After a very smooth 1 hour flight between Amsterdam and Berlin, we were met at the airport by Sigrid, who was holding a sign with “David & Jim” on it. She is an absolutely delightful person and I think we hit it off right away. We gathered our bags and piled into her car for the short drive to house which she shares with her husband, Alfred. It was evident from a few rather large piles of snow in the area they had had some substantial snow not that long ago and Sigrid explained it has been a particularly cold and snowy winter for them. They live in a lovely little town called Eichwalde, which translated means “Oak Wood”, hence all the oak forest in the area. It’s a small town just southeast of Berlin and has a very charming small town feel. She immediately made us feel right at home, showing us to our room which is on the second floor of the house. We have a very comfortable room with a double bed in it which used to be their daughter’s, and the bathroom is right across the hall - all in all, a very private set up which we weren’t sure we would get with the couch surfing crowd! The house was built in the 1930’s and has all the charm of that era for sure.
Sigrid & Alfred LOVE to travel as well and from the looks of all the amazing artwork in their home, they have clearly been all over the world. She explained that she is from Germany originally but her parents moved to Cleveland, Ohio when she was a small girl and so she grew up there. As an adult, she wanted to learn more about her German heritage so she came back to Germany and never left. She told us that she is currently teaching a German man English and was hoping we’d be willing to sit down with her and her student over a glass of wine and help him practice his English - well of course we said yes! So we’ll see when she organizes that…..
She educated us about the train and metro system and told us the train station was a short 10 minute walk from their house, which then connects up with a metro station with trains running right into the center of Berlin. Get this - she actually walked us to the train station to make sure we knew where to go and explained which train to get on! If that wasn’t sweet enough, while we were buying our tickets at the station, we heard her greeting a man and woman who she introduced to us as friends of her’s who live in the town. Their names are Maria and Wolfe and apparently they were taking the train into town to visit an art exhibit and Sigrid asked if they wouldn’t mind helping us make sure we got off at the right stop. Human kindness really does overflow at times…….
Wishing us a fun day, she left us to board the train with Maria and Wolfe, whom I would guess were in their early 60‘s. Now I have to tell you, they were the sweetest couple you could ever meet. She basically knew no English except for a word or two and he could speak some basic English but not a whole lot. That didn’t stop them, though, from giving us an extra map they had of the metro system and explaining again which stop to get off. It was really adorable how she would smile at us and think of something we might enjoy seeing in the city, which she would explain to Wolfe, who would then translate what she said as best he could into English. Suffice it to say, our conversations were somewhat stunted but you could really tell they wanted to chat as much as they could.
Well, we got off at the right stop and then transferred to a subway line that took us right where we needed to go. Now, I hadn’t thought to change into my long underwear before we left their house so I wasn’t quite as layered as I would have liked to have been and let me tell you - I could have used it!! It was REALLY cold and wet today and actually snowed for awhile as we walked around the city. However, we did make it to the famous Brandenburg Gate which truly is an amazing monument to behold. Of course, as I went to take a picture, the camera battery died reminded me that I forgot to charge it up last night!! Oh well - Jim was able to snap some good pictures on his phone and we’ll be back in the area with the charged up camera in the next couple of days I’m sure……..from our brief foray today Berlin seemed like a very lovely city. The streets were incredibly clean and at least the parts of the city where we were had wide open sidewalks which made it really easy to get around. At the worst of the snow, we luckily found a Starbucks (go figure) right across from the Brandenburg Gate to tuck into and have a warm coffee while we looked out on the square. All in all, a perfect afternoon really.
Sigrid & Alfred LOVE to travel as well and from the looks of all the amazing artwork in their home, they have clearly been all over the world. She explained that she is from Germany originally but her parents moved to Cleveland, Ohio when she was a small girl and so she grew up there. As an adult, she wanted to learn more about her German heritage so she came back to Germany and never left. She told us that she is currently teaching a German man English and was hoping we’d be willing to sit down with her and her student over a glass of wine and help him practice his English - well of course we said yes! So we’ll see when she organizes that…..
She educated us about the train and metro system and told us the train station was a short 10 minute walk from their house, which then connects up with a metro station with trains running right into the center of Berlin. Get this - she actually walked us to the train station to make sure we knew where to go and explained which train to get on! If that wasn’t sweet enough, while we were buying our tickets at the station, we heard her greeting a man and woman who she introduced to us as friends of her’s who live in the town. Their names are Maria and Wolfe and apparently they were taking the train into town to visit an art exhibit and Sigrid asked if they wouldn’t mind helping us make sure we got off at the right stop. Human kindness really does overflow at times…….
Wishing us a fun day, she left us to board the train with Maria and Wolfe, whom I would guess were in their early 60‘s. Now I have to tell you, they were the sweetest couple you could ever meet. She basically knew no English except for a word or two and he could speak some basic English but not a whole lot. That didn’t stop them, though, from giving us an extra map they had of the metro system and explaining again which stop to get off. It was really adorable how she would smile at us and think of something we might enjoy seeing in the city, which she would explain to Wolfe, who would then translate what she said as best he could into English. Suffice it to say, our conversations were somewhat stunted but you could really tell they wanted to chat as much as they could.
Well, we got off at the right stop and then transferred to a subway line that took us right where we needed to go. Now, I hadn’t thought to change into my long underwear before we left their house so I wasn’t quite as layered as I would have liked to have been and let me tell you - I could have used it!! It was REALLY cold and wet today and actually snowed for awhile as we walked around the city. However, we did make it to the famous Brandenburg Gate which truly is an amazing monument to behold. Of course, as I went to take a picture, the camera battery died reminded me that I forgot to charge it up last night!! Oh well - Jim was able to snap some good pictures on his phone and we’ll be back in the area with the charged up camera in the next couple of days I’m sure……..from our brief foray today Berlin seemed like a very lovely city. The streets were incredibly clean and at least the parts of the city where we were had wide open sidewalks which made it really easy to get around. At the worst of the snow, we luckily found a Starbucks (go figure) right across from the Brandenburg Gate to tuck into and have a warm coffee while we looked out on the square. All in all, a perfect afternoon really.
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