B

After only a short while we felt as if it were proper to say "Ich bin ein Berliner." We would have fooled almost no real Berliner, but we did impress our guests a bit with our knowledge of Berlin. Yes, we had guests. Having a place of our own gave us a chance to invite friends to stay with us. And we had three takers.

As noted elsewhere on arrival we found our "furnished" digs pretty unfurnished. Thus we were much more than pleasantly surprised to discover that among the few pieces of furniture there was a sofa that unfolded to become a bed. Not only did it become a bed but it became a reasonaby comfortable bed. It had, for us, the strangest way of unfolding and being set up — that indeed contributed to being comfortable. Consequently we took the sofa and gave our guests the "real bed".

Dirk Harlacher

We met Dirk Harlacher in Belize just a few days before we crossed into Guatemala. He was on a six-month trip before taking up a job in his native Germany. At that time we had no idea that almost a year to the day later we would be in Germany and seeing him there! It was our good luck that he had some business that brought him near to Berlin and he found it possible to drop in on us. When we have an apartment in a city we don't get out to restaurants much — we want to cook for ourselves. So when Dirk came we were all able to explore a new restaurant together. His stay was short, but besides a lot of talking and catching up on his new job Gerry and he took quite a walking tour of the city, and when we got home Jan had just enough energy left to admire some of the photos Dirk took on his trip. Gerry ate them up. Not only does he like to take photos he likes to look at them.

Mick Farrant (and Jan) at Schloss Charlottenberg

Saying Goodbye, Alexander Station

Saying Goodbye, Alexander Station

We've known Dinah and Mick a very long time. Dinah's acquaintance goes back to Jan's student days at Bradford and Mick's over twenty years. Since they retired two years ago they have set themselves a goal of taking a "short break" as the British term it once a month. They don't manage that because of their busy London life, which includes volunteering in many areas, including sitting on the boards of a local school and a local community center. But we were happy to help them meet their goal for March. With them we went off to Sachsenhausen and three Prussian palaces. We also explored some more restaurants, including a fine brunch one Sunday morning.

Sandro and Yvonne with Jan - Potsdamer/Leipziger Platz

Dirk Harlacher wasn't the only person that we met in traveling south from the USA. Just outside Creel, in Mexico's Copper Canyon area we met Sandro and Yvonne. They were cycling from California to Chile over the course of a year. In spite of the fact that we were motor-powered we couldn't keep up with them. At the end of their year they had to go back to their jobs in Switzerland, where they both work for an outfit that produces business point-of-sales software. More interesting, and what really turns them on, is Spin Rock , the band they belong to. In the year since they came back Yvonne taught herself to play. Wish we could do that! With them we saw parts of Berlin new to us, including the tomb of the unknown soldier and parts of the the area around Unter Den Linden.

As should be obvious we had a lot of catching up to do. We got to see their photos of the southern most tip of South America, Tierra del Fuego (and wondered whether we should make the effort to go there someday) and a good part of Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia. In fact, as we were working our way south last year we missed meeting them coming north by a month, so they had much to tell us about the parts of South America we'd missed.