just john

Trying to maintain the once-per-week minimum here.

I dropped Bill off at the airport this morning. Always a little bit sad later in the day because it is so long between visits. Two months until I fly into the US and nine months left in Germany. The time is flying by and not moving at the same time. In the end, I don't think there'll be any regrets one way or the other about places or things I didn't see while I was here.

Berlin, with the exception of being ass-cold, was an awesome city. We could easily have spent another week there just taking in the historical sites. As it was, we were only able to cover 3 museums and the major landmarks during the day. The old Wall is essentially gone and it was rare to actually see a section of it standing in the original spot. It's division is remembered by a double stripe of cobblestones where ever it passed through the city. The musuem at Checkpoint Charlie was a reminder of the history of what happened, how bad it was, and a chronicle of the escape efforts made by thousands of people before it was finally taken down. We tried to get a feel for the old east Berlin but there wasn't much that hadn't been rebuilt in the sections we walked through. Aside from three museums, the last of which was too short, we took a city bus tour of the major landmark and got off to walk the ones we wanted. Three days just couldn't cover it.

The night life was equally impressive. Since we were travelling light, we couldn't get in to a lot of bars due to wardrobe restrictions, but we found some pretty good ones anyway. Afraid we're missing Easter weekend which will be an event to attend in Berlin. Maybe some other year.