Berlin-Paris-Washington DC

Getting around Berlin is familiar now and the metro to the bus to the airport was relaxed. 

Despite the rosy picture on the Tegel Airport website, they were canceling flights to Amsterdam and north and there was a line of people rebooking their flights.   Fortunately, we were flying through Paris.  But some of the people got rebooked to our flight which was pretty crowded. 

Leaving Berlin.

I don't remember an airport so huge.  And it seemed we taxied all the way around it including past this Concorde.  (Wikipedia doesn't tell us the size of the airport.  A Google search says that the largest airport is King Fahd International in Damman, Saudi Arabia at 780 square kilometers.  Most sites then list the busiest airports.)

And there was a lot of walking to catch the plane on to Washington DC.

There are flights going all over the world from Paris.  And planes were flying to some of those Northern locations that had been canceled earlier in Berlin. 

We had to go past all the duty free shops.

But eventually we found our terminal and flew out over Paris.  We did see the Eiffel Tower from the plane and I think it is in this picture (upper right), but it's just not clear at all. 

And Dulles Airport outside of DC was pretty socked in.  We had instructions to take a taxi or the public bus.  The bus turned out to be the right choice.  It was after traffic time and it only made a couple of stops before dropping us off at L'Enfant Plaza Metro station.

It was a good day.  We had breakfast with our daughter, who also went to the airport with us, and we got to see our son in the evening.  We also bumped into someone we know from Anchorage changing trains in the Metro!

Headed Back to US

The flights out of Berlin are looking good today.  Only the flight to Dublin was canceled.   We change planes in Paris.  We've been eating a lot the last two days. 

	Flight	from	to	Term./ Counter	Plan	expected	state
	Monday 17.05.2010
	AB 2212	Tegel	Fuerteventura	C48-C57	12:00 pm
	LH  183	Tegel	Frankfurt	A09	12:05 pm
	AY  912	Tegel	Helsinki	D71-D73	12:15 pm
	EZY4613	Schönefeld	Athen	B20-B27	12:20 pm
	BA  983	Tegel	London LHR	A04	12:20 pm
	AB 8484	Tegel	StPetersburg	C61-C63	12:30 pm
	IB 3551	Tegel	Madrid	A13	12:30 pm
	KL 1824	Tegel	Amsterdam	A14	12:35 pm
	AB 8268	Tegel	Wien	C48-C57	12:40 pm
	AB 8102	Tegel	Stockholm	C48-C57	12:45 pm
	DY 1161	Schönefeld	Bergen	A13/A14	12:45 pm
	AF 1735	Tegel	Paris CDG	A15	12:45 pm
		add. flights: AZ 2617, DL 8419
	EZY4685	Schönefeld	Rom CIA	B20-B27	12:45 pm
	AB 8550	Tegel	Graz	C48-C57	12:45 pm
	FR 8559	Schönefeld	Dublin		12:50 pm		cancelled
	AB 8300	Tegel	Goeteborg	C48-C57	12:50 pm
	AB 8242	Tegel	Oslo	C48-C57	12:50 pm
	AB 6445	Tegel	Düsseldorf	A06	12:55 pm
	AB 6555	Tegel	Frankfurt	A02	12:55 pm
	AB 6191	Tegel	München	A03	12:55 pm
	LH  223	Tegel	München	A11	12:55 pm
	AB 6531	Tegel	Stuttgart	C48-C57	12:55 pm
	AB 8120	Tegel	Zürich	A12	12:55 pm
	LH 4312	Tegel	Paris CDG	D86/D87	1:00 pm
	AB 6635	Tegel	Karlsruhe BAD	C48-C57	1:05 pm
	AB 6411	Tegel	Nürnberg	C48-C57	1:05 pm
	AB 6499	Tegel	Köln Bonn	A07	1:10 pm
	BD  844	Tegel	London LHR	A05	1:10 pm
	EZY4527	Schönefeld	Barcelona	B20-B27	1:15 pm
	OV  157	Tegel	Tallinn	D75-D77	1:25 pm
		via: Hamburg

Berlin Football Fans - Bayern Munich v. Werder Bremen

When we got to Berlin today, there were also a lot of football fans out as well.  It seems today was the German Cup.  Bayern Munchen fans in red and Werder Bremen fans in green. 




The video shows a few fans doing some team spirit.


And after feasting  on Spargel (fresh white asparagus) with M and her roommate and some of her friends, A went to watch the end of the on television. He told us Bayern Munich won 4-0.

Back in Berlin

We had our last breakfast with our friends and then got a ride to the airport.

The train was very clean and very comfortable in 2nd Class.  They even had some sections where people could be in enclosures where kids could sit on the floor with their parents. 

There's lots of graffiti in Berlin. 

It's hard to tell if and when graffiti turns into art. 

The train is now in central Berlin, almost at the station.

We're off the train.  Here's the connection between two cars.

The Hauptbanhof (main train station).

Then our daughter (who met us at the station) wanted to show us the famous department store in Berlin. 

It had an incredible array of things including Alaska salmon.  

It's cold - 7˚C  (44˚F) was the high today and it's wet.