More on Berlin

Wow...this is a great city! We have had a great time here...today if the last day here and we will go back to Alsfed until Saturday morning and then a few day in the heart of Frankfurt.

We saw just about every thing in Berlin, from high fashion to Checkpoint Charlie and from theatre and Baroque concerts to a boat cruise on the Spree River through town. I also saw the Pergamon alter which was truly larger than life itself.

The evidence from WWII and the communist era is so evident in some cases and in other cases if things were not pointed out to me, I may have never noticed!!

It is once again breakfast time and I need to run....

Please don't worry, we are still being treated like royalty here!!

Why...

Why are Germans in a hurry enough to drive so fast on the Autobahn?? But there is no such thing as taking coffee to go?

Berlin

I am in Berlin now...

Each night we are lucky if we get six hours of sleep...and then we went to a Baroque concert with a very small audience in a very big palace... it was wonderful and thetreat of a lifetime...but it was all I could do not to fall asleep!!!

I have to run off for some breakfast...at least the coffee is stong here!!!

Love to all....
--Christine

Special things...

Some special things that have happened to me so far...

Two different people have said to me..."I'll never forget what the Americans did for us."...this was said with true gratitude and tears in their eyes...

My host family from Wiesbaden said to me when I was sharing my family photos and photos from CA with her..."I can see that your family loves each other in these photos."

My host father from Wiesbaden said it was a "wonderful moment for him" when I thanked him in front of the Rotary Club presentation for hosting me. He said I was the only one who thanked their host family and he told me he was "a proud man at that moment".

We were given "hand turned" wooden boxes from a man in the Alsfeld Rotary Club for being their honored guests. Everyone here is so excited and honored to have us stay with them! Hey folks...I am the one who is honored!!!

Crossing the former border between West and East Germany and standing on what was once communist soil....I can't explain this feeling...I have heard first hand stories over the past couple of days that are immensely touching and stories I will never forget for as long as I live.

The Peace Bell project that the Alsfeld Rotary Club has with a club in the area that was the former East Germany...I met a man who was head of this project. The Alsfeld Rotary Club was helping to establish new Rotary Clubs and they found a whole bunch of old guns and ammunition and they melted it all down and made a Peace Bell out of it. When the day came to open the monument, they allowed the town pastor to ring the bell for the first time. A very, very big deal since the former East Germans did not have freedom of religion and Rotary does keep religion private from Rotary projects. Anyway, the pastor rang the bell for the first time and they said a prayer and the pastor explained that normally he would sprinkle holy water on the bell but it was hung too high to reach it with the water...and just then it started to rain. The pastor said to the crowd "someone else is sprinking holy water on all of us"...it was a beautiful story told to me by a man with tears in his eyes, rosy smiling cheeks and a long time history of pain in his heart...

There was a story of a man who died at the German border and the Americans could do nothing to help....they build a cross on the site of his death in his honor. When The Wall came down in 1989, this man showed up and said 'this is my story and I am fine. I am safe and I am a free man'.

This is a beautiful project that I am a part of and I am honored to be here....

Much love to all of my blog readers...I miss you, but I am having the time of my life...
xoxoxoxo

Calgon!! Take me away!!!

Holy shit!

That is just about all I have to say! Well, maybe I have a few more things to say than that… ...but if I told you EVERYTHING...you would be up for days trying to catch up with me! Then the bags under your eyes would be as big as mine!

We are very, very tired and we have very, very long days and all the future weeks look just as long as this past week. I think the smartest thing is to have an outline form for you...ah, well...maybe stream of conciousness would be more fun!

It is damn hot here and the humidity is GROSS!

Ok, here goes...

Day 1: Walking tour of Wiesbaden...this town is from the Roman Empire days...they have spas and hot springs...nuff said. Dinner with our host families. This meal had white asparagus...

Day 2: Tour of Wachendorff Electronik company and a discussion about globilization and its effects on employment. Gondola ride at Rudesheim and lunch...this meal had white asparagus, gorgeous walk all along the Rhine river to Assmanshausen, river boat cruise, visit an old Gothic church and wine tasting with a quiche thing that had white asparagus in it...

Day 3: Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceutical company (with Mr. Boeringher himself...he is a Rotarian!!) another old church and another meal with white aspargus (are you getting the picture--it#s white asparagus season here!!), Rotary Club meeting presentations, visit to the Staatskanzlei (state capital) its an old building and has been remodeled and is modern on the inside, we toured and visited to the Marktkirche of Wiesbaden. We a special evening meal with the German GSE Team and we had...yep, you guessed it!!! WHITE ASPARAGUS!!!

