AAAARRRGGGGGG! (and eek!)

Okay, now that the crib tour is finished I have to share what just happened to me. I should preface this with the note that I find Berlin to be incredibly safe and this is the first time I've really had any frightening occurances.

In seven days school will begin. I decided that today I would "officially" go back to work. This year (as, it seems, every year) I'm trying to achieve better balance in my work and personal life, and have decided my working hours will be 7:00 to 4:30. In order to start that I arrived at school at 8 with certain goals in mind. The day was quite ordinary until I got on the S-bahn to head home.

I climbed on the S-bahn with a single thought, 'I am starving and so glad I have a yogurt in my bag.' Unfortunately, I didn't see any seats available. I'm not usre if you've tried to carry two bags full of education resources, a purse, and eat a cup of yogurt, but I've ruined enough shirts (himbeeren yogurt...) to know that I needed to sit down. Then, across the 2 cars I saw a person sitting alone in a booth. Huzzah! Yogurt time, I thought! I made my way over to the booth to see a female a few years older than I who was quite unkempt. Still, I'm trying not to be all judgie, so I sat down. She looked sleepy anyway.

I opened my yogurt and relished in curing my headache while listening to my iPod and being kicked slightly by this person across the booth. She looked exhausted. In fact, she reminded me of being in Wyatt's class with Kelly after we pulled an allnighter working on a paper or two. Her head would start to fall and then she would wake with a start and glare at me. After the first time that happened, I kept my eyes averted. She seemed to be drifting to sleep again, but she was all twitchy and she wrapped her arms around the plastic bag she was carrying and rested her head on it.

A few second later, she jerked awake again and knocked her entire bag over onto the floor (interestingly, exactly where my legs had been before my lighting fast reflexes kicked in.) She started grumbling at me in German in an accusatory way as she picked up the trash from the floor. I said, "I have no German" and looked helplessly at the women sitting in the booth across the way. They shrugged and the sleepy woman kept griping at me so I shrugged and got up and walked away. I stood in a doorway (since the yogurt was finished and there were few seats to be had) and tried to listen to Queen (they make me feel powerful) until I heard her again. She had gotten up out of her seat and followed me! She said something (stupid language barrier) and then shoved me against the door. I have a long fuse, and frankly at this point figured she was high or schizo, and so I walked to another part of the car with a booth filled with 3 people and sat. She stood in the nearest doorway staring at me. Freaky.

At this point I didn't know what to do and I had forgotten my cellphone. I decided I was probably paranoid and she wouldn't follow me off the train. I was wrong.

I got off the train at Anhalter Bahnhof and took a deep breath when I didn't see her get off. I started walking toward the nearest exit (which wasn't mine) and was halfway up the stairs when I saw her behind me. I did a quick U-turn back into the station (lots of people in there) and yelled "help me" to the nearest people. They didn't even look up. I figured I knew the station better than she did and wasn't high, so I'd just outpace her along the platform and then get away with the 4 different exits at Anhalter Bahnhof. If nothing else, I'd run to the police station near my house. She walked about 30 paces behind me along the platform yelling in German. I booked it up the escalator and through the open area of the station to the exit closest to my bike. I didn't look behind me (in adventure movies, looking behind you never turns out well.) I unlocked my bike and took off. While passing by another s-bahn exit I saw her come up the stairs and heard her yell and start chasing me down Anhalterstr. At this point, there was really no hope for her. I can be damn speedy on my Oma bike, afterall. Still, my heart was pounding and the yogurt felt like it was curdling so I locked my bike and bolted into my apartment building, hopped the elevator and am holed up in my apartment now. All because I wanted to sit to eat my yogurt...