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.