Charlotte Is Becoming Real

Hotel Belmondo

Our hotel was the Hotel Belmondo, not too far from the Berlin Zoo. When we arrived, there were several girls from the Alzner forums who had come to participate in all the fun. After parking our car, we returned to the hotel and proceeded to check-in.

Check-in was a little wonky. We each had separate rooms, but for some reason, only the keys to my room were available. PinkCloud's keys were mysteriously missing. The concierge gave PinkCloud a card with her number, saying that someone upstairs should be able to let her into the room until her keys showed back up.

We all went up to my room and started looking around for clues as to how we could get into PinkCloud's room. It was a really small room, so it didn't take long to see there was nothing for us to find there. We went back down the hall and started trying my keys in her door, but that didn't work. We knocked on the door and started looking around for a moment or two before someone from the hotel came by. We asked her if she could let us into the room, and she spent a few minutes trying all the keys that she had in the door, but none of them worked. She went off downstairs to see if she couldn't find a working key, so we all stood in front of the door wondering 'What next?' We tried the handle one more time and it finally opened...

Verbitzky

Inside the room was a man that the Alzner girls immediately recognized as Verbitzky from their previous games. He was fairly upset that we had entered the room, as it was the room of Ivan Krotzler whom Verbitzky was supposed to meet there for "a very personal arrangement". Except that Krotzler wasn't there when he arrived and a bunch of giggling girls showed up instead. We tried to convince him that this was PinkCloud's room, but he wasn't having any of that. He wanted to know who we were and how we came to be in Krotzler's room. We tried to explain about P. Martin and the travel arrangements, but he seemed fairly skeptical, although it did seem that he knew who P. Martin was. Verbitzky said that he would go down to reception and straighten it out, but in the meantime, we had to leave the room. He asked us for our contact information, and couldn't believe that we didn't know our own phone number. We ended up giving him the welcome note with the Kyte website address, thinking he'd give it back to us after he copied down the information, but he never did. Verbitzky stalked off downstairs to talk to reception, and as soon as he was out of sight, we all went back into the room and started ransacking it.

Room 312

Ivan's room had a lot of stuff in it for us to find. There was an old-fashioned typewriter on the desk that we left alone, probably because it was too big for us to sneakily cart away. There was a key on the desk that didn't appear to go to anything in the room, and the more we looked at it, appeared to be some sort of locker key. There were also several pieces of paper, including receipts from the express mailings of the original tape recorders and a note addressed to P. Martin. At the head of the bed, a picture of Nepomuk was taped to the wall. There was also a Cure CD (Wish) lying on the bed as well. As we weren't sure how long Verbitzky was going to be downstairs, we quickly grabbed what we could/wouldn't be missed and ran out of the room.

We went downstairs to the Lounge so that we could connect to the wireless internet. As we were talking about everything in the room, we realized that we had left a few items in the room - namely the Cure CD and the Nepomuk picture. A couple of the German girls went back up to the room, and came down with the cd, the picture, and code that was hidden behind the Nepomuk picture.

The Key and the Code

At first glance, it looked like maybe the code was some simple alpha-numeric substitution. After converting all the letters to numbers, it was pretty clear that was not the right way to go. I wondered for a minute if it might be a simple substitution, but that didn't seem right either.

The only other thing we had that we didn't know what to do with was a key. Since it obviously wasn't a hotel key, we decided it was probably a locker key for the nearby train station. We set off to the train station and quickly found the locker which our key went to. Inside was a manuscript of Nine or The Blue Cat by Anna Glass. The manuscript was basically the same story that Anna tells in Therapy about the daughter of the king and queen who becomes sick.

Most importantly, there were 12 pages to the manuscript, which corresponded nicely to the first column of numbers on the code page. That meant the code page was a Beale code and the columns stood for Page - Line - Word - Letter. After a minor setback where we looked up a couple of wrong letters, we eventually decoded it to read "Suche mich nicht ich werde dich finden sonntagabend zwanzig uhr zweiunddreißig halte dich bereit" which roughly translates to "Don't look for me. I will find you Sunday evening around 20:32 o'clock. Stay ready!" So now we knew when things would be happening on Sunday.

