A Journey of Starting to Head Home

Our last full day in Germany began a little early as we both were feeling the pressure of the tasks before us today.  First thing when she woke up Mom told me she had decided would NOT be going out to Studentendorf, the housing area where she lived her Junior year of college.  She felt the predicted heat (95 degrees) of the day would be too much for us to be out in.  She was concerned about the length of time required to be in an U-bahn underground coupled with the diminished circulating air down there and wearing masks while on public transportation as reasons she felt we shouldn’t go. 

I told her I heard her and if that’s how she truly felt, I’d respect that, but I’d be sad to be right here with her and not go.  I Google Mapped it and found we could pick up a tram right in front of the hotel, take it a few stops, transfer to an S-bahn and stay above ground, transfer to a bus that would drop us right there.  She thought about it while she was in the shower and said she had changed her mind, that if we could leave shortly after checking in for our flight tomorrow (needing to stay at the hotel for Wi-Fi, don’t ya know), and get back before the real heat of the day, that’d be ok.  Before we showered we both did 15 min rapid result self-Covid tests, which both came back negative.  Yay!  We did final packing and took our luggage downstairs to leave at the front desk while we were gone.

The trip took less than an hour to get there.  As we got close she started to recognize the area and some of the buildings.  As we passed Studentendorf she pointed to it, saying “There it is!”  Hurrah!  We’d found it!   We got off the bus, crossed the street and she was impressed that there was an Aldi on the corner for the students, saying there had been no such nicety when she was a student here.  We walked a little farther and found a path into the complex.  We saw a map that showed the building #’s and where the common areas are and listed where to find the laundry, dry cleaners, optician, doctor and pharmacy are.  She was very impressed that they have all that now.  I learned on this trip that she was among the first class admitted after the Freie Universität (Free University, free meaning it was in the West, not behind the Wall in the East).

She said she thought her building was #21, so we checked the map, followed the path and found it!  I took a requisite picture of her pointing to her room.  We wandered around the grounds and eventually found our way out and past the Aldi and to the bus stop.  We counted stops and got off the bus at the S-bahn stop, Mexikoplatz where we sat for a few mins. waiting for the S1 back.  We finally allowed ourselves to have some water from the bottles we brought with us, not daring earlier since we didn’t know when/where we’d be able to go potty.  That’s been a constant this whole trip and I certainly have not stayed as hydrated as I do at home simply because we never knew when we’d find a WC.

The S-bahn ride was about 30 mins back and then we transferred back to a tram that dropped us right in front of our hotel.  We claimed our bags and headed back to the tram stop and began our trip to the airport hotel.  The quickest, most simple route was through the Hauptbahnhof, unfortunately, after our confusing, overwhelming experience last week.  A tram dropped us off there and we easily found the FEX (Flughafen EXpress - the train that took us right to the airport, Flughafen).  The total train ride was 45 mins.  We ascended to street level and inquired about where the hotel was.  We were directed outside where we found it immediately next door to the front door of the airport.  Convenient!

Mom checked us in, we were given our room keys and when we got in the elevator and pushed 4, nothing happened.  I tried again, same non response, the # didn’t even light up.  Then I remembered the casinos in Vegas and having to swipe your room key to activate the elevator for security purposes. I did that and bang!  The elevator responded and took us to the 4th floor.  We found our room and soaked up the air conditioning.

After a few minutes of relaxing and realizing this was very nearly the end of our trip and the last major hurdle had been accomplished, I told her that I had read something on the Lufthansa website when we were checking in that had me a little concerned we needed to have a negative Covid test performed by an “approved” company prior to boarding a Lufthansa plane.  We knew that the USA was no longer requiring this of citizens returning from international travel, but the wording of what I saw today led me to believe that perhaps Lufthansa *was* requiring it.  We decided to head to the airport and ask.  We decided while we were there we would look for something for dinner.  We hadn’t had lunch yet.

Long story short, we do NOT have to have proof of a negative test prior to boarding tomorrow.  Phew!  We wandered around, looking for food options on the non-security side of the airport for dinner.  We decided on a place that sold sandwiches, salads and drinks that could be eaten there or taken away.  I suggested we’d be more comfortable back in the hotel room, which would lessen our exposure, too.  We chose a tomato, mozzarella & basil sandwich on a yummy looking hoagie roll-looking bun with lots of seeds on it, a sesame bagel with turkey and alfalfa sprouts and a salad with tomato, cucumber, bell peppers and corn on a bed of lettuce.  The clerk offered us a few different packages of dressing for the salad, saying that she thinks the Yogurt one is good, so we went with her recommendation.  We got some wooden utensils and headed out.

Back in the room we spread our feast out on the desk between us, cut the sandwiches in half, dressed the salad and complimented ourselves on yummy choices.  We unpacked and repacked and each sat down to blog with German soccer on the TV in the background.  Going to bed tonight will be early.  She says 8 pm, I’m thinking maybe 9 pm but I doubt I’ll fall asleep before 10.  Up at 6 am and out of the room by 6:30 is the goal.  We plan to find 

A Journey With a Full Night’s Sleep, Finally

Wow!  It’s amazing how wonderful I feel after a full 8 hours sleep.  I don’t honestly remember how long it’s been since that’s happened.  With the wear and tear of the last few days my body really needed the rest and time to repair.

We took our time getting ourselves together this AM.  I WhatsApp’d with Kenji as he was getting ready to go to bed Sat. night/Sun. AM here.  We finally left the room about 9:30 am slowly made our way to our frühstuck place.  I decided the müseli was too large for what I wanted today.  There was a smaller cup with what looked like yogurt and berries in it.  I inquired and was told it was milk rice.  Hmmm… ok. I’ll try that along with a French danish which turned out to almond paste inside.  Mom had a pasta salad with a yummy sauce/dressing. We both had lattes.

She wanted to find a gift she had seen last week for a friend so we went to the store and got there as the man was bringing items out to the sidewalk, setting up for his day.  Mom found the item she wanted and called me inside to see the books.  The whole store was full of books in English.  This appears to be an alternative bookstore as all the books were about support for feminism, LGBTQIA+ lifestyles as well as resistance against fascism and authoritarianism.  It was exciting and we spent a few mins perusing the titles.  I took some pictures as I know I do not have any space/weight allowance to bring any of them home with me.

We then inquired back at our hotel about the nearest Post Office to mail our item to Manfred that we had hoped to give him in person.  We followed the instructions and then got more detailed directions as we got close.  We found the store (think small 7-11) that also had a PO and DHL shop inside.  Our first package of a padded envelope believed would be the right size was too small.  That’s a package we opened had to pay for that didn’t get to use. We opened another larger package and addressed it, put our item inside and felt relief to have that task off our To Do list.

Returning to the room for a change of clothes was an indication of how much warmer it is today than it has been the last few days.  Today is a day of being slow and easy.  We went back to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church as I realized there was a picture I wanted from the pictorial history inside that I wanted. Then we hoped on an S-bahn as it’s the only form of public transportation we haven’t been on yet.  We’re looking forward to it’s above ground vs. the U-bahn that is like a subway, underground. At the Zoo stop we chose the S7 and rode it all the way to its end.  We passed through the city and into a forest, Grunewald, and into the city Potsdam.  The S7 stopped in Potsdam.  We got off and realized that the same train was the one that would be heading back in 6 mins.  So we reboarded and rode it back until a new stop where we changed S-bahns to another headed in a different direction so we could so parts of Berlin we hadn’t yet seen.  Our destination this time was a potato-centered restaurant I found online that says it has Reibekuchen (potato pancakes) on its menu.  After emerging from the station we found the Memorial to the 3 axis powers soldiers who lost their lives after WWII was over who risked their lives for the air lifts to drop supplies into West Berlin.  The Soviets were shooting at the pilots who flew over East Berlin airspace.  The Memorial is set in a lovely park.  We paused and admired the Memorial and paid our respects as we read the names.  We walked momentarily over to the Telgal Airport no longer in operation before walking back through the Memorial park and out towards our potato destination. If you know my Mom, you know she is a potato lover.  But, I must confess, this destination and pursuit of the potato pancake is all my doing this time.  We found the street and the restaurant.  We also found it was closed.  Permanently.  What???  My research online didn’t give any indication of that!  Drat and double drat!  This desire would not be fulfilled this trip.

We took the U-bahn to another U-bahn and got back to the hotel.  A bottle of cold water later and some more internet research, we decided to go back to the Biergarten wee visited last week and would order different items.  I was eager for more German food.  We walked there in short time and found the Biergarten side open serving beer and sausages in rolls, but the restaurant side was closed.  What???  This was just not my day to accomplish culinary desires ass my time in Berlin winds down!  Mom asked at the food counter if the restaurant was closed for the day or would open shortly at 6 pm.  It was closed for the day, we were told.  *sigh*. The woman behind the counter was very kind and recommended a nearby restaurant that serves German food and gave us directions.  We found it in a relatively short amount of time and it was open!  We were shown to a table on the sidewalk, which we had hoped for and were asked if we’d like menus in English.  That obvious?  Yes, please.

They actually had the same items on their menu that we had planned to order at the Biergarten restaurant. Hurrah!  Mom ordered goulash which came with rotkohl and potato dumplings.  I had boiled meatballs in a caper sauce.  While that may not *sound* appetizing, it really was better than it sounded!  It came with potatoes and a beet salad.  While the potatoes were nothing to write home about (or blog extensively about) when I dragged a forkful through the caper sauce, it was yummy!  The beet salad however, was less impressive, canned shoestring beets with a few grates of carrot and a minuscule amount of parsley sprinkled over.  Meh.  The Berliner Weisse was yummy and Mom said her lemonade with herbs was interesting.  The woman serving us was kind and patient with us and our questions.

