For dessert: Berlin

And after all my adventures in Egypt and Congo, for dessert there is Berlin. I joined Peter, and his son Sandy's family (Sonia, Klaus, and Hugo) here for my last week of the 2017 winter sojourn. It has been about 11 years since my last visit. What I remember from then was cranes everywhere and construction. Things have settled down a bit now and the new construction seems to be public infrastructure--new subway station near Museum Island, big additions to public museums, road work.

At Museum Island

We have enjoyed multiple museums (and have a long list for next time), but the most satisfying for me were the Pergamon and the Neues, both of which have large collections of archeological finds discovered by German scientists in the late 1800s. At one time I felt dismissive about this and referred to it as "stolen art," which I still maintain it is. At the same time, given what has happened in Afghanistan and Palmyra, maybe it is good that these treasures have been preserved.

Schnitzel und spargel

Peter and I also enjoyed seeing a performance of Balanchine's "Jewels" by the Staatsoper rep company and orchestra and a concert of choral music by the Edinburgh Singers. We have eaten schnitzel, goulasch, fresh pike, lots of good vegetables (white asparagus!) and one or three desserts. Despite a lot of walking I think there is no question it was not enough to counter the spaetzle.

Sonia interprets the Time Machine

On the rear deck of our boat

Sonia, Sandy, and the boys have been up for anything and did a great job of finding things kids would enjoy here. The technology museum and the natural history museum were big hits, but Klaus also got into prehistoric stuff and Egyptian mummies. Hugo is happy to be in the convoy (in his stroller). We have met several of their friends here as well. Vincent (who once lived in LA) arranged an afternoon boat trip on the Wannsea and other waterways near Berlin. It happened to be on one of the sunniest days we have had. We stopped at the dock at his Mom's house and picked her and a brother up for the ride. Many boaters had just the previous day put their boats in the water and a fair number of sailboats were enjoying good wind. Another pair of friends, Pedro and Nina, both architects, have been involved in restoring the Mies van der Rohe-designed grave of a great-aunt of Sandy's who died in 1920. Yet another friend of Sonia, Ute--her roommate from fashion school in Antwerp--also joined us for lunch one day. She is busy doing the style side of launching a new high fashion clothing label in Shanghai. They are on their second collection, backed by a Chinese businesswoman.

Although Berlin ia very spread out, getting around is relatively easily due to a variety of public transport options--subways, trams, busses, trains, taxis. We took a fairly short train ride to Leipzig for the day to pay homage to Johann Sebastian Bach. Leipzig feels like a very manageable size and has an assortment of architectural styles that have blended well. We visited both Nicholaskircke and the StTomaskircke, the latter of which was Bach's home church for decades. Next door there is an extraordinarily well done Bach Museum that employs a variety of media approaches to highlight his history and music. We also found a contemporary art museum filled mainly with installations that left us feeling happy.

Peter nearly caused an international incident when he sat down next to a young woman in hijab on the train to Leipzig. We failed to reserve seats and so were looking for vacant ones after we got moved out of our first choice. One of 4 men traveling with three women in hijab said the seat was taken. Then one German man reminded him of the rules--if you do not claim your reserved seat within 5 minutes after the train departs, it's gone. That did not help. But a very kindly woman arranged a game of musical chairs by asking another woman to sit there and Peter got that woman's seat. All was well, but this was obviously something very close to the emotional surface for both sides. The folks mentioned above, with whom we have been talking politics, all seem to be pro-immigration. Vincent's partner, Frederika, who works in the SAP Innovation Center on health care applications, noted the demographic changes that demand immigration for both child care and elder care at the very least. They feel confident Merkel will prevail in the next election because people want stability now for awhile.

Peter is fearless in speaking his German and even I have been surprised at how much I understand or can read. Not sure if it is the college German creeping back or just crossovers from Dutch. But I hope it bodes well for our time in Mexico later this year.

For our last evening we will visit James Turrell's chapel with Pedro and Nina (http://www.sleek-mag.com/2016/08/23/james-turrell-berlin-cemetery/). This is in a cemetary and was built in 1927. No documentation remains of what it looked like originally.

It is not easy to leave here. So we have to look forward to next time. We have stayed in a centrally located hotel next to the ruined Kaiser Wilhelm Church Memorial and across from the zoo, ten minutes from shopping and great restaurants, right on the U-Bahn line. From our window we can see the continuing remembramces to those who were killed in the Christmas Market terrorism attack.