P. Martin and the Sun Bears

After we solved the code, we went off in search of food and started wondering about the other message we had found in Ivan Krotzler's room. It was a note addressed to P. Martin and seemed to describe a mission that was too take place in San Diego. § Interesting that the handwriting was the same as the on the Knowing puzzle. Who would be threatening Ivan and leaving messages for P. Martin (in Ivan's room no less!)?

Before we had gone out to the locker and food, we had passed on the note instructions to the #therapy chat looking for people to go to the San Diego Zoo. Because of the time difference, it was really early in California, so we weren't sure who would be able to go. PinkCloud emailed her husband asking him to visit the zoo, and celina was also considering it. Because it didn't seem like they should have to pay to do this mission, we contacted Daniel, our lovely travel agent from Thatch and Sons, to see if he could get a discount. As it turned out, Daniel could not get one, but did inform almost everyone that there was some sort of infection at the Sun Bear exhibit and that no one should go there. I say almost everyone because Mr. PinkCloud didn't get the message and went anyway. Despite the infection and the fact that he found nothing significant at the Sun Bear Forest, he still had a good time with Baby PinkCloud. Luckily, the infection is easily gotten rid of with just a bath, so there was no permanent damage done to Mr. or Baby PinkCloud.

Happy Hour and Döner

While everyone was scrambling to find people to do the San Diego mission, those of us in Germany were relaxing in the lounge and drinking happy hour beers. We even talked to other tourists who came into the lounge, including a French-Canadian and an American who were in Berlin on holiday before they went to Bremerhaven to work on a cruise ship. Since we knew that Sebastian Fitzek was on a cruise himself, we thought this was a hilarious coincidence, and PinkCloud kept grilling the poor guys on what they knew about people going missing from cruise ships. She did end up buying them a drink to make up the interrogation.

After Happy Hour was over, we needed food. It was decided that we should experience döner and we set off in search of some. We found a place that served chicken döner right around the corner, but decided to look around a little longer for any other döner places. After walking around the block, we didn't find anything, so it was back to the first place. Unfortunately, they didn't serve beer there, so we had to walk down to the supermarket to buy some. Then it was back to the döner place a third time where we finally were able to eat. I thought it was really good. The spices that were on the chicken were different and gave it a really wonderful flavor. I was really glad that is where we ended up eating that night.

After döner, it was back to the hotel where PinkCloud and I decided to go to bed. It had been a very long day for the both of us and we were exhausted. As I was getting ready for bed I watched the end of Chain Reaction with Keanu Reeves that had been dubbed in German. I had never seen the movie before so I really didn't have a clue what was going on, but it looked stupidly funny. I fell asleep as soon as I turned out the lights. Woke up once during the middle of the night, but it was dark so I figured it was too early to get up. Finally ended up getting out of bed around 8:30am or so.

Lazy Morning

Sunday morning consisted of PinkCloud and I eating breakfast at the hotel and then sitting in the lobby talking with anyone who was awake in chat. It was then that we found out about the viral infection at the zoo and that nothing happened there. Which confused us because we were certain that whatever was supposed to happen at the zoo would give us information about what was happening later on that evening.

Around noon, we set off to Alexanderplatz to meet up with PinkCloud's friend who was living in Berlin. We went to a lovely little cafe and had some pizza before setting off to the Fernsehturm Berlin (Berlin TV Tower). After we bought our tickets, we found there was a 50 minute wait to get to the top, so we bought some coffee from Starbucks and PinkCloud and her friend talked while I went around snapping photographs.

The view from the tower is pretty impressive. It was a nice little touristy break that we could take without getting all worn out for the event later that night. We had just enough time to take in the sights all the way around before we had to head back to the hotel and get ready.

Go for Adventure

When we got back to the hotel, we heard that Thatch and Sons had updated to remind us that we needed flashlights, sturdy shoes and waterproof clothes. What kind of mission were they sending us out on? We gathered our supplies and reconvened in the lobby to see if any other information came through. I decided I was going to need some food before we headed out (since I had no idea how long we would be doing whatever it was we had to do) so I ran around the corner to get a döner and some drinks. By the time I got back, we had heard that Julia was wanting to meet us at the Zedlitzberg bus stop on Krampnitzer Straße in Potsdam (near Sacrow). So we gathered up all of our gear and headed out toward the unknown.

