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Last night I got back from a weekend in Berlin with the grand Rosenblums. It was an adventure from start to finish.

I left my house at the buttcrack of dawn (okay, 8am) to take the RER to Charles de Gaulle. Realized 15 minutes into the train ride that I had forgotten my passport. Had to bribe Nellie, who was asleep, to bring it to the station so I wouldn't miss my flight. I ended up making to to the airport with an hour to spare - only to discover that they had overbooked my flight by 20 seats. I was bumped to a flight that was taking off at the same time for Stuttgart. Okay, not so bad, right? I mean, at least I didn't have to connect through Cairo to get to Berlin. The layover in Stuttgart was 2.5 hours, but everything was smooth and I assumed the adventure was over when we finally landed in Berlin, 4 hours after I was originally scheduled to. Not so much - my luggage had been left in Paris. So that was a bummer. (It all ended well, though; my luggage arrived at the hotel a couple hours later, and Air France gave me a flight voucher. Biarriz, here I come!)

I missed the day's activities with Nana and Pappy (that's Dr. and Mrs. Rosenblum to you), but managed to join them for the opera that night. We saw Der Rosenkavalier at the Komische Opera. It was... unconventional. Musically, it was superb; I'm not a huge fan of Strauss (or the Romantics in general), but the singers were all excellent. The last duet between Sophia and Octavian was so beautiful it made my heart melt. The director made some interesting staging decisions: each act took place in a different century, with different period costumes, and the set in the last act was completely turned upside down. Interesting.

On Saturday we breakfasted together, and then, as Nana and Pappy had been in Berlin since Tuesday and had done all the museums already, split up. I think they just wandered around; I went to Museum Island. Spent nearly two hours in the Bode Museum, which houses medieval and renaissance art. It was incredible. It felt really good, too, to be able to analyze everything properly after having taken this medieval art class; I loved passing a sculpture and immediately noticing the contrapostal position of the figures or the style of the folds in a robe. I felt terribly educated. I then triped over to the Pergamonmuseum, where I just went through their three-room highlights tour. Then, while waiting for Nana and Pappy to meet me for lunch, I went through a street fair next to the river and bought a lovely menorah for 10 euros. In the afternoon, Nana and I did a little shopping (note: H&M is different in every city!). Before dinner, the three of us walked to the Brandenburg Gate and the Holocaust Memorial. It was incredibly moving; theres a stretch of land covered with gray stelea, over 2000 of them, all of different hights. It's so stark and bleak and beautiful. I had a little trouble with some of the underground exhibits. The museum beneath the stelea began with a timeline of WWII's genocide, and moved onto diary entries from victims and a room with artifact from different families that were killed in concentration camps. Tha hardest bit was the next room, where a voice read the names and dates of murdered Jews as their information flashed on the walls. It takes over 6 years to get through everyone.

Obviously, we went to dinner - right next to the Brandenburg Gate - rather somberly. The restaurant was really good, though; it was in Max Lieberman's old house, which was cool, and the food was delish.

On Sunday morning, after breakfast, we all went to the Jewish museum. I found it pretty disappointing. Every piece of every collection led to the Holocaust. I'm not saying we should forget what happened, but it's kind of irresponsible for a museum to focus exhibits on a specific goal; German Jewry existed for 2000 years before the genocide of World War II, and we need to learn about it's triumps and glories as well as the persecutions it withstood. After that, Pappy and I hit a roadside stand for some curryworst, sausage covered with ketchup and curry powder. The stands are everywhere, and I was told I HAD to try it, but it was pretty uneventful. As I had to finish a paper for a class, I headed to a Starbucks to work in the sun for a few hours before going to the airport.

(I love museums and sightseeing and everything, but my favorite part about a new city is just wandering and then people-watching at a cafe.)

The adventure ended with an unexciting flight that was delayed for 30 minutes. Woohoo. It was really wonderful to see the grand Rosenblums, though (really; I'm not just saying that because I know you're reading this, Nana); I practically live with them while I'm at school, so it was lovely to catch up.