everything that could have gone wrong probably did, but i did what i could.

i met at the alexanderplatz...a few minutes late, but they were still giving out ribbons. i got them, listened to the rules, and started running. however, i don't know berlin all that well, so i got pretty lost trying to evade the chasers while finding the s-bahn or the u-bahn. i didn't get hit on the way to the station, but i lost time.

then, i lost more time, because i realised that i had no idea what transit stop would take me to checkpoint 1. there wasn't a stop that just said "holocaust museum." i finally figured out that it was supposed to be off of brandenberger tor...but, since i wasn't carrying a subway map (mistake!), it took me forever to find out where i was supposed to go.

did i mention i was alone? i had lost my friends evading the first chaser.

finally i got to brandenburger tor, and got lost again. streets were blocked off for the new year's festivities. i could see a few of the streets on the map, but not all of them, and i got turned around. to add insult to injury, i looked at my arm--and my yellow ribbon was gone. i didn't get caught, but it had snapped off somewhere along the way. i wanted to find the first checkpoint just to say i had, but 8:45 finally rolled around--which is when the first checkpoint closed.

there was only one thing i could do--become a chaser. i tied the orange ribbon on, and decided to minimize my chances of spending any more time lost by going out toward c-base. i took the u-bahn down to the s-bahn to jannowitzbrucke,