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Saved by the Hungry Caterpillar

[today: no running, maybe a mile or two of walking]

I did not do a lot of touristy things today.

The first goal was to get the laundry done.  Our hotel does not have coin-op washing machines, they only have a big-city service that will do your shirts for big-bucks and have them back the next day.  So I did a bunch of work with google-maps and found what I thought was a coin-op laundry two stops down the line on the U-train  (underground).   I packed up the laundry in my wheeled suitcase and got special instructions from my wife about certain items which should not be dried in hot, etc. etc.

I went to that first place and met a nice German woman who spoke no English. It was a full service place.  You leave your stuff and they wash it and have it ready in a few days for 7.50 per kilogram.  Not what I wanted. She made it known to me that there was a coin operated laundry somewhere down the road.  I think she meant 6 bus stops down the road.  Too far to walk.  She worked very hard to communicate with me but we had little success.

But I headed out.  I tried to use google maps on my phone but that didn’t work.  But! then I happened to go past a book store and saw a book I recognized.  We have been watching for a German language version of a Dr. Seuss book, haven’t seen it.  But here was a German language copy of The Hungry Caterpillar.  So I went in and bought it.  And the guy spoke to me in English!

Working with him, we discovered that if I walked about a block and then rode a different train for two stops I would be right in a little cluster of laundries.  Success!  The first one was a full-service and not open on Saturdays.  But a nice lady saw me studying my map and directed me to the coin-op place just half a block further on.

Then a nice young man showed me how to work the coin-op system.  (They had a central control panel to put in your money.  There you would select which machines you wanted to use.  And then you go to that machine and push the buttons for temperature, etc.)  I got the laundry done!  And it turned out that I was only 4 U-train stops from the place I started.  So I made it home in quick time.

The rest of the day has been pretty quiet.  I did go back downtown as a test of our transport plan for the marathon tomorrow morning.  They were doing the children’s race when we got downtown.   And I had a Pralines and Cream ice cream cone from a Hagen Das store near the Brandenburg Gate.

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Today’s German word is “Ausgang”.  In the public transportation facilities it is usually a sign colored yellow.  Ausgang is the exit.  In the hotel and other buildings it is frequently a green/white sign with a man running toward the door or down the stairs, or whatever thing is necessary to get out.

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