Memoirs of Berlin as we journey to Aachen/Cologne

5:15 A.M.: A shrill distortion of sound-waves fills the room, a sound inducing terrible agitation amongst the slumbering beasts lying in the scattered bunks, one that is most common amongst the average working man, the regular business woman, or the dedicated student, a sound that could only be described as the scream of the devil from the pits of hell, a sound that could only be coming from one device: an alarm clock (an iPhone, to be exact).  As we rise from our crusty, bed-bug-ridden mattresses, we comb our hairs for lice and hit the showers, ready for another endless day of travel and tourism.  After contracting several forms of athlete’s foot, we drudgingly dragged ourselves back to the room, stripping the sweat-caked sheets from the bed and packing our bags.  We tip-toed around mysterious stains and piles of rat-dung on our way down to the lobby, only to realize once we reached it that we were the first ones there.  After being sarcastically filled with guilt from Mr. Mobini for not having rallied everyone downstairs, we promptly hustled back through the ruins of feces up to the girls’ room to awaken the trolls and Willow.  Once the screaming ceased and all of the men had managed to overcome their fear, the group of us ten adolescents marched down to greet Mr. Mobini: head high with his sunglasses on indoors.  Once we had overcome a little more sarcasm, we were on our way to the train station. 

Less than an hour later, we were all sound-asleep on the train, freezing our bum-bums off due to a trigger-happy air conditioning controller.  As we slept, we dreamt about the last 72 hours of our lives, having not survived, but thrived in the jungles of a modern small town called Berlin.  We reminisced on the seemingly endless hours of touring, having ventured over the river and through the woods, but instead of arriving to a warm-hearted grandmother with fresh cookies, we instead ran into a couple walls, checked off Checkpoint Charlie, yodeled a Brandenburg Concerto while hopping through its gates, threw a stone at the glass dome on the Bundestadt, along with viewing many more monuments.  We dreamt about our tremendously extensive bike-ride all over Berlin, having seen what we believed was every square inch of the city, including ancient buildings, contemporary buildings, and renovated buildings that appeared to be somewhere in the between.  Finally, we looked back on the independence bestowed upon ourselves as we navigated superfluous streets and crowded corridors, each of us believing that we would be able to complete the tasks of our scavenger hunt before the others, only to discover that there could only be one team in the end: Connor and Karanjot (after they broke our knees to take the lead, of course).  However, we can now all confidently admit that we know the streets of that great city like the back of our hands. 

We returned from our nostalgic dreams and looked around on the train, not really knowing our location.  All we knew was that Cologne was steadily approaching at a steady rate of 200 kilometers per hour, for we could smell its greatness wafting through our olfactory senses, filling us with a strange brew of excitement and anxiety.    – Willow & Aaron