Hello from Berlin

On Saturday I traveled to Berlin. The Pecs shuttle picked me at about 13:10 and then we went to Kaposvar. I enjoyed the ride, seeing new country. The trip through the Mescek Hills was great. We  picked up Richard and Wendy there and then proceeded to the Budapest airport. Our flight was uneventful and even early .We found it easy to find the express bus that took us to Alexanderplatz without too many intermediate stops. After checking in we went over the S-Bahn station to look for a bite to eat, and ended up at a Fish and Chips place. Then I came backed and crashed into a very comfortable bed. I had been up until 1:30 AM dealing with a piece of malware that had gotten onto my computer, so arrived in Berlin a bit tired.

On Sunday morning I dragged myself out of bed and went to Berlin hbf. The reason was to buy train tickets for the upcoming trip to Poznan and also to meet a fellow Fulbrighter coming up from Hungary on the sleeper train. I also really wanted to see the station after seeing some video of it on You Tube. As you can see it all glass. One gets an amazing feeling inside. It is so light and airy.

Above is one view from inside. I got the tickets, again encountering an angel. The process is automated, but requires one first to make the reservation and get a print-out and then stick this into a second machine to pay. I couldn't make the machine read the bar-code, so finally had to ask for "real person" help. The woman told me if I bought the ticket from her it would cost an extra 50 euros, so she got up from behind her desk and walked with me to automated machines until we could make it work. Since 50 euros is about $75 she is indeed another one of the angels for the this trip.

In the afternoon I went on a tour related to the American influences in post-war Berlin. The guide was great and I surely learned a lot of history.

Here is a picture of the Brandenburg Gate. The line of bricks moving in a horizontal directionon the bottom of the picture mark the place of the Western wall of the Berlin Wall. I didn't realize until this tour that this Wall was in fact two walls with a "dead man's zone" of about 1 kilometer between the two barriers. The American Embassy is the right building on the right side of the gate. One thing I learned is that the wall was built because Berlin was open and something like 5000 people were walking from East Germany to the western side of Berlin everyday and never returning. One day 22, 000 people walked away and that was the final straw for the Communist government and led to the Wall.

Turning just the left from where I was standing when I took the photo of the gate, one can see one of the towers on the Reichstag.

Loved the tour, learned a lot.

In the evening we had a bit of welcome speeches and then a very fine dinner. Richard and Wendy and I started out together, but then we found a lone German Fulbrighter from Colorado, so he joined us. We had a lovely dinner conversation.

Now I'm off to a day of presentations and then the formal Welcome event this evening. And the sun is shining. Hurrah.