Back from Berlin

Just got back from six days in Berlin, surely the best city in continental Europe. Where else can you see men in puple leggings pushing strollers through the ruins of socialism? Erik and I went there last week because we had even more archaic Christian holidays to celebrate, and we met Erik's brother in the big city.

We did all sorts of really touristy stuff. We walked down the Unter den Linden towards the Reichstag, visited Checkpoint Charlie, and went to the Pergamon museum.

The two highlights of the trips though were decidedly ''un-Berlin'' moments. The first came on Thursday night when we scalped tickets to see Vampire Weekend at Maria's, a river-side rock club in the industrial area by the Ostbanhof. The people watching, especialy the American college kids who were trying their hardest to look German, was spot-on at this club.

The second event was our attempt to see the new ''Indiana Jones'' in English. There are plenty of English theaters in Berlin, so when we looked online and saw that it was playing at a place called the Babylon, we felt optimistic. We asked a waiter where the Babylon was and he gave us clear directions that led us to the theater after 20 mins on the U-Bahn. Too bad it was the wrong Babylon. Turns out there was an East and a West Babylon theater. We raced to the other one and were only 10 mins late. Indy was waiting for us.

Now it's back to work in the 'Furt.