Germany Day 10 & 11: Going, Going, Gone

After going to bed late we slept in again this morning and took our time getting ready. Once we were up at put together we all decided to go out for a walk. Doris took us into the nature preserve again near her place although this time we walked a different route and came upon a large enclosed pasture full of deer. They looked like caribou or reindeer in the way that they were small but had impressive, fuzzy antlers. Doris said that they weren't reindeer but something else that she didn't know the name of in english.

Anyway we watched the deer for awhile before heading back to the apartment but rather than go straight in we decided to take a walk around in her neighborhood. We found a little corner ice cream shop. Feeling adventurous I tried a double scoop of Zitron and Waldmeister. Zitron was lemon and was delicious - I love lemon ice cream and I don't understand why it isn't popular in the states. Waldmeister was unidentifiable. It may have been vanilla and lime or it may have been vanilla and irish cream, whatever it was the flavor got lost in the lemon. It looked pretty though.

After our walk and ice cream we all piled into Doris' car and headed out to meet her son Norbert and her sister Renate for dinner at a Turkish restaurant. It was a pretty good meal although there was a snafu with the ordering and I think the waiter got confused and put a plate of calamari in front of me when I thought I had ordered the curried chicken. I asked if there was some sort of mixup but no one seemed to know so I started eating it thinking it was my dinner. It turned out that Norbert had ordered the calamari in addition to his dish but wasn't sure if I had ordered it too. Stupid language barrier! I felt bad but everyone else thought it was pretty funny. Luckily I didn't eat ALL of it.

After dinner we spent a quiet evening at Doris' place because Kirsten and I had to be up the next morning at 4 to catch our flight home.

Fast forward to the next morning. Up with the sun. We sleepily say our goodbyes to Hedda and Kendra who were leaving on Wednesday and sleepily make our way to the airport. Many thank yous to Doris for driving us. I slept for the flight to Amsterdam and we made our connection to Newark there without any problems. I was surprised to see that they are still doing the additional screening and containment of passengers at the gates for all flights to the US. They have TSA agents manning metal detectors and xray machines and asking each passenger questions about their carry ons. Yes it's as inefficient and annoying as it sounds. But we did make a stop at the duty free shop to purchase a bottle to declare to customs and this time we thought Aquavit would be a good choice since we drank so much at the wedding reception and before with Roland and Susi at their place.

Our Continental flight to Newark was just as bad as it was coming. No delays this time but we did get split up again - I don't know if it's because we keep using the site like travelocity or because it was a codeshare with Lufthansa but getting split up keeps happening to us and for some reason we aren't given the opportunity to switch our seats around. I got an aisle seat with a broken tv monitor a restless infant next to me and a restless leg behind me an overactive bladder next to me and a headrest all the way down in front of me. Fortunately I had a book to read, sudoku and crosswords to do and sleep to catch up on or it would have been a completely miserable flight.

We arrived in New Jersey about 11:30, survived the severe scrutiny by our customs officials, and caught the train into the city. Since the train took me to Penn Station, I just went upstairs to work for five hours while Kirsten went home.

So that was our awesome trip to Germany! We had a great time traveling around with Hedda and Kendra as well as with Ingrid and Doris in Berlin. Also extra special thanks to Doris and Roland and Susi and their kids for putting us up, feeding us, and taking us around Hamburg, out to Heide Park, the soccer game, and to the Hofbrauhaus. Hopefully we can return the favor to you someday soon. And of course best wishes to the newlyweds, Volker and Christine who probably are not reading this since they're on their honeymoon but we hope we'll see you again soon too.

Until our next adventure. . . Prost!

Germany Day 9: White Wedding Part Zwei

Okay, so obviously we're back home now and getting caught up with our normal lives but that doesn't mean that I've forgotten about the conclusion of our German trip! Nope, far from it! So now to relate our last two days in the Hanseatic State of Hamburg:

We all slept in after our night out with Susi and Roland and then spent most of the day packing up and getting ourselves ready for the reception. After the reception, Roland and Susi along with their kids were heading off on an international journey of their own to Denmark so Kendra, Kirsten, and I would be spending our last two nights in Doris' living room.

So by three we were all dressed and loaded into the car and went over to Doris' place, dropped off our luggage and picked up Hedda and Doris and headed to the reception, which was being held at a nice banquet hall overlooking a pond somewhere south of Hamburg. The first half of the reception was standard fare. There were drinks and mingling out on the terrace before hand and then we all went inside for the dinner. Kirsten and I were seated at a table with some of Volker and Christine's english speaking friends which was nice of them, their friends were also very nice and mostly spoke in English so we could follow along even though they were not completely confident in their abilities in the language. And as the night went on our table seemed to become party central with our new German friends ordering round after round of schnapps. Mostly a liquor called Aquavit which is actually Scandanavian and has a very odd aging process. The load it up onto boats and ship it to Australia and then back. Apparently the length of time at sea and the motion of the ocean help give the liquor it's unusual flavor.

The dinner was very nice, we started with a white tomato soup with truffles followed by a main course of steak, potatoes, and vegetables in a red wine sauce, and a hazelnut mousse type dessert. One thing that was interesting was that before and after each course was served a representative from one of the tables would stand up and give a speech or toast to bride and groom and room at large.

After dinner the DJ put on her music and there was dancing and more mingling out on the terrace. At one point the Hamburger SV soccer mascot came by so everyone could get a photo with him and everyone sang the HSV Forever and Ever song. Volker and Christine also did this thing where they sat back to back with one of their shoes and one of the other person's shoes in their hands and were asked questions that they had to respond to by raising the corresponding shoe. Questions like, who is the jealous one? Who does the dishes? Who is good with money? Who is messy? Etc. If they agreed most of the time it was said that their marriage would last. Volker and Christine got a 75% so pretty good odds.

They served cake and currywurst at midnight and we finally left to go back to Hamburg at about 1:30 while the party was still going strong and got back to Doris' place an hour later. Another late night for us!

And I'm sure you're wondering, "Currywurst? What's that?" Well we've been told by quite a few people that it's the junkfood of choice in northern Germany and we had tried it in Berlin and prior to the soccer game with mixed results. The stuff in the crock pot at the reception was quite good though. Essentially it seems that it is summer sausage (or whatever the equivalent is) is cut up and stewed in hot cocktail sauce with curry powder mixed in. Now obviously there are some nuances to making good currywurst and it seems to be similar to getting a coney dog in Detroit or a slice of pizza here in New York - there are lots of places out there selling it and most aren't very good, but when you find a good place you don't go anywhere else.

