Toto, honestly...where are we?!

So normally I look out my window here in Berlin and I can see our Funkturm (Radio Tower), which honestly makes me think I'm in Paris, staring at the Eiffel Tower. But then every once in a while they beam colored-light on it and then I get 'confused' - ARE WE IN OZ, TOTO?! 'Ruff, ruff..' Oh wait, I forgot...I don't have a dog...who's answering then? 'Marsha, Marsha, Marsha....'

Anyway, before I descend into a TOTO (forgive me please ;)mental breakdown, the point of all of this was to show what my Funkturm looks like during the 'International Green Week' - a show for agriculture and environmentally-friendly technologies.

"There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no ice cream like Ben&Jerry's, there's no...." 'Put a fork in me, Jerry! I'm done!' (Kramer, 'Seinfeld')

World Traveler, Flat Freddy, visits Berlin!

So a friend of mine came to visit me here in Berlin: Flat Freddy! He's from Oregon where he attends middle school and his classmates sent him on a journey around the world to learn what he could. Before coming here, Freddy saw the wilds of North Pole, Alaska and now I'll just cut-paste what I wrote to Freddy's middle school class....

"The pictures I sent you with Flat Freddy were his choices. He told me that some of you like sports, so we decided to go to the Berlin Olympic Stadium. It was here in 1936 that Jesse Owens won four gold medals in track events proving to Hitler and the world that there was no such thing as a superior person/race/anyone.

While we were at the Olympic Stadium I got a sausage with mustard and a piece of bread – this is probably one of the favorite snacks that Germans and Berliners eat! The local soccer team, Hertha BSC, was getting ready to play and their fans were all over the place, eating sausages and getting ready for the game.














Flat Freddy liked the public transportation here in Berlin. You can take a bus, subway or train anywhere you want to go – he decided it’s nicer to sit back and let someone else do the driving - and it saves the environment.





















And the last picture is Flat Freddy with the Berlin Funkturm or Radio Tower. It was built in 1926 and became a very famous landmark, especially in West Berlin. The tower is most famous, however, because it was from here in 1935 that the first regular television program in the world was broadcast.

Well everybody. I hope that you enjoyed yourselves seeing a little piece of Berlin. Don’t forget that you can learn even more by looking ‘Berlin’ up on the Internet or in an encyclopedia.

Take care one and all and enjoy learning!"

END OF QUOTE: And the same goes to you all! Go learn and enjoy this world we've been given!!

Oh, and Flat Freddy, before he left in a large envelope for Georgia, USA, yelled 'ICH BIN AUCH EIN BERLINER!" (I'm a jelly doughnut too! I tell you...it's moments like this that you feel grateful for friends will will stand with you...no matter how 'thickly-challenged' they might be...)

Jelly Doughnut Weather

So when I got back to Berlin, jet lag was a bit of an issue (10-hour difference between the Alaskan metropolis of North Pole and the village of Berlin) and so I got to enjoy something that I hadn't before: Berlin Sunrises...


Of course as my camera suffers from some mental condition, what I see and what the picture shows is not always the same thing...the first photo is without flash...so this is closer to what I actually saw...




This is with flash...I think it's the 'nicer looking' of the two...

Very 'connected, peaceful, calm' feeling seeing it...very nice....














This was one of those 'AHHH!' (angels singing moments) when the dreary, darkened sky is opened and rays of light beam all over and you feel like 'you're not alone'...camera didn't quite capture it in my opinion....







Then this was one of our more recent snowstorms. I thought it was very interesting to see Berlin in snow - firstly, because I love seeing things in a new way, but also because all my fellow 'jelly doughnuts' spoke often about what a mild winter it had been, etc. I hadn't really expected to see snow in Berlin....

These are both views out my window...