We stopped for an Eis (ice cream) on the way back.  I was rather proud of myself that I ordered without Moms help and the man behind the counter didn’t reply to me in English!  I had a small single scoop of dark chocolate raspberry ice cream.  Oh my gosh!  I wish I had stopped here before!  This was one of the best bites of the trip!

We returned to the room to blog, and to practice packing/weighing our luggage.  Mom flew out here with KLM and her ticket included a checked bag.  I flew out on Lufthansa and we are returning on Lufthansa. To avoid checking a bag (an extra $85) our suitcases must weigh less than 8kg (17.5 lbs.).  I did that coming out, but have now made souvenir purchases. My suitcase weighs 19.5 lbs.  Oops!  But it’s not as much as Mom’s which is 22.5 lbs.  Yikes!  Some more jockeying and shifting of items will need to take place at the airport hotel tomorrow night.

Mom is researching how to get to the airport hotel where we’ll stay tomorrow night, as well as how to get to the Studentendorf, where she lived her Junior year of college here.

My journey today has been one of being nice to my feet, despite the 17,000 steps we did, of culinary disappointment and preparing to return home.

A Journey of Familiarity, History, Heights and Very Sore Feet

We were up early, and ate at our usual favorite place.  Mom had a new couscous item that included lentils. I had the Bröetchen, sautéed veggies and egg dish she had yesterday along with the müseli.  We both had lattes.  We hurried off to The Dome and asked at the door about the section with English translation and were shown a small balcony area at the back, slightly above the rest of the congregation.  We were greeted warmly and given audio guide type devices with headphones.  The translator’s English was perfect and I suspect she had a script she was reading from as most of what she said wasn’t delayed, as if she was listening to what the person said before she spoke.  The choral group from last night’s concert here provided the music and we heard a fair amount of the same Bach Mass that’s we heard last night.  The sermon was given by the minister of the traveling choir’s church in Zurich. The part where he talked about a Ukrainian woman asking him for help at his church in Switzerland moved me to tear up. We received communion.  We were given the choice of going up to the front and dipping our wafer in the communal cup or going to the side and having our wine on a small, separate cup.  We chose the latter.  We picked up our cups from a table next to the lay person who was pouring the wine.  Our wafer was inside the cup.  She poured white wine into the cup and we stepped aside, removed our masks, and consumed the wafer, drank the wine and put the cup in a basket before returning to our seats.  The service was familiar, with most of the verbiage being similar if not exact wording of what I’m accustomed to at home.

After the service Mom and I spoke with the translator and thanked her for her assistance and asked where she learned her impeccable English.  She was born and raised in New York and lives in Berlin because she met her husband who is a native German.  When we left The Dome we saw an Art Market on the other side of the Lustgarten (Loost-garten) and walked slowly enjoying paintings, sketches, jewelry, and all sorts of other handmade items.  We then continued walking down Unter De Linden towards the Brandenburg Gate, taking our time and looking in stores and finally seeing a cafe with outdoor seating to stop and have a sandwich and cold drink.  Mom chose a wrap filled with cucumbers, bell peppers, tomatoes and a few small pieces of chicken.  I had a “sandwich” that once again looked in the case to have more meat, tomato and cucumber in it than it actually did.  Perhaps I’ll learn before we leave…

We crossed the street and walked in the middle section of this very wind street.  We marveled at the long lines at the Dönner (gyro type sandwiches) stands.  I should’ve held out to eat at one of these.  That was the best sandwich I’ve had on this trip.  We saw the Russian Embassy and a memorial in the middle island section which included flowers, signs and pictures for the Ukrainians who have been killed in the war with Russia.  It was obviously placed across from the entrance to the Russian Embassy for full impact.

We found a bench in the shade to sit down and read about the Reichstag and its history in preparation for our 2:45 pm appointment time.  We decided to begin to walk towards the Reichstag and walked through the Brandenburg Gate and across the street and cut through the Tiergarten (teer-garten) and found a WC for a quick bio break before ascending the glass dome.  We presented ourselves about 10 mins before our reservation time and after checking our photo IDs and were allowed in early.  We were ushered into a room with a glass door in front of us and a glass door closed behind us.  There was a moment that we were enclosed before the glass doors in front of us opened.  We were instructed to get into an elevator and an attendant rode up with us and told us which direction to walk once off the elevator.  We picked up a brochure in English that turned out to be panorama pictures from 2 sides of the Reichstag and noted what the buildings visible beyond the Reichstag were.  We walked up a large ramp all the way to the top of the glass dome and saw amazing 360 degree views!  However, as we were warned, it was quite warm up there and we soon found ourselves descending to get out of the heat.  The dome being built of glass is symbolic of allowing the citizenry to watch their Legislators, transparency.  Germans can’t actually see into the chambers.  When we got to the bottom we circled the center of the dome and read a history of the Reichstag and German political history.  It was quite interesting.

We wound our way back the same route through the Brandenburg Gate and down the Unter De Linden to a spot in the courtyard that had a large piece of glass over a hole in the ground in front of Humboldt University that marked a spot where Hitler had ordered books to be burned. Approximately 20,000 books were burned in one night in 1933.

My feet were complaining greatly and I was walking slowly.  After any agonizing walk back to the U-bahn and back to our hotel, I was looking forward to an authentic German meal at our hotel’s restaurant.  Disappointment set in as we realized it was closed Sun. and Mon.  I remembered it was closed when we arrived last Mon., but didn’t realize it is also closed on Sundays.  After a short walk beyond the hotel to look further, we chose a vegetarian/Asian restaurant and ordered summer rolls that had noodles and fresh could’ve veggies wrapped in rice paper and an Udon bowl with veggies and flavorful broth.  They were delicious and we shared both items.  I had an Aperol Spritz and Mom had a shake with strawberry, mango and some spices in it.  She enjoyed it a lot!

We stopped in our little shop next door and bought a couple of ice cream bars and a Berliner Weisse. The ice cream bar I chose had a chocolate candy coating that was of the candy I am familiar with from my trip to the Olympics in Norway in 1994 and like very much!  I was sad I hadn’t seen it previously.

I hobbled back to the room and was a wet noodle until falling into bed at 11 pm.  Just shy of 18,000 steps today.

A Journey of Shopping and Music

Today is Shopping Day!  We went to KaDeWe anticipating spending the whole day browsing the 7 floors of department store goodness.  Instead… well, let me back up.

We slept in and weren’t in a hurry to get out of the room since we didn’t have any timed plans for the day. We went to our regular früstuck place.  We had lattes, I had müseli and an apple danish type sweet and Mom had a half of a Bröetchen with sautéed veggies and a sunny side up egg on it.  It was cold, but yummy.  Then we took the U-bahn further than we had yet and got off in the oldest U-bahn station in Berlin.  Rick Steves says to look around at the old time ads on the walls.  We did, I took pics and will post on Facebook when I get home. They were fun!

We emerged from under ground and bang!  There was KaDeWe smack in front of us!  It’s sometimes a crap shoot if we’ll come out on the right side or not.  The signs down below give directions for which street is which direction, but we don’t always know what street we want, but we do know what sight we want to see, so there’s that.  We guessed right this time!  The store is an imposing size being all one store and not a mixed use building.  We entered, eager with anticipation of what treasures awaited us.

We were immediately greeted with a Macy’s type 1st floor make-up section with high end jewelry behind it, I mean Rolex, Tiffany, Bulgari and the like as well as high end Chanel bags, Prada and similar brands. They all had stanchions ropes across the entry to their stores and I can only imagine you had to go through a financial application in order to enter.  Mom tried to take a picture of the front of Tiffany for Premilla and got scolded and told Nicht photographs! by the guard.  Yikes!  Okee dokee, sir.  I promise we’re not staking out the place.  We went up to the 1st floor (remember our 1st floor is their Ground Floor) and found Men’s wear.  The “Sale” rack had t-shirts for 70 Euro, after mark down!  Yikes!  Moving on… Up to the 2nd floor.  Women’s wear.  High end clothing.  Jimmy Choo shoes for $895.  Next!  Another floor of Woman’s wear, another floor of high end items.  There was nothing we could afford.  We were getting disappointed.  We moved to the 4th floor and it was Housewares. Nothing here we can buy cuz we can’t take it home, if we could afford it.  

The 5th floor was books, stationary, Mont Blanc pens and supposedly Souvenirs.  We wandered and wandered and couldn’t find any so we had to ask.  Well darned if this place doesn’t have all sorts of nooks and crannies behind walls we didn’t see.  Finally found souvenirs.  Yay for stuff we could afford.  All 3 shelves of it. What???  Seriously, very little to choose from.  We managed to find a couple of key chains, and some AmpleMann stuff (Google it, trust me, very cute).  Finally we headed to the 6th floor, Food!  Lots of individual food stalls offering everything from sandwiches to champagne (Veuve Cliquot, thankyouverymuch).  Tall tables were scattered to sit and enjoy your feast.  There were a couple of full on butchers, raw meat on display and all, as well as ice cream, chocolate (LOTS of different sellers of individual truffle size bites up to gourmet full bars.) We couldn’t decide on a stall to have lunch at when Mom suggested we look at the restaurant on the top (7th) floor.  It’s a cafeteria style place that was high end. We wandered through and it all looked so good!  We decided to stay here, share a Rinderrouladen (thin slices of beef with bacon and a pickle rolled inside, served with Rotkohl (German cooked red cabbage) and roasted potatoes.  I went to the salad bar and got a serving of cucumber salad.  We each chose a drink then we went to find a seat by the window for spectacular views of the city.  Well, we didn’t get right next to the window but with the large windows and windows on top, we had a fabulous lunch!

