Berlin

9/4/02 - Berlin, Germany  We arrived in Berlin at about 4pm and spent way too much time trying to figure out how to buy a telephone card.  The woman at the information booth had clearly run out of Preparation H, probably a couple of days ago.  I called the "Circus Hostel" and a very helpful guy got us setup in an "apartment", a beautiful private room with a great bathroom, sparkling wood floors and electric blinds on the windows.  It was swell.  After we settled in we walked to a nearby piece of the Berlin wall that was left standing.  The wall was interesting and eerie.  It is actually two walls with a death strip in between.  It was then that we realized that we were staying in the former East Berlin.  We could see vestiges of the designs and architectures that we saw in Russia.  Later I used the high speed Internet computers in the hostel lobby and we went to bed.

9/5/02 - Berlin  Among its many great services, the hostel offers a bike tour of the city. It was a jam packed and fascinating 5 hours.  The sites included:

• The Reichstag (German Parliament) where we learned of Hitler's rise to power, how the Russians captured it and how it again became the German seat of power again after reunification.
• Siegessaule, the 1873 victory column commemorating the formation of a consolidated Germany.  Hitler added a fourth section honoring himself and had it moved to its present location.
• Brandenburg gate, site of Kennedy and Reagan's famous speeches.
• The former headquarters of the East Berlin government where a peaceful demonstration in 1953 ended with Soviet tanks literally crushing 400 hundred people.  This brutality lead to an eight year exodus to the West that precipitated the need for a wall, or a war as the Soviets repeatedly threatened to take West Berlin.
• A standing section of the Berlin Wall where we heard the fascinating story of how it came about and how it averted an almost certain nuclear conflict with the Russians.
• The site of Hitler's bunker and death.  It is a car park, deliberately unmarked to prevent it from becoming a shrine for neo Nazis and other lunatics.  It turns out that the Soviets found and positively identified Hitler's remains, but kept this fact from the West.
• Bebelplatz at Humboldt University, the site of the famous Nazi book burning.  Some of Einstein's (a former student) work was included in the bonfire.  In the center of the square, amidst the cobblestones, there is a glass section revealing an underground memorial with empty bookshelves representing the quantity of books burned.
• Checkpoint Charlie, where East met West.
• The exterior of old cathedrals and famous museums I ain't going to.

Well, how do you follow that?  Leanne went to a yoga class and I went running.  After that we walked to the Reichstag for a late night (10pm) climb into the new glass dome recently constructed to replace the stone dome destroyed in the war.  On the way back I had a McAfrica meal.  McDonald's is bold in Germany.

9/6/02 - Berlin  We had a list of destinations, and we hit 'em all.  Checkpoint Charlie, Olympic Stadium, Memorial Church, Potsdamer Platz (now full of gleaming new buildings, movie theatres and a swell SonyStyle store), Kurfurstendamm Street and a grand Soviet War Memorial in former East Berlin.  We ended our day at the hideous and quite tall TV tower built by the Soviets as a testament to their great technology (although they had to hire a Swedish company to finish the project).  We sat in the revolving restaurant and had a fabulous view of the city while we enjoyed mozzarella and tomato with German beer mixed with Sprite.  It was delightful.

9/7/02 - Berlin  I slept (hey, I had a beer with Sprite) and Leanne vomited.  I woke up, Leanne vomited.  I ran some errands, Leanne vomited.  For such a little girl we were running out of garbage bags.  At about 2pm we thought it wise to have a Dr. confirm that she didn't have anything nasty from Costa Rica or the equally dirty Russia.  I called the St. Petersburg hostel to have them remind me of the parasite they warned was in their water.  The Dr. came to the hostel, black bag and all.  He poked, prodded, charged two hundred bucks and said she'd be fine.  6pm and she's in a lot of pain.  I call the German Dr. at home and tell him of Leanne's symptoms.  He feels comfortable that it is not the appendix (she has no temperature) and that she should take the medicine he prescribed.  Leanne ain't buying it.

We discuss going to the hospital and decide I should take 30 minutes (no more) to return to the call shop (a nearby retail shop with cheap/fast/easy international long distance) and get some advice from my Dr. in Boston.  I get the covering Dr. who is clear that it is acute appendicitis "I apologize, but I think you should take your wife to the hospital."  I rush out, forgetting to pay my $3.75 and the guy calls me back in.  I ask him and a couple of others what the best hospital is (Charité, The teaching hospital at Humboldt University, Mitte campus, http://www.charite.de/kompakt/english/p0.00_frame.html) and ask the hostel to call a cab.  I got Leannie and we were off (did I mention that the taxi was a beautiful, late model Mercedes-Benz station wagon).  It was only a couple of miles and she was seen pretty quickly.  The physician spoke excellent English.  He poked, prodded, ordered blood & urine work and sent her off to radiology.  The radiologist said it looked like appendicitis, I though it looked like an aerial photograph of Kabul.

The blood came back with elevated white blood cells.  She was seen by a surgeon who recommended surgery.  I asked when and she looked at her watch and said "in about 20-30 minutes."  Well, I guess my evening's shot!  They were done at about 2am and the surgeon told me that it was indeed appendicitis and that the procedure went well.  I stayed with Leanne until 3am to make sure she got her pain medication, and that it was working.  She fell asleep and I went back to the hostel, tried to reach her parents and fell asleep myself.