Day 4: Freakin' awesome power plant!!! We American's are so lame sometimes!!! These people collect their trash like normal (no sorting or any hassles) and the refuse is dumped into a power plant/ fancy fireplace thingy and turn it into steam and power. It is clean, does not smell, the smoke runs through a fancy ass filter so there are virtually no emissions and they bury the ashes. No land fills folks!! This place is so environmentally safe and sound, that is is placed right next to the Rhine. These German guys are pretty smart! This was followed by another Rotary Club meeting (and this one did not have white asparagus!), a walking tour of Eltville (super cute!), a quick trip home to change for the theatre, off to the Wiesbaden Kurhaus to see 'Cirque Louise'...a graceful, humorous, acrobatic masterpiece. It was quite good! Finally, this evening, I got to spend a little bit of time with the von Bismarcks...they are truley lovely people with an amazing family history.

Day 5: A tour of ZDF television station (the largest in Germany...this place was MASSIVE!!), then back to Wiesbaden for one more Rotary Club visit before leaving town. We were picked up by the Rotary Club Alsfeld President and he escorted us back to Alsfeld. The entire van full of GSE Team members fell asleep in the car. We have been running so hard since the very beginning! Arriving in Alsfeld, the club had a welcoming dinner for us and guess what!!?? It is white asparagus season here too!! We had some for dinner!

Day 6: A tour of a furniture showroom, manufacturing company, then an unbelievable lunch meal in a place where this furniture was installed. This furniture stuff is hard to explain, but it sure it beautiful! And the meal was so incredible! It was a very, very local style of food in this region and it was a real treat! There was no white asparagus this time! After lunch, we visited the world famous Ferrero Chocolates...yes, this is Nutella, Mon Cheri, Kinder Eggs and Kinder Bueno...what an awesome tour!! Then a family BBQ to meet all the families of the Rotarians in this area.

Day 7: A visit to a salt mine, lunch at a beautiful lakeside restaurant and a visit to Point Alpha.This is a special place and it is an amazing feeling to walk across border into and across former communist soil. This place is special enough to deserve it's own blog entry, but I just went there today and have not completely digested what I learned and saw. Believe me...it is really something to see and feel...

I will post more later as I have the time, we are running out the door to a mushroom farm in the forest...

Auf wiedersehen!!

Hallo from Deutschland!

It's beautiful, green, hilly and the architecture is amazing!

But the keyboards are weird and I am navigating through blogger.com which is all in German.

The key board has letters like this: ö ä ü ß...the 'y' key and the 'z' key are switched and I still can't figure out how to get the "at" key to show up!!

I have to cut and paste it from my own e-mail address...

Stop laughing!

So, anyway....the flight was GREAT...smooth, easy going, slept well and got here early. God Bless Boeing and their 777's...

We arrived in Wiesbaden which is about 20 minutes from the Frankfurt Airport. Wiesbaden is known for its hot springs from way, way back in the Roman Empire. And we were dropped off at this hotel:

http://www.hotel-oranien.de/sfp_sfcr-1961.0+sfci-1961.0+sflng-1.html

where each of us has a private room (complete with deep, deep bathtubs--yes, i have already tried it out!!) and Bulgari soaps and shampoos...no kidding! We will be here until 3pm Sunday when we will meet our host families.

I have been told that my host family is a descendant if this man:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck

Seriously!

So, after we had a welcome meeting and a debriefing of our host families and this week' program plans, we took showers (I had a glorious soak in the tub with my Bulgari products!) then a wonderful dinner here at the hotel and we were picked up by our German teammates and escorted to the Kransplatzfest; an outside summer beer garden festival complete with live music. Live is good folks, live is good.

I am one lucky girl!!!

Love to all the blog readers...I miss you and will update as often as I can!

xoxoxo

Tomorrow...tomorrow...

You're only a dayyyyy awayyyyyy!!

We leave tomorrow...can you believe it??

I can't.

I don't have words to describe the jumble of thoughts in my head right now so I'll just say Auf Wiedersehen!!

My next note will be from Germany...I hope to be able to update here a couple times a week as I can.

Stay tuned!

9 days...

Single digits!! We are down to single digits!!

9 days until we leave!

WOOOOOO HOOOOOOO!!!

Sometimes I am in a daze...sometimes I feel super organized...and sometimes I am in a panic...and sometimes I am reflective...sometimes I am proud...sometimes I am humbled...but most of the time I am just freakin' excited!!

To-Do List

I just made a to-do list for myself and it is really long...

really, really long.

it's so long, I think I need a nap now.

15 short days left...