We went back to the 6th floor and I bought some chocolate, along with a small piece I could eat right away.  We asked about touristy items and were directed out to the street to the “I Love Berlin” type stores.  Off we went, found a few shops, browsed made some purchases then wondered how we’d spend the rest of the day, as we had intended to be at KaDeWe all day.  We decided to walk the couple of blocks to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.  This is a church that was heavily bombed during WWII, and all that remains now is the spire.  It’s one of the iconic sights in Berlin.  I encourage you to Google it.  The Germans decided not to demolish the spire, but to preserve it as a visible reminder of the destruction of war.  There are reminders everywhere in Berlin of the cost of war.  Lest We Forget is a typical phrase here.

We went into the Memorial portion of the church and viewed a photo display and explanation of what the church looked like before and after the war and the reasons for preserving it.  We went into the new church on the same grounds and sat and saw the amazingly beautiful stained glass that surrounds the congregation on all 8 sides.  It’s not like our stained glass in churches at home. No depictions of Christ or Disciples or the Virgin Mary. Pictures soon.  Mom saw a poster outside about Organ Vespers tonight at 6 pm.  We decided to attend and then hop Bus #100 and ricky tick over to The Dome for the 8 pm Choral Concert we learned about on our 1st day in Berlin.

We went outside and solemnly paid our respects at the Memorial to the 12 people killed in the terrorist attack at the Christmas Market just outside the church on December 19, 2016.  We did a little more wandering in and out of tourist shops and decided to sit down in a cafe and have a cool drink while we waited for the 6 pm Organ Vespers.  Mom had a bottled peach tea and I had a blood orange Orangina.

The Organ Vespers was magnificent!  So moving.  I saw Mom listening with her eyes closed most of the time.  The sound was hypnotic.  We quickly left and found the bus to go to The Dome.  We slid into our seats after a quick bio break (a 50 cent donation for the church) just as announcements introducing the choral group and instrumentalists from Zurich was starting.  They sang a Bach Contata and a Bach Mass. I thought it odd that they came all this way to sing a 45 min. concert.  Mom said she thinks they’ll be doing other things in town to keep busy.  She thought the choristers sounded “mushy” and that the acoustics were not designed for singing.  We enjoyed the music, nonetheless.

It was now 9 pm and we navigated the bus to the U-bahn in the fading light and got back to our hotel by 10 pm and fell into bed about 11 pm.  Tomorrow will be an early day as we need to get up, showered, frühstuck’d and *back* to The Dome for the 10 am service!

My journey today was one of disappointment with some retail therapy and music and more music to fill my soul.

A Journey of Anticipation

Today’s schedule changed after we returned to our room last night and found a message from Mom’s Berlin college friend Manfred.  She had been corresponding with him before she left home, but had no definitive response that he was going to be able to come to Berlin to see us, let alone any sort of definitive day/place/time to meet. We got a message on Thurs. night that came in Wed. night and we neglected to ask the front desk if we had any messages that night.   He had said to meet him on Thurs. at 3 pm at a specific spot.  We got the message after 8 pm on Thurs. night.  We called his hotel and were told his room didn’t have a phone and no, the front desk person couldn’t take a message because Manfred wouldn’t know to stop and ask.  We momentarily looked into how to get to his hotel, to see if we could find him Thurs. night.  We decided against it as we didn’t want to be traveling while it getting to be dusk and dark.

We decided to postpone our plans to start at the Nationale Deutsche Museum at 10 am and to go to his hotel and write a note ourselves and ask that it be slipped under his door.  After breakfast we did exactly that.  We had breakfast at has now become “our frühstuck spot”.  I had the yogurt müseli parfait and a slice of zucchini quiche, while Mom had the couscous again.  We both had lattes.  We walked to the U-barn and after we got off a the station closest to his hotel, I used my Google Maps app and was given walking directions.  We were at his hotel in less than 10 mins.  Mom wrote a note in German and we asked the front desk rep if he’d make sure it was slipped under his door.  We gave a 1 euro tip.  He said yes, and gave the tip back, saying it wasn’t necessary.  I should mention Manfred doesn’t have a cell phone.

We left and formatted a plan for the rest of the day.  We’d go to the museum then head over KaDeWe (more on that later) and perhaps have lunch there before heading back to the appointed meeting spot at 3 pm.  We arrived at the museum, paid our fee, stashed our backpacks and entered.  The exhibition was not at all what Mom had been expecting.  It was talking about “What is a citizen” and what the word has meant through the history of Germany and how it has been given to some and taken away from others.  While interesting, it was not what we had been anticipating.  Mom asked one of the employees and was told that indeed, the building we thought we’d be in is under renovation, that this is the supplemental exhibition.  Ah-so.  Okee dokee.  We finished on that floor and then went upstairs to see a photo exhibit of former Chancellor Angela Merkel.  It started in 1991 when she started her political career and went through 2021 when she stopped being Chancellor.  There were only 2 pictures from each year and they were all formatted the same.  One bust shot and one 3/4 shot.  These were each accompanied by a quote from her at the time, sometimes about her political life, some about what was going on in the country and some were simply about her life as herself at home not related to being Chancellor.  The photos were all in black and white.  It was quite interesting and a nice departure from the heavy museum stuff we did yesterday.  We also took a bit of time viewing the exhibition about Richard Wagner (Vog-ner) the composer.  Some of the exhibition focused on the fact that he had anti-Semitic views and was a favorite of Hitler’s.

When we decided we were museum’d out, we began a trek toward KaDeWe (short for Kaufhaus Des Westens, meaning Department Store of the West).  It’s 7 floors high and boasts one floor dedicated to food!  We took an U-bahn to the Hauptbahnhof with the intention of transferring to another U-bahn that stops near KaDeWe.  When we got to the Hauptbahnhof we couldn’t find the other U-bahn so we asked at the Visitor’s Center how best to get there.  We were given instructions about taking a bus.  We made our way out and to the bus stop.  I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that Berlin is a city where a LOT of people ride bikes.  There are dedicated bike paths in the street and on the sidewalk.  The bikes have the right of way in the bike path.  Woe be the pedestrian who doesn’t get out of their way.  Mom didn’t get out of the way fast enough today and almost, key word being almost, got taken out by a bike.  I hollered and she turned around and didn’t collide with him, thankfully.

At the bus stop the digital sign said the one we wanted would be there in 9 mins.  3 mins later it still said 9 mins.  Then it changed to 8 and said that for a few more mins.  This went on and what should’ve been 9 finally turned into Delayed. *sigh*  I suggested we abandon this plan and go to KaDeWe tomorrow, as we want to spend a majority of the day exploring it.  Let’s go find lunch near the place where we’re to meet Manfred, then we won’t have any transportation issues and we’ll be there on time.  Mom agreed to that.

After braving the Hauptbahnhof again to get the U-bahn, Mom stated she doesn’t want to go through there again if we can help it.  It’s so super crazy and confusing with U-bahns, S-bahns and regular trains all going through there and all of them using numbers for their tracks, it can be difficult to know where to go at times.  Ok, we’ll try not to change there from now on.

We found a Donner (gyro) type place for lunch and ordered a chicken Donner and a small fries.  Mom finished her couscous from breakfast and only had a couple of bites of the Donner and a couple of fries.  It was so yummy!  We then found a public toilet, paid our 50 cents each then were off to the appointed meeting spot, where we proceeded to wait for an hour, as we said we’d do.  Each older man who was alone drew our scrutiny.  Was it he?  Was there someone looking around like they were looking at us, trying to decide if we were the right people?  All of the answers came back No.  We were very sad.  We enjoyed the outdoor cello concert that was given by a woman who had her case open for donations while we waited and we dropped a donation in as we left.

Ok, now what?  I suggested we go to the Brandenburg Gate as we hadn’t been there yet, so off we went.  We spent a little bit of time approaching it and then just standing admiring it’s size and history.  Surrounding the plaza in front of the Gate are several Embassies, USA, France, Britain and Russia, the Axis Powers.  Mom had read that there is a Silent Room on one side under the arches and she wanted to find it, so we did.  We entered and were silent.  It was a simple room with basic plastic chairs, cloth ceiling to floor blinds and a non-descript weaving on the wall.  We sat a few mins. and left, walking under the Gate and out the other side.  There is a Memorial to the Murdered Jews a block away and we went there next.  We walked along the length of the US Embassy to get to the Memorial.  It is 1 square block in size and has 2,711 cement rectangles of various heights that allow for contemplative walking in amongst them.  The paths are straight but head down, some look like a roller coaster, up and down, allowing for a person to get completely lost in and among the maze.  It was a sobering time walking and thinking about the millions of Jews murdered in WWII.  How awful that we’ll never know how much better this world could be now if they had lived.

We sat at one end and spoke about our time there before moving on.  I mentioned a memorial I remember from when we were here 40 years ago, on a river bank, several white crosses stuck in the dirt to commemorate the people who had tried to escape East Berlin by swimming across the river and were shot.  Mom said she thinks we passed that the other day on our boat ride and it’s up by the Reichstag (Capitol building).  As we got near we found some white crosses with pictures of people who were killed trying to escape.  We spent some time there reading their stories.  Walking across the street we saw some folks queueing to get into the Reichstag.  Mom thought it odd as it was now 5:30 pm.  We walked up and found they were indeed still letting people in.  Our reservation is for Sunday afternoon.  We inquired and were told our Driver’s Licenses would be sufficient photo proof and they don’t require our passports to enter.  Yay!  We also saw the Memorial to 96 Legislators who opposed Hitler and they subsequently killed.  We never found the exact spot of the white crosses on the rover bank that matches the picture in my head, but this area has been developed extensively since 1981.  I’m sure it’s been updated and moved.