9/8/02 - Berlin  When I got to the hospital Leanne was up and doing pretty well.  She did a little walking and was well enough to ask if "her ass was hanging out" (the night before she was taking her clothes off for everyone but the floor wax guy).  She watched a DVD and rested.  We took some photos for her mom.  When the sun was up in the US, I made the parent calls.  We watched a movie until about 10:30pm, she fell asleep and I went home.

9/9/02 - Berlin  Day 2 in the hospital and she's lookin' pretty good.  She complained about her pink soup breakfast and was getting pretty tired of hearing German (Steve Martin: It's like they have a different word for everything!).  We walked, sat, watched movies, played Tetris on the computer and had a pretty good day.  I scoped out some hotels for when she is released.  We talked about our plan, which is to hang out in Berlin for a week and probably catch our flight to London and get back with the program.  Tomorrow it's Disney's "Monsters Inc.".

9/10/02 - Berlin  I got to the hospital early.  She's looking better still - eating and walking more.  We went outside and walked the entire circumference of the hospital.  I went for a run through the nearby Tiergarten (park) and past the Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate and victory column.  I checked in on Leanne and went to the hostel to do some errands and update people via email.  On my afternoon trip to the hospital I stopped at the section of Berlin wall that we saw our first night and took some photos that Leanne wanted of the relic.  I hung out with Leanne, watched "Monsters Inc." and played Tetris.  Late that evening I found a bar/Internet cafe and posted the latest photos and journal.  I also downloaded some new music and other stuff.

9/11/02 - Berlin  Day 4, the last.  I checked out of the hostel, locked up my pack and took Leanne's to the hospital.  She was already up and walking.  We had some breakfast and began to pack her stuff.  She had her first shower and I went for another run.  I showered at the hostel, collected my pack and returned to Charité.  The hospital completed their paperwork around 3pm, and we were off.  We climbed into a beautiful Mercedes taxi and drove about 20 minutes to our remote, quiet hotel near Checkpoint Bravo, where West Berlin met the East German countryside.  We took a walk and then relaxed the rest of the day, watching (thankfully) uneventful 9/11 CNN coverage.

9/12/02 - Berlin  The hotel is situated in the former East German countryside adjacent to the West Berlin line.  We can walk to the former Allied Checkpoint Bravo, where cars from the West entered.  It is perfect for Leanne's walking and relaxing.  Later in the day I took the bus to the Wanssee S-bahn and went into Berlin (about an hour).  I got a DVD, surfed the web, etc.

9/13/02 - Berlin  Walking, movie watching and another trip into the big city for me.  I went for a nice run along the woods in the 60 foot wide grassy area that was formerly the death strip between the East German countryside and West Berlin.

9/14/02 - Berlin  We packed up and took the bus and S-Bahn to a train for Dresden.  The train ride was 2 hours and we then easily found a hostel in Neustadt (the newer part of town).  We went for a walk in Neustadt and saw some pleasant sights.  Later we walked across the Elbe river to Altstadt where the very impressive old Dresden lay.  Much of it had been destroyed from the bombings and what remained was singed black from the resultant fire storms.  It was impressive nonetheless.

9/15/02 - Berlin  We took a steamboat ride up the Elbe river to Pilnitz, the site of a Saxony summer palace.  Nice, but not spectacular.  We got the boat back to Dresden and again visited the impressive buildings of Altstadt.  Leanne headed to the rail station and I went back for the bags at the hostel.  We trained back to the beloved Circus Hostel in Berlin and retrieved our stored luggage.  I Internetted and Leanne slept and slept.

9/16/02 - Berlin  Leanne had her sutures removed at 7am and the doctors were pleased with her condition.  We had a nice lunch at a cafe with Internet computers and Leanne caught up on her emails and I surfed the web for Namibian safaris.  We were planning to visit a Berlin concentration camp, but it is closed on Mondays.  Instead we saw "The Road to Perdition" at Potsdamer Platz.  I went for a run and later we did laundry and had a Vietnamese dinner across from the hostel.

9/17/02 - Berlin  I ran some errands in the morning and we left at 9:30am for the airport.  A nice guest at the hostel helped me with Leanne's bags down to the subway.  We took the U-Bahn to the airport bus and were there in plenty of time.  The flight to London was fine, uneventful.  We took the subway from Heathrow to our hotel on Liverpool Street.  We had a freebie coming to us from Wyndham Hotels and we're using it here.  We got a lovely room and did our best to fit in (I didn't notice that any of the Investment Bankers in the lobby were carrying backpacks).  I went for a run over the Tower Bridge and Leanne took a nap.  We then met up with Wyatt, a friend I had met in Japan more than 12  years ago.  It was great to see him again.  We had a long meal and a good time.

9/18/02 - Berlin  We met Wyatt again for breakfast and then spent an hour or two on the Internet trying to figure out our Namibian plans.  We walked to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and saw an excellent production of "A Midsummer's Night Dream."  I brought a magazine but ended up staying for the whole 3 hours, and for the most part, paid attention.  We then met Neus (Andrew Neustader, a Cap Factory founding father) for dinner.  It was great to see him and he is doing well.  I carried the 682 lbs. of luggage  whilst Leanne skipped and frolicked en route to the airport.  Our flight for Greece is at 10:30pm, we'll arrive in Athens at 4:30am tomorrow.