Wednesday, Sept 1, 2010: Berlin Day 2

Today was a walking day – we probably walked 12-15 miles by the time everything was said and done. At the end of the day, we were exhausted! The day started in the Tiergarten, which is like Berlin’s Central Park. As we walked along the weather changed from cool and overcast (jackets required), to clear and sunny (t-shirts), to cloudy and rainy (jackets and umbrellas required) all within a matter of 2 hours. Our little tour took us past the Siegessaeule statue (under renovations), Schloss Bellvue where the Chancellor Merkel lives, the main train station (Hauptbahnhof), the Reichstag Parliament building, and the Brandenburg Gate. The Gate is such an impressive monument, and it is crazy to think that just over 20 years ago, the Berlin wall ran only a few feet from where it stands.

Tiergarten


Schloss Bellvue


After that trek, we took a break for lunch at Café Einstein, which is near Humboldt University where Einstein taught before the war. Lunch was delicious, and the homemade apfelstrudel we had for dessert was even more delicious. From there, we set off east and passed the Bebelplatz, which was the site of the first major Nazi book burning. The square is a very nice looking plaza directly across from Humbolt University, and it is difficult to imagine a big crowd of people standing around burning ~20,000 books. After crossing the Spree river, we reached the Berliner Dom - a nice church on Berlin’s central Museum Island. It also had a stairwell that you could take up to the dome to get a nice 360 degree view of central Berlin.

Bebelplatz


Berliner Dom


And again... this time with a rainbow


The sun was starting to fall in the sky when we left the Berliner Dom, and I really wanted to make it to the Holocaust memorial before sunset. After a quick stop at a chocolate shop near Friedrichstrasse that has some amazing chocolate sculptures, we hustled our way over to the memorial. As anticipated, the memorial was very striking at sunset. Although much of the city has moved on from the war, these monuments make it impossible to forget the darkest elements of that time period.

That's a lot of chocolate!


Melinda in the Holocaust Memorial


At sunset


We finished the day with another trip to the Brandenburg Gate right as the sun set. For dinner, we went to another German restaurant across the street from our hotel. I can’t get enough of the German food!

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010: From London’s Stansted Train Station to Berlin

Unfortunately, Kenneth came down with a case of the sniffles (this is one of our new favorite British words that we think is very funny) the day before we were to leave on our big Eastern European tour. Although he was feverish and sluggish on Monday, he has been quite the trooper and has not let his cold slow him down on our trip. When we arrived in Berlin in the afternoon we made our way to Mark Hotel, where we would be staying for three nights. The area around our hotel was a really nice, quiet residential neighborhood adjacent to more bustling wide, clean streets with multiple shops selling clothes and shoes.

After checking in and leaving our back packs in our room, we headed out to explore some of the city before the sun went down. We headed west for Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, which was the site of the 1936 Olympic Games. That competition was interesting because it was supposed to validate Hitler’s thoughts on the supremacy of his Aryan athletes. America’s Jesse Owens had other ideas and won several gold medals. The stadium is still a very impressive building and was a beautiful sight as the sun set.







For dinner, we were anxious to try German food so we decided on a huge, old-fashioned beer house that was recommended by our hotel just down the street. For what looked to be a tourist trap, the food was definitely better than expected. I greatly enjoyed my sliced pork with sauerkraut and dumplings, while Kenneth had a German sausage with mashed potatoes and sauerkraut. He was excited to get his sparkling apple juice, apfelschorle. The meal was great and we went back to the hotel to get ready for a big day of touristing.

Eurotrip!!!

Right now we are in the middle of a 3+ week boondoggle through Central Europe. Our itinerary is as follows: Berlin (Germany) - Prague (Czech Republic) - Budapest (Hungary) - Zagreb (Croatia) - Split (Croatia) - Dubrovnik (Croatia) - Rijeka (Croatia) - Ljubljana (Slovenia) - Vienna (Austria) - Munich (Germany) - Salzburg (Austria). We're trying to keep up with writing blog posts on the trains and will try to get some of those posts up soon.

God Save the Queen

A nice flight on Virgin Atlantic took us from our beloved LAX airport to London Heathrow. A two hour delay put us into Heathrow at 5pm. This arrival time was perfect timing to meet up with my friend Landon Larson, who we are staying with for the fall. Landon was working in Norway, and we shared a cab back to his place. That simple rendezvous saved us around 60 pounds (thank you Big Oil!). It didn’t take us long to realize that living in London would be a much more expensive endeavor than living in HK (or even LA for that matter). A simple dinner at Thai Garden that night for the three of us was over 45 pounds.

After so much traveling around for the past month, we had some trouble adjusting to the time zone. I was consistently waking up around 10, whereas Melinda would wake up around 5am, eat breakfast, then come back to bed for another 6 hours or so. One day she didn’t get up for good until 2pm.

For the most part, we took it pretty slow in our first days in London. We have all fall to see the place so we didn’t blaze any trails on the first weekend. On Sunday (Aug 29), we did make it out to see some of the sights and take some snaps. Mostly though, we just relaxed and rested up for our 3+ week Eurotrip starting on Aug 31.

