Blogs from Berlin, Germany, Europe - page 167

NO! yo no Sprechen Deutch, pero con simbolos e ingles uno se entiende aqui y si no con las manos y gesticulando. Llegamos aBerlin hace 2 dias, pero parece que llevemos aqui un mes, la ciudad es gigante!! y los monumentos y edificios estan en proporcion. En alguna manera me recuerda a Paris,porque hay una avenida que atraviesa la ciudad y si en Paris ves el Arco del Triunfo en medio, aqui ves la Puerta de Brandensburgo. No he visto mucha diferencia entre Berlin Este y Oeste ni tampoco he visto mucho de la muralla, bueno eso si no cuentas las postales que venden con trocito de muralla incluido. Here we are, we have started our trip and the first stop BERLIN!!. Very spectacular city with great architecture, history and so many museums that I am ... read more

PSA: technical difficulties with pictures. This was typed last night. I'll be back up to date on Monday. Okay it is no longer East Berlin. But, I don't know which is more amazing: me walking through the Brandenberg Tor onto Unter den Linden into the heart of the old East Berlin; or, me now sitting in my hotel room typing this note whilst I listen to the Illinois football game over the Internet! A game that is happening 4000+ miles away...!!! And, it is equally amazing that our children (well, speaking with respect to us youngish parents...) will grow up with DDR meaning nothing more than a cool dance device. These are the same kids that hear Rhapsody in Blue and think it is the music from United Airlines commercials. Anyway... I slept 13 hours Friday ... read more

Berlin. (Okay, raise your hand if you hear the word "Berlin" in your head being pronounced by Eddie Izzard doing James Mason doing JFK??? And, BTW, I'll be going to the Rathaus Schoenberg tomorrow. That is where JFK famously outed himself as a jelly donut in 1963...) To begin with, this will be my first extensive blog entry. I suspect I'll ramble. Feel free to comment on how I'm doing. Berlin - so far vastly exceeding my memories of a very brief stop here five years ago. An astonishing place for a child of the Cold War to be able to so easily come to, wander around in, and soak up the history of arguably the most influential country of the 20th century. I arrived at the Grand Hyatt Berlin around 2:00pm CET today. It is ... read more

Well, I have finally found a good place for internetting here at the University. The connection at my host family's house, while better than many of my friends', is still pretty ghetto slow and costs a lot more than in the states. So I should be able to update this much more often. Just for the record, I also very much appreciate emails. So, lets see. The last blog was from the first day that I moved in with my host family. They are still an interesting bunch. My host dad, particularly is quite a character. He is a history buff and the whole wall of his office is covered with history books and diaries and pictures that he has collected over the years. He is an amazing treasure-trove of information and history. My german is ... read more

Well ive popped my head up again to give some kind of update of my travels; FYI im currently in Berlin, Germany, staying at a friends apartment for an as yet undetermined length of time... eventually this blog will catch up to where i ACTUALLY am! Yes so despite all the delays in Warsaw i still managed to make it to my flight on time and jetted off to Tallinn, Estonia. Despite some trouble finding my direction in the city, i managed to find the ferry ticketing office and bought a ticket across to Finland, and then got directions to the port of Tallinn. I missed the boat i wanted to catch to Helsinki, so had to catch a later, more expensive ferry :0( Also i later found out that on the boat that i missed ... read more