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!
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