We walked and walked and walked after that and I said I was really quite done and tired, could we go back to the room now?  Mom agreed and asked where we should stop for dinner.  Honestly, I’m still full from lunch, I told her.  She was happy not to eat more, so we went right back to the hotel, stopping only at our local Berliner Weisse dealer’s establishment.  I perused their chip section, looking for something unusual and interesting.  Finding nothing unusual, I settled for a bag of “Student Chow” which was just mixed nuts.  We found 2 different flavors of Berliner Weisse tonight!  We got 1 of each.

Back in the room we relaxed, watched some news in English and tiring of that found a football (soccer) match to watch with the volume all the way down, while we blogged.  I’m hoping for an early night tonight.  I didn’t sleep well or much last night.

My journey today has been one of disappointment and recovery.

A Journey of Museum-going

Today has been our longest day away from the hotel in 1 shot.  I woke up at 5:30 am and was hot so I flip-flopped my head to the other end of the bed and managed to fall back asleep within an hour and woke up just before 8 am to find Mom just getting out of the shower.  We dressed and left the room by 9 am.a

We went back to the same frühstuck restaurant as yesterday.  I had a müseli yogurt parfait (yum!) with kirche (cherry) cake and Mom had a parfait container sized portion of, wait for it, couscous.  Yes, folks, orange colored couscous.  She said wanted something light and not sweet and they had all their lunch options out already so she chose couscous.  Whatever floats your boat and makes you happy, Mom.  We both had iced lattes.

Today was our Museum Day.  We had a time reservation for the Pergamon Museum for 4 pm.  We had tickets for any and all museums we wanted to go to today.  In addition to the Pergamon, Mom wanted to go to the Altes Nationale Gallerie (Old National Gallery) and the Neues Museum (New Museum) where  Nefertiti is, but when we had tried to get reservations for entry times for those we were unsuccessful, so we decided to get there early and stand in line if we had to.  The first one we went to, the Altes Museum,  let us right in since we already had the day pass.  Yay!  We spent a good 2 hours there seeing many famous and not at all famous paintings and sculptures.  We saw original paintings by Monet, Manet, Renoir, Cezanne, Degas, paintings I’ve seen in books or posters but never in person.  We saw the original The Thinker by Rodin   But, my favorite of the day was one titled The Blue Grotto in Capri by Carl Friedrich Sieffert.  The study of light and shadows was stunning and it has a fantastic depth to the grotto.  The blue is mesmerizing.  Look it up.  See for yourself.

When we were done there we went right to the Neuse Museum to see about getting in.  There was a line, so we waited.  When we got to the front Mom explained that we had a ticket but no reservation.  The man told us that they were full at the moment, that we needed to wait a bit.  So we waited maybe 10 mins and then he let us in.  Yay!  Mom was eager to see Nefertiti as her father was enamored with her.  We worked our way through the museum and saw the Golden Hat, a late Bronze Age artifact that is 30 inches tall and is said to have served astrological & calendar functions.  We also saw replicas of the bronze doors from the Baptistry at the cathedral in Florence that I’ve seen in person.  And we saw Nefertiti!  We’re not sure what it is about her that captivated my Papa, but it was great to see such a famous work in person.  The bust is only 18 inches tall and is painted limestone.

When we left the Neues Museum we sat down and Mom marveled and glowed that we were able to get into both museums without having reservations.  She was very happy!  Yay!  We then took the U-bahn to the Hauptbahnhof to get a sandwich to share.  It was 2:30 by now and we needed to be back at Museum Island for our 4 pm Pergamon Museum reservation.  We shared a baguette sandwich with the bare minimum amount of ham, cheese, lettuce and tomato possible to still be called a sandwich.  And a bottle of water.  We rode the U-Bahnhofstrasse back to Museum Island and after going the wrong way to find the entrance (my bad) I found a small sigh we had missed that showed we had passed it several times.z. We sat on the steps and waited as it was not yet 4 pm.  I asked Mom if Rick Steves mentioned in his book about an alternate entrance while the Island is undergoing extensive construction.  She looked and lo and behold, he did!  He said exactly where it was.  So, her bad.  :) We called it a wash as we were still early.

We entered and after a small snafu with finding our reservations on my email on her phone, we found it and were admitted.  We were offered an audio tour in English for free and were given a smartphone type device with Walkman-style headphones.  And we were off!  How to describe the Pergamon… It features full-scale reconstructions of architectural monuments from Greek and Roman antiquity.  The main attraction is the Pergamon Altar that dates back to 180 BC.  The museum is undergoing extensive renovation and the room the altar is in is off limits until at least 2025.  *sigh*. Oh well.  We’ve both been here previously and seen it already.  We spent a lot of time looking at the Ishtar Gate and Processional Way of Babylon and all the other artifacts like sarcophaguses (sarcophagi?) and plates, bowls, and all manner of other daily living items from that time period.   We also saw the skull of a Neanderthal!  We spent 2.5 hours here and also saw artifacts from a 6,000 year time period from the regions of Mesopotamia, Syria and Anatolia.

When we walked out of there at 6:30 pm we were done. D.O.N.E. done.  We had seen most, if not all, of 3 of the. 5 museums on Museum Island.  It was all we could do to drag ourselves to the U-bahn and figure out where we needed to change to get to the desired station nearest the place we wanted to have dinner.  But, somehow we managed and got to the Ukrainian restaurant that we had seen on our dinner walk last night.  Mom ordered a bowl of borscht (beet soup with potatoes and carrots served with a dollop of sour cream (Yum!) and I had a plate of potato pierogies.  They were small but there were 9 of them!  Our meals each came with a Bröetchen.  I had some of Mom’s soup, and despite my pierogies being filled with mashed potatoes, she only ate 1.  We shared a bottle of water.  The total bill was less than $21!  Wowee!

We returned to our hotel and were too stuffed for ice cream, but we did stop for a bottle of Berliner Weisse, which we shared when we got back to the room.

We each blogged and now it’s after 11 pm and time to go to bed.

My journey today was one of learning and absorbing knowledge and observing great art.

A Journey of Touristy Spots

Fortunately I was able to get back to sleep at 7 am after initially waking up at 5:30.  I slept about another hour before hearing Mom in the shower.  I showered when she was done, we dressed and headed out to frühstuck (breakfast).  She ordered a shakshuka style dish but the eggs were scrambled into the sauce.  I had a piece of toast with 2 eggs and arugula that came with a small jar of yogurt and Museli.  There were a few pieces of fruit on the plate and the whole meal came with a small glass of orange juice.  Mom had an iced latte and I had an iced mocha.

After eating we headed right out to finish our walk of Prinzlauer Berg.  We were guided down a street we’ve now been down several times but places were mentioned in the guidebook that we had seen but not known what their story was until now.  On one side of the street there are 2 spots where buildings should be, in the style of the block, but there are no buildings.  We learned in these spots 2 of the rare bombs that fell in Prinzlauer Berg during WWII destroyed the buildings and the structures were not rebuilt.  We passed a store that carries GDR memorabilia.

As we turned the corner we were instructed to look at the side of a building where a large image had been installed of people who came to this spot on Nov. 11, 1989 when the part of the Berlin Wall here came down and people flooded out of Prinzlauer Berg in East Germany into the other side into West Berlin.  There were metal columns showing where the Wall had been that had information on them about the construction and demolition of the Wall in this spot.  We continued across the street and up to the Stadium the Soviets built for the citizens in the East, but from inside the view was blocked by a separate Wall so when they were in the stadium they’d be unable to see into the West.  There were several artists painting over what we could see was decades and layers of paint beneath.  There were large pieces of old paint on the ground that had been peeled off to allow for new layers of paint.  I took a picture of one of the artists and he turned and said something in German to me in a sharp tone.  Mom caught a little bit of it and I got the gist that he said I needed to have asked his permission before taking a picture.  I put my hands together and bent slightly and said “I’m sorry.” and he seemed satisfied, but it was a weird interaction that’s stayed with me awhile.

We walked back down to the street and took a tram to the Berlin Wall Visitor’s Center where we viewed an animated depiction of how the area of the Wall and “No Man’s Land” in the middle was enforced by barbed wires, dogs, soldiers with guns, trip wire guns that shot like 10 rounds and buried bombs.  It led into a film in German with English subtitles that showed how the Wall was constructed, how the division of land started with painting a line in the street between East and West Berlin and how soldiers were guarding the areas and that was soon covered with barbed wire across the ground until the building of the Wall began in earnest.  We saw people trying to cross in the early days, including a woman who ran right into and through the barbed wire.  It was terrifying and horrific.  The film showed the final days leading up to and included the demolition of the Wall.  It mentioned and showed Gorbachev but not Reagan.

After debriefing what we’d seen, we decided to move on to our next activity, a boat ride on the River Spree.  We took a tram to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) and then transferred to the U-bahn (subway) and took it to Museum Island, which is surrounded by the River Spree.  We found a spot that we thought Rick Steves had described in his tour book as the place to meet his favorite tour boat company, but we didn’t see the name he mentioned.  We looked around and didn’t see any others, so we decided to take this boat.  What looked like a husband and wife team (she was the pilot!) were kind and welcoming.  It was a fairly small boat and the 33 passengers were all offered something to drink (for a price).  Mom and I each got a bottle of still water.

