Y2K+8

Have you ever had something that you keep putting off and the longer you put it off the harder it seams to do? Well that's how this blog has been for me. Erin and I have been busy (by Germany standards) and I just kept putting off writing this blog. So I am sorry to my faithful Blog readers. I am sure it seams like last year when I last posted.

Anyway onto what we have been up to...
December 17th:
Went to the airport and picked up some friends that we met while traveling in Belgium (I know that must sound very exotic). These guys are great they don't have a home because they are in constant travel mode. They work as Flight attendants so when they are not working they fly off to another country (for free). This time they flew off to Berlin to hang out with us; how cool. It was nice because I was able to brush up on my tour guiding skills so that I would be on my game when my mom got into town. The fact that they pretty much have to fly some place on their days off means that we should see them sometime soon hopefully in Colorado.

December 20th:

Dropped off our friends at the airport and picked up my mom 10 minuets later. The last time I spent Christmas with my mom was some time last millennium; needs less to say that this was an over due visit. It was great to see her and show her around all the cool things Berlin has to offer (good beer, brats, and lots of historical stuff). My mom must think that all we do is go to parties at friends houses, drink wine, eat fatty foods, and go to museums, because it was truly a marathon of Christmas parties and food.

Christmas Day:
Santa made the trip all the way to Berlin! In all reality Erin's mom made sure that we would not feel left out from the normal Christmas festivities of the States (Thanks Gail). It was nice to wake up and have Christmas with my two favorite ladies (Erin and my mom). They day was pretty relaxed, we slept in, opened presents, made real American sticky buns, and went to a very nice (by nice I mean it had lots of different forks to use) dinner at a friends house.
Erin headed off to Whales on the 26th and my mom headed back on the 27th. So if you are doing the math on that one you will realize that I was all alone in Berlin. I would like to say that I did something really cool while Erin was gone, but in all honesty I played a bunch of cribbage and filled out scholarship applications. I did however have one crazy night.

It all started a couple of days before New Years. I was walking to the local grocery store (the Ledil) to get some food. As I was walking out I passed some 10 year olds with a twinkle in their eyes and some serious fireworks in their hands. Now I am not one to be out done by a couple of ten year olds so I promptly walked in and bought the "mega party pack" and something called the "Big Crackles" all for 10€. Now I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania; every year 4th of July Mr. Mason would put on a very nice fire works show in our local park. I was pretty sure that I would out do his shows with the firepower I had just bought.

(Check out the Big Crackle I set off in front of our house: HIT PLAY)
Its 3am on the 28th and I wake up to 1/4 sticks of dynamite being blown up a few blocks away. No one else seamed to think it was odd that people where setting off bombs at 3 am. The next night I fell asleep to fireworks blowing up every few minutes.

December 31st: its 5pm and people are already setting off fireworks ever 20-30 seconds. Its going to be an interesting night because I am heading down to the center of town to hang out with a million of these pyrotechnic lovin Germans; I can't wait!
It's 8 pm the excitement is really starting to build so we head off to the center of town amid a now constant attack of fire works. It really seams a little dangerous. Hanging out with a million people in one place was really pretty cool, we hung out eat some brats, drank some beer, wrestled in the forest, counted the seconds until midnight, drank some more beer, watched fire works go off; you know the usual New Years stuff.

On the way home is when it got a little weird. We had to walk home via the Teirgarten and people where blowing up fireworks right and left. The constant explosions from the 1/4 sticks and the smoke they created really made me think about the scene that I would have seen in this exact location 60 years prior. 500,000 Russians died in pretty much the same place I was walking trying to take Berlin; in all honesty the fireworks made it all a little spooky.

Erin got home on the 1st just long enough to wash some clothes and repack so that we could head off to Krakow Poland. Our neighbors had invited us to their little cabin about 35 kilometers outside of Krakow. It was so nice to be outside of a city! It was also interesting to see the difference between Germany and Poland; both have felt the grip of communism, but one (Germany) has seen alot of international money so that it could rebuild when the wall fell. The other (Poland) is doing its best to try and get out from under the mess that 60 years of socialism has created. I would say if you are ever in the area Poland would be a great country to see, for the beauty of its people, for its amazing country side, and to witness the spirit that allowed them to survive Socialism.

(Hanging out in Poland)

WOW! I hope you survived this long blog.. I will try to do a better job at keeping you all updated. Up next for Erin and Patrick is the search for some more sun. We booked tickets to Athens Greece for a 3 day weekend in January. There is also a rumor that I might be able to find some rock to climb while I am in Greece. So keep your fingers crossed for me.

Live from Berlin Germany

Patrick