August 20 - Back in the States

My trip back to the US was great – I had been upgraded to Business/First, and despite the fact that the trip was 15 hours long, I was sad to see it end. Flying first class internationally is an unbelievable experience. I slept great, and could even sleep on my side in the 180 degree recline seats. We even flew over the North Pole, and I was able to take some video of the Arctic, which was pretty cool. When I landed in Atlanta, I met up with Jonathan and Amit from India, and caught up on stories from their time since CO. After a presentation on Friday, I caught an earlier flight back to Wichita and landed in time for dinner.

On Saturday, my mom threw a surprise party for my sister, who was leaving the next week for a year abroad in Spain for her masters program through NYU. Little did I know that the surprise was also for Melinda and me. That morning, Victoria, Jon, Erica, and Dereck stopped by for breakfast because they were supposedly in town for a party on Friday. They left our house after breakfast, but then when we got to Di’s party, there they were again, along with several of our other friends and family. It was great to see so many people in such a short time before leaving again for London. My mother is quite the trickster, and she did a great job planning the perfect event.

After a short 1.5 days in Wichita, it was time to leave for LA on Sunday. In case you haven’t been keeping track, that’s HKG on Thurs, ATL on Fri, ICT on Sat, and LAX on Sun. Followed up by LON on Thurs. Understandably, my body was a little confused. In LA, we met up with our friends Priya and Vinny for a fun dinner on Sunday, and our neighbors Tom and Catherine hosted us for dinner on Monday. On Tuesday, we saw several friends from school at a going away party for another friend who was heading to HK for the semester. Just like in Wichita, it was great to see so many people in such a short time. It was also great to be back in LA and in our apartment. We love our place and the Brentwood/Santa Monica neighborhood so much. Sadly, after only a few short days, it was time to pack up and leave again.

The Farewell Tour

My last week and a half in Hong Kong was a blur. I actually had quite a bit of work that came up, and at the same time, I was trying to enjoy my last days with my new friends in Hong Kong. I won’t bore you with any of the work details, but will instead share some of the fun things.

On my last Saturday, Mandy took my to the island of Cheung Chau. It’s a small fishing community on an island just west of Hong Kong island. Melinda visited in one of her last weeks, but I was at work and unable to visit. We walked around the island looking at various temples and shops, and stumbled across a funeral being held in one of the public courtyards. It lasted for several hours and we walked past it several times. One of the traditions that we read about is for the surviving family members to burn fake money and paper replicas of cars, buildings, food, riches, and other nice things. Burning these things makes them available for their dead relatives to enjoy in the afterlife. Sure enough, at this funeral they had a paper Mercedes, a nice house, and several other things waiting to be burnt. The ceremony was fascinating to watch, and I really wish that I had been able to get a picture.





For the last several nights in town, I went out to eat with friends from work and tried an assortment of authentic, local experiences. The first night we went to a hole in the wall restaurant near the Temple Street night market for a rice dish baked in a clay pot. I had the curry beef and it was delicious. The next night was a little more adventurous with Cantonese style hot pot. Hot pot is pretty much like eating the main course at a Melting Pot fondue restaurant. You have a really hot pot in the center of the table with a broth and different spices to cook your meat in. In this case, we also had pork blood, tofu, and liver to add some flavor to the stew. Some of the meat I had was really good – the beef, for example. The cow stomach, on the other hand, was less awesome. My friend Jonathan Lau insisted that it was amazing, and that I would just love the texture – he misread the situation. Oh well, I still had a great time with my friends from the office.

I was really sad to leave my friends in HK, knowing full well that I may never make it back to see them again. The summer was a great experience that was made even better by the people I worked with. Hopefully our paths will cross again at some point, either in Asia or elsewhere.

Rocky Mountain High

Every year, Deloitte holds an event for its former consultants who are away at business school to reconnect them to the firm. The event is also an opportunity to network with peers at different schools around the country, as well as firm leadership. Obviously the six of us doing this global internship program provided a logistical challenge for the retreat organizers, but we received approval to attend. Fortunately, spouses were also invited, and the company paid for Melinda’s trip as well. Although unexcited about traveling 40 hours roundtrip for a weekend in the States, we weren’t about to miss out on the weekend - Especially since it was being held at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs.





Flights from Hong Kong to Colorado Springs don’t happen every hour, so in order to get to COS in time for Friday’s dinner, we actually had to book flights that arrived the day before. This extra time in the Springs allowed us to (1) adjust to the time change and (2) go to the Colorado College campus. Melinda had not been back to campus since her graduation, and it was fun to see what had changed. Aside from Pepperdine’s perch over the Pacific in Malibu, I don’t know if you can find a prettier location for a college. Melinda’s freshman year dorm room looked right out on Pikes Peak and the foothills of the Rockies.



The rest of the weekend was great, and I had a blast seeing friends from UCLA and my time at Deloitte before school. 4 of the 5 members of my team from Week 2 BA training in 2005 were in attendance, and we had fun reminiscing about our group. We also enjoyed talking with the other global interns about their experiences in Brazil and India. Team India in particular had some crazy stories – they were even battling GI issues at the retreat. As Jonathan Felix said, his body was rejecting all of the clean water he was drinking. On Saturday, we went white water rafting, which was an absolute blast.



After the fun weekend and amazing stay at the fantastic Broadmoor, it was time to leave. Melinda actually flew to Wichita to spend a few weeks at home before going to London. I boarded the flight to Chicago and on to Hong Kong with Eric, and we were off to the other side of the world.

Catching Up

It's been a busy month and we're way behind on our blog. This is becoming somewhat of a habit. Whoops. Here are some posts covering our busy August.