Betriebsstörungen, Death Threats, and a Trip to My New BL

New BL and I have been talking about meeting up one weekend for about two months, and we finally decided to meet on Saturday at 2:30 PM. It takes about 47 minutes with the U- and S-Bahn to get to her stop. Not a big deal, right?

Yeah, well, I wasn't paying attention, so I went the wrong direction on the U-Bahn. I figured out my mistake pretty quickly, but then I had to wait another five minutes for the other U-Bahn. Then, when I got in the S-Bahn, I realized that we were moving slowly. Very slowly. We waited at one stop for about three minutes for no apparent reason (no crowds), and then we chugged along at, oh, 10 miles per hour. And then we stopped. And waited. And waited. And waited. About ten minutes later, there was an announcement that told all of us to get off, no explanation. The train left, and another S-Bahn rolled in about 5 minutes later. We boarded. And then we waited, waited, waited... and another announcement told us that there were Betriebsstörungen at Friedrichstrasse. The S-Bahn was not running in either direction.

I still don't have a functional cell phone because I can't find a place to buy minutes for my plan, so I started to look for a pay phone. During my trip up and down the platform, a woman stepped into my path and started screeching.

I think her exact (translated) quote was: "I hate you Chinese! Go away, Chinese girl! If you come closer, I'm going to knock you dead!" In most cases, this would be slightly terrifying. However, even at that exact moment, I did not feel particularly threatened. Why? Because the platform was pretty crowded, and because she was running backwards, making shooing away gestures. To put it into mass market fiction terms, it was like she was one of Dracula's minions and I was a vampire slayer with garlic, crosses, and a squirt gun full of holy water. My first reaction was to be upset at the racism, but within five minutes, my line of thought was closer to, "Hey, is the Tea Party in Germany? This is going to make a great blog post! Oh. These thoughts make me a terrible person."

(Yes, I considered yelling back, "I'm not Chinese! I'm Korean! And American!" (with a number of inappropriate words mixed in there) or shouting, "BOO!"-- but I am classy, so I smiled sweetly, turned, and walked in the other direction.)

(I realize that making fun of an obviously mentally ill person is disrespectful and full of able-bodied privilege, which is very much not classy, but, given that I was on the receiving end of a death threat, I think I earned the right to a little black humor here.)

Anyway, after walking away from Dracula Woman, I determined that there were no pay phones anywhere at the Brandenburger Tor station. (Yes, that makes this story even more random: I wasn't exactly in Marzahn. Brandenburger Tor? I wonder how many Asian tourists she had scared off that day.) So I tried the next best thing: I asked strangers if I could use their cell phones. I'd pay them, of course.

Fortunately, I chose well, and not only did a very nice family let me use their phone, but they also asked if I wanted to join them. They were riding up to the end station, and they could tell me how to get from that station to New BL's stop. Sweet.

About 45 minutes later, I arrived at New BL's Haltestelle. When I spoke with her on the stranger's cell phone, I told her that I had email access, and I had emailed her from my Kindle on the bus. I waited for about twenty minutes before checking my email and realizing that she wanted me to go directly to her apartment.

I found the correct intersection, but then I was supposed to find a specific color building. I looked to the left and to the right, and all of the buildings looked pretty darn similar to me. I ended up walking up to every door and looking at the names on the bell. Eventually, I found her name, rang her bell, and was buzzed in. And then I didn't remember which floor she lived on, so I just took the elevator halfway and checked every door until I found her name. (I knew she lived semi-close to the top, so that helped.)

I had baked some cookies before the visit, so I brought a few for New BL and her sons. New BL's younger son asked, "What are the cookies called?" "Sie heissen... chocolate chip pudding Kekse." "Wie heissen sie?" "Auf Englisch heissen sie chocolate chip pudding Kekse." Then, New BL entered the room. "Mama, wie heissen diese Kekse?" "Amerikanische Schokolade Kekse, oder? Du kannst K fragen." "Sie heissen immer noch chocolate chip pudding Kekse..."

After we finished eating cookies, her chocolate marzipan brownies (which were AMAZING), and homemade cappuccino, New BL and I went on a 90-minute tour of her Stadtteil. It's a very green and family-friendly area with a lot of parks. We also saw the Stadtteil Rathaus and two churches, and she told me the history behind the names of two sections of the Stadtteil.

When we got back, New BL started dinner (a Tunisian dish-- eggs soft boiled in tomatoes, herb potatoes, and Kiba, also known as cherry-banana juice), and she thought it would be a good idea for me to play a game with the boys. "Sie spielen gerne V. Hast du von V gehört?" ('V' was pronounced like the English letter 'V.') I claimed that I had never heard of a game called 'V' and asked how you played, just as the boys broke out their Wii system. Ha! I won the first game of bowling (beginner's luck), but they demolished me in the second round.

After dinner, we played two rounds of "Zocken," which is a dice/gambling game that was actually a lot of fun. (I lost twice.)

Fortunately, the way back to my apartment was much less eventful than the way there. The most excitement was when a drunk guy fell and dropped champagne in the U-Bahn. Of course, the champagne exploded, and everyone jumped. Fortunately, no one was close enough to get sprayed by the champagne or by the shards of broken glass.

And so ended my day.