On Tuesday evening (Dec 23) we had tickets to see the film It’s a Wonderful Life at the music box. We’ve done this Chicago tradition many times and it is a pure delight every time! We had empanadas at nearby Tango Sur after and chatted about the movie. We dropped…

The time between Thanksgiving and Miles arriving for Christmas went very quickly! Miles had a week to spend here before heading to Austin, Texas, so we decided to go straight from picking him up at the airport to Sawyer. Coffee and breakfast sandwiches packed, it all went to plan and…

Thanksgiving feels like a season if its own, particularly this year when it filled the time between out trip to Berlin and the start of December (also my start date for something new for me, teaching a metadata class!) We had a very fun and full season.

The last historic site we visited in Berlin was the site of the first Nazi labor camp, Sachenhausen, about 40 miles outside of Berlin. It was also the place where many of the methods of mass extermination were developed for the later death camps in Auschwitz and elsewhere. Needless to…

On Thursday, with John’s meetings finished, we took a day trip to the nearby town of Potsdam. Someone (Rick Steves?) noted that Potsdam is to Berlin like Versailles is to Paris. Seems reasonable and maybe now we need to visit Versailles too! We took the train and first ambled around…

We three visited some great saunas and swimming pools in Berlin, including Hotel Oderberg and Vabali. Mildred and I also took a day trip to the kiez of Charlottenburg to swim at the public pool there. Also near Charlottenburg, we visited the Memorial Church, which was very sensitively rebuilt after…

Mildred and I met in 1988 at a volunteer project in Neu Wulmsdorf, a small town outside Hamburg. After the project finished, we hitchhiked around Germany, and spent a very memorable week – for both of us – in West Berlin, with a day visit to East Berlin. Mildred came…

Reporting from a very pleasant (so far!) couple of hours layover at Heathrow! On Monday, we had 9am tickets for a visit to the Reichstag dome, so we met up with Mildred at our local tram stop and took Berlin’s excellent train system there. It was a lovely misty morning,…

Prologue We flew to Berlin on different flights, due to my booking earlier to use frequent flier miles and John booking later once his work trip was 100% sure to go ahead. John arrived early Saturday and checked into our airbnb in Prenzlauer Berg, went for lunch and had some…