Ich bin ein Berliner

Thanks for the Birthday greetings, as I should have sent you a note last month, your 57th? I wonder if Mom still has the big Six Oh t-shirt, I could use it next summer. Wow, six pars, and who said you couldn't buy a better game. I have enjoyed golf so much more with my new clubs. Yes, lets plan on golf this summer. What dates are you in Michigan?

Cheryl and I are in Stuttgart, Germany now, visiting JT from May 9 to May 19. The three of us went to Berlin for three nights. We checked into the Eastern Hostel and Lounge, a riverboat hotel in East Berlin on the Spree River. We walked a few blocks that evening, craving another Doener sandwich like we had on Friday, our first night in Stuttgart. We stopped short of our goal when we saw the crowded Italinna restaurant. While looking for an available table, the hostess sat us at a picnic table occupied by two East Berlin couples. The conversation was easy, as they immediately took interest in us and us in them. The younger man of the unmarried couple, speaking good English, was very interested in American politics, asking if we though American was ready for a black president. The wife talked about their son in computers and how hard it was to find a good job. She talked of how nice the weather was today, as just a few weeks ago they were at the end of a cold winter.

After a good night's rest in our hostel environment, where we slept on three small bunk beds, we were ready for our breakfast on the riverboat and our planned bike tour of Berlin. For just e20 each, we spent five hours biking and seeing the highlights of both East and West Berlin. Our bicycle tour guide, a young girl named Ariella, from Texas, was both entertaining and historical, as we saw and learned a lot about the history of Berlin, Germany and World War II.

Our floating hotel was just a stones throw away from a section of the Berlin Wall, where just 19 years ago the wall stood surrounding West Berlin, preventing East Berliners from defecting from the Communist government and moving to West Berlin. The wall, built in 1961, had stood until 1989, when the fall of Russian communism resulted in President Reagan's challenge to Gorbachev to "tear down that wall." Among the sounds of the City, occupied by over 3 million people, is the German siren, an eerie sound familiar to Americans in the "Sound of Music" and other old World War II movies. On my 59th birthday, we took the train and walked (and walked) around Berlin, taking time to visit up close, some of the landmarks we had visited the day before on our bike tour. This included the tower ruins of the memorial church that stood in part after having been bombed in 1943. After a good lunch, we visited Reichstag, the government building, with a large glass dome, where we had a 360 degree view of the City.

We are back in Stuttgart today. JT is working and Cheryl and I will be exploring the City.

Othello and the birds

Saturday evening we experienced the Stuttgart Ballet. We were overwhelmed with the choreography and athleticism of the cast at they told the story of Shakespeare's 17th Century "Othello". No need to understand the German language, as the cast of twenty-five, along with a live string orchestra, allowed this tragic story to unfold without a word of dialogue.

Sunday morning, we awoke gently to the sounds of scores of birds singing just outside the German built bedroom window we had cracked open the night before. The bedroom was filled with the the sounds of the birds and the freshness of the morning air that had seeped through the cracked window overnight. The birds sang for quite some time, before stopping suddenly, giving way to the rising sun and the overtaking daylight.

This 2nd Sunday in May has not escaped the Germans, as they too celebrate the wonderful and dedicated women we know as mothers. We leave this evening for a three-day visit to the German capital, Berlin.