Germany Day 8: White Wedding

Today was Volker and Christine's wedding day so we got all dressed up and drove into the city.  The ceremony was being held at the Town Hall or Rathaus which was built in the late 1800s and is very ornate - equivalent to many state capitol buildings and more richly decorated than even some of those.  The ceremony itself was held in a special room upstairs which has to be reserved a year in advance.  Although the ceremony was in German and was fairly brief, Hedda, Doris, and Susi all explained the gist of what was said and it was all fairly standard although the officiant did take a little bit of time to explain some of the artifacts in the room.  Of interest was an unexploded bomb that would have destroyed the Rathaus if it had gone off.

After the wedding and all the photos were taken, there was a champagne toast out on the plaza in front of the Rathaus followed by a brief reception at Volker and Christine's apartment.  The official reception will be tomorrow.

The rest of the afternoon was spent being lazy.  Roland, Kendra, and I watched Shoot Em Up - a ridiculous, over the top, action movie while Kirsten napped.  Roland tried to teach me how to juggle - not successful, at least not yet, and in general we just putzed around.

Later, Roland, Susi, Kendra, Kirsten, and I went out to the Beach Club on the Elbe while Chrissi, Caro, and Karden went to stay with Susi's parents for the night.  It was a nice little beach area with cabanas and a large deck with tiki torches, a bonfire, and lots of chairs and benches from which to watch the big container ships cruise up and down the river while drinking beer and eating pizza.  So we did that for awhile.  Then we left to go back downtown for a bit but not before I took a trip down a giant slide we found just outside the parking lot.

The drive back into the city took us through the Reeperbahn - the red light district which mostly looked touristy and a little predatory.  However Roland did point out this back alley that was all walled off with a lot of neon red light coming from the other side and a huge pack of people surrounding that was for men only.  The fact that it was walled off was rather creepy and disturbing.  But eventually we settled for having drinks at the Hofbrauhaus - an outpost of the Munich original.  Aside from Susi - who was our driver for the evening - we all ordered giant liters of beer that came in enormous mugs that at first we wanted to buy but then realized it would take a lot of bottles of beer to fill.  We also ordered some sort of delicious dessert that was sort of like a coffee cake but was cut up and jumbled with some nuts and other things.  So we ate our dessert, drank our beer, listened to the band play German folk music (with a few American songs thrown in) and watched some of the people around us - making up stories for them and just generally having a great time.

After our liters of beer we were feeling quite full so we drove back to the house and sat around for a bit trading stories and laughs until we finally went to bed after 2am.

Germany Day 7: Kirsten and Kyle's Hansa Park Adventure

Today Kirsten and I woke up early and caught the train up to Lubeck where we transferred to a train to Sierksdorf to visit Hansa Park – yep, more roller coasters. Everyone else was going shopping so this seemed like a fun alternative.

The park is built on the shore of the Baltic Sea and is also very beautiful and well landscaped. We started off our day with a ride on their star attraction Fluch von Novgorod. The ride is heavily themed and there is some sort of story but it was all in German so we didn’t understand it but it was fun to see all the special effects and atmosphere. The ride itself was very cool with spook house sections going into roller coaster sections back into a spook house section, back into a roller coaster and so on. It may have been our favorite coaster of the trip which was a surprise. You also exited the ride via slide into a dark maze.

After that we went for a ride on their wild mouse which was themed to a mine and had an audio animatronic jug band entertaining the people in line, their starflyer which is a standard swing ride that you find at any park except it goes up a 200 some foot tower. We were very nervous waiting to ride this since I’m not a fan of spinning around and Kirsten isn’t a fan of high heights. It actually ended up being a lot of fun and really wasn’t too scary. We also jumped on their giant trampolines for a bit and rode their other two coasters Rasender Roland which is a mine train which was pretty good, and Nessie their old signature coaster which was showing its age a bit but was still a lot of fun and we got right back in line to ride it again, and their panoramic sky tower. After that we decided to go for one more ride on Fluch von Novgorod, check out their log flume and then head back to the train and try to spend a little time checking out Lubeck which looked very cool. Unfortunately the line for Fluch von Novgorod ended up being over an hour and the log flume took a little too long as well and we missed our train. The next train back was an hour later and by then it would be too late to see Lubeck. Oh well, something to do next time.

So we made another loop around the park but decided we were done and leisurely strolled back to the train station and made our way back to Hamburg where we had a nice barbecue out in Roland and Susi’s backyard.

Germany Day 6: All Kinds of Awesome!

In the morning Kirsten, Kendra, Hedda, Doris, and I took the ferry into Hamburg. The trip took us past all of the cargo terminals along the River Elbe where the cranes were busy loading and unloading the huge container ships. Apparently it’s one of the biggest harbors in the world and it’s crazy to think of how much goes into shipping like that, everything has to get to its destination correctly and all the ships have to be loaded in a way that they’re balanced with an appropriate center of gravity. I guess that would be industrial engineering? Maybe packaging engineers? Perhaps structural. . . I wonder who does that.

Anyhow we landed at the wharf and walked along to water until we came to the dome of the Alter Elbtunnel. Constructed in 1911 it was the first tunnel under the Elbe and features two tubes that terminate in silos or caissons that are identifiable on the shore by their domed tops. We took the stairs up and down but there are six elevators to take you to the underground level, one for passengers, one for bicyclists, and four for cars. Each of the tubes is only one lane wide with sidewalks on both sides and one tube was out of service this morning so there was a policewoman down at the bottom directing traffic. Fortunately most of the automobile traffic uses the other tunnel and we saw only a few cars come and go from this tunnel.

We didn’t walk through the tunnels but only checked out the big elevators and the portals and all that stuff within the dome before heading back up to street level. This time we headed over to the Hafen City which is an enormous urban building project on land leftover from when the cargo port moved to deeper waters. The land is enormous and consists of several islands where lots of new development is going on. The crown jewel of the area will be the Elbphilharmonie – Hamburg’s answer to the Sydney Opera House. We’ll definitely have to come back to take in a show when it’s completed. The rest of the area had a nice mix of standout architecture and infill structures that mixed well with the existing warehouses that line the canals in the area. We walked around for a good while before sitting down at a small café on a plaza where we had some deli sandwiches. Kirsten and I ended up with these meatloaf sandwiches, I’m not sure what they were called but they were pretty good.