The 1 hour tour was extensive, going by ALL the sights in Berlin visible from the River Spree, Museum Island, the Reichstag (the capital building, where Congress meets), the Chancellor’s building, the financial district, the House of Culture (nicknamed the Pregnant Oyster) that was built by the Americans after the war as part of the rebuilding effort.  The day was cool and overcast with a slight breeze until about 3/4 of the way through.  Then we sailed into a part of the River where there was no cloud cover and it got hot!  It really started to feel the 86 degrees it was forecasted to be today.

After the River tour we walked across the park to St. Hedwig’s, the church Mom wants to attend on Sunday, to see if they will be offering any special concerts this week.  Indeed, there will be a visiting choral group on Sat. at 8 pm.  I think that’s in our future.  We took the U-bahn back to the Hauptbahnhof and found a WC.  Now for one of the times Mom has said all along that is one of the things she was least looking forward to about being in Europe, paying to go pee.  With that task accomplished I expressed a desire for a small snack, as it was now about 3:30 pm and we hadn’t had lunch.  She chose a veggie pita sandwich and I had a slice of cheese pizza.  We ate in the food court and enjoyed the air conditioning before heading back to the U-barn (down, down, down into the land of stale air) and took it back to the place where we had found the River Boat, but went around the corner and boarded Bus #100 and took it to its terminus at the Zoo before getting on the same bus going all the way to its terminus at the other end.  Along the way each direction we passed some of the major tourist sites in Berlin, the Reichstag, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church that was bombed during the war and has been left as a reminder of the war.  We also passed Schloss Bellevue (castle once inhabited by royalty that no longer exists), the Brandenburg Gate and the Victory Column that was commissioned for the Prussians prevailing in the Second Schleswig War and served to commemorate victories in the following wars.  I hope to go back on foot to the Brandenburg Gate and the Kaiser Wilhelm Church.  The area around both seems so much more built up than when I was here in 1994.  I’ll have to compare pictures when I get home.

We got back on the U-barn and got off a short distance from our hotel and walked back.  It was time to do my one task for work that absolutely needed doing while I’m away, run payroll.  Since I am able to access Wi-Fi and the internet, I tested being able to access our company’s software first arrived in Berlin and today was the day to pull the switch and get ‘er done!  I did it in relatively little time and we were off again in search of dinner.  We found a small hole in the wall Chinese style restaurant and between our 2 entrees (beef/broccoli with rice and noodles with chicken & veggies) plus 3 bottles of drinks, it was less than 15 euro!  And the euro is equal to the dollar now so that was a bargain!  On our way back to the hotel was meandered slowly, scoping out a spot for dinner tomorrow, then wandering through a local grocery store in search of fun flavored potato chips to take home.

We stopped at the small drinks/smoke shop next to our hotel and bought a couple of ice creams on a stick and a bottle of cherry flavored Berliner Weisse, all to serve as our dessert.

We both wrote in our blogs and as it’s 10:45 pm and finally dark outside, I think I’ll go to bed.

My journey today was one of familiar sights and relaxed time spent with my Mommy.

A Journey With Sore Feet

I am hearing way more English than I expected to.  I wasn’t aware until I got here how strong the dollar is against the Euro.  Americans are taking advantage and are in Berlin!  I’m sad to report, however, that a lot of them don’t seem to be trying to speak German at all, at least not within my earshot.  That makes me sad.  Yes, I have a near-fluent German speaker with me, but I also try German first when interacting with the people we speak to.

Today started about 6:30 am for me.  I’m happy to report I did not hear the tram through my earplugs.  Yay!  I got up and Mom was still asleep so I sat at the desk and powered up my ipad and sent a WhatsApp to Kenji.  Hmmm… it didn’t seem to go through.  So I sent a message request through Messenger and we chatted for a bit there as he and Leo were winding down their day back home.  After rebooting my phone connectivity to WhatsApp returned. Phew!  Mom got up and showered and we both got dressed and set out to find the restaurant we decided on last night for breakfast today.  Now, which direction was it?  What side of the street was it on?  Was it down the side street?  It had an A-frame chalkboard menu.  Let’s look for that.  Let’s walk and we’ll remember it when we see it.  Fat chance.  We walked up and down all the streets we thought it was on for 30 mins.  We didn’t find the fruhstuck (breakfast) place that was the one we wanted.  So we found a suitable replacement.  After waiting a while for a table outside we settled for a shared common table inside.  We found a couple of items we agreed to share.  Mom had dark bread toast with guacamole, a poached egg and alfalfa sprouts with a salad.  I had a yogurt bowl with granola and berries.  Yum!  I seriously need to start making these at home.  I eat it frequently when I’m traveling.  Too bad berries are so expensive and leave a huge carbon footprint.  We chatted with a young couple we shared a long common table with and they had been in Berlin for 4 days and were on their way to the Czech Republic for 3 days before heading back to Saudi Arabia.  She works for Price Waterhouse and he’s in a PhD program for climate studies.  She’s a native of Saudi Arabia and he’s Ecuadorian.

Returning to the hotel to put on shorts and leave our sweaters there (it was chilly when we left for breakfast) we were on the side of the street as our hotel, about a block away, when we spotted a familiar A-frame chalkboard on the other side of the street.  Was it the right one???  We crossed the still slightly sleepy street and indeed, it was!  Ok!  Mark the spot!  What’s it called?  Why didn’t we see it earlier?  Looking at the side of the street we had been on, we both noticed a statue of an elephant that had taken our attention away from looking across the street at that moment.  *sigh*. Ok.  Tomorrow.

After changing into our clothes for the day’s walking tour around Prenzlauer Berg, the neighborhood we’re staying in, we set out.  We agreed that while we were following Rick Steves’ recommended walking tour, and he suggests it’s a 90 min. walk, we didn’t have anything else on the schedule today and we’d take our time.  6 hours later… no joke.  We saw historic architecture, water towers on a hill (berg, hence the name of the neighborhood), Germany’s oldest synagogue, home and statue of Kathë Kollwitz (a local printer and sculptor), a gargoyle water hole that apparently lots of folks parking their car in front of fail to judge how far it sticks out into the slot as there is glass on the ground as evidence, and we finally made our way to the DDR (GDR to us, East Germany) Museum.  There we were instructed on how to use the free audio guide in English on our smartphones, which we did.  

We spent 2+ hours learning about life in East German after the Soviet Union occupied it after WWII.  It was a well curated glimpse into a dismal life of near-constant food insecurity, knowing you’re being watched and listened to and not daring to speak out for fear of certain death and how the citizens managed  to exist under the scrutiny of the Soviets and how every aspect of their lives were controlled and formed around what was best for the regime.  It was especially sobering to see the videos that were shown go from black & white to color and to see the women in the stores in the 1980’s with similar hairstyles to what I was wearing then and realize that this hateful way of treating people was not all that long ago.  Those who do not learn from our history are doomed to repeat it.  I’m looking at you, Critical Race Theory fear-mongerers and book banning folks!

By now my feet hurt and I was eager to return to the hotel to put them up, but as we headed that way we realized we were going to pass Rick’s suggestion of the oldest Currywurst stand in Berlin, Konnopke’s Imbiss, under the U-bahn bridge.  It was definitely time for a snack!  Mom ordered 2 currywurst and 1 small pommes (fries) with a bottle of apple-rhubarb soda, just to be fun and try.  Currywurst is street food, so we stood up and ate, as is tradition.  It was yummy, but for me, it could’ve had more curry sprinkled on top.  The pommes were tasty and well fried.  Mom got both ketchup and mayo for us to dip in.  She has decided, prior to today, perhaps in Belgium on her most recent Rick Steves tour, that she’ll not use ketchup for fries anymore, that she likes mayo on them.  I decided to try it and didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would.  Perhaps German mayo is better than American mayo.

We walked back to the hotel and I got to put my feet up finally.  About an hour later we decided to head out for dinner and had already decided to go to Prager’s Biergarten, Berlin’s oldest Biergarten. It was lively and had a large seating area, as you would expect a Biergarten to.  We investigated the walk-up counter and they were only serving sausages on a roll or meatballs on a roll.  We were wanting something else, like schnitzel.  So we went to the “formal” sit down restaurant in the garden and shared a schnitzel, which came with potato salad and a cucumber salad, as well as chilled cucumber soup.  Both were schmecked lecker (pronounced sh-meck leck-ah, definition - delicious)!  We also ordered Berliner Weisse.  This time they came in individual bottles and the server told Mom that if they were too tart she could give us some syrup, which they were and she did.  She brought us each a shot glass of syrup which improved the drink a lot!

After paying we walked back to the hotel, changed into jammies and I wrote today’s blog while Mom emailed the airport hotel we’ll be staying in the night before we fly home to ask a couple of questions then she started to write her blog.

Today was a journey of learning about uncomfortable pasts, but knowing that knowing the history of what happened and why is important, as well as learning about and celebrating our present.

A Journey Of Transition

I actually managed to sleep until 6:30 am today!  Mom got up, too, and while she showered I went downstairs.  Herbert came along shortly after and when Mom was done in the shower I showered.  The shower here is about a 4x4 square, I kid you not.  It has foldable doors that stay shut unless you accidentally lean against them.  I speak from experience.  We put our toiletries in our suitcases and went downstairs for breakfast.

Anja had planned Müseli with homemade yogurt, having made the yogurt last night and putting it in the oven overnight.  However, when she took it out it had separated, telling her that the ok was spoiled.  So instead we had it with milk after Herbert returned from the store with it.  There were a couple of grains, several different nuts and as well as bananas, dried cranberries, blueberries and raspberries in it.  Ohmygosh YUM!  We are with small spoons and it really helped ensure we savored the meal.

