Blogs from Berlin, Germany, Europe

It was a rough night: hot, thunder and lightning, NO air conditioning. The room (the same room we had when we were here 10 days ago) has a system on the wall that has all the dials for a heating/air conditioning system … but all you can do is turn the fan on as the temperature dial does not work. This was discovered when John asked the front desk to fix the system. “We don’t have air conditioning; most hotels in Berlin do not have air conditioning.” John told them we would be leaving and went off on a rented bicycle to find another hotel! Turns out most don’t have air conditioning and there is a huge convention coming into town today. Like Oliver hew would get off his little bike and go into the lobby ... read more

John was again up early and decided to take a crack at changing some tickets at the main station, Berlin Hauptbahnhof. He took the local S train two stops and found he was way too early for any service other than a ticket machine. But it was fun to look at all the people up at 6AM going hither and yon on what turns out to be a national holiday, Ascension Day. In Germany it is also “Men’s Day” which was described in the local literature as: “Ascension Day in Germany is also Father’s Day, or Men’s Day as it’s called in some places, and the traditional way that Germans like to honour dear old Dad is with good old beer, and lots of it.” But we did not discover the rationale for celebrating until late ... read more

We checked into our hotel, a 3-star named Alexander Plaza, centrally located for our current foray. After a shower and a light light lunch near the hotel it was off to the Pergamon Museum, only two blocks away. Museum Island is surrounded by the Spree River and has four museums and the city’s main church, Berlin Dom. Today it was a two hour visit to the Pergamon with its exquisite collection of ancient Persian, Greek and Islamic pieces. The first thing you see is the immense gates of fabled Babylon. They are over 40 plus feet high with beautiful blue bricks and carvings of animals. Then we walked into the three-tiered ancient Greek Market Gate from Miletus near Ephesus in Turkey. We were in awe, especially when we had visited Miletus and it 25,000 person theatre. ... read more

Noc nahovno, vobec som sa nevyspal. V berline pristavame o nieco skorej. Po vystupeni mi tegel letisko pripada ako druhotriedne dedinske letisko. Singapur letisko je fakt uplna parada. Bus nas odvaza k imigracke. Na pasovke ubermenschen idu k automatickym branam. Vlozit pas, sken tvare a uz som na europskej pode. Ziadna securit kontrola, tak clovek mohol preniest kopu chlastu a cigariet. Podla znacenia idem smer bus. V automate kupeny listko ab (dalo sa platit i kartou ale chcel som sa zbavit minci) Naskakujem na txl bus co ide okolo hauptbahnof. Dnu som si ako jediny cvakam listok. ( No este jeden si cvakal) Niektory ludia si kupovali listok u vodica. Ani nie po polhodine vyskakujem na zel.stanici. Tu mix narodnosti. Pesi idem nazad do supermarketu aldi. Kupa pizza kuskov a konecne vody. Kurvy nemecke maju zalohovane ... read more

This group is very different from those I have joined in the past. There are 16 of us , and seven are older than I! My room mate is a woman from Victoria born on December 25 , 1950, and a retired teacher ...practically a twin !! I tnink we will work out okay . Not to sure about the retired orthosurgeon and KENNY suporter from Calgary . The other Canadians are from Winnipeg , Saskatoon and Ottawa. 4 of the group are from Australia and 3 from New Zealand. Our guide seems to be a very nice young man . 30years old and originally from Turkey . He has been working with G for 6 years and is now one of their trainers . He takes pride in his work . He studied history and ... read more