We Made It!

We spent Sunday night with our friends Arden and Janet in Battleground WA. They took great care of us - it was like a deluxe B&B. Here we are just before eating a fabulous breakfast.

When we got to the airport in Seattle we got some good news - our seats were on the aisle! We had been told by Travelocity that we were in the middle of a five-across row. The plane was the best we have ever been on - brand new, with individual color screens for every seat. At your left was a remote control that you could pull out of the seat arm to control the screen.

We had our choice of movies, music, games, maps, and a few other choices. It turned out to be fairly easy to crash the system. When that happened we were told "Please wait while your seat reboots." The games were fun. The music was excellent quality. We had about two dozen movies to choose from. And all of it was individually controlled - we could choose to do whatever we wanted whenever we wanted to do it.

We landed in Amsterdam at about 7:30 and transferred to a Berlin plane. At Tegel airport in Berlin we bought all-day transportation passes that get us on the buses, the S-bahn, and the U-bahn. The public transportation here is fantastic. We took a combination of transport systems to our guesthouse (pension) which is in the Prenzlauer Berg area of Berlin - in old East Berlin, north and east of the center.

After dropping off our luggage at the pension, we took the S-bahn across town to the center of West Berlin and caught Bus 100, which goes right past many of the main landmarks. We got off in the middle of the Tiergarten which looks like winter has it still in its grip. Actually the weather is much better than we expected; Karen is not having to wear boots and while it is a little nippy, we are doing fine.

We walked around for a while and got some other photos, then got back on the bus. By this time our room was ready so we went back, unpacked, and slept a bit. We walked a block to a nice little shopping center by the U-bahn station and found a grocery store there. So we are set for lunch tomorrow. We are very thankful to be here, and that Karen has not had much pain with her sciatica.