Mom and I made sandwiches with lots of leftover items to take with us on the train to Berlin today.  I used Bröetchen and she used some black bread.  We had Remolade (a sort of herb mayonnaise) serve as mayo, lettuce, tomato and baby cucumber from the garden and Mom’s leftover steak from Sat. night.  Anja gave us Ziplocs to put the sandwiches in and I put them in my backpack.

The time had finally arrived that we needed to put on our shoes and pick up our bags and head to the train station in Wuppertal.  Naila was not pleased to be left at home in favor of our bags in the way back of the station wagon.  We drove a short while on the Autobahn and Herbert kept the speed to a level so as not to freak me out.   We arrived at the train station without spotting the hanging train that Wuppertal is famous for.  *sigh*

After confirming the platform our train would arrive on we found it easily and our train arrived quickly and goodbyes were difficult, many photos were taken and all too soon we were boarding and waving goodbye.

After walking the full length of the car to find our reserved seats we discovered there were 2 men sitting there already.  Mom pulled out her printed reservation and went and spoke with them.  They picked up their belongings and went elsewhere.  Looking at the display above our seats I saw that it incorrectly read that the seats were available and not reserved, but Mom paid extra to reserve them and had the paperwork to prove it, so we were ok.  When the Conductor came by to check our tickets all went well.  We settled in for an approx. 4 hour train ride.  Mom reports he was quite conversational and jovial.

The countryside slipped away quickly and I mean quickly!  As in speeds up to and at times exceeding 150 miles and hour.  We ate lunch and realized that not only was the train filled but there were many sitting on the floor between the cars and in the hallway of the car behind us.  I am truly grateful she made seat reservations!  Before we knew it we arrived at the Berlin Hauptbanhof, debarked and after initially going the wrong way, we found our Tram line and boarded.  We made our Tram change correctly and soon saw our hotel and we got off where we had been told to and made our way into the hotel and checked in.  We found our on on the 4th floor of the hotel but was on Floor 3.  In Europe the Ground Floor is just that, the Ground Floor.  The 1st floor is what we in the US refers to as the 2nd floor.

We unpacked, changed clothes and went out to explore our neighborhood and were in search of a place for a refreshment, specifically a Berliner Weisse, a mixture of beer and fruit juice.  I know, for those of you who are beer drinkers that sounds horrible.  But for non-beer drinkers like us, it’s really yummy!  We found it at, of all place, a Mexican Restaurant.  Our neighborhood, Prenzlauer Berg, is a former hippie artist neighborhood and is absolutely jam packed with restaurants. We found a couple of laundromats, boutique clothing stores, but mostly one after the other of restaurants.  I wondered how they can all stay in business with so many of them in the same area.

After wandering back towards the hotel we found a Lebanese restaurant that interested Mom.  It was busy so we we hurried back to the hotel to changes clothes and got the last open table when we returned. We ordered lentil soup and a chicken breast plate that came with salad and rice and I wondered how that would be enough for us to share, as she wanted to do.  Let me tell you this plate was a platter.  It was huge by my standards for a single entree and i was glad we were sharing.  It had what I would consider a double serving of rice, a gorgeous salad with greens, alfalfa sprouts, cucumbers and a mild dressing, but Mom said she preferred Anja’s homemade dressings that she’s been having for the past 10 days.  Well, yeah, me, too, but this was good.  There were pickled veggies and pickles, a couple of pieces of roasted potato on top of a plain grilled chicken breast and the most divine garlic sauce.  I mean, I love Zankou’s garlic sauce but this was next level.   Unfortunately, there was a spicy relish over some of it, so I didn’t get to eat it all. We had a Mango Shake that was just like a Mango Lasse you’d get at an Indian restaurant and a bottle of “still” water, as opposed to fizzy, carbonated water.  The meal was also served with pita bread but it was the size of a small steering wheel.  Between the 2 of us we only ate 1 of the 2 brought to the table.  This place was so popular they brought out 4 long tables while we were there to accommodate the growing crowd.   Wowee!

We decided to walk off dinner and wandered in the other direction than we had gone this afternoon and found ourselves in a park with a pond with lily pads.  We sat and people watched a bit and slowly made our way back by a different direction, passing a local Evengelische Zionkirsche (Lutheran) church that was closed up tight, gates on the front door made it look like it hadn’t been used in a long time, however the bulletin board out front boasted activities for the week.

We came back to the room, watched a little CNN and went to bed.  Here’s hoping I don’t hear the trams all night through my earplugs…

My journey today was one of transition to a new chapter of this adventure with Mom.

A Journey Towards Good-bye

Jet lag is not my friend this trip.  I got out of bed at 5:30 am.  There are no curtains or blinds on any of the windows, so the morning light is pervasive and not easy to ignore.  I came downstairs and scrolled through different websites until the others got up around 7:30 am.  Mom’s first thought to me after a morning greeting was to see if I could Google where the 1966 VW Bugs were made.  After looking at several sites and blogs and articles, I am 99% sure they were only made in Germany.  She will confirm with the paperwork she has when she gets home.  Then it’ll be up to Anja to arrange to get the car from Pasadena to Wermelskirchen.

Breakfast was Bröetchen, wurst, cheese, tomato, cucumber, jam and jelly, coffee and lattes and a soft boiled egg.  Yummy!

The plan today was for me to go for a ride in Herbert’s Karman Ghia today and go to an Old Timers gathering with folks and their classic cars.  However, the light rain has put the kibosh on those plans.  Perhaps later, Herbert says.  I am starting to fade, so I took a nap.

When I awoke I didn't immediately find anyone home and not finding Naila either I surmised that they were out walking her.  But with an Achilles heel injury I knew Herbert would not be with them.  I went to the bathroom and saw the office door was ajar.  I knocked and indeed he was inside.  Shortly after, Mom, Anja & Naila returned.

We all gathered around the table for more Küchen (cake) and coffee for them and water for me.  Anja began preparing the evening meal and said she would be making “folded bread”, and she started by making an herb garlic compound butter.  I watched intently and took pictures of each step so I can recreate it at home.  She has an appliance called a Thermomix that is wundershün (voon-der-shun)!  It’s a blender plus rice cooker, plus it can cook meat and veggies and she also uses it to prepare homemade yogurt.  Tonight she used the heating element to start the dough for the bread because her brick of yeast was frozen.  I looked this machine up on Amazon to get a base price for the US.  $1,000 is better than the $1,400 she says the new version costs here that she wants, but it’s still expensive.

Herbert grilled the marinated turkey breast fillets and marinated baby back ribs we bought at the meat market yesterday AM and we finished the leftover “auf lauf”, the pasta & veggie casserole Anja made for dinner on Fri. as well as the remaining carrot salad and a green salad along with the folded bread.  It was an abundant meal!

More discussion around the VW and it seems like they talked about it themselves and it seems now they are telling her to go ahead it and sell it and keep the money for herself.  My opinion is the fact that it’s not a family car, that she’s only had it 15-20 years and possibly the expense to bring it from the US may deter them from seeing this endeavor though.  We shall see.  Once Mom gets definitive information on where it was built and what it’s value is may be determining factors.

Anja, Mom and I took Naila for her final short walk to pee before bed.

Mom and went to bed early so we could pack and prepare to leave tomorrow for Berlin.

My journey today was one of rest, final time with framily, and preparation for the next chapter of our trip.

A Journey To Meet A New Friend and Oma Treats

Jet lag be gone!  I woke up with Mom about 7:20 am.  While she showered I went downstairs and looked at some news on my iPad, tried to WhatsApp Kenji, but he didn’t respond, and greeted Herbert when he came down a few minutes later.  When Mom and Anja came down I went quickly upstairs to get dressed.  We left immediately after to go into town to the Bakeri shop where we bought several variety of Bröetchen.  I didn’t know there were different varieties!  I had only ever known the plain kind.  We bought a few different kinds.  Anja asked me if I wanted a chocolate drizzled one and I said yes, please.  I was surprised when we got home to discover that what had been purchased was instead a chocolate croissant.  We also went to local meat market (Metzger - butcher) where they had several types of wurst, salami, prosciutto and other raw and prepared meats as well as some prepared foods like potato salad, coleslaw and beet salad.  Anja bought a few different hunks of wurst as well as some marinated chicken breasts for another time.

When we got home with our treasures Herbert had the table laid out with cheeses of a few varieties, the homemade jam and jelly from yesterday as well tomatoes and sliced cucumbers.  Anja laid the wursts out on a plate for our selection and put all the breads in a basket.  We sat down to a sumptuous feast along with cappuccinos and lattes from their machine.

After breakfast was cleared, Anja offered to do some laundry for us.  We gathered what needed washing and when it was done we hung it on a portable, foldable, multi-strand stand in the backyard.  It’s not sunny today.  I’ll be curious to see how long it takes to dry.  My guess it won’t be dry by the time we need to leave to go to their friend Irma’s house at 3:30 pm.  I took advantage of nothing going on for a bit and wrote my blog for yesterday and started today’s.  Lunch was simply sliced strawberries as I get the feeling dinner will be an event since we are going to a nice restaurant with Irma later.  

Anja, Mom and I went to the cemetery in Remscheid to see the family plot and tend to the flowers there.  The cemetery was amazing!  It was in a lush garden setting, with lots of trees and winding paths, not at all like the cemeteries in the US that I’m accustomed to seeing, large areas of flat space and headstones laying flat in the ground. The plots were typically about 4 feet wide and 6-8 feet long.  They all had headstones that noted the Family name and then there were individual stones with the people’s names.  Some had dates of birth and death on them, many did not. Mom told me that most people are cremated and their ashes are buried here.  We watered the flowers on Eva’s family area and Anja picked a few weeds and dead leaves.  We then made our way out by a different route, viewing all the plots and noting the different ways people listed family members and decorated the plots.  There were 2 sections for soldiers, one from World War 1 and one for soldiers from World War 2.  These areas were laid out more like American cemeteries, all in rows and not grouped with their families, with simple crosses, but the area between all the crosses told me that their ashes were buried here, not their whole body in a casket.