Of course, getting to the unknown was a bit of adventure in itself. Once again, we had severe GPS issues. We thought we had it programmed for Potsdam, but we actually had it set to our hotel and ended up going in circles until we reprogrammed it. We hoped Julia wouldn't be waiting too long at the bus stop since we were becoming exceedingly late.

The Forest

The sun was setting as we drove out to the middle of nowhere, so by the time we arrived at the bus stop, it was dark. We actually passed the bus stop at first, since we didn't have a street number, we randomly put one in for the GPS and weren't sure where on the road it was taking us. Luckily we missed it by just one stop, so we didn't have to backtrack too far.

At the bus stop, we noticed a roadside memorial to a Sandra Lucas, which someone knew was a character in an upcoming novel by Sebastian Fitzek. Inside the flowers was a map with GPS coordinates on the back which was supposed to take us to a location on the Sacrower See.

This is where we ran into a bit of trouble. We weren't really sure where we were, and the GPS wasn't taking any of the addresses we were putting into it in order to get to this new location. We had a map we were trying to look things up on, but that didn't work so well. Reading back through the Kyte chat, it seems that people in chat figured out we needed to head through the forest and that the dirt road we were parked on would take us there, but due to the way the chat appeared on our phone, and the fact that the phone kept getting passed around, that information never clicked with us. I also am not sure that the road was actually labeled Im Koenigswald. I remember seeing a little sign with a bird on it, but I don't think dirt roads through forests merit actual street signs.

Of course, none of us were too keen on driving through the forest to begin with. If it wasn't for the fact that a mysterious girl came out of the woods to wait at the bus stop told us that we would have to drive through the woods because the main roads would be closed, I'm not sure that we would have no matter what was said in chat. The girl, who was not Julia, said that her father was a forest ranger and that there was some sort of hunting going on that would end up closing the main roads to where we wanted to go. The only way would be through the forest. She was speaking German so I didn't understand, but we were under the impression that she said stay to the left as we drove through the woods, so that is what we did.

The Crossroads

Driving through the forest was fairly spooky. It was a dirt road, so we had to take it slow and you couldn't see very far ahead of you the way the road twisted and turned. Things were going fine though until we reached a crossroads - with three different directions to go. Because someone said that the girl at the bus stop said to keep to the left, thats the direction we went in. This is generally seen as a very bad move. The road became even worse than it had been, with huge ruts and dips, and we started coming to more crossroads that we could take. At this point, we're fairly certain we are not where we are supposed to be and start trying to find out way back to a main road. As we finally get back out to the road that we originally came down to find the bus stop, we got a call from Daniel, our travel agent. He informed us that going through the forest was the correct way to go, but that we should stick to the "main" forest road. That's helpful. You try figuring out which one of three dirt roads in the middle of the forest at night is the "main" road.

So it was back to where we started. We went back to the bus stop, back down the dirt road and drove to the crossroads. We knew that the sharp left direction was out, so that gave us a middle left and a right. The middle left road looked better to me, but it was decided that we should split up and investigate the right direction as well. We would leave one car at the crossroads and the lead car would drive off a little way to explore. Yes, none of us has ever seen a horror movie before. We didn't get very far before the right path sort of dead ended. It didn't stop us from getting out and investigating, but it seemed pretty obvious this was not where we had to be. As we were getting back into our car, we decided to play a little prank on everyone who seemed to think we were going to get eaten by dingoes as we split up. Apparently we screamed so loudly that we were heard by the PMs who became slightly concerned for our well being.

An Arrow in the Road

So it was back to the crossroads again, but this time we knew what direction we had to go in. And so we travelled down the road, keeping to the "main" forest road whenever we encountered any more crossroads. Eventually, we came to a place where there were some logs in the road, forming an arrow pointing to the right. Since the right path wasn't the main road, I guess we needed that pointed out for us. I and Janine got out to move the big piece of wood out of the way so we could drive down the side path, when a guy came out of the woods. We both screamed and bolted back to the car when I decided that maybe we should speak to him. Of course, I was a poor choice since I couldn't speak German. Eventually, someone else in the car started talking to him and we learned he was a biology student taking pictures of wild boar that were in the area. Because they were easily startled by cars, we couldn't drive down the road we were pointed to, but we could walk down there if we wanted. Great, now we have to walk through the spooky forest.