We then parted ways with Kendra, Hedda, and Doris and walked up to the Hamburger Dom (the fair) and went in. It hadn’t quite opened yet so we were able to walk around a bit before our ride on Olympia Looping Bahn. The size of these portable rides and pavilions is staggering. I couldn’t imagine hauling all of this stuff around. They had a spook house with three levels, and a huge log flume ride. The fair also had two other roller coasters but due to time constraints I didn’t ride them.

Olympia Looping Bahn was the main attraction though. It’s the largest portable coaster in the world and can be assembled and disassembled in a few days due to Anton Schwarzkopf’s, the chief engineer, cone plug system of supporting the whole structure and large tanks of water acting as the foundation. It is also still the only coaster in the world with five vertical loops. Other coasters might go upside down more times but they usually rely on quick one-two inversions which in my opinion don’t match the loop for sheer thrill and appearance. The five loops are also laid out and colored in a way as to look like the Olympic rings when viewing the coaster from the side. And because it only stays in Germany and is never in one place for more than a few weeks, it’s a very hard roller coaster for an American to ride so it has achieved a sort of mythical status. So we rode it three times and then headed back to the S Bahn.

Oh you want to hear more about it? Well if you must know I thought it was amazing. Not number one but 95th percentile for me. Kirsten wasn’t feeling it so much for some reason although I think she was a bit alarmed by the filthy Russian carnies operating the ride who when the train returned to the station they greeted you with a gruff, “Get off!” And the shoulder harnesses have a tendency to tighten during the ride. The five loops were amazing and I was pretty apprehensive about the ride since loops tend to make me dizzy. And yes after my three rides I was feeling pretty dizzy and high from the high g-forces. However, the first drop, loop, turn, and then two more loops in a row is one of the best opening combinations I’ve experienced.

By the third ride it began to rain pretty hard so we trudged our way over to the U-Bahn and took the train from St. Pauli to Landungsbrucken then transferred to the S-1 to Othsmarchen where we met up with Roland, Susi, Kendra, and Chrissi to go to the Hamburg soccer match against Chelsea. Now granted it was a preseason exhibition game but still we were pretty excited to go to a fussbal match in Germany. We took the bus from Othsmarchen Station out to the Arena and met up with Volker and his fiancée Christine at a biergarten nearby.

The game itself was a blast, Everyone did a good job explaining all the traditions in cheering on their team and seeing as how we had tickets for the bleachers it was good to be able to participate. It was akin to sitting in the student section of a college football team that has particularly rowdy fans. Lots of noise, lots of singing together and waving flags, lots of camraderie It was a great time. And the bratwursts sold at the stadium were exceptionally good as well. Hamburg defeated Chelsea 2-1 and we all piled into the bus and headed back to the house.

Germany Day 6: Triple Colossos

Today was our trip out to Heide Park, an amusement park an hour south of Hamburg. Roland, Susi, Chrissi, Caro, Kendra, Kirsten, and I met up with Doris' other son Volker, the one getting married on Friday and rode out there. This was our first experience on the German Autobahn and all of the stories about it are true. At times the traffic moved very, very schnell. It's truly a testament to German engineering that the cars and highway can routinely operate at that speed. I know ol' Bernie back at home would shake himself to pieces if I ever attempted that. And the highway etiquette was very impressive as well. No one got in the left most lane unless they really meant it and they accelerated enough to get back out. There was no one cruising in the left lane at ten miles below the speed limit yakking on a cell phone for sure.

So anyway, Heide Park was amazingly beautiful. You have to go to Disney World or Universal Studios to see the level of detailing in the states that they have. All of the grounds and rides were so immaculate and so richly decorated and appointed. Clearly Heide Park values quality over quantity (ahem, Six Flags).

Volker and I kicked things off with a ride on their Drop Tower called Scream which had a pirate theme while the rest of our party looked on. Then after that we all piled onto their bobsled coaster which was pretty tame but quite long and had some great curves. This was Kendra's first coaster since she was in college but she enjoyed it.

So naturally we went to their biggest coaster next, Colossos. It's one of the new breed of precision built wooden coasters and was a precursor to my favorite, El Toro. The line was already at ninety minutes at this point so we decided to plunk down nine euro and get three skip the line passes for their most popular rides. Once we were up in the station, Kendra and I paired up for the front seat.

And the verdict: Kendra thought it was a ton of fun. . . but once was enough. I loved it! Granted it wasn't as good as El Toro but easily a 90th percentile ride. Is that nerdy enough for you?

After that we went for a spin on Grottenblitz - their mine train coaster with wild horses engaging in combat, Mountain Rafting - their whitewater rafting ride, Wildwasser Bahn - their log ride, Big Loop - their looping coaster, a gentle boat ride through a garden and then back in time to see some cavemen, and also a stop at their biergarten for some beer and pretzels. Finally their other big ticket ride, Desert Race, opened after having some mechanical problems.

Desert Race is one of those rocket coasters that accelerate from a standstill to a high speed in a very short amount of time using cables, winches, and the power of hydraulics. Usually these rides accelerate and then go straight up but this one made a hard turn to the right and proceeded to do a series of high speed figure eights before abruptly hitting the brakes. This one was also a solid ride - a little short as the rocket coasters tend to be but still a whole lot of fun and one of the better ones I've been on. I really liked the fast turn after the launch.

We ended the day with another ride on Colossos (I actually went twice with three times total) and a spin on their other log flume which had a mine theme. Chrissi, Caro, Volker, and I also took a ride on their pirate themed splash battle ride where you go around this obstacle course in these large boats. Everyone on board has a hand crank powered water gun as do people on other boats as well as people walking by the attraction. Everyone is spraying everyone else with water without mercy for at least five minutes and needless to say we all got completely soaked.

After that we all headed back to Hamburg and a delicious meal of leftover wiener schnitzel. I'm seriously going to have to make it! The rest of the evening was spent hanging around relaxing after the long day at the park.

Germany Day 5: Hamburg From the Water and Air

Paragraph 1 of Day 5: We slept in and had a leisurely breakfast and it was great.

Paragraph 2 of Day 5: Doris, Hedda, Kendra, Kirsten, and I all went into Hamburg with hopes of taking a tour of the Alster Lake which forms the northern boundary of the central city and has many large houses all around it and of the canals which criss-cross the southern part of the central city before reaching the Elbe River. Unfortunately we didn’t get there in time so we had to go with the less popular tour of the canals north of the Alster Lake which wind their ways through the backyards of very opulent houses and apartments. It was neat at first especially going across the Alster with the skyline all around us but eventually it just became a pleasant boat ride as the houses started to look the same. But still, the name of the game was relaxation today so it was nice to sit for a couple hours on a boat and enjoy each others company without running about.