We had a piece of homemade Kuüchen (cake) that Herbert had made a few days ago.  It was a vanilla/chocolate swirl cake with the chocolate being a layer of melted/hardened chocolate and a chocolate shell on top.  It wasn’t super sweet and was delicious! Anja transplanted some baby lettuce she bought previously into small pots to await room in her garden to transplant and allow time to grow fully before picking for some meal in the future.  It was laid back late morning-early afternoon and soon it was time to get ready to leave and sure enough most of the laundry was dry!  We brought the drying racks inside to finish drying while we’d be gone.

Just moments before we were to leave the house at 3:30 a massive downpour of rain moved in. I went back upstairs to get my umbrella and honestly, truly I tell you, as soon as we opened the door to step outside the rain stopped and started again as soon as we got in the car.  It reminded me of the time I was at the Easter Service at the Vatican in Rome and it was raining until the Pope emerged from St. Peter’s and it stopped while he was walking to the covered area in the square where he was conducting the service and as soon as he was safely under cover it started raining again.  I knew we were going to be in the car for about an hour, which meant we’d be going on the Autobahn, which scares the bejeezus out of me.  If you aren’t familiar with the Autobahn, it’s a freeway with NO speed limit.  Seriously.  I’ve seen Herbert go 160 km, which is just under 100 mph. While I think it would be thrilling to do so, the other cars make it a terrifying experience for me. One false move by either and the unspeakable would happen.  They all also change lanes within inches of each other’s bumpers which scares me.  So I sit in the back seat so I don’t have to watch.  Unfortunately for me, I sat behind Anja and had a prime view of the speedometer. I prayed, indeed I did. And it was raining, and not just sprinkles, this was a full on downpour.  At least he slowed it down a bit to 130 km (80 mph) for the slick roads.  Yikes!

We arrived at Irma’s unscathed and I did truly thank the Lord.  Oh!  I forgot to mention that we brought Naila along.  Irma apparently loves to spoil Naila and Anja says Irma is Nadia’s Oma (grandmother) in that way.  When she got out of the car and realized where we were, she got very excited and was pulling on her leash excitedly, eager to get to Irma and whatever doggy treat her Oma had for her.

Irma is Eva’s (Mom’s German sister) best friend, so she’s Mom’s age.  Greetings were exchanged and Naila began to wonder where her Oma treats were.  She hadn’t yet been given a wurst and she’d been there a full minute already!  We moved to the sitting area of Irma’s 2 room apartment and she offered us some chips and some candied nuts.  Herbert got a bottle of what looked like pink champagne out of the bag they brought along and poured us each a glass and we skoll’d to our time together.  We sat at Irma’s chatting, Mom translating along the way, me assuring her that I really did follow what it was they were talking about without knowing the specifics. After we emptied the 1st bottle another appeared and we all received refills.

After a little more than an hour there we began to make our way out and to the restaurant.  It wasn’t far and they had a lovely outdoor seating area and I was wondering if my light sweater was going to be enough, assuming with Naila along we’d be sitting outside. That was not the case, apparently.  We strolled up to the hostess desk and and we’re shown a table inside. Naila laid down by Anja’s side and stayed there the rest of the night, except when Anja took her out for a potty/smoke break. I decided to have some fun and try out a little German and asked the server if he had a menu in English. Kenji and I have a fun story about doing that when we were in Tokyo, so I thought I’d try it here.  The man told me, in English (!) no, but he’d be happy to help by translating whatever I’d like to know about. They truly had everything on this menu, pizza, pasta, fish, lamb, chicken, with extensive sections for beverages of all varieties. Somehow small glasses of champagne appeared for each of us and again we skoll’d, looking each other in the eye when doing so as is the custom.

I wanted to try some fish and Herbert showed me one item that he translated to salmon, so I ordered that.  First, though, the appetizers arrived.  Herbert had ordered bruschetta for himself, me & Irma and sautéed mushrooms for Mom.  She remarked when it arrived that it could easily serve as her whole meal!  For an entree he had a mixed grill with chicken, beef and turkey with a Bernaise type sauce and rice, Anja had what looked and tasted like New Orleans-style barbecue shrimp in a Cajun sauce, Irma had lamb kebob and Mom had the steak, which was huge!  We all laughed when the largest plate arrived in front of the smallest person at the table! My fish turned out to be sand dabs in a lemon aioli-type tartar sauce.  It was very good, but definitely not salmon.  All the entrees came with a mixture of cooked tomatoes, red bell peppers and potatoes that was simple but yummy!

The time passed quickly as we chatted, translated, laughed at funny misinterpretations and stories of our lives.  We inevitably got around to politics as Irma was curious about our thoughts of what’s happening in the US these days.  We shared frankly that we are angry at the way the country seems to have taken a turn away from the path we’d been on of protecting individual rights with topics like abortion while expanding rights to owning guns and limiting protections for the climate, all of it going in directions we don’t agree with.  Mom states she is sad to return home to a very changed America than the one she left almost 4 weeks ago. We live in a bubble in California of protected rights we share values with, but feel we must do more to expand those rights to all in the US, not just the few who live in California. Our work is cut out for us…

Irma looked at me when it came time to possibly order dessert. I was so full but always have room for a bite of something sweet, so I encouraged her to order what she’d like and I’d like to taste it.  She told me the items that were available and 1 of them, appfelstruedel, caught my attention.  When in Germany, one must have appfelstruedel, which I love anyway.  Herbert translated puff pastry for me but pronounced it “poof” and after I told him how to pronounce puff we had a short discussion about how “puff” means prostitute in German and we ended up laughing about that until Mom said I was turning as usually happens when I get to laughing so very hard. It felt good to to laugh like that!  The appfelstruedel came with a crème anglaise and Anja thought it was funny that I asked the server for enough forks for us all to have to share the dessert. It was wam and melted in my mouth and the crème anglaise was creamy and smooth, just as it should be and it had full, plump raisins in the strudel.  Anja ordered a peach schnapps for herself and 1 for Mom, who objected, but I said I’d share it with her. She liked it, but I easily drank half of it.

I’m not sure how the topic came up, but before I knew it, Mom was saying she wanted to give her VW Bug to Anja and how could we accomplish that.  Herbert did a quick internet search about transferring cars from the US and talks quickly escalated until I finally had to let Anja know that this is NOT an historical family car, that Mom only bought it like 15-20 years ago. The major item Mom needs to research is where was the car built, Germany or Mexico.  That will help Anja decide if she wants to pursue trying to get the car from the US to Germany.  We shall see what happens…

After we left and heartily thanked Irma for her generosity for the meal (when Mom expressed to Anja that she would like to pay for the meal Anja explained that the custom is when someone invites you out, they pay, and Irma had invited us, so it would be impolite to try and pay) we went back to Irma’s place and sat on the glass window enclosed patio and talked for a little bit before coming home.  She is a warm, kind person and I understand why Eva was liked her so.

I sat behind Herbert on the way home so as to not be able to see the speedometer while we were on the Autobahn and we made it home safely.  After a long 7.5 hours trip away, we all fell into bed quickly.

My journey today was a slow day of waiting to meet Irma, who was a most beloved person to Eva, who was a most beloved person to our family.

A Journey To Find A New Routine

My day started at 3 am, thank you Jet Lag.  I came downstairs and wrote my 1st blog post and WhatsApp’d with Kenji as it was 6 pm back home.  I finally was tired enough by 5:30 am to back to bed and slept well until 7:30 am.  The home we are staying in has no curtains or blinds on the windows, only pull up blinds for halfway up from the floor so Naila can’t see cats or other animals crossing through the yard to prevent unnecessary barking and scratching at the doors.  It makes for bright and early mornings with the sun rising around 5 am.  We are so far north that it doesn’t start to get dark until 10:30 pm.

I had been asked prior to arriving what I would like for my 1st breakfast, Broetchen (a German crusty bread roll that is pillowy soft inside) or Museli with homemade yogurt and fruit.  I LOVE Bröetchen especially when it’s served traditionally with meats like salami and wurst, cheeses, tomato and sliced cucumber.  Bröetchen was my answer and the toppings offered were cream cheese and homemade strawberry/rhubarb jam as well as homemade elderberry jelly, but I wished later I had known Bröetchen was their tradition for Sat. breakfast and I’d be having it then, for I would’ve chosen Museli.  Mom had Museli and I tried a bite and it delicious!  They have an espresso type machine and I had a cappuccino. Anja says she has 8 coffees a day!  I was surprised until I realized they were all cappuccino sized.

I showered after breakfast and then Anja (I realized I didn’t clarify the pronunciation of her name yesterday.  It’s An-ya). Mom and I went to the city center to shop the Farmer’s Market for ingredients for dinner.  We were in search of zucchini and bell peppers.  We did not find any bell peppers, but we did pick up some sugar snap peas, almond stuffed green olives, tomatoes and fennel.  We walked by a drug store and I told Mom I wanted to go in and find an eye pencil and lipstick as I had left mine at home.  After testing several colors on my hand I found a shade I liked as well as an eye pencil that was similar to one I left at home. We made our purchase and I was extremely grateful to have Mom’s German-speaking ability along!