We pulled our cars off to the side of the road, in case any other idiots came driving through the forest at night, and headed down the path. It was very dark and cold enough that you could see your breath. We had 4 flashlights for 7 girls so that didn't alleviate the spooky factor at all. At least it wasn't raining. It probably took us about 5 minutes to walk down the path before we started seeing lights in the distance. The path dead-ended at a gate that was unlocked. We figured this is where we had to go, and so we opened the gate.

The Cottage

There was enough ambient light in the area that we could see there was a decent sized lake ahead of us, so naturally we headed straight towards it, despite the fact that there were cabins that were begging to be explored. After seeing there was nothing for us in the boat, and no obvious place to take the boat, we went back up to one of the cabins where we could see a light through the window.

The light was actually a tv set that was hooked up to a camcorder. As we looked through the windows, we could see a door that had letters spelling "Welcome friends" in German with a small stuffed dog sitting in front of it. One small problem: the door to the cabin was locked. So we spent the next 5-10 minutes looking for a key. It wasn't in the flower pot, or in a small ashtray behind a table. It wasn't down at the boat, or in a little storage shed around the back. It also wasn't the extra key that was on my hotel key ring. Eventually we found it hanging on a clothesline around the back of the house.

Entering the house, the first thing we did was visit the small bedroom with the "Welcome Friends" sign. It was Josie's room from the book, right down to the Bert and Ernie picture on the wall. There were stuffed animals on the beds and children's books in the bedside table drawers. We found a tape recorder in the closet, but sadly no tape inside.

We then went into the living room, where the tv and camcorder were. The camcorder had a note that said "Play Me" and so we all sat down to watch what was recorded.

Viktor Larenz's Message

As the tape began to play, we saw a man sit down and start talking. It was Ivan Krotzler a.k.a Viktor Larenz. He was speaking in German, but the gist of it was he had been very happy at the house and it had been the most beautiful time of his life, until recently. Anna Glass came back into his life and he couldn't get rid of her, even though the doctors thought he was passed that. He started taking about terrible things happening and then got up and started stroking a creepy blonde wig that was sitting behind him. He then said he had to end this and the tape ended.

As this tape is playing, someone notices a light in the lake where there wasn't one before, and it seemed to be getting nearer and nearer. Because Ivan/Viktor was taking such a long time to speak, we figured that something was coming across the lake to get us. So we were getting more and more nervous as the tape played. Eventually the light stopped coming closer, but we knew we were going to have to go back down to the lake to investigate what it was.

The Bloody Bathroom

Before we could do that though, there was at least one more room we had to check out: the bathroom. Just like in the book, it was splattered with blood. I'm glad we waited until the end to visit there, because it was pretty unsettling. I'm also glad I had read the book because I'm not sure what I would have thought had happened there had I not already known.

The Lake

With the cabin fully explored, it was time to hit the lake. We could see a light from another boat towards the middle, so the seven of us hopped into the rowboat, very carefully as so not to tip over, and I started rowing us out towards the light. As I was rowing, we started hearing voices on shore. It was Verbitzky telling us that we needed to find Viktor since he was suicidal. Great, because all we need is some suicidal delusional psychiatrist knocking us out of our boat as we tried to save him. Oddly, as phobic as I am about drowning, all I could think of was what would happen if our electronics went in the drink. I was really hoping we wouldn't tip over because I like my camera and people back at home would really be pissed if the video got destroyed.

As we reached the light, we could see it was attached to another small boat. Somehow we managed to get our boat close enough that Katerina was able to carefully hop aboard. There wasn't much room on the boat as there was a big lump covered up in what looked like a tarp. As she started poking it, up jumps Viktor, startling all of us into screaming.

Viktor started screaming at us in German. I guess he wasn't in any mood to be rescued. Eventually we got him calmed down and Verbitzky started shouting that we had to bring Viktor ashore. First though, we needed to remove him from the rock that he was attached to, so that if he did go overboard, he wouldn't sink straight to the bottom. Then I started rowing us back to shore. Viktor came out of his suicidal state long enough to help with the rowing, because otherwise it might have taken all night to get back to shore.

Once we reached the dock, we all carefully got out of the boats. It was then that we noticed Verbitzky had a friend with him: Sebastian Fitzek! He had come with Doctor Verbitzky in order to take Viktor back to the hospital so that Viktor could get the medication that he needed. When all of us were safely on land, Verbitzky and Fiztek put Viktor in a car (that somehow was able to drive down the road we had to walk) and drove off to the hospital. Before they left, they said that they would call us when Viktor was safe and tell us where we could meet them to talk about what happened.

