Frau Bluher!

Hallo! I'm lying in a hotel room in Berlin writing this and eating a Ritter Sport. Why? Because the city sleeps between 6 PM and 10 AM (it's 6:45 PM here now). The stores and museums all close and the streets empty and become silent. I thought Germans were hardcore partiers -- where do they go?!

We've been here for two days now and absolutely love how quiet and relaxing the city is. It's a much-needed break after a week in London! Speaking of, here is how we spent the remainder of our time in London and our two days here:

On Thursday we explored St. Paul's Cathedral and climbed to the top of the dome. Unfortunately, the little old bird woman wasn't there to sell us food to feed the birds for toupence a bag. :( I might have pouted a little; I don't remember. We then ventured to Abbey Road and took a couple of awesome shots there, took a nap, and checked out the National Gallery for a few minutes before we saw Richard III starring -- wait for it -- Martin Freeman. It got mediocre reviews, but we thought it was a lot of fun and that they'd done a great job modernizing it. 

Crossing Abbey Road

On Friday we walked through Hyde Park, watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace (would not recommend!), and explored the British Museum before nap time. After a nap, we headed to the West End to see Wicked, which was fantastic! I insisted on buying cupcakes afterwards. It was my birthday; I couldn't not eat cake!

Changing of the Guard

On Saturday we wandered until we found the Millennium Bridge and The Globe, which we didn't have time to cross or explore, but it they were still fun to see. We met a high school buddy of Joe's in Hyde Park and his girlfriend and chatted until it was time to head to the airport. Airporting and reaching our hotel in Berlin pretty much took up the rest of the day. It was so weird when we arrived -- it was 10:30 PM on Saturday night, and yet the streets were empty and quiet.  I've loved that here! But I have to say, Berlin wasn't so quiet for a while after we found out that Joe passed the Bar that night!

Joe and Greg

On Sunday we walked to the Brandenburg Gate and went through the holocaust memorial for the Jews murdered in Europe. It was really sad. I mean, you know it's sad, but then you hear individual stories and experiences and realize that every one of the victims had a story just as tragic... It puts the whole thing into perspective like nothing else ever has. We walked over to Checkpoint Charlie and read about the division of Berlin. Then we went to a DDR museum to see what life was like in East Berlin in the time of the wall. That was a ton of reading and site-seeing for one day, so we went back to the hotel after a delicious doner and crashed. Well, I crashed, anyway. Joe did some more tourist research. :)

Pieces of the Wall at Checkpoint Charlie

Today, Monday, we woke up early because we had a 9:00 reservation to tour the Reichstag. The dome was so cool! The roof of the building is transparent so that everyone can see what the German government is up to from now on. The top of the dome had a great view of the whole city. We took a train to Sachsenhausen (a concentration camp in Berlin that held mostly criminals; most Jewish criminals were transferred to Auschwitz pretty quickly). What a sad tour! It's heart-breaking to go to the actual location and hear stories of what happened in certain areas. Sachsenhausen was by far not one of the deadliest concentration camps yet, all by itself, it was horribly deadly and tragic. On the way back from Sachsenhausen we stopped to see a small remaining section of the Berlin Wall, which was pretty cool. It's very tall but surprisingly thin considering its purpose!

Inside the Reichstag Dome

When it gets a little darker tonight, we're going to check out Brandenburg Gate all lit up. Tomorrow we are off to Rome. We're a bit worried about thieves and pickpockets there... So we wish us luck!

Guten abend!

Update: It's 9:13 PM and we just got back from Brandenburg Gate. The city is NUTS on Monday night. I don't know what everyone's doing tonight, but it is not FHE.

Feelin' Campy - Like Karate Kid!

Earlier this month (the 4th through 7th to be precise), some of my family and I ventured on our I-can't-count-that-highth annual camping/fishing trip to Bridger Lake - the mystic waters of abundant planters! I defy you to spend an hour there and not catch your weight in puny, white rainbow trout. What made this trip special (among other things which I shall detail later), was that we invited Joe along. It was great spending time with him and getting him more acquainted with my wonderfully insane family.

As per tradition, the moment we arrived, we set up camp at a speed only possible for super humans, and hauled our fishing gear to the lake. This year, it started raining about an hour after we started fishing. This picture is of the lake during our first afternoon at Bridger Lake. We were soaked through pretty dang fast, so we pretty much froze the rest of the night (I was too stupid to change my socks before bed and wound up with really cold feet all night).

The second day was a blast, because after a morning of throwing our lines in Bridger and a hike (only Joe and I did that), Dad and Larie put their four-wheelers to good use, finding a lake with decent-sized trout that were actually native to the lake. All of us took turns riding the four-wheelers to that lake and fished there the second half of the day with some pretty good results. Most of our fishing time was spent there the rest of the trip. My favorite thing about Marsh Lake? Buster found this salamander in the weeds one morning. I'll not lie, once he showed me what he caught, I stole it and played with it for a ridiculous while before I even considered giving it back. It had so much energy! Sally was old and weak her last few years, so having to work to keep this salamander in my hands brought back some much older memories!

Some other fun moments of note:

Papa Gary teaching Chloe and Gaige to whittle - as he did for all of us when we were younger. Chloe asked me for whittling tools for her birthday next year.






Joe being silly whilst fishing at Marsh Lake.