germans do it better, berliners do it best

greetings from the isle of naxos, greece...
i made it here safe and sound after about 24 hours of pointless, absurd, daunting, and beautiful traveling.
but first...berlin...
i rode the train into the station in berlin, a 4 hour ride from duisburg, where marion and annika dropped me off at the gate with kisses and coffee. i was sitting in my seat, minding my own business, listening to music and not paying attention, when i realized the train had both stopped at my station, and was preparing to depart again. i scrambled up, lugged my enormous backpack off of an upper rack, whacking an old lady with a black bouffant in the face with a loose shoulder strap, and threw myself out the door and onto the platform right as the doors snapped shut. struggling to get my backpack on my shoulders, i began looking around for billy. the thing is, i hadnt even seen billy, not hide nor hair in photograph or in person, for like, 5 years, so i wasnt quite sure what i was looking for. like german engineering, though, he was standing there, staring at me, totally on time, and totally in the right spot. the first words out of his mouth were, "jesus christ, flip flops. and of course you had to come at 11 in the morning. you parkers are crazy. ive just come from a party, do i smell? hm, your bag looks heavy, you'd better hang on to it."
was billy, just the same as always! however, if i do say so, the boy has lost his baby cheeks and grown about a foot and is looking quite dashing (i.e. more and more like stephan) in his older years...i was pleasantly surprised, a little flustered, and thrilled with the comfortable, nagging rapport that we had going. the history on this, as im sure yall know, is that when billy lived with my family, i couldnt stand him. it wasnt anything that he did; infact, ive come to acknowledge the fact that he was probably just as hilarious and crazy and brilliant then as he is now (relatively, im sure age helps)...but at the time, when i was 15, i was just not into some german kid getting all the attention and hogging shotgun and being friends with rob leake when boys like that wouldnt even look at me. so i gave him hell.
anyway, now we are as good as gold. billy is positively hillarious. its hard being able to make witty remarks and cutting accusations and have intelligent conversations in a language foreign to your own, but his english is near perfect, aside from some rather adorable slips, and the boy is absolutely brilliant.
on the way to his apartment billy led me through a maze of trains and trams, all the while munching on gum and rubbing his temples, clearly the victim of a long, hard night out. on the train to his neighborhood, he attempted to get me a ticket but, seeing the long, daunting line, his reddened eyes narrowed and he said, "no, no, no tickets, just come on". 2 minuted into the ride, of course, the ticket guy comes over, asking to punch our passes. i dont have one, and the penalty is 40euro cash. i said, "billy, my god, im going to fucking kill you". billy tilted his head, laughed a bit, and said, "you know what your dad would say if this happened to him? he'd say 'well ill be a monkeys uncle', and then use this as a great story that he could tell over 2 millions times, always keep it up his sleeve, the time he got fucked over in berlin. you should consider doing the same." my god, i had to laugh. and i did, i laughed hysterically, because he was totally right, and i would have never thought of that, as a means for dealing with something stupid or as an anecdote for how well, in alot of ways, my father dealt with inconvenient things. after that, billy was, as far as im concerned, amazing.
we had a great first day. instead of dumping me at his apartment while he slept off the previous night (he'd been up 29 hours at this point), billy raged full force into the streets, taking me on sightseeing tours of stuff like the parliament, some courthouse (billy was like, "i have no idea what that building is, ive never even seen it, lets go in..."), the berlin wall (!), and the absolutely wonderful, hip neighborhood that he lives in. we had a full day, and even stopped for currywurst, the disgusting treat that berliners consider their local specialty.
that night we went "bar tending" with his big brother andy, whom i had met when i was like...10. andy was positively brilliant and funny too, though not as mean and base as billy, much more calm and wise (billy said, "just cause he agrees with what you say doesnt make him wise, sheesh"). we talked for a long, long time over camparis about organic vs local vs genetically modified foods, each of us taking a different stance in the argument. we also talked politics, both the kunzler boys recounted amazing stories of how severe and ridiculous my family was in their right-wing republican beliefs (billy recalled: "i'll never forget...it was al gore vs george bush, and the parker children were made to wake up at 6am and come to the yard and stand in front of a flag and pray to george bush. i refused, of course, and bryan threatened to send me home. then one time, quinn asked, 'daddy, if im a republican and claudia is a democrat, can we still be friends?', and bryan said, 'hm...i dont think so".) was too too funny, and they were thrilled to hear that we've all switched to the side of angels (D). also, they were asking what grant was doing, and somehow the loud music and camparis and language barrier mixed everything up, and when i tried to explain that grant was "directing plays" and "working to become a coroner", andy thought that i had said that grant was directing planes and using dead people as props in pornographic theater, to which billy exclaimed, "who the hell would let grant parker direct a plane?" and andy was like,"they use dead people?". it was too much.