Back to the Cars

So we walked back down the forest path to the cars. Once there we started recharging the phone, which sadly had died right when we needed it. Of course, the reception was hideous, so the people at home probably wouldn't have seen anything anyway. We also talked a little bit about what happened when we got a text message from Daniel that gave us an address that we could put into our GPS and actually get to. Hooray!

The Final Dinner

Our directions took us back to Berlin to a bar/restaurant where we officially met Sebastian Fitzek, Thomas (Verbitzky), Patrick (Daniel), Steven (Viktor) and some of the other actors from the game. We were offered drinks and given nachos, chicken wings and fires to snack on while we chatted about the game. Sebastian thanked all of us for helping to save Viktor and informed us that a PM chat would be coming shortly so that we could ask any outstanding questions that we had.

Sadly, both Steven and Sebastian left fairly quickly after that. Sebastian had just gotten back from a cruise that day and was understandably tired. Thomas and Patrick stayed and chatted with us though. They politely declined to answer most questions that were being passed around about the game, because that's what PM chats are for. They did however agree to tell us a bit about the busted San Diego mission.

It turns out we weren't supposed to find that note in Berlin - which makes me wonder why it was in the room to begin with. Did Verbitzky forget to take it with him when he left? Anyway, the note was originally left in San Diego at the location from the return addresses of the packages. Celina and PinkCloud checked out the location, but apparently missed a note addressed to P. Martin on the gate to the apartments. If they had found the note in the beginning in San Diego, then the mission at the San Diego Zoo would have taken place. They really didn't tell us what was going to be in the Zoo, other than it was just going to be an appointment with someone.

Last call at the bar finally came and we all left the bar amidst hugs and handshakes and laughter. PinkCloud and I dropped Katerina off near our hotel, and then drove Kajarinin back to their apartment so they wouldn't have to wait for the bus. Then it was back to the hotel where, because the Lounge was closed, we had to wait in our rooms until 6am when we would head to the airport. I spent the time watching BBC News and writing a shitload of postcards.

The trip back to the States was fairly uneventful. I tried to sleep as much as I could, and I must have slept enough since I wasn't tired on the drive back home. It was raining though in New York, so that made the drive rather annoying. It also added over an hour to my drive, so I was only just north of Scranton when the ARG Netcast started broadcasting. However, I had called jamesi as I was eating in Tannersville and he called me back, so I spent about 40 minutes babbling about what went down in Germany. Apparently I missed jamesi making some really amazing faces on the live video stream. Wish I could have seen that.

Questions

Now that the game is over, it seems like we have even more questions than answers. I'm going to try to re-cap the story as I see it now, and then ask questions about things that I still am unsure of. There are probably going to be spoilers for the book Therapy, so if you still haven't read it yet, you might want to turn away.

This game is basically a sequel to the book Therapy. Somehow Viktor Larenz recovered enough that he was able to be let out of the hospital, and started a new life in San Diego under the name of Ivan Krotzler, where he took up his psychiatric practice again.

At some point, Viktor's illness came back and he started seeing Anna Glass again. Except this time there seems to be physical proof of Anna's existence. The voices on the tape were clearly male and female and unrecognizable by Penny. The sessions with Anna started in January and continued every two weeks, so Viktor's illness had been progressing for some time.

The day after the last posted session with Anna, Viktor's practice was robbed. If the missing patient data was the tapes that were sent out, then it seems that P. Martin is the person that was behind it. Was it in an effort to get Viktor the help that he wasn't getting? Besides the robbery, P. Martin seems to be rather sympathetic towards Viktor and seemed to have gone out of his way in order that Viktor be saved.

However, Viktor was actually threatened from a different outside source. Someone discovered who he really was and sent him Isabell's phone number encoded with the Cure video clips. It seems that Viktor was able to decode the phone number and find out that Isabell was living in NYC. Interestingly, the handwriting on Knowing is the same as the handwriting on the San Diego letter addressed to P. Martin, so they are not the same person. But it makes you wonder what kind of information Knowing was going to give P. Martin at the Zoo.

