!Yo Diggity!

Meet Paul. Paul is a friend of mine from Houston who I met when I was running on the track & field team for my company. He is also an expat but he’s living in Aberdeen, Scotland just now. He doesn’t always look so spooky…

… but we had decided to meet up in Berlin, Germany and we were standing in the Jewish memorial. It was a bit spooky in there… and spooky to think that so many people died under the National Socialist reign of terror.

Paul and I picked Berlin for really no reason in particular. We wanted to see a place we hadn’t seen before and something that would be good to see when it’s not so cold out. So we picked Berlin! There was lots to do and see there…

Museums…

Bradenberg Gate - at Christmas time…

The line between East and West…

Checkpoint Charlie…

It was really a bit depressing to think about all that had gone on here. There was memoribilia everywhere. Something you’d think people would want to forget… and at the same time… to remember those that were lost.

The wall… well… what is left of it…

On the lighter side, Berlin had some brighter things to offer: Shopping!

We even got to see Santa Claus!! That guy is sooooo cool…

And the Christmas trees and Christmas markets there were just soooo beautiful!!

Some of them even had ice-skating!

One of the coolest, and most random things we ran across was this art gallery/bar/theater/hang out place. We were just walking around one evening and completely randomly ran across this place that looked almost like a dump… but with charm.

We poked our noses inside and found that there was some really cool street graffiti that COVERED the walls of this place.

After winding up the staircase of the place, we found an art gallery.

And at the very top of the stairs, there was a real chill place. Complete with heaters ‘cause it was open air and it was COLD! This place did not quite fit the ‘image’ it was trying to throw, definitely not a dump!!

Here’s a shot of a VERY German meal that we had. Don’t ask me what that meat is… ham loaf?? I thought that was only an Indiana thing? heehee

We also saw random other things there. For example, here’s how you transport a Christmas tree when you don’t have a car: use a baby stroller! Who cares about the baby!! Those Germans, they are so bright!

My favorite beer of the trip was the banana beer. Almost like a shake it was so think and soooo banana-y! Yum!

Was all in all a great trip! Thanks for meeting me, Paul! Cheers!!