Impossible Germany

To the east, the sky is just showing some faint signs of brightening, but you wouldn't know it unless you were looking for it (or silly enough to be up at 5:00 AM writing about looking for it). I've sort of been up most of the night struggling with the remnants of jet-lag, and wrestling with a too-full cranium.

My time in Berlin has come to an end for another year. I'm off to Tegel airport in about 2 hours for the quick hop to Frankfurt, then the long 11 hours back to Vancouver which, if my calculations are correct, should get me back home around 4:00 PM last Tuesday.

What an amazing city this is! I highly, HIGHLY recommend that if you are ever in the north-eastern area of Germany with a little time to kill - you should totally drop by. The food is great, pricing is totally affordable, the architecture is out of this world, and you can even go to the U-Bahn (Subway) and watch Berliners young & old buying and consequently drinking Warsteiner & Yaegermeister at the newspaper kiosks on the subway platform at 7:00AM.

I walked up to the Brandenberg Gate.



Right beside that is the Breathtaking Holocaust Memorial (that occupies 20,000 feet of prime real estate in the heart of downtown Berlin (Never to be built on).



I strolled past the infamous Unter Den Linden which was the place where the East & West would do meet for prisoner exchanges & spy swaps during the cold war.



I hung out in Sony Square.



I saw the world's largest indoor cylindrical aquarium.



And I took comfort in seeing old friends, having some fantastic meals, and enjoyed laughing and catching up on our lives.



It's been a real slice - and now I'm really looking forward to (and alternatively dreading) coming home. I have to get back to the real world of work, life, challenges, and with thanks to Germany, to now what I consider going forward to be sub-par Canadian beer.

Auf wiedersehen.