Berlin called. You should come home.

Safely back in Berlin we're still working on a way to process/encapsulate the last 3 weeks. John is still at it, in meetings even here in Berlin so until he can give you a better picture of seminar 1, here are my thoughts.

In the last 3 weeks, one or both of us was in the following German cities:

Stuttgart

Heidelberg

Karlsruhe

Munich

Andechs

Dachau

Bonn

Köln

Essen

Dusseldorf

Frankfurt

Hamburg

Travemünde

Lübeck

Berlin

Germany is an amazing country - it's diverse in people, architecture, food, accents, train stations, bathrooms, attitudes towards tourists, availability of sausage and pretzels, and of course, so much more. There's been a lot of travel, a lot of packing and unpacking, a lot of meals out in restaurants. We're both pretty excited to be unpacked and back in the apartment in Berlin.

Two major developments in my life as a result of the trip.

1. I now happily drink water "with gas." Beginning of the trip I was snubbing this fancy water; now I'm craving it at most meals and Wasser mit Kohlensäure was one of our first purchases on the first grocery run. In response to my initial reluctance to accept carbonated water, Nat (one of the Boschies) told me not to think of it as water, but instead as something special, a treat if you will. And as soon as I relinquished the expectation for plain ol' tap water, I was in love with the fizzy, refreshing goodness.

2. I learned (and this really has nothing to do with Germany but did occur in one of the hotel rooms) that there is a country between France and Spain called Andorra. In fact, there's a whole host of small countries in Europe that I didn't even know existed. Remarkable. They are called the European Microstates. Wikipedia that one and let your mind be blown.

(I realize that after taking pictures of every other German city, I haven't really shown you much of our neighborhood. This picture is a school down the street, that stands across from a church. I'll get some more pictures up soon!)