A rainy day in Berlin
Tuesday 2000-09-05
I'm in Berlin. It's been raining off and on all day. So I figured it was a good time to write another update.

In the last update I was in Rotterdam with Saxwin and Angela. I'll continue from there...

That Thursday evening I went to dinner with all the guys I was working with when I was in Holland 2 years ago - Saxwin, Alex and Harry. We ate at a nice restaurant on the beach of the North Sea. A splendid time was had by all.

On Friday I did something completely different - I helped Saxwin work on the floor of his new house! I traveled 8000 miles to be a carpenter! Later that afternoon I took the high speed train to Dusseldorf to see Anna.

Early Saturday morning Anna and I left for Expo 2000 in Hannover. It's about a 3 hour trip on the ICE (the German high speed express train). The ICE is a very nice train. Expo 2000 is what we'd call a worlds fair. We spent 2 days at Expo but we easily could have stayed another day or two. It was a great weekend and we both really enjoyed ourselves - even if we were totally exhausted by the time we got back to Dusseldorf at 10pm Sunday evening!

I left Dusseldorf Monday morning and headed for Berlin on the ICE. It was totally packed. For the first hour I was sitting in the smoking section, then I was able to move to non-smoking.

Berlin is a big city! And very interesting and thought provoking. I found a nice room a few kilometers south of the former 'checkpoint charlie' and began exploring. I first visited the Brandenburg Gates and the Reichstag. Turning the corner and seeing the Brandenburg Gates for the first time (from the East German side) sent chills down my spine. Much like the first time I set foot in Red Square.

Today, in between the rain showers, I've been exploring much of the city on foot. There is an unbelievable amount of construction going on. You would have to see it to appreciate the scale. The entire section of town around the Reichstag is under construction.

I need to go before I lose my time on the computer. More later...