We went home and relaxed a little before a light lunch of more Bröetchen along with the anticipated tomato, cucumber and cheese.  After lunch Mom and I went to Remscheid, the neighboring town where Mom lived with her German AFS family (Anja’s mother is Mom’s AFS German sister) in the summer of 1956 and where Anja and Herbert (pronounced Hair-bear-t)lived in the family home until Anja’s mother, Eva, died 3 years ago.  Mom and I explored the city center while Anja was at her PT appt.  Our only task was to find bell peppers at the small Farmer’s Market, which we did and we picked up some strawberries, too.  We walked a Santa Monica Promenade-esque street with clothing stores, street food type stalls with hot dogs, frites (pronounced fry-ts in Germany) and currywurst as well as pizza and ice cream and coffees.

We found a stationary store and Mom expressed a desire to buy a birthday card for a friend as well as thank you cards for Anja and Herbert.  We spent some time perusing the cards and finding the best ones, Mom translating them for me.  I was surprised to see how many cards said “Happy Birthday” in English on the front of the card.  Inside the message was in German.  We wandered through the Allee Center, the local mall, and went to City Hall, where Anja and Herbert were married.  Mom and I did a whirlwind 4 day trip in May 2002 to come to their wedding, 6 months before Kenji & I were married.  There was a celebration in front today that looked to be a post-wedding one as well.  It is common in Germany to have the legal ceremony take place at City Hall and have the reception later elsewhere, as we did with Anja & Herbert 20 years ago.

We found our way back to the car park and reunited with Anja and went home.  We got Naila into the car and went for an hour long walk in the nearby forest that surrounds the local reservoir.  It’s a chance for Naila to get out for an extended period of time and for Anja to continue Naila’s training, always training, she says.  A ouch off dog treat is reached into often when proper behavior is exhibited.  We pass many people in the forest and Anja keeps Naila on a short leash right next to her at the times and allows and much longer leash when we are alone.  Naila is prompted to jump up on tree stumps on wood benches along the way and she eagerly does so and receives a treat as a reward.  The forest was so lush and quiet, beautiful, peaceful and unlike anything near our home in Pasadena.  I am envious of the deep green I see everywhere here and no need to be careful with water spenditure.  The temperatures are low-mid 70’s.

When we got home from our walk it was time for a piece of cake that Herbert had made a few days ago and a coffee.  I passed on the coffee and after sitting still for a bit and not being on the go, jet lag caught up with me and I decided to take a nap.  Mom woke me at 6 pm and said dinner would be at 7, that Anja was preparing it now and I got up to go see how she was going to put all the ingredients together.  When I got downstairs I saw she had already put some macaroni-type pasta in the bottom of a roasting pan and was slicing up the zucchini and yellow squash to put on top.  The red bell peppers were added as well as carrots, the sugar snap peas and fennel that had been blanched.  Sliced tomato was scattered around and the almond stuffed olives were tucked in here and there.  Dried herbs were shaken all around and Emmental cheese was grated over the top.  Anja made a crème fraishe, egg and corn starch mixture and poured it all around to bind the casserole type dish all together.  It was baked for 30 mins and then fennel fronds were sprinkled all over and it was served.  Delicious!  The 4 of us ate almost a whole pan of it, leaving only 2 small servings for possible lunch tomorrow.

Herbert seems pleased that I drink wine.  :) I had red wine with dinner last night and 3 small glasses of a sweet white wine tonight.  He drinks wine while Anja is a beer drinker.  We sat outside for serval hours talking around their fire pit.  It is simple, small and square, very heavy and Mom wants one.  I have my marching orders for Christmas!

Herbert was interested in the 2nd half of the German/Denmark Women’s soccer match taking place as part of the European Football Competition taking place in England.  Mom wandered inside every so often for a score update.  I am eternally grateful Anja’s English is as good as it is.  My German is nowhere near as good.  I can understand a topic being discussed but not any details.  She shared what’s been going on with her the last few years and her struggles with work and mental anguish after her mother’s death.  She does not currently work and Herbert is retired.  His health issues have forced him to not be able to be active anymore and she is sad for their loss of bike riding together and being outdoors doing sports together.  She says she needs sport in her life to keep busy and not overthink things and life.  Being home during the pandemic has been most difficult but necessary.  She is annoyed at people here who are not wearing masks indoors anymore.

We are farther north than I am at home and it really didn’t start to get dark until 10:30 pm here.  We sat at the fire pit til late and after brushing our teeth, Mom and I crawled into bed at 11:30 pm.  Here’s hoping I don’t wake up too early tomorrow and am able to go a full day without a jet lag nap and am fully acclimated to the time change!

A Journey to Germany

My journey to be reunited with Mom began, as many of you who have flown out of LAX recently can attest to, frustratingly.  The amazingly, horrifically long lines at check-in were overwhelming.  It took me an hour 20 to get to the front counter.  While I was in line it was suggested to me that perhaps because I wasn’t checking a bag (my plan was to take my small suitcase as my carry-on and my backpack as my personal item) and that I had already printed my boarding pass that perhaps I didn’t need to be in this long line.  So I went to ask. It turns out everyone had to be in this line for passport check anyway, but the  airline rep told me that “things had changed” and I wouldn’t be allowed to take my suitcase on with me after all and I’d have to check it.  So back to the line I went, and the kind gentlemen in line behind me let me have my place back.  When I got to the counter I hurriedly filled out several luggage tags as I hadn't put any on the suitcase, thinking I didn’t need them as I was planning to keep the bag with me.  I told him that my TSA Pre-check # didn’t print on my boarding pass.  He tried to add it but was ultimately unsuccessful.  :( He weighed my bag (8 kg on the dot for their limit for a carry-on, according to their website, thankyouverymuch) and said it was fine to keep it with me.  Ha!  Take that other rep who chad caused me much anguish and distress!

So, off to TSA I went.  The line could’ve been worse.  It wasn’t as great as Pre-check, but I was just happy to keep my suitcase with me that I didn’t mind the line.  Off came the shoes, the iPad came out of my backpack and I sailed through with no mention of the hair gel, hair spray or any other toilets in my carry-on.  I had gone to great lengths to make sure I met all the requirements.

The rest of the trip was uneventful.  My seat was the 1st row behind 1st class, a bulkhead type row with no built-in screen because there was no row in front of us.  Instead our screens were tucked into the armrest between us.  I read a bit and dinner was served shortly after take-off.  An unobjectionable penne pasta with red bell peppers and mushrooms (gross) with a small salad, roll and butter and some brownie/fudge hybrid that was not to my liking so I didn’t finish it.

The woman next to me was on her way to India as her father-in-law had just passed away and she was going to be with her husband.  She had only purchased to ticket the day before!  She would be traveling for 29 hours, she said.  Yikes! The man on the aisle was going to meet his brother in Barcelona for a couple of weeks as he does every summer.

I had put my allergy med  (which knocks me out) in a Ziploc along with earplugs so I could try and go to sleep earlier than usual.  I took it about 7:30 pm PST and tried unsuccessfully for the next 3 hours to go to sleep.  In the end I estimate I got, less than 2,5 hours sleep before I was aware I was awake and too uncomfortable sitting upright to get back to sleep.  After going to the loo the cabin lights came on and “breakfast” of an egg salad sandwich on bagel thins with fruit salad arrived shortly after.

After landing and debarking I ended up in the wrong passport control line, found the right one, waited an immense amount of time (2 reps working was certainly not sufficient), found the train ticket machine and bought a ticket, got to the train station and had 90-ish minutes to wait.  When I realized I was getting sleepy and needed to make sure I didn’t fall asleep or I’d miss my train, I went to the nearby snack shop and got a croissant-like sweet and a banana.  Shortly after it was time to go to the platform and get my train!

A woman spoke to me in German and when she saw the incomprehensive look on my face and before I could stammer out Ich nicht sprecken Deutsch she spoke in English and asked if my flight had been cancelled, too. I said no and we had a nice conversation until our train arrived shortly after.  Finally on my final leg of the journey to be reunited with Mom!  The countryside was gorgeous and green and the high speed train took only 51 minutes to go the 110 miles.

I saw Mom shortly after getting off the train and it was so amazing to hug her again after 3.5 weeks! Anja and Herbert (her husband) came shortly behind.  She is the daughter of Mom’s German AFS sister, who passed away about 4 years ago.  At the car I was asked if I wanted to sit in front or in back with Mom. Fearing we’d be taking the Autobahn, and having previously been in a car with Herbert driving on the Autobahn I chose to sit in back. It turns out we were taking a back way back because it was rush hour and the Autobahn was too crowded.  Phew!  seeing the sights of the city of Koln (Cologne) was nice but we eventually did get on the Autobahn once we had passed the slow section.  Herbert got the car up to 160km but evened out at 130km.  Yikes!  I closed my eyes and prayed.

We arrived safely at their new home (they’ve been here 3 years after leaving Anja’s childhood home following her mother’s death. I was immediately introduced to Naila, their Belgian Shepherd, who barked furiously at me until reassured by Anja that I was ok and welcome by them.  Anja prepared dinner of chicken breast, sausages and a lulu-like mixture in a kebob form.  The meats all went on the grill and I was shown their induction cooktop and they explained how it works. We also had roasted potatoes and a salad with items from their garden along with a carrot salad.  It was so very fresh and delicious!

I went with Anja to take Naila for her final walk of the night and we afterwards got a tour of the backyard and garden.  I finally went to bed at 10:30 pm, hopeful for a long night’s rest.  However, I was not surprised to wake up at 3 am, unable to get back to sleep, so I decided to come downstairs and write my 1st blog post about this journey25+ hour journey.

My journey today has been one of excitement, trepidation at not having traveled alone since 1994, relief to have this part behind me, and as every Mom is familiar with, a lack of sleep. How I’ll recover remains to be seen.  Perhaps a journey into a nap later today…