Where do you go for vacation for 5 days in the dead of winter?

Why,
Berlin, of course! It's flippin' freezing cold here! The weather was gorgeous in Venice when we left this morning. I'm only now beginning to thaw out after the walk and metro ride back to the hotel after dinner tonight. Our day went something like this:

Breakfast at the hotel in Venice was good. Eggs, yogurt, bread, cheese, ham. Walked from the hotel to the Piazzale Roma - large bus lot in the north end of the city - to take the bus back to the airport. Only got turned around once, but it worked out because we got to see this huge boat-crane-barge-thing dredging the canal.

Had lunch at the airport before the flight...caprese and tortillini with a glass of merlot.

Plane ride was uneventful...smooth landing in Berlin. The control tower has anti-smash lights all over the top. I could see at least four from the plane. I've never seen a tower with anti-smash. I imagine that must get annoying if you're a controller there.

Stepped off the plane and almost got back on. It's very cold. The trees are frozen and white. There's a patch of snow here and there left over from last week.

Took the train to the city and then the metro to the wrong part of town. Asked a local for directions and got pointed in the right way. Got to the hotel, dropped off the bags and headed out for dinner.

We went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. I know it sounds silly, but it's impossible to get a good cheeseburger at a restaraunt in Sicily. It was even colder when we left and headed back to the hotel. We're both tired from the day so we decided to call it an early night.

But here I am blogging away at 11:00 pm. I've been trying to access email all night but can't seem to read anything on yahoo. I think I sent an email earlier tonight (hello Trisha who's watching the boys for us back in Sicily) but I'm not sure.

Facebook is probably a good way to get ahold of us if anyone really needs to - but we'll probably only check once every day or two. We may start uploading photos on facebook since this blog seems to freeze up if I try to upload more than two or three pictures.

We miss the boys but are having a good time nevertheless.

I think we'll take a couple of walking tours tomorrow.

I can say goodbye in German but I don't know how it's spelled, so ciao,

Bud