billy and i stayed out till 6 am or so, hanging around with cute berlin boys and eating turkish food and playing foosball. we got home and slept will 4pm the next evening.
saturday night got off to a slow start. we were obviously sluggish, so we dragged ourselves up, got some coffee, ate some vietnamese food, and then commenced to lay about till it was time to go out again. berliners party extremely hard. billy's friend florian came to stay with him, and when i met him he was standing in the kitchen, shirtless, fresh and filthy from a 3 week trip around spain with his girlfriend, about 6'4, dark (mixed italian and greek, raised german...may be the best combo yet), extremely shockingly attractive, and grinning from ear to ear. he was so so sweet and funny, all of billys friends were. 2 others came over as well and they were all so engaging and cute and they talked to me and asked me questions and were clever and spoke amazing english and were kind of assholes in a refreshing way (i.e. they werent just nice and polite, but kind of brutal and honest and witty) and it was so much fun. they were all totally enamoured and confused and pleasantly surprised to hear what exactly it was i was in europe for, farming and all. the boys dubbed me "not a typical american girl", which ive been getting alot of, actually.
it was pouring rain outside, so we scampered to a bar and hang out for a bit. at one point i told florian that he looked not like a 22 year old political science guy, but like a 26 year old greek shipping company heir, a greek billionaire was how i put it, and he loved that. billys other friend toby started talking to me about what a horrible time he had around american girls when he was in australia, how they were all just like in the movies and how europeans known that most american girls just come to europe for the boys (i didnt deny this, defended it actually), but then said, "well, you know, im really just here for the cheese." toby was like, shocked, and said "wow, thats like...the greatest sentence ive ever heard, especially coming from the mouth of an american. 'im just here for the cheese'...im gonna make that my facebook quote". later, billy, florian, and i scampered to the "dirty" club in the pouring rain, billy and i huddled under a tiny umbrella that i was horrible at holding so the rain poured onto billys takeaway pizza, or me cowering under the corner of florians jacket while we splashed through puddles.
the club was a blast, so so wild and fun and the djs were great and i think it was even better that it was so rainy because there was room to dance. we danced and ran amuck for hours, the boys saying hilarious things that made me laugh that loud, blunt laugh of mine that i reserve for late nights and particularly funny situations. when we emerged it was bright daylight. we skipped home through the streets, the only people up and about, and even stopped into a morning bakery for fresh pastries. at home we crashed into bed at 8am and slept well into the afternoon...
after a nice brunch at a sidewalk cafe, billy took me to the airport. he was such an angel, carrying my backpack not just to the train station, but literally riding with me all the way out to the airport and walking me to my gate. on the way in i told him that i was worried, because i hate so much to fly, and am always convinced that my plane will crash. billy exclaimed, "but a plane crash would be the best way to go! you'd know it was going to be the end, so you'd have a free 5 minutes, the most free 5 minutes of your whole life! you could bang a stewardess, or shoot heroin, or spit on someones face or kill a guy with your bare hands, whatever, cause there'd be no way to get in trouble, it'd all be over. you could literally do, whatever you wanted." this made me die laughing, and i was like "oh my god, could you imagine being in a plane and it was crashing and while you're sitting there with your life flashing before your eyes some guy turns around and strangles you? it would be amazing, you would never ever expect that". anyway, this got me through my flight, and i kept bursting into giggles thinking about it, the turkish lady next to me looking at me wearily, as though she knew exactly what was going through my head.
berlin, in a nutshell, was fantastic. its hip and fun and wild and free and so so youthful and sprightly. i loved it.
however, now i am in greece...
ill blog when i get a feel for this place...it seems amazing already!!!