Prior to getting on the boat we had a little bit of time to kill so we strolled about the central area – mainly searching for camera batteries. It was very bustling with people rushing around. It strangely seemed busier than Berlin even though Hamburg is just a bit over half the size. Perhaps it’s because we visited Berlin on a weekend and today was Monday and near lunch hour. Anyway, there were a lot of people about. Not so many bicyclists but just as many dogs as in Berlin.

The dogs here in Germany are so well behaved that leashes seem to be an afterthought. It seems that two times out of five a dog will be off his leash and will be contentedly walking alongside it’s owner without any problems of running around. I don’t think I’ve known any dogs that could be trusted off a leash in a busy urban setting like that so we decided that it was clear that dogs understand German. I mean a whole European country can’t be better dog handlers than I and everyone I know, can they?

After our boat tour we made a beeline for St. Michaelis church to see the inside and check out the view from the top of the bell tower. The church itself dates back to the mid 1600s but has had a few fires and the current building was actually completed in the early 1900s. It is a huge and very bright and airy church. The windows are all clear glass and the walls and ceilings are all painted a simple white or pastel blue. The result is a very cheerful church but still managing to be humbling with its size and beauty. There were a few items that were saved from the previous churches but most of it was from the 1900s.

The view from the top was amazing, you could see that Hamburg is a very low profile city and the skyline is still dominated by church steeples, which was neat to see in a city of nearly two million. We took some great photos and I drooled over the Olympia Looping Bahn roller coaster operating in the distance at the Hamburger Dom. I’ll be hitting that come Wednesday. Hopefully twice! It’s only the holy grail of us American roller coaster nuts.

Kendra, Kirsten, and I took the stairs down and got to see the apparatus that controlled the hands on the clocks and the chime and were amazed that it was just a system of gears, ratchets, and cables. All of which were controlled by a simple pendulum. The whole shebang was stamped 1911 – those Germans and their engineering. . . Completely awesome! We also walked past the swinging bells that play on Sundays and were astounded at how big they were. They were controlled by modern electric motors and rubber belts but I could imagine actually bell ringers jumping up and down on ropes back in the day.

After finally leaving St. Michaelis we hustled back to Roland and Susi’s home for a delicious Wiener Schnitzel dinner. Susi taught Kendra and I how to make it and we’re soooo going to attempt it when we get back. Just delicious!

It was a very relaxing day which is just what we needed after hustling around Berlin for the weekend and a full day at Heide Park tomorrow. Auf Wedersehen for now.

Germany Day 4: Palatial Living

Another restful night spent being rocked to sleep on the Spree River and another beautiful Berlin morning. A coda for last night: it seems that the crowds that we encountered so late were people going to see a famous German techno music artist who was putting on a show in some performance space. It was a good turnout!

We checked out of the hostel and hauled our bags off to the S-Bahn stop but not before getting some German pastries for the road. I picked up a giant jelly donut that was delicious and satisfied three of us for a quick breakfast. We ditched our bags in a locker at the Zoo train stop which is a very major stop on the train system and continued on our way to Charlottenburg Palace.

The palace was built as a summer home for Sophie Charlotte and her husband Friedrich III, Elector of Brandenburg who became King Friedrich I of Prussia. The two were eventual grandparents of Frederick the Great.

During World War II the palace suffered quite a bit of damage so a great deal of it has been restored rather than being original but most of the restoration was superbly done and at times it’s difficult to determine what is original and what wasn’t. The guidebook that we had said that the palace wasn’t much if you’ve seen others but being that I hadn’t it was plenty impressive to me! There was so much gold leaf and expensive chandeliers and damask wallpaper. Sophie Charlotte also had a very impressive and extensive ceramics collection that was interestingly displayed in some rooms.

After a lunch in the palace café (complete with a very talented violinist), we had a very nice long walk through the palace grounds and toured the outbuildings such as the mausoleum and the belvedere. It was especially nice that the grounds were open to the public as everyone in the surrounding area were out bicycling through or walking or jogging or just enjoying the day. It made the place very warm and pleasant.

We stopped in a little Italian sidewalk café on our way back to the train station for ice cream before our train ride back to Hamburg. We parted ways with Ingrid and made our way back down to the platform of the Berlin Hauptbahnhof and caught the regular train, no ICE this time, back to Hamburg. Roland and Susi’s daughter Carolin (Caro for short) met us at the train station and drove us back to the family home and the rest of the night was spent getting to know everyone including Susi’s older son Christoph (Chrissi for short).

From here on out we’re hanging out in Hamburg. Tune in tomorrow for some Hanseatic adventures!

Germany Day 3: Yer Mom's a German Day

We got up early this morning to get up to the Reichstag before the crowds got there – but unfortunately we didn’t beat them and when we walked around the corner we were greeted by the sight of dozens of tour buses parked along the street and a line three times longer than we saw yesterday. So we got burned there but we decided to stick it out and wait. It ended up being about an hour and a half before we were through security but while we were waiting we were entertained by a troupe of puppeteers controlling a giant man who walked through the crowd hamming it up and doing various gymnastics.



Finally we made it into the Reichstag which as I said earlier is Germany’s current capitol building. The actual building has stood on this spot for a very long time but was burned to a shell at the outbreak of World War II. Actually there is quite a bit of political intrigue there but I won’t go into that (see more about that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire). It sat abandoned throughout the Cold War with the wall running directly behind it. Eventually it was remodeled by architect Norman Foster into the amazing building that it is today. The biggest tourist attraction here is the great glass dome that replaced the old cupola that was lost during the fire. Two ramps spiral up the inside of the all glass dome around a giant cone made of mirrors that direct sunlight into the assembly room below. The dome is also completely open so it also creates a convection current that naturally cools the assembly chambers without any need for air conditioning. Also the view from the ramps and the top of the roof of the surrounding area is spectacular.

Leaving the Reichstag we walked up Ebert Strasse Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe– a brilliantly done public space. The land gently undulates in a bowl shaped depression laid over with cobblestones while a grid of large monoliths is overlaid that with each one having a different height such that the tallest monoliths are approximately at the deepest part of the depression. So as you walk into the forest of monoliths it becomes more and more like a disorienting labyrinth. I say it’s brilliant as a public space because it’s a thoughtful memorial without being too stern and it’s large enough so that kids can play in the space without disturbing people who are there looking for thoughtful introspection.

