Our museum for today was the Memorial to the German Resistance, commemorating those who resisted National Socialism through demonstration, writing, speaking, helping the oppressed, or just refusing to participate. We slept in today, because we were up late watching Fußball, so we missed breakfast at the Pension, and when we did get up, we had a bit of a lazy morning writing blog posts and reading up on things we were going to see and watching Big Bang Theory in German. Once we set out, we headed to La Piazza, where I tried their pizza (delicious) and Cheryl tried a pasta dish with pesto and lamb (also delicious) and we had Radler to drink (called Alsterwasser in Berlin). Our waiter correctly figured out we were Americans and chatted with us a bit; he had lived in ... read more

Apparently, Monday is a day when many of Berlin's museums are closed, but the Checkpoint Charlie Museumis open every day, so we decided to make it the main event for the day. Our Pension features Früstück every morning in the breakfast room, so we decided to take advantage and fuel up for the morning. I had scrambled eggs, some salamis and cheeses, a small bowl of Müsli mit Milch and some coffee and orange juice; Cheryl passed on the eggs, but had a bowl of Müsli with yogurt, plus some of the meats and cheeses, and also coffee and orange juice. Except for the eggs, we had this type of breakfast every morning while staying with Andrea and Ulf, and also when we were in Vienna in 2009, our Pension featured much the same fare, and ... read more

Today, we said goodbye not only to Ulf, Andrea and Lars, but also to Barbara, Laura and Joe, who will be flying to Bristol tomorrow, and starting their British tour off in Bath. But, first Döner! We got up much earlier this morning, showered, finished our last minute packing, ate Früstück (breakfast) together one last time, and headed to the bus stop for the trip to the Hauptbahnhof to catch our train. Our train didn't leave until 13:16, so we had planned to get to the station and then find a nearby Döner, because I still had not had not had any good Döner. As expected, it was quite tasty, and when we were done, our server dude offered us Turkish tea, which was very strong, but with enough Zucker, was also very tasty. Finally, it ... read more

Today was a rest day. We had breakfast and lounged about the living room blogging and facebooking, and then Barb and Ulf and I walked to the grocery store to get things and supplies, which required me to get dressed. When we got back, Andrea's parents, Arnold and Doris (aka Oma und Opa) had arrived from Ettlingen. After introductions were made (wherein I gave a somewhat butchered version of "Pleased to meet you" auf Deutsch), a demand was made for Oma's punch, so Andrea and her mom went to the store again for more things and supplies. Pretty soon, it was time to depart for Anne's school where she would receive her Abiturzeugnis (loosely, a diploma; think of it as her graduation; it's different, though, so go read the wikipedia article if you want to know ... read more

We were slow to wake up today, and bad luck, the hot water went out after Cheryl got her shower. But, we all managed to do some version of "hit the high spots and hope for the best" and after a wonderful breakfast, we were off by bus to Altona. Our first stop was Stuhlmannbrunner ("chair man fountain"). The fountain was working, which, according to Andrea, was remarkable; it was working so well that Laura, Tiny Beethoven and I got a bit wet. We walked further toward the Elbe, and ended up at Altonaer Balkon, another park and scenic overlook where we spent some time looking over the scene. We then headed down to the ferry dock Dockland to wait for our tour boat. It turns out that the harbor ferry is a much more cost-effective ... read more