Willkommen!

We are here! After a long and no doubt traumatizing flight (for Syd, who I could hear barking from the hold for the first fifteen minutes of the flight), Syd and I were reunited. As I arrived at baggage claim I could hear him barking and so I half-ran towards the sound and found him in his crate at the oversize baggage area. I let him out to give him a hug and he managed to lick every inch of my face, much to the amusement of a planeful of recent arrivals from Buenos Aires and the airport staff. We breezed through customs (after aaalll the hours of vet appointments and somewhat exorbitant amounts of money I would have appreciated a bit more frowning and paper shuffling), and...Shane wasn't there. I took Syd out to pinkeln and he met another dog, who had actually been on the same plane! And still Shane wasn't there, and I couldn't figure out the cursed payphone, so we waited. Eventually we heard, "Syd!!!" and there he was!! Poor Shane got stuck in traffic outside of Frankfurt and the rental car place was being difficult so he got on the road late. It was so, so good to see him--Syd and I were both very, very happy. Frankfurt has a lot of construction going on, so all of our directions were useless and we managed to get totally lost for over an hour trying to find the hotel. We drove past the Hauptbahnhof, which I'd seen in my Grandpa's photos from just after WWII, and past the opera, and past a sculpture of the euro symbol, and finally found where we were supposed to be going. We found some Thai for dinner and went to sleep, which was when we discovered that dogs get jetlag. Syd kept waking up in the night and getting drinks of water, and each time he got up he would lick Shane's feet, which would wake Shane up. I was lucky enough to be completely passed out, but I am also used to little paws walking on me at night. In the morning, we got pastries and walked to the Frankfurter Dom (built in the 14th/15th centuries) before getting on the road to Berlin.

Did you know that people drive really, really fast on the Autobahn? They do. Our little rented Nissan Micra topped out at about 160 kph, even with Shane flooring it. Audis were streaking past us going well over 200 kph. There was also a lot of road construction, with the fast lane narrowing down to 2m wide. Shane hates narrow lanes and so there was a lot of "Oh god oh god oh god oh god" as we drove slooowwwwly past giant trucks. Syd remained blissfully asleep on my lap, awaking every so often only to look at us as if to ask why in the world there was daylight as it was clearly 3am. We finally made it into Berlin and got a park right outside our building, and we ran in my suitcases and I unpacked and Syd slept while Shane returned the car. For our first dinner, we all walked to a doner kebap place at Rosenthaler Platz and Syd got to meet some Berlin dogs and eat his little bits of doner. Syd is loving Berlin--all the smells, the dogs, the parks. We are only a few minutes' walk from Mauerpark (a former deathstrip along the wall that was turned into a giant park and stadium) and not only is there a fenced-in dog park, but dogs are allowed off-leash almost everywhere in it! He got to play with some dogs yesterday and was positively gleeful.

Yesterday was our three-year anniversary, and Shane took us to a lovely dinner at a French restaurant called La Cocotte in Schoeneberg. We shared marrow bones and les ouefs cocotte with truffle, and I had a lovely steak and Shane had steak tartare for the first time. It was all delicious. Mum and Da, we'll have to go there when you come to visit and just eat the appetizers! And guess what?? Syd can come too! There was a dog sitting at one of the tables inside--I mean, he didn't have his own chair as Syd would require, but we can just ask for a table for 4.5. We also met up with Amy, Bernhard, Dennis, and Katrin for coffee and dinner in Friedrichshain. Amy and Bernhard are staying with us the next few nights before returning to Oakland, and we'll be seeing Katrin fairly often as she and Ben live in Berlin, and Dennis is in Hamburg, so we'll be seeing him, too! It's nice to know people here.

I had my Administration and Use of Archives class last night...well, this morning from 1:45a-3:45a. Yawn! I made myself some tea and had a square of chocolate and managed not to space out too much, so I am fairly proud of myself. I suppose I better get used to late nights, in Berlin people don't go out until midnight or later, and don't come home until after they've had breakfast! Shane has a potentially busy weekend for us, so we'll have to see how it all goes, but I see a lot of afternoon naps in my future.

Are The Cranberries experiencing a secret resurgence? I keep hearing them places. I am watching some teenage soap opera right now (German by osmosis?) and a girl was singing "Zombie." Now I am onto some news program and there was just an old man in blue shiny skintight swim shorts with shoes, socks, a wool cap, and arm warmers marching in circles in a sauna. I'll assume there was a reason for that. If I was paying complete attention I assume I would have known what was going on.

If you'd like to see photos from my trip, you can check here. I will be updating as often as I see things! Tomorrow we are having brunch and heading to the Eastside Gallery, so I am very excited to see the state of the murals since my last visit in 2007. In 2009, funding was found and the original artists were asked back to repaint their murals in honor of the 20th anniversary of the wall's fall. Hopefully they are still in good shape!