After that we continued down Ebert Strasse to Potsdamer Platz which has become sort of the Times Square of Berlin. The architecture is very bold and modern however it acted like a black hole and we were sucked in for what seemed like four hours having lunch and dessert in two separate places in what was basically a mall. It’s very heavily commercialized in the American/Western style and the context is quite jarring from the rest of Berlin which is fairly laid back for being such a large city. We finally left the area in various levels of irritability which eventually subsided as we got back into the more realistic parts of the city.

From Potsdamer Platz we walked toward Checkpoint Charlie with a short detour to see the ruins of Anhalter Bahnhof train station which suffered severe bombing during the war. Actually, now it is just the entrance that remains but it was still neat to see and in the middle of a Bauhaus style neighborhood. Checkpoint Charlie was incredibly tacky and we didn’t stay longer than the time it took to take a picture of the McDonalds looming over the little guard shack and grimace at the I Heart CPC t-shirts.

Instead we retraced our steps to the Topography of Terror museum of the holocaust. It was located at the former headquarters of the SS and was left as rubble with a portion of the wall and a small but very nice museum in a modern building. The museum was very moving and difficult to stomach but educational.

We had quite a bit of time until our dinner reservations but didn’t quite feel like going back to the boat so we ended up sitting at a café in the Gendarmen Markt between the French Cathedral and the German Cathedral – yes, those are their real names. Hedda had a Berliner Weiss which was sort of a watermelon or sour apple flavored beer that was a deep emerald green. It was not popular among our group. While we were sitting there a string quartet began playing by the fountain in the plaza and a bachelor party rolled by on a bar where each bar stool had a set of bicycle pedals so the party could pedal around the city and drink at the same time. The bartender was also the driver but everyone had to pedal (and sing drinking songs at the top of their lungs). It looked like a ridiculous amount of fun. We also taught Hedda and Doris the fun of Yer Mom jokes.

Dinner was at a Moroccan place called Kasbah that was in the northern part of the city that used to be more of a Jewish quarter but is now very international. It too was a very good dinner in a very nice atmosphere. The food itself was a bit too salty for our tastes but was still very good.

We ended the evening with a quick trip to the top of Fernsehturm, the Berlin version of the observation deck on top of a television transmitter that are always a lot of fun to go up into. The tower is most famous for it’s “Pope’s Revenge”. The story goes that the East German government made it illegal for churches to have crosses on their steeples and so as construction was completed on the Fernsehturm, which features a spherical observation pod covered with a faceted mirrored surface it became apparent that when the sun shone directly on the tower it would reflect off the mirrors – in the shape of a giant cross - and on the tallest structure in East Germany no less!

We returned to the boat and found our little neighborhood was jumping with revelers even though there really weren’t too many bars in our immediate vicinity. Even the bar on the top deck of our boat was alive with dancing people. Most of our group went directly to bed but Kendra and I decided to venture out for one last German beer before calling it a night. We crossed over the river again to a cluster of nice, sophisticated bars that we had noticed the night before and along the way we discovered the epicenter of all the revelry. We couldn’t figure out exactly what was going on but people were lined up around the block – well after midnight – to get into this nondescript looking group of buildings. But the bar we went to was nice, we sat outside and watched all the bicyclers still whizzing about even though it was so late. Those Berliners sure like their bicycles, they were everywhere! We returned to the boat after one drink feeling more relaxed and ready for sleep. Our final day in Berlin will be up tomorrow!

Germany Day 2: Sunny Day in Berlin

We woke up early from a very restful night courtesy of Roland and Susi and met up with Doris and Hedda to make our way to the main train station in Hamburg for our train to Berlin. Doris got us advance tickets on the ICE – Germany’s high speed rail although the corridor between Hamburg in Berlin is too short for the trains to really get up to top speed. Still, they were a very comfortable ride and they look cool. The northern German countryside looks a lot like the Midwest of the US – lots of agriculture plus big windfarms.


Upon arrival to the Hauptbahnhof of Berlin we caught the subway/elevated train over to the east side where we were staying in a hostel boat docked on the Spree River just on the other side of one of the longest remaining stretches of the wall in the city which is now used as a canvas for graffiti style art. Ingrid was waiting there for us when we arrived and waited for us to throw our bags in our rooms and get checked in.


From there the six of us retraced our steps back to the local station and retraced our tracks back to the center of town. We decided on a nice little pizza place in the Hackeser Markt area which was pretty good and quite affordable. I tried the local specialty drink of mixing the typical north German pilsner beer with sprite or some similar fruit soda. We all agreed that initially it was quite tasty but after awhile it seemed to just take away from the beer flavor. We got caught a couple more times with the beer – sprite mixture before we figured out what to avoid. I’m glad that we tried it though because we had heard about it from others.


Freshly fueled we finally made our way out into Berlin which was an amazing and modern city. Because of bomb damage during the war and then cultural damage during the communist days there has been quite a lot of development since the fall of the wall. The result is quite pleasant with very old buildings sitting next door to restored buildings that had been partially damaged sitting next to brand new buildings that architecturally sympathetic to their surroundings but still have an identity of their own. Our first stop as we crossed the Spree onto what the Berliners call Museum Island was the giant Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral). We had just missed the tour so we didn’t get a chance to go in but the outside was amazing and vastly different than the grand churches we’ve seen in Paris and London. Mainly because of the enormous dome on top and the fact that the German churches seem to be more square shaped than following the cruciform plan of the traditional catholic churches.

Crossing back over the Spree we followed the main street through Berlin which has several names but goes by Unter den Linden for this, its most famous stretch. The roadbed dates back to the mid 1600s and gets its name for the Linden trees that are planted along the road and the promenade down the middle. Walking down this street takes you past several important buildings in Berlin as well as Humboldt University which we found out later was the alma mater of Marx, Lenin, the brothers Grimm, and Einstein.


Unter den Linden ends at the Brandenburg Gate made famous to Americans by JFK and his famous speech, Reagan and his famous speech, and several videos on MTV by the Scorpions and Jesus Jones. I was actually surprised at its size, for such an important landmark in European and even world history the gate is quite diminutive. Size notwithstanding it was awe inspiring to be standing in the shadow of something that had witnessed so much history in so many lifetimes.

So that was pretty cool.


Crossing through the gate we stepped over a cobblestone line in the sidewalk which marked the former site of the wall. For those keeping track for historical purposes, we were now leaving East Berlin and going into the west. In front of us was the Tiegarten, which is Berlin’s central park as well as the Reichstag which is now the center of German government after witnessing quite a bit of history itself. We decided the line to get in was a bit too long for our liking so we decided to return tomorrow morning so more about the Reichstag tomorrow.

Don’t look at me that way, there’s other crazy stuff ahead!


