Week 11-Berlin, unaccompanied baggage, goodbye to Explorer
Hello from Germany:
I am sitting here on Sunday afternoon looking out of the
window at the most beautiful day, the sun is shining and all seems right with the
world. I just got off of Skype with
my son who showed me my 19 year old dog; Maggie, who it seems has had quite an adventure
for herself. She fell at the beginning
of the week and has since recovered from the mishap, but it scared my son. She also got lost at the edge of our yard since she is
deaf and blind. So she was picked up by an elderly neighbor and turned into the dog pound. My son, ever diligent, put a notice out and
found out that Maggie, was at the pound so suffice to say I was glad to
see her on the Skype today all safe and sound.
We saw the party held at our house last Friday night from a facebook posted picture and I commented on the picture--nice house. Hey- it's still standing or was last Friday. lol But really my son is doing a great job holding down the fort. Anyway enough about the home front.
Our unaccompanied luggage did make it Monday. As we are opening up box after box of stuff we finally look at each other and say “Why did we bring this?” We had to
laugh. I don’t know if we thought we
were coming to a third world country where they would have nothing that we like
but we have enough Bisquick to feed an army and deodorant and soap for a year
and enough Tylenol and Nyquil to stock a small pharmacy. Lol But anyway we did get all of the baggage put
away just in time for us to start all over again with the furniture and notices
of its imminent delivery sent to the elusive needanemail@yahoo.com. Lol- But I am confident that we will get it
before ---hmmm-- next summer…lol
We sent the Explorer back to the USA and we are depending on
baby car to make it. Family is coming
soon to visit which makes me happy. I’d
be happier if I had my furniture but we have enough like beds and such on
loan from the government. I am so
looking forward to seeing some familiar faces and family time. I took off the two Mondays after Veteran's Day to spend time with
the family. I am allowed to take three
days a year no questions asked. That is
pretty nice.
Saturday we went to Berlin.
It was loads of fun. We boarded
the post bus and spent 6 hours getting there.
We had a 2 hour city tour as soon as we arrived and the guide told us of
all of the sites. Below are pictures of
one of the many museums(picture 6), a cathedral(picture 5), remnants of the wall ( picture 2), Checkpoint Charlie (picture 3)and
my passport stamped with Checkpoint Charlie stamps(picture 4), the memorial for the
European Jewish people killed in the war ( picture 1)and a gorgeous shot of Berlin at
night( picture 7). We bought remnants of the wall to
bring home and went to a street market.
We also visited a museum that had a 360 degree view of Greek life. Awesome!! There were statues of Greek gods
and Gregg and I both commented as we toured the museum with its many containers
of remnants of historical statues that it looked like Raiders of the Lost Ark
and we fully expected to see Harrison Ford whip his whip at any moment. At one point, I heard a commotion and turned to find Gregg
walking away with his hands in his pockets trying to look innocent.
I said what happened and he said that he had accidentally tripped some
guy and the guy fell into one of the 2500+ year old statues.
Fortunately, the statues are so enormous nothing happened. Whew!!
I would have hated reading about us in the paper. The cathedral was
fabulous and we walked the 191 steps up and 191 down (Gregg counted them ha-ha) to
walk the dome. We stopped
at Checkpoint Charlie and took our picture and I got my passport stamped with
about 12 stamps. It was cool. There were
only remnants of the wall left. We spent most of our time in East
Berlin. The city has been rebuilt after
the war and is modernized. The guide was
very poignant when talking of the holocaust and just as appalled when talking
of Hitler. It was a hard time for Germany. Visiting this town was a great highlight on
my time abroad.
Looking forward to family.
Maybe it is the holidays but I am really missing home. With that, I will close for this week. Till next time, have a great week.
Hugs from Germany.
Susan
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