Oh, Bus, where art thou?

The recordings are finished! After a long weekend of recording the tour guide texts, 11 hours total, and then listening to check for mistakes and re-record, my part of the project is done. Now they have to do the editing as well as adding music, sound effects, etc.

It should be pretty good. They want to sell it to an online company, like i-tunes, so that before English speakers travel to Berlin, they can download the tour and take it with them. Of course, the tour is not free. Once they see how much this tour sells, they will be able to decide if they should make other tours for other areas/historical landmarks of Berlin. I guess only then will I see if I will ever work as a future voice of Berlin again.

I learned a lot about speaking slowly and clearly, though. It was interesting. When he first asked me to slow down and played the example of an English speaker talking suuuupppeeerrr slowly, I though, "huh? That sounds so weird!" But it has to be like that! When I listened to myself, as well as tried to follow along with the history of what I was saying, I realized it had to be slow or you lose the listener very fast. Especially if you're doing a walking tour and the person has to stay caught up.

In other news, I have been getting really annoyed at the buses here lately. The times when I feel like taking the bus instead of walking the 10 minutes to the subway station from my apartment, which I've been doing more now that it's so cold, I check the times online and then go out and wait at the stop by my door. Even though I make a point of getting out there early, since I know they tend to come a minute early, lately I haven't been early enough. Yesterday I saw it and ran over....and it left me in a cloud of dust as it drove off. Today I got out there 2 min. early and it was long gone!

Since the bus comes by here every 20 min. it doesn't make sense to wait for the next one, but that means I have to hurry along to the subway since I've already lost time in the bus process. It's not the end of the world, but I ask myself why they even have a schedule if they're just going to come when they want! I'm thinking of calling or stopping by the public transportation office to let them know how annoying the bus drivers are when they do that.

Last summer I was on the craziest bus ride ever with my American friend Bethany, who studies horn in Hamburg. We had to hold on for our lives because if we hadn't we would have flown through the bus with every curve or brake. And talk about not doing his job: the hasty driver didn't even stop long enough for a poor Asian student standing outside a university stop. He peeled the bus up to the stop and pulled right off before the Asian guy could even realize what was going on. Seeing the confused lad standing forgotten at the stop, I yelled "HALT!" from my seat in the back of the bus, but to no avail. The need-for-speed bus driver wasn't going to be stopped for an alone-standing passenger. But it was a record trip back to my apartment. I think he cut the ride from 14 min. to 10.

And then consider Italy. My German friend said in Sicily the bus stops don't even have a schedule. If you're lucky and you stand there, there might be a bus that drives by. Otherwise you could wait anywhere from 30 min. to an hour for a bus! Then they don't have to make excuses if they're early or late...you have to just be glad they showed up at all. Ahh, public transportation. Anyway, life goes on.

I discovered a really cool area of Berlin last night, which is just about a 10-min. subway ride for me. The city district is called Kreuzberg and although very Turkish, also attracts a lot of students and laid back types. I had no idea they had so many cool restaurants and bars, but the place is teeming with low-light, artistic-looking cocktail bars. It's the kind of non-ritzy, yet unique kind of trendy. Sometimes I don't like those kinds of places but as long as it's clean enough and not too dark, I generally like it.

I was there with my Turkish friend who lives in that area, and he showed me around the area a little bit. After we got a cocktail at a the first place, he showed me a place that was empty and normal looking from the main floor, but had a very interesting upstairs. It was an oriental lounge with little private tables separated with walls and had hanging beads in front of them, as well as some tables low to the ground with pillows or little stools.

The waiter brought us into a larger room in the back. The room, which looked like it came straight out of Aladdin, had maroon and purple cloth curtains draped across the ceiling and walls, with a green light above, and little lights around the perimeter. The seating was couch-like with pillows, forming a u-shape around the room, which meant everyone in the room could look at each other. Unfortunately, the room was very much a "couple room," and my friend and I were basically squeezed on the couch between 2 other couples..all of which seemed very in love.

But everyone seemed very relaxed and some were smoking the big water pipes (no drugs). We got a drink and enjoyed the warm, cozy room till I started falling asleep! But I'd love to go back with a small group and get one of the reserved tables with the beads. It looks so comfy with the pillows and dim lights!