Like fer’instance we decided to walk through the Tiegarten to the other side where there was a lake and a little café that Ingrid either remembered or had heard about and as we were walking through the park a completely naked man walked out of the trees and laid down in the grass. See, that’s pretty crazy right? Continuing further into the park there were many more naked man encounters. It seems that naked sunbathing is something to do in the parks in Berlin. The park itself was very leafy and wild, no sign of formal gardens or paved paths. There were a few footbridges and we did discover a couple playgrounds but for the most part, the park was entirely wooded with a few meadows interspersed for pick up games of soccer or naked sunbathing.



After our little coffee and beer break at the café by the lake we walked out of the park and onto Kurfurstendamm which was the main drag for West Berlin when the city was divided. Now it’s mostly a typical commercial artery with a lot of tourist schlock. We did stop by the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial which was the bombed out ruins of a church with another modern church nearby entirely composed of small blue stained glass windows. It would have been a very cool little memorial but the all the vendors crowding around the outside spoiled the mood.



From here we returned to our little hostel boat and freshened up for dinner. Ingrid had made us reservations at a Turkish place called Deneb which was across the river from our hostel in the area called Kreuzberg. It was a fairly lengthy walk but we got to see a lot of different facets of Berlin and the bridge we walked across to get to the other bank of the Spree was very cool and Baroque. The dinner was superb and we got to eat outside right on the sidewalk so we could watch the people going by and the river flowing past.



Later when we returned to the boat, Kirsten, Kendra, Hedda, and I all went up to the top deck bar for a nightcap and a lot of laughs. It was a solid first day in Berlin and we had a great time!

Germany Day 1: Pushing Through the Jetlag

Well the first day of jet lag has been conquered. Barely. Our flight over was. . . well I feel bad because normally I like Continental and I feel that they're one of the better of the old guard US airlines but they just didn't put their best foot forward. Or they perhaps put their best foot forward directly on a loose roller skate. Anyway, I'm not going to kick this latest blog expedition with a bunch of whining. I will mention that I watched Cop Out on the way over and was amused to see so many sites from our neighborhood (Bay Ridge) in Brooklyn.

Hamburg so far has been very nice. Kirsten's Aunt Doris met us at the airport and shortly after we arrived, Kirsten's mother and sister, Hedda and Kendra arrived. We all piled into Doris' VW Golf with all of our luggage and much nose honking (clown car joke) and made our way over to Doris's apartment in the city. She made us a delicious lunch and then we went for a very long walk through a nature preserve near her place. It was very astonishing and progressive to see such an enormous nature preserve so close to the center of the city complete with ponds and horses grazing.

After our stroll we returned for a little R & R at Doris' place before heading to Doris' son Roland house where Kendra, Kirsten, and I will be staying in Hamburg with him and his family. We had another amazing meal and plenty of great conversation and laughs. It's been fun listening to everyone jump between German and English. This evening we generally took it easy keeping in mind our early morning train ride to Berlin tomorrow morning.

Day 0: Butchering a Classic

Twas the night before Germany and all through the Apt.
Not a creature was stirring 'cept me and one cat.
The bags were all packed full of clothes just so
All set for tomorrow when away we will go.
The wife was passed out, sprawled all over the bed
Perhaps conjuring visions of bier in her head.
As I finish loading my ipod and rechecking my list
I hope that there isn't anything that I've missed.
I rub my eyes and stretch and say to the cat
"Well Manny, you know I suppose that is that."
He blinked and rolled over as if to say,
"Pay attention to me, you were out all day!"
And while rubbing his belly I got to thinkin'
All the details of the trip were starting to sink in.
We fly from Newark to Hamburg on a big ol' jet plane
And from Hamburg to Berlin we're taking a train.
Tante Doris is meeting us and with her son we will stay
And Kendra and Hedda will join us later that day.
Ingrid from England will meet us in Berlin
All these women. . . what this trip really needs is some men!
I feel my eyelids drooping like they do on the subway
It's soon time to power down and go hit the hay.
I look forward to flying to Europe like a duck
But twenty-eight verses of this I fear is too much.
It seemed a good idea when I started at first
But I know I can't finish it my eyeballs will burst.
Which is sad because I wanted to include
Something my Grandad said when I was a lil dude.
He would stop when he came to the part "threw up the sash"
And say to me, "I always thought it was 'threw up my hash."
Then we would laugh and giggle because it was silly
And to think of it now it rather still is, really!
Well I know there's an airsickness joke there somewhere
But alas it's midnight and my brain is threadbare.
So I'll leave you now with that great vision
Of vomiting out a window but that wasn't my mission.
But tune in tomorrow or whenever it may be
To find a new blog posted to you all from me.
And now as the garbage truck rolls by in the night
I'll see you in Germany! Boy, these pants sure are tight. . .

Day 6: Il fait froid!!

Okay, sometime between last night and this morning it got really really cold! And not like New York City cold or even Detroit cold, we're talking Chicago cold! Maybe it isn't that bad, but it sure feels like it!

We were up sorta early again this morning putting the apartment back in order for check out. Kirsten joined Ingrid for breakfast while I went to the laundromat down the street to wash the sheets and towels. The first laundromat attempt was a failure. It was one of those automatic deals where everything is tied into a central computer and you enter in various codes to get detergent and to operate the machines and such - so I was the only one in there. After two attempts at getting detergent from the machine didn't reward me with any detergent I called Tim down and asked him to bring his detergent. Together we tried to figure out how to work the washing machine. The directions seemed simple and it felt like we were doing it right but for some reason nothing was happening. Eventually the phone rang, Tim answered but the person didn't speak English. I decided to cut my losses and try a different place.

There was another laundromat around the corner that was doing brisk business and we had no problems in this one. The system was the same as the other one so who knows what we were doing wrong. There was also a helpful and kindly older gentleman who told us what to do at this second place.

Once the laundry was done, the apartment packed up and the keys turned in we dropped off our luggage at Tim & Becca's place and then went cruising around to kill a few hours. We stopped in a little wine shop and got a bottle for home and just generally walked around stopping into various shops and cafes to warm up. It was a very relaxing end to our time in Paris, thank yous to Tim & Becca for setting this up and picking the perfect neighborhood. When we come back we're pretty sure we'd like to stay in the same place.

