1.5 hours to Berlin
The Partnerin and I flew up to Berlin for the weekend. They say it is an ill wind that blows no good, which is indeed true ... we had a 49 knot tail wind, which meant we were crossing the ground at 188 knots, which meant Berlin was only roughly 1.5 hours away. 
We flew into Tempelhof, which may very well be for the last time since it is targeted for closure in the next few months. Normally this would have been a good landing point, since Tempelhof if in the city proper and one could then take the U-bahn to other parts of the city, but unfortunately the U-bahn was undergoing construction and therefore a cab-ride was necessary. Still not too bad, though, since it only cost EUR 15 to get from Tempelhof to the Kudamm (the Partnerin had never been to KaDeWe, so we had to do it at least once). 
I will miss Tempelhof. Perhaps another post on that later.
posted by Mike B at 9/09/2008 01:11:00 AM
1 Comments:
Last time I was in Berlin was Thanksgiving weekend in 1986. It was a different world then. Checkpoint Alpha was a nightmare, not only because of the huge crowd of Americans wanting to go to Berlin that weekend, but also because the driver of my ride lost his ID card. Fortunately, one of the clerks there typed up new orders for me so I could continue on in another car (even though we had been repeatedly warned that they would never EVER do that at the checkpoint).
For us, it turned out to be a nice weekend. For my former driver, not so much -- although, he did eventually catch up to us much later the next day. After having driven an hour or so to the nearest Army base, he found everything closed for the Thanksgiving holiday. They eventually found a clerk who was able to issue him a new ID card and travel orders the next day. He then drove back to Checkpoint Alpha, crossed through to the GDR, drove to Berlin, and met us at our hotel. When he pulled his suitcase out of the trunk, he found his old ID card laying underneath his suitcase. :)
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