Romy grabbed Emily Rose a champagne flute, and upon seeing Emily Rose's ineptness, she helped her open both the champagne bottle and the orange juice carton. Emily Rose filled the champagne flute with orange juice and a little bit of champagne--it was morning, after all, and one had to be classy with her drinking--and pulled out her Kafka book for some light, breakfast reading.

After the champagne bottle had gotten considerably emptier, Eric made his appearance. Once again ER offered him a Birthday Breakfast Mimosa. He did not seem receptive. She offered him some orange juice. He accepted on the condition that ER not put alcohol into it. When he wasn't looking, however, she added a small (small!) bit of birthday cheer. This was not met happily, and he ignored her claims that the orange juice would be really good for Vitamin C if he was sick and left the glass sitting next to him for the remainder of the morning, untouched.

Luckily, at this point, Romy came in, and asked if she could partake of the mimosa celebration, filling her juice glass with orange juice and some of Emily Rose's champagne. It was after this occurrence, while Eric and ER were working on making enormous amounts of oatmeal, that ER finished off the bottle.

After leaving Matt and Romy's house, the day was spent making Swizz purchases--a watch, some chocolate--and checking out the art at the Kunsthaus. At 6.30pm, Emily Rose, Andrew, and Eric met with Romy and her friend Cindy (?), a teacher at the international school in Moscow, for drinks at a Mexican restaurant. To give you an idea of why they planned to meet for drinks rather than a full meal, the amount of money they'd spend on one or two drinks would be equal or greater to a full meal in the Czech Republic.

When Emily Rose, Andrew and Eric got there, the world travelers, it became apparent that staying just for drinks was not an option. On the way over, Moscow teacher had informed Emily Rose that she was picking up her dinner, and once seated at the table, Romy said she'd get the first liter of cranberry margaritas (Moscow got the second, and Emily Rose was in the bathroom so she missed who got the last half liter).

Of course, a birthday restaurant meal is not a true birthday restaurant meal without telling the waiter that there is a birthday guest at the table. So, after coming back from the bathroom, the lights went down in the restaurant, inspiring Rocky-esque music came on, and the waiter ran out of the kitchen with two pieces of cake, on fire with sparkler candles, ran to one side of the room as a fake out, and then ran over to Emily Rose and set one piece of cake in front of her, and the other in front of a woman the next table over (I can only imagine it was her birthday as well, or else she can thank Emily Rose for the random free piece of birthday cake she got).

So Emily Rose, in a particularly charitable mood, bolstered by the random appearances of Swizz Trick-or-Treaters trickling in through the front door of the restaurant (apparently they Trick-or-Treat in restaurants there), passed the cake around and allowed everyone to partake of the Swizz Chocolate cake. It tasted like everything that's wonderful in the world.

After that, Andrew, Eric, and Emily Rose went to Cafe Schober, a place suggested by the lovely Romy, to have some Seven Dollar and Fifty Cent (yes, I feel that price should be capitalized) hot chocolate (it is Swizz land, after all). Here, again, Emily Rose was sung to, though this time it was only Andrew, Eric, and the waiter singing while Emily Rose sat in front of a group of Swizz coffee shop goers while a pianist tried to pick out "Happy Birthday" on an electric piano.

So ended an excellent twenty-first birthday. Zurich style.

Switzerland Part One: Advice

Just a few words of wisdom to tide you over until I get the full synopsis of my Zurich adventures posted:

Do not take the overnight bus if you plan on being productive and attending all of your classes the next day. You can only feasibly do one (riding a bus) or the other (being productive). Pick whichever is most important to you: getting the most of your time in a certain locale (for this hypothetical scenario, I'll choose Zurich) which results in taking the night bus home so that you are home in time for your classes, or taking an earlier bus home so that you will not only be home for class but also in a state fit to attend class.

Mull that one over for a bit, and I think it will be pretty obvious how the Zurich trip ended.

Reminder

Just a small reminder:
My birthday is on Saturday (Halloween).
For those of you
who were wondering
I will not be bringing cupcakes
but rather
Birthday Breakfast Mimosas.
This is because
I'm 21,
and therefore,
I can.

Happy birthday to me.

The Love of My Life

Here it is: after countless [empty] promises of being delivered this account soon, a week and a half after my return, and mere hours before leaving my next jaunt, you have it.

Berlin.

To place this trip to Berlin in some sort of context, I'll have you know that I was a bit iffy about the prospect of heading this direction. Despite having German blood coursing through my veins, along with two German names to my name (Hahn and Oachs), I still was not feeling the draw towards this city. In addition to this, I had thought that my time spent in the Czech Republic would be a time where I would get to explore Eastern Europe, and was thus uncertain about going into Western territory.

How wrong I was. Berlin is the love of my life.

It's entirely possible that I would have felt differently about Berlin had I been coming from an equally Westernized city, say Minneapolis. Had I, coming from Minneapolis, come to Berlin after hearing myself rave about it, I would have felt let down. "What is so exciting about this city?" I would have asked my other self. "This city is okay. Maybe not the greatest." And that would just show how ignorant Minneapolis-Me would be.

After two months in Prague, a city renowned for its beauty, the beauty that is the result of the accumulation hundreds of years of various architectural styles. And after all that old, I was dying for some new.

And that is why I love Berlin. It is new. It is modern. It has buildings made of glass. The streets are wide, the buildings tall, and the cafes are coffee shops, not actual restaurants. Prague is a beautiful city, yes, but Berlin is the most comfortable city I have been in for at least two months.

I suppose some would look down on me for loving Berlin so much because it felt like home, because the public transportation was reliable, because the streets were clean, because so many people I ran into spoke English, and for finding the German language so much more attractive (and practical) than Czech. They'd say I wasn't appreciating an untouched culture.

I don't care though. Berlin was my first contact with modernity. For the past two months I have been living in a UNESCO world heritage site, and sometimes, SOMETIMES I really enjoy feeling like I'm in the States. I really enjoy the States and I really enjoy glass.

This is why I like Berlin.

Even before the train pulled into the station, I knew that Germany was coming home for me. I immediately felt my German blood boiling in my veins, happy to finally be home, as we travelled across the beautiful German countryside. It was immediately obvious to us when we were in Germany. Everything looked a lot nicer. And, I would like to add, like Minnesota.

In our train car, it was just Eric, me, and some German guy who slept the entire way. Towards the end of the trip, he started helping us out, offering us his services in figuring out which Berlin station it was that we were supposed to get off at. When we got into Berlin Hauptbanhoff train station, we knew that it was going to be a good trip. Eric and I looked at each other and started laughing in glee.

We kept repeating over and over between our laughs, "Oh my god. This is amazing."

The man in our car laughed at how excited we were. My excitement was further heightened when I discovered at dinner that night that you can order tap water (read: free water) at restaurants. This never happens in Prague. Plus, all the waiters spoke English and understood us when we spoke English.

So, this is a brief synopsis of why I liked Germany. I'm sorry it's not more entertaining--it is what it is, and it's all I could do while also packing for Switzerland. To see what I did while in Berlin, please refer to the earlier post that lists all the sights I saw.