Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Berlin Beckons

Last weekend I journeyed to Berlin to visit my friend Adrienne.  She’s in Germany for six months as part of an international development course sponsored by my former company.  I never made it to Berlin during my light bulb stint although I did have the opportunity to sample every restaurant in St Marys, Pennsylvania at least twelve times.  Beef on wick and pierogies both really grew on me after the first year :)


It was wonderful getting to catch-up with Adrienne and she very graciously toured me around her new city.   In our old lives, we often went running during lunch with another friend.  After I arrived on Friday evening, we probably walked for miles to see Berlin in her lite-up splendor.  The picture below is of me in front of the Brandenburg Gate. 

On Saturday we hit all the Berlin highlights from the East Side Gallery to Hitler’s Bunker to the Holocaust Memorial.  The subdued feeling of Hitler’s Bunker took me by surprise.  The former bunker’s ruins have long since been demolished and in its place are innocuous looking apartment buildings.  The picture below is of Adrienne in front of the East Side Gallery which is a memorial stretch of the wall near the center of Berlin with over 100 paintings. 



My favorite tourist attraction was the Checkpoint Charlie Museum.  It’s an entire museum dedicated to stories of creative and daring escape attempts from East Germany.  The engineer in me wandered around in bewilderment at the ingenuity of some of the devices on display from the hot air balloon to the hollowed out cars to the mini-sub.  You would love this museum Dad.  See me below with the Russian and American guards in front of the checkpoint.


As with all my weekend trips, the time to return to Basel for work came all too fast.  Thanks for hosting me Adrienne!  Mary Beth - really you can't come up with any business trips to Germany?  See all the fun you're missing ...


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