TUESDAY, 4/30:
And now the game of Tetris begins.
Greetings from a hotel right outside of
Tegel Airport in Berlin, where we're camped out awaiting a (gulp) 4am
wake up call to begin our journey back to the U.S tomorrow. Or, to
put this in perspective, if it's still Tuesday when you're reading
this, we'll be getting up at 10 pm tonight Eastern time. And,
assuming rain, thunder, snow, fog, ice, lava, a meteor strike, or a
plague of locusts doesn't delay any of our flights, we'll make it
back to Marquette just before 9 pm Wednesday night.
Yup. It'll be a fun day.
The Tetris game to which I referred has
to do with packing all the crap we bought here into the suitcases with everything else.
Because this was a shorter trip than usual and because the DB trains
we were on have certain size requirements we had to bring slightly
smaller suitcases than we usually do. However, it seems like we
bought just as much in the way of chocolate, soccer jerseys,
chocolate, boxes of cereal, and chocolate, so the game's afoot as to
where everything goes and how it'll all fit in. I have confidence
we'll each be able to do it. It'll just be interesting to see what
ends up where.
Our train didn't leave Leipzig until
just after 11 this morning, so we were able to walk around a little
more and take a few last loving looks at the views--
It was also one of their two market
days for the week, so you know we had to swoop through there--
We were able to see a few things we
hadn't yet, one serious and one not. The serious one? A few
Solpersteine,
or Stumbling Stones.
These are placed in cities throughout
Germany in front of buildings where Jewish people were stripped of
their rights and their property during the Nazi regime. The stones
also tell the ultimate fate of whoever lived in that building; in the
picture above Abraham and Golda Landsberg died at Auschwitz, while
their son was killed at Cosel. These stones, laid in city sidewalks
throughout the country, are a vivid reminder of what happens when
evil people enact evil policies. You know the old saying that those
who don't know history are condemned to repeat it? Well, I'm glad to
know that Germans are making sure that people know their history, at
least in this regard.
It's probably something more countries
around the world should think about.
The non-serious thing we saw? A store
dedicated to kitschy stuff from the days of the old East Germany!
“Ost-stalgia” is actually a thing
in parts of the old DDR. But, then, I guess if you lived under a
certain system for 40 years the people who were around then may have some
memories of it, and the people born after reunification may wonder
what their parents and grandparents went through. However, something
I saw in the store made me laugh at the irony of the whole thing. I
don't know if this was done on purpose, or if it was something
someone didn't fully think through, but there was a Monopoly game
based on the old East Germany for sale there. Think about it for a
moment—Monopoly, perhaps the purest form of capitalism you can find
in a board game, with a version set in a communist country.
Ironic, right? Or maybe that's just
me. That often seems to be the case.
We then hopped aboard a train, a bus,
and a hotel shuttle, and only two or so hours later ended up at our
hotel in Berlin. And for an airport hotel, it's not too bad.
There's even a little green space nearby--
So Loraine and I were able to get out
and enjoy some sun. And in that regard we've been really luck this
trip—with the exception of the cold rain yesterday the weather this
past week has been great. In fact, in some cases it's been downright
amazing, especially considering it's still April. Maybe, just maybe,
Mother Nature was trying to make up for our trip last year, when it
rained for six straight days.
If that's the case, we really
appreciate it.
Like I said, we're getting ready to fly
out of Berlin tomorrow--
From Tegel Airport, which is not even
supposed to be an airport any more. Let me explain--
Almost ten years ago construction
started on a huge new, state-of-the-art airport 20 or so kilometers
outside of the city called Brandenburg. Brandenburg was supposed to replace
three old, small Cold War-era facilities right in the middle of
Berlin, Tegel being one of them. It was supposed to open in 2013 to
great fanfare. In fact, they even shut one of the three old airports
down and turned it into a park. However, in a series of great
embarrassments for vaunted German industry, a series of engineering
and construction problems didn't allow it to open on time in 2013.
In fact, the problems kept popping up and popping up, and six years
later—SIX YEARS LATER—there's still no opening date for
Brandenburg Airport. It's almost like it became a monument to major
incompetence, sitting out on the Autobahn. So Tegel—an airport
that's small, cramped, and lacking any major sort of luxury
whatsoever—is still in use, and will be for the foreseeable future.
In fact, there's now an outcry among Berlin residents just to scrap
the boondoggle and to upgrade Tegel.
I'll be curious to see how that turns
out.
Well, since we have to wake up just as
you're sitting down to watch “NCIS: New Orleans” or the 10
o'clock news, I suppose I should wrap this up. I'll leave you with
today's totally gratuitous lilac picture, this time with a
road work sign that has a KFC sticker attached--
A totally non-gratuitous shot of Loraine and her new German national soccer team jersey--
As well as a sign warning you of the
consequences should you walk under a parking lot gate--
Even though we're flying home tomorrow
that doesn't mean these are finished. After all, we have a four hour
layover in London and a seven hour flight back to Chicago, and I have
lots more pictures and all kinds of stuff I'd still like to discuss, including (but not
limited to) punk rockers, how orderly the Germans are, even when
drunk, a store that made us squeal in delight, upcoming German
elections, how I actually have roots in this part of Germany, my
niece Mallory's annual picture, and the weird flavor of potato chips
I always eat when stuck in a London airport.
Oh. And don't be surprised if lilacs
and a little more 1989 protest history shows up, as well.
So until then...
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