I had a religious experience today.  My test went well, I signed up for our group trip to Berlin with only hours til the cut-off deadline, and still made it to the train station with about half an hour to spare.  I’d had a banana and orange with my coffee in the wee hours of the morning, but a rumbly in my tumbly started to grow around 10 am.  With time to kill and fresh Sparkasse Euros burning a hole in my pocket, I went to the bakery across the street from the Bahnhof for some caffeine and (hopefully) something almondy.  Oh baby, was I not disappointed.  First of all, this might be my new go-to hang out for all sweets and treats because it’s ridiculously cheaper than the bakeries occupying prime real estate in the center of town.  They also have quite the range of goods—from regular croissants to every frosted cake you probably can’t even think of, and lots of savory breakfast sandwiches as well.  I took more time making my selection than I do on most decisions of far greater importance, but in the end ‘twas perhaps the most life-altering choice I’ve made in almost 21 years.  It is called Marzipanzopf and it has changed my life.  I am not exaggerating when I say this braided delight was the size (length and almost width) of my forearm.  In fact, and write this day down in history, it was TOO big and I found myself only wanting at most half.  It was regular sweet bread dough, the impossibly intricate colonies of yeast proving its handmade and not machine-produced origins.  Sticky, almost clear marzipan slid between the strands of twisted dough (zopf means braid auf Deutsch) and it was all topped with impossibly sweet powdered sugar glazed and toasted almond slivers.  I needed some alone time with this thing. And yes, I realize I just described a pastry as if this was a smutty novel set after hours in a bakery backroom.  If I had been washing it down with a Diet Pepsi and not a Coke Zero, I’d make the bold statement that this was the single best meal of my entire life.  (But then again, I’m sure I’ll proclaim that after everything I put in my mouth in Bavaria.  My life is so hard.)  It took a while to work my way through it; my body needed time to produce the proper amounts of insulin lest my vision start blurring, I pass out, and miss my stop in Hamburg.

While I was sitting on the train, April sun streaming down on my face as I enjoyed the scenery of rural Germany, the ticket man came around (don’t worry, this part of the story ends LEAGUES better than my train voyage to Munich the first time.)  He asked for my ticket, which is our student pass that lets us ride (most) trains for free.  You also have to show picture i.d. to prove you’re not just using your friend’s pass (this will be a big problem for D-bag who is currently using my expired student pass to ride the bus around town—his perished in the wash.)  He saw my name on the student pass and said, “Ahh Brittney, aber nicht Spears!”  He was by far the friendliest German I’ve ever met on the rails, and he made a pop culture joke about my name and I understood it and we guffawed together.  What a touching intercultural moment.  I showed him my passport to verify that I was indeed Brittney not Spears, and he started to leave then did a kind of double take, “Sie ist Amerikanerin!”  Well yes Sir, I am aware.  He must just not get a lot of foreign kids on his train, or is either really in love with or secretly loathes Americans.  Either way, he left me alone after that, and I made it to the airport in plenty of time for my flight (even though I rode the subway here without a ticket and about had a heart attack just KNOWING I’d get caught.  In my defense, I did try, but the damn machine just printed me out a schedule of subways I could take and then BAM it was there and I didn’t want to wait 10 minutes for the next one.  D-bag and I got caught in Denmark being “Schwarz fahren” [without a ticket] but that was LEGIT we couldn’t read Danish and spent twenty minutes punching at the machine before deciding to test fate.  Thankfully Danish ticket men are a hundred times nicer than their Deutsch neighbors, and the man simply told us to get off at the next stop, but normally he was supposed to get us a fine of over $300.)

SO NOW, I’m hanging in the airport, my body craving vegetables or anything besides the pounds of butter and sugar I’ve fueled it with thus far.  In three short weeks, I’ll be here again (how I’m going to wrangle my two giant suitcases on bus, train, and subway then inevitably pay up the ass for one of them is still beyond me.)  Oh, a big THANK YOU to D-bag for lending me a duffle bag to use as my carry-on.  My backpack simply couldn’t hold my clothes, toiletries, Sebas’ yearbook, AND my laptop and hair straightener.  Last time I came I made the choice between the latter two, really like picking a favorite child I would imagine, but this time I decided I didn’t need to suffer.  I’m gonna go like walk around or pay 18 Euro for a water or something.  The inevitable sugar crash is imminent—perhaps I’ll get a quick nap in on the plane?

Update: I have made it.  To the beer halls!