Viktor seems to have been under a great deal of stress. He was planning on attending a conference, seeing Anna Glass, having his practice robbed, receiving threatening emails, travelling to MPU and meeting with Dr. Verbitzky. It seems that he knew he was losing it when he wrote the note about having to "stop this". It's probably why he buried one of Anna's tapes in San Diego in an effort to try to bury Anna Glass. It obviously didn't take because he disappeared right afterwards.

That's when we entered the story and met Penny and Jimmy. Poor Penny ended up having a nervous breakdown after seeing what Viktor did to his dog. Then Jimmy had to provide us with information, like the notebook page, while Penny recovered. It was around this time that we all received postcards from Germany from Anna.

Julia came next. She was friend's with Clare, who is Isabell's daughter. If Isabell is really Viktor's wife, than that would make Clare Josie. The one thing that Viktor did not want to do is hurt Josie again. However, I'm not sure the same thing could be said of Isabell, so if Viktor knew where she was, he might have gone to hurt her. Julia reports that she found Isabell in a non-conscious state but it's impossible to say who caused it. Luckily, Clare was in Albany in mental facility in Albany so Viktor was unable to hurt her.

But Viktor must have known where Clare was, because she gets both a postcard and a stained dress in the mail. Then Clare somehow escapes from the hospital, travels to NYC, hides the dress, sends a note to Julia with hidden GPS coordinates, and heads back off to where it all begin. If it wasn't for Jimmy the IT guy finding the cache, we wouldn't known Clare was involved at all since we didn't see in Berlin. Unless that creepy wig was her.

This is where P. Martin comes back into the picture and leaves us a message in NYC and gives PinkCloud and I a trip to Berlin to stop Viktor. We found Viktor's hotel room where Dr. Verbitzky was waiting for him. Viktor must have known he was in serious trouble if he arranged a meeting with Verbitzky, but why didn't he wait for him? And why did Verbitzky seemingly know the name P. Martin?

Viktor obviously wanted someone to save him. He had to have been the one to write out the Beale code from the Anna Glass manuscript (typed on his typewriter) telling us not to look for him and he would find us and to be ready at 20:32. The phrasing did match what P. Martin had said on a previous occasion, but if Viktor was P. Martin, it would mean his personality had fractured almost completely if he was able to rob himself, send out tapes, and arrange everything in NYC for the Berlin trip prior to Viktor leaving the states.

We managed to stop Viktor from killing himself, but is that all we managed to do? Were we able to save Clare/Josie? Were we able to do what P. Martin wished of us? And how much of this was real versus our being played by Viktor's diseased mind?

I think that most of the questions revolve around who was real and who was just a product of Viktor's illness. If everyone was just Viktor, it would show just how brilliant and how sick he really was as he played all of us in an effort to save himself. However, if some of the people are real, then that makes parts of the story completely different.

Ivan Krotzler / Victor Larenz - Completely real and capable of scaring 7 girls in a rowboat.
Verbitzky - Completely real despite the fact he's not at all forthcoming with information.
Man on tape - Unknown, but it's not Viktor's voice. Metawise, it is Sebastian Fitzek.
Woman on tape / Anna Glass - Should be imaginary, but that is a very real female voice. And those are very real postcards from Germany.
Penny - Unknown, just words in emails. We only have Jimmy's words that she is real.
Jimmy the IT Guy - Unknown, but has to have been in NYC after Easter to pick up the Central Park Cache.
Julia Schwarz - Unknown. We have a Facebook picture, but no face-to-face meeting since we couldn't make it at Easter.
Clare - Unknown, we just have the letters that Julia provided and that Jimmy photographed.
Isabell - Probably real as it is a female voice on the answering machine.
Officer Martinez - Probably real as the voice doesn't sound like Viktor's. This lends credence to the idea that Isabell is also real.
P. Martin - Unknown, as we never met them in real life. However, they are capable of sending out packages from San Diego, recording voice altered messages, leaving information at NYC restaurants and arranging trips to Berlin.
"Knowing" - Unknown, but able to leave notes for P. Martin at their return address and have access to Isabell's number. Their handwriting is significantly different from P. Martin's.

Hopefully all of this will become clear after the PM chat in 2.5 hours. I'm very curious to know if I have possibly become as delusional as Viktor if Anna wasn't real, yet I can see evidence of her existence when I look at my postcard or listen to the tapes. And if I am that delusional, maybe I really didn't go to Berlin after all.