My flight from Florence was quite a cool adventure. I had an hour-long layover in Frankfurt before my second flight to Berlin on Lufthansa Airlines. Air travel from Florence doesn’t exactly operate on schedule when the threat of rain exists, so my flight (which roommate David Zandi, on his way to Prague, happened to be on as well), was delayed by forty minutes. To this point, I hadn’t yet experienced paper-thin layover times, and therefore was somewhat worried about making my connecting flight. Fortunately, employees of the Frankfurt airport picked me and several other passengers up on a shuttle bus to take us to our next flights. I ran into the gate for a second and showed my boarding pass before boarding the plane, which promptly took off. I was delighted to be ferried so officially, and all the Germans along the way were quite friendly.
I arrived at about 11pm, and took a bus and a cab to Sam’s address, where, despite some cell phone connection issues, I met up with him. He lives in a nice apartment building on Adalbertstrasse (unpronounceable by me) with a roommate. On Friday morning, we got up and spent the day walking around Berlin. I snapped a number of photos, and I’ve collected about 35 of them and posted them below. Among the sights I saw were the Reichstag, the Brandenburg gate, and the Holocaust memorial for the Jews who were killed. The weather was nice, and it was cool to see the city. Sam is quite interested in history and made for a terrific tour guide, telling me all about what we were seeing and pointing out the remnants of the Berlin Wall. That evening, we went to a synagogue where I got my first taste of Jewish life in Berlin. The services were slightly more energetic than in Italy, though the tunes were similarly hard to sing along to. We dined that evening at Sam’s friend Yehoshua’s apartment. He was quite hospitable and the food and environment were great. He’s fluent in German, English, and French, and works as a doctor. We had many interesting conversations, and finished off the meal with lots of singing with interesting German tunes. As I might have assumed, I was offered alcohol at the end of the meal, and elected to have something light and sweet. My drink was a blueberry liqueur which I found fairly strong, Sam’s was a Scotch of some sort, and Yehoshua had an “advanced drink,” which was a pepper Vodka. We stayed pretty late, and returned to Sam’s apartment to head right to sleep before getting up the next morning for services. At the synagogue, one of the members came over and attempted to speak to me in German. I requested an English speaker and was asked by someone else to lead Shir HaKavod, also known as Anim Zemirot. I accepted, and was surprised to find laughter emanating from the congregation when they were responding during the prayer. Apparently in Germany they sing very slowly and melodically, and my joyful, exuberant singing was interpreted as American rushing. My aliyah to the Torah was also deemed quite speedy. The services were followed by a terrific Kiddush with lox (!), and we proceeded back to Yehoshua’s apartment for lunch, and remained for a while reading some of his books that afternoon. Later on, we hung out with Sam’s roommates until Shabbat ended, at which point we found a pleasant Mexican restaurant with a British waiter and some delicious food. Sunday morning, prior to my departure, we took the Berlin subway to the bus station, where I ate a great omelet. My time in Berlin was well spent, and I hadn’t even planed on going before the semester, therefore I consider it all a great bonus. I’m happy to share all these pictures below, so please enjoy them! Coming up next, I’ll be blogging about my final trip from Florence, to the Amalfi Coast! Check back later this week for that!
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