I was born on the other side of a town ripped in two

When I left home, expected to spend much of this trip deep in contemplation. I had expected to be in an almost constant state of reflection, pondering both the meaning of the moment at hand and my life in general.

Instead, most of the time my mental energy was concentrated on questions such as "where am I eating?", "where is the nearest post office?", "can I see everything I want to see in 3 days here or will I need 4?", "how much does that price come out to in American dollars?" and "how does this pay phone work?"

I don´t know if I should have expected this or not, but sinceI hit the spots where I had friends, I have not been able to stop reflecting on "things." It seems late in the trip for this to have happened, but I find it uncomfortable to think how far away places like Iceland and Italy seem. And I´m amazed at how I cannot but help have a certain fondness for certain memories that I am sure at the time were actually unpleasant (like 1) walking along a narrow, car filled highway to get to the catacombs outside Rome, with no idea how far away they were or 2) standing in the tourist office in Reykjavik and finding out that the rental car would cost 30 dollars a day more than I had just been told or 3) getting pelted with rain in Nice.

Yesterday began in East Berlin.

1. Sarah and her roommate Monica and I walked along the East Side Gallery, a large section of Berlin Wall which was left up because of the notable artwork painted upon it. I took a few pictures that would be fun to post if only I knew how to do that from an internet cafe.

2. Next, a short subway ride to Alexanderplatz, a large plaza by the 368 meter high television tower, the tallest structure in Berlin. We visited the statues of Marx and Engels (which had been graffitied with Stars of David) and heard some live music playing in the background which I vaguely suspect may have been religious.

3. The Pergamonmuseum. Houses only ancient art including entire temples or walls extracted from their original locations in the Near East and Greece. We saw a big blue walls with relief lions from ancient Babylonia, ancient Greek statues and temples, 17th century Turkish rugs, Assyrian lions, a replica of Hammurabi´s code stone, and some stone constructions from the 4th millenium BC. I liked this museum a lot.

4. Dinner at "Haus of 100 Bieres". All day, I had been begging for "eisbein", a traditional German food we had read about in one of the guidebooks. I was told that the word translates to "ice leg," the "ice" being the thick layer of fat which surrounds the pork leg on the bone. I must admit, I was slightly afraid of consuming a meal with so much fat, but I´m only going to be in Germany once and I felt the vacation would be incomplete without going head to head against the eisbein. Our restaurant was traditional German, and as you would expect, had a list of 100 available beers listed by number. I ordered my eisbein, which was, as expected, a giant piece of pig leg along with potatoes, saurcraut and something green I could not recognize. For ordering my second beer we were without menus so I chose a random number out of 100 (it was 63, I think) and called the waitress. I was prepared for almost anything besides what I received: "the world´s strongest lager beer", weighing in at a solid 14% alcohol! Yuck! That´s above the strength of many wines! I can´t lie and say that the 14% beer tasted good, but it was an acceptable compliment to the eisbein which was delicious.

5. Back to the apartment to kill time for a few hours and then out to a bar called "Wiener Blut". I thought it was a cool bar.