Trip to Berlin

The company (Caledonian School) that owns the school that I work for (Nessie English Pre-School) has a visa liaison, whose job it is to accept the papers and documents you give her for your work permit/visa application, not update you on how your application is going, not return e mails, and then on Monday tell you that there will be a trip on Wednesday to Berlin to apply for visas, leaving Prague at 5am in the morning no less.

Am I a little bitter? Well, natch.

Anyway, all up it was a good day, but only because after the 5 hour minivan ride and 2 hours of sitting around in the Czech Embassy in Berlin, we had a couple hours to explore Berlin. Utterly disregarding the protests of the others with me who had never been to Berlin before (the wall? all that history? bah, overrated), I went on a mad hunt through downtown Berlin to find the chocolate store I'd visited during Christmastime. Armed only with vague memories and the friendliness of Canadian guy, (who had no qualms at all about approaching total strangers and asking them for directions in French, then English, then by gesticulating) we found it in the end, which was damn amazing, given that I couldn't remember the name or the address of the store, just that it was near to a market in Berlin with a French name! (Fassbender & Rausch on Charlottenstrasse opposite the Gendarmarkt... so now I know!)



After the joy of Titanic chocolate, we headed back, whiling away the many hours by playing that game where you name a musical band or artist, then the next person takes the last letter of that band/artist and uses it as the first letter of their band/artist. I wanted to sleep, but one of the other teachers urged me to play, saying, "We'll get bored in about 10 minutes anyway." They didn't get bored. I went to sleep. When I woke up they were still playing. 4 hours later they were still playing. Unbelievable.

But not nearly as unbelievable as the entire cadre of teachers getting carsick to nearly vomituous due to our minivan driver in the last hour. What's the deal with the swerving?? And the insane hurry to get right up near the next car in our bumper-to-bumper traffic jam? Or, for that matter, does one really need to brake so sharply and abruptly?! What's more, goddammit, visa woman got him to drop her off at home, leaving us to suffer minor and multiple whiplash after she bailed out on us!!

In the end, I spotted a metro station, and not caring where in Prague I was, (about an hour away from home!) I called out that I would get out here and it was really close to my house. Almost everyone else in the car got out along with me, and we spent a few glorious minutes breathing fresh air and trying not to heave our guts out. And then the task of figuring out where we were and how to get home... but ANYTHING was better than another 30 seconds in that minivan!!