Hi Everyone!

I am in Germany! I had no intention of posting so frequently, but everything has been so interesting so far (at least to me!).

I arrived here yesterday (5 July) at about 1:40 PM, which was about 7:40 AM back in Gorham. The flight was good. We had some turbulence early on from the tropical storm, but the ride quickly smoothed out. I did okay - I guess I was too excited to be nervous. Actually, if you notice turbulence in a great big airbus, it must have been pretty intense.

We landed at Heathrow in London at about 3 AM. At that point I reset my watch to German time, so unless I note otherwise, you will have to subtract 6 hours to find out when things were happening in "real" time in the US. I was actually in England for only a couple of hours, but Heathrow was designed by ferrets, so while it was easy to negotiate, there were thousands of hallways to walk, busses to take, and finally they ran us through security again (Logan was much more organized, and I believe, vigilant), so I really only had about 20 minutes to wait for the plane.

Tegel airport in Berlin is scheduled to be closed, as they are building a beautiful, new, efficient and un-Germanlike overdue and over-budget airport. Tegel is old - I think when they close it they can use it for MadMen sets. I decided not to think about the fact that I was alone 4,000 miles from home in a country where I don't speak the language and my hotel is on the other side of a large and very confusing city. Oh... and jet lagged... I immediately got over the language issue. That is, just about everyone has enough English (although some know English about as well Americans know German from watching Hogan's Heroes) that with hand signals you can make yourself understood. Every German I have run into so far has been friendly helpful. That said, they are friendly and helpful in the German way, which is "I vill answer the question efficiently and completely, be prepared for a follow-up, and get back to something important in my own world," rather than the American friendly "Hi! I'm Buffy your hostess! Is everyone having a good time today?!!"

(I am actually appreciating the German demeanor...)

The ATM worked (whew!) and I got some monopoly money, and somehow found out where to catch the bus I needed. On the bus I met a nice older gentleman, who was from Berlin originally but now lives in Melbourne, Australia. He was going in the same general direction I was, and helped me negotiate finding the right stop, and getting an UBahn (subway) ticket, and as a result I was quickly at my hotel. Hurrah! I checked in, took a shower and shaved, and as it was only about 4 PM decided to explore a bit of Berlin.

 Berlin is a city with scars. I thought the most obvious scar would be from the wall that came down 25 years ago, but this building, the Natural History Museum, shows the patches where holes were filled after WWII. My hotel is on what was the East German side, and many of the older buildings show these scars.

 This beautiful walk is where the wall was. It is now a pleasant walking/bike path along the canal. I took a good long walk along it last night.

This is where they divided Invalidinstrasse with a checkpoint - you are looking toward East Germany.

Here is a remnant of the wall left standing in the middle of a cemetery. Half of the cemetery was East, the other West.

On a happier note, this structure is the massive Berlin Hauptbahnhof - train station. It is an amazing shopping center, all made of glass and escalators.

This is outside the train station. While the Germans have a world-famous Autobahn, and wonderful efficient public transportation, what they are really nuts about is bicycles!

Finally, I think I'm going to be okay in this country...