Berlin...

A quick note as it's very late here, about 1.38am, I've just been to dinner, it's as hot as, the keyboard is a german keyboard but has been set to an english keyboard so it's hard to type on and yes....

With super sadness it was bye bye to Craig and Marcel in Switzerland - what amazing hosts, what an amazing country and what an amazing time.

Then, just to be quick and as much for my memory as anything:

Zurich airport is big, getting through security a major, got patted down by a very nice Swiss but had to remove my shoes.

Flight and then in Berlin. Yah.

Off the plane and on to a bus to drive us - and I kid you not - two bus lengths to the door to where we collected our bags. It was bizarre. Then into Berlin - with Ji waiting for us at the airport.

To the hotel - which doesn't like giving out towels and, unfortunately doesn't have airconditioning in 37 degree heat but it's a huge double room suite for a hotel which was an apartment for a family in an older East German style apartment block in the old East Berlin. It's true that the East architecture was very different from the West.

A walk around, found the info centre, the Brandenburg Gate, buses, trains, dinner at a fab restaurant (with the summer mossies which are out in force here), the trams, Hagen Daaz, sleep, a thunder/lightening storm, breakfast, trains, shopping (some stuff is really cheap - a 1gig SD memory card is 10 euro, about $19NZ - and that's a Panasonic branded one, coffee by the nude statutes (you have to see them - it seems to me that Germans are much more comfortable with their bodies, the Tiergarten (which was lovely, particularly the nude mens part), the Helmut Newtown museum (which was brilliant), the new Sony Centre and finding the lego exhibition (which at about $27 NZ entrance I passed on), my sister who took a major trip and is now blue with bruises, lunch at the same place as the day before but this time at 5.30pm (we lost our sense of time), dinner with Ji and her friends at an Austrian restaurant (which was great!!) and now home.

Oh, and Ji got me a prepay card so I could txt her (my NZ vodafone number wont txt her - go figure) but it wouldn't work, and then we took it back to get it working, but now I can't txt america and in Germany you need show your passport and sign a contract to get a prepay card (and I think Ji also said you need to be a resident) - none of this walking in, handing over cash and getting a card.

Berlin is a great city though, it's just amazing to see what's happening here and to see the difference between the old East and West. I was also lucky enough that one of Ji's friends was an Easter Berliner - he was about 11 when they pulled the wall down so he was really interesting to speak to. Particularly as his dad was a major in the East German army.

I've also learned to say a bottle of water in German - useless trivia but there you.

Later as sleep calls and more to do tomorrow. Yah!

ps I don't miss the bad weather there but I miss you all!!