Thanks to the actions of one upstanding citizen of Nigeria (Edit: Kirsten says I should indicate that this is sarcasm) flying into Detroit we had to leave for the airport well in advance of our flight time as all the flights back to the US were being extra scrutinized. But thanks to some pretty impressive planning on the part of Charles De Gaulle's designers, we were processed with lightning speed. We encountered absolutely no lines at check in, security, customs, or anything in between. It made me kind of embarrassed for tourists to the US and what they must encounter at our major airports. Even the last checkpoint as you go on the jet bridge had six scanning stations and six employees processing people's boarding pass instead of one person handling an entire jet like we do. For shame. I also think they had as many metal detectors just in our section of terminal 2E that there are in all of Detroit Metro. For shame. The only snafu we encountered was the second screening area that they had set up just for flights going to the states where your carry on gets inspected and your person gets wanded and patted down. This procedure got a little backed up but again, it was well staffed and everyone got through.

The flight was good, Kirsten and I were separated again, but still just two rows apart. They served us a smoked salmon salad thing, beef stew with a hot mustard ragout, bread, cheese, tangerine, and some sort of dessert thing. I thought it was excellent and I want to try to make the stew with the mustard but Kirsten got a cold meal and said it wasn't so good because it was cold. I watched Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs - okay, Funny People - I thought it was very good, and part of This Is It - which I thought was very good too.

No problems at US customs. I think we've got all the rules down, be nice, answer questions promptly, and declare something ALWAYS! The MTA got us home in three hours.

Day 5: A day of great churches, art, and food!

Today began with bright clear skies and warmish temperatures and an early wake up time. The plan was for the entire group to meet at Notre Dame at nine a.m. to beat the crowds. The plan worked and we walked right in (but it was still quite crowded). Since it was Sunday, they were having mass and a sort of battle ensued between the "docents" of the cathedral who were trying to maintain order and the tourists who didn't want to follow rules and the squabbling dampened the more religious experiences for me. However the interior is stunning and humbling. I don't think I had ever been inside of a building that old and it made me wonder what buildings in the U.S. would still be standing 900 years from now. It was neat to see all the little quirks in the walls and ceilings where things were no longer quite straight or perhaps never were. I was definitely glad we got a chance to get inside and see Notre Dame from the inside.

Afterwards we sat out on the plaza out front and listened to the bells toll and watched the people while we waited for some of the people who were browsing the gift shop. Ingrid (who had joined us again today) took a picture of Kirsten and I in our Eskimo Joe shirts in front of the cathedral for my Mom who wants to try to get us in their catalog. So if you want to see us begin our modeling career, make sure you get on their mailing list!

After Notre Dame we walked across the plaza to the Concierge which is one of the original castles/palaces of Paris and is now used as their Justice Department headquarters and visiting now requires inspection by the French gendarmes. However, the main attraction here is Sainte-Chappelle which is buried within the Concierge walls. It was built by King Louis IX (St. Louis) to house his collection of holy relics including the Crown of Thorns which is now held at Notre Dame. Today the chapel is known for it's amazing stained glass windows. Sixteen windows surround the sanctuary stretching more than 100 feet high and depict over 1,100 different scenes from the bible. Definitely look at the pictures when Kirsten puts them up, it's indescribable!

From there the group split into several factions with one group heading up to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur and another went somewhere else. . . So Ingrid, Kirsten, and I went walking over to the Left Bank to go visit the Rodin Museum and Garden since the weather was nice. On the way though, we stopped in at the Flower Market that takes place on Ile de la Cite (where Notre Dame and the Concierge are located). Not so many flowers were being sold that we saw but there sure were a lot of birds for sale. Little budgies to cockatoos, grey parrots, and chickens and a giant rooster. The whole operation seemed to be run by gypsy types and it was a bit creepy so we didn't stay long.

Along the way to the Rodin Museum we stopped for a little breakfast at a little cafe called Malongo which seemed to be way off the tourist radar and provided a perfect place to sit and drink delicious tea and coffee with pastries and breads for dirt cheap prices (Edit: Apparently it's a European chain but still great and quiet). Moving along from there we also poked our heads into Ste. Germaine des Pres which is even older than Notre Dame. We weren't able to see much of it as they were also having mass but what we did see was quite beautiful looking. The bells outside also sounded very nice and the cafes that lined the little square out front were all packed with people who were listening to them - probably because they couldn't carry out a conversation without shouting.

Eventually we finally made it to the Rodin Museum and it was great. They had the actual Thinker, the Kiss, the Burghers of Calais, and the Gates of Hell, plus countless other statues, sculptures, and paintings in all sorts of mediums. The museum is mostly a garden with Rodin's larger works scattered around in a formal garden setting. The smaller pieces are housed in an old central building that looks like it was once a very lavish mansion. It's a great stop if you like Rodin's eye for detail. His hands and feet in particular are very expressive. This was my favorite museum.

Our last stop was the Marmottan Museum which was way out on the west side of town almost to the Peripherique. They're known for having one of the largest collections of Monet paintings anywhere, although it seems to be unknown or unvisited by most - probably because it is so out of the way. There was a line outside but it seemed only to be locals, I didn't hear anyone else speaking English the entire time I was there. The paintings were very nice and they had several that I recognized and there were a lot that I liked. Most interesting though were the more unusual Monet paintings that appeared not quite finished or actually had a lot of texture like Van Gogh which I hadn't seen before. It was fun trying to figure out the correct distance to stand away from the painting to see exactly what the tableau was that he was trying to convey.

We rode the metro back into the center of town and parted ways to change into our fancy pants for a nice dinner. Kirsten and I stopped in at Quick - a French fast food burger place that's sort of like Burger King. . . sort of. It was just alright but took the edge off the hunger. Dinner with Ingrid was at Le Grand Colbert which apparently is featured in a major scene in the movie Something's Gotta Give. The restaurant is very 1920s with fastidious waiters with perfect postures in tuxedos. However there was none of the surly attitude that sometimes accompanies places like these, everyone was very engaging and spoke such good English that I forgot where I was at times. The food was delicious, I had the spicy fish soup, braised beef with au gratin potatoes, and baked alaska flambe. We also polished off a bottle of wine and ended up staying there for over three hours!

Many thank yous to Ingrid for another great day!

Day 4: Walking with Ingrid

Kirsten's sister Ingrid, who took the train in from London for the weekend, met up with us this morning. We grabbed a quick breakfast at a bakery down the street from our apartment before setting off for the Musee D'Orsay to see their collection of Impressionists works. Unfortunately when we got there. . . you guessed it, we were again deterred by the length of the line. Long lines seem to be a common thing in Paris.

Being mildly discouraged we walked over to the Musee de l'Orangerie which is a smaller museum with a later opening time but has a nice collection of Impressionist works including eight enormous murals by Monet of his water garden. It was quite mindblowing to think about him creating these huge paintings, especially while he was going blind.

