We arrived safely into Berlin and while I was able to manage French and Nederland - I was of no help at all. After gaining directions from the very helpful (not!) information desk we set off. Not reading our details properly hurt us and several laps were done until we arrived at what we thought was our apartment. The lovely Russian lady staying there was most helpful and we had a conversation via her Iphone translate app - and we finally arrived. Desperately hungry and tired and with the Oogster refusing to walk any further we staggered to the nearby Turkish place. Lots of pointing and laughing and an awesome dinner was underway. It's worth mentioning the apartment is bigger than our house - older but these Germans know their internal heating!
Our Saturday was met with beautiful clear skies with a temp of 6! We had more success with the underground and joined our Berlin Fat Tires bike tour. As a coach I shall never complain about big groups again - Tanya our guide had 30 odd people of all ages (and abilities), and she did the whole ride in a full length skirt!
The tour was great and we visited many of the important historical sites of Berlin. the most touching was the memorial to the 6M murdered in Europe during WW2. We were all very impressed by the transparency the new Germany has (their words) and the respect to the history they make. It's actually quite hard to articulate and took a while to process before sleep. The tour ended at a bier garden and I was strongly encouraged to try the below! Yikes I still had to ride back....
As many of you fine readers may know we luckily (??!!) happened to be in Berlin the same time as it's 40th Marathon. Now this race sells out in 20 minutes - so there was little hope of Rocket getting an entry. Thanks to the encouragement of many friends (we'll talk later and you know who you are) and our German friend Andrej, Rocket was in. Well Ralf Ellent was and he looked a lot like Rocket.
These German folk are quite civilized and the marathon start was 8.45am, I thought this was because it gets light later, silly me it's because it is only 4 degrees. These crazy cats also don't care how dumb they might look, and I'm certain they must have invented compression socks as everyone had them on.
Poor Rocket was freezing his already skinny butt off in his singlet and shorts so we kept him warm for as long as we could. Now triathlon friends you must NEVER complain again about busy wave starts are or too many people. Holy Moly this was crazy - I have never seen so many people, it was a stream of them coming. Our chances of seeing Rocket were slim, however because he is tall we caught him at the 7k, 20k and finish line.
I'm sure all of you well travelled folk will agree how surprising it is that countries so close together can be so different, this is why it's so special to have the opportunity to travel and experience it all.
I wrote the first part of this installment before dinner and after a 500ml bier (is now the time I should mention I haven't drunk bier since I was 18?) I'm hoping there aren't too many spelling mistakes and it generally makes sense!
Our marathoner was feeling pretty good but I think the walk home from dinner is the only time we have all walked faster than him. Hopefully he'll be up to lifting bags off and on the train tomorrow as we are off to a whistle stop tour of Prague and Munich.
Until then Auf Wiedersehen.
I am enjoying your photos and news of your travels Angela. X
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