From there we walked along the Seine to the Place de l'Alma where we stopped at a small cafe for a lengthy lunch. I had a croque monsieur that was pretty good but was made better when I put on some of their very spicy horseradish mustard on it.

After our lunch we went down the street to the Musee d'Art Moderne which was surprisingly free and not crowded. They had a few famous works there that I recognized and a few more that Ingrid pointed out as being famous that I didn't recognize. And of course no modern art museum would be without a few odd exhibits. In this museum's case there was a room full of dots painted on the walls in different colors and a ten foot tall portrait of a woman peeing.

From the museum we swung north to the Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysees. The Champs Elysees was very similar to Michigan Avenue in Chicago minus the tall buildings. It's a very wide street with lots of traffic and high end stores. The lights in the trees were very nice though. The Arc was beautiful and much larger than I had imagined it to be. It was also great to see it all lit up because it was already night time when we left the museum.

After walking the length of the Champs Elysees we headed back into the thick of Paris looking for a restaurant to eat at as earlier attempts at making reservations had failed at the particular restaurants Ingrid was interested in taking us to. We finally settled on a little place called L'Arbre A Cannelle in the Passage des Panoramas, an old shopping arcade, that was superb.

Day 3: Perfect Paris

It was agonizingly difficult to get out of bed this morning and as such neither one of us was ready to leave the apartment when Becca came by to round us all up. They were planning on hitting up Pere LaChaise Cemetery followed by the Montmartre area. We didn't want to hold anyone up so we told them to go ahead without us and that we would meet them in Montmartre. As it turned out some of the people in our group were in even worse condition and we were well on our way when we found out that they had just left for the cemetery. Alas. And we never did find them in Montmartre either so it ended up being just the two of us for the day.

We did end up walking around all day, we saw the Centre Pompidou with all of its exposed ductwork and piping. It was very cool looking but not as colorful as we had expected it to look. From there we walked over to Ile de la Cite where Notre Dame is located but the line was very long so we put off going inside for another day. The outside is very nice looking with the flying buttresses and the gothic arches.

We continued walking over to the Ile St. Louis which was very quiet and then over the Seine onto the Left Bank (Rive Gauche) to the Latin Quarter. We stopped for a crepe and a mint tea each at a little stand by the Sorbonne before catching the metro up to Montmarte.

Montmartre is a very hilly, very old neighborhood with the Basilique de Sacre Coeur (Basilica of the Sacred Heart) as it's centerpiece at the top of the hill. We wound our way through the neighborhood and up the hill into the Basilica gardens. Saw several stray cats and managed to mostly avoid the tourist crowds going up the main stairs until we got to the entrance of the church. There we had to fight our way in and then took a shuffling tour around perimeter of the sanctuary as the church has a service going for twenty four hours a day every day and has been doing so since it was consecrated in 1919.

The inside of the church was very nice but difficult to really get a feel for due to the crowds. It seemed to be very well lit and the sculpture and art pieces varied wildly by time period and by artist. It was very eclectic and very different from most other large classical churches I have been in. The organ, however, sounded dismal and we found out later it's due for a major rehabilitation.

Back outside we walked around to the side and saw a sign saying that the dome was open so we went down the stairs to the crypt, paid a man five euro and then climbed a spiral stone staircase that was barely wide enough to accommodate my shoulders up to the roof. Then we clambored over a marked trail on the roof to the dome where more switchback and spiral stairs were encountered until we got to a viewing ring about halfway up the dome. The view of Paris from up there was spectacular (and very cold since it was outdoors). We admired the view for about an hour before climbing back down.

Back in Montmarte we walked around a bit more, passed a tiny little vineyard and then had a very good meal at an Indian restaurant called Taj Mahal that was advertising a very generous prix fixe meal. We both had the lamb rogan josh - one of our favorites.

After that we decided to walk off our dinner all the way back to our apartment. It took us about thirty minutes and ended up being almost half of the city! It's very walkable and human scaled!

Kirsten called it a night at that point but I ended up meeting with Tim & Becca since their apartment is just around the corner from ours. They had a late dinner and I had a nice Belgian beer (biere) at Le Cafe Marie Stuart. A perfect way to end a perfect day.

Tomorrow we meet with Kirsten's sister Ingrid who came in from London. It should be neat to get her perspective on Paris and she also promised us dinner at her favorite restaurant. I'm excited!

Day 2: Bonne Annee!

So after sleeping in, I got myself up and downstairs to meet up with the rest of the group to do a little grocery shopping at the market down the street. Cereal, milk, strawberry jam, croissants, coffee, and a few bottles of wine for the party later tonight.

After a brief lunch back at the apartment and putting the groceries away, Kirsten and I joined the rest of the group down at the entrance to the catacombs. If not for the long line snaking around the park you might miss it as it's just a shed with a small sign out in front. However, the line was long and ended up being a pretty lengthy wait.

The catacombs of Paris were filled back in the 1780s when the Cemetery of the Innocents (which was located essentially where we are staying now) began disgorging it's bodies into the local water supply and into people's basements and began causing some serious disease problems in the area. The catacombs themselves already existed as limestone quarries and were beginning to show some evidence of subsidence. The brilliant idea was struck to move the bodies into the quarries to help stabilize them and to rid the city of disease. After the city had moved the Cemetery of the Innocents they then proceeded to empty dozens of other cemeteries until the 1860s.

The workers did not maintain whole skeletons but rather constructed sturdy bulkheads throughout a portion of the quarry using only femurs and skulls. Presumably the rest of the bones were used as filler for these bulkheads because we didn't see anything but femurs and skulls.

The actual catacombs are pretty far from the entrance as we had to descend quite a ways underground and then walked for about fifteen minutes through the quarry (or mine) before we reached the catacomb area (or ossuary). All in all it was a very cool experience and I'm glad we did it.

After that we returned back to our apartments to change for the party and get a little food. Kirsten and I stopped at a little bakery and picked up a couple of croque monsieurs which we heated up in our oven. They were excellent although we couldn't exactly place what the cheese was that they used. The New Years Eve party was at Shelley, Tony, and Susie's apartment which was the biggest out of ours with a nice kitchen, dining room, and living room. At about quarter to midnight we walked down to the Seine and stood on Pont Neuf to ring in the new year with thousands of other revelers. We drank champagne straight from the bottles we passed around and watched the Eiffel Tower sparkle and fireworks go shooting off across the river. It was a great end to a pretty great year.

We finally returned to our apartment after 2am and went to bed pretty much immediately.