Arrival

We traveled more or less uneventfully via London Heathrow—which, from the inside, seems to take up about half the country of England. Within the new Terminal 5 there are warnings not to go to the “B” gates because it can take 40 minutes to get back—and that’s in ONE TERMINAL. What if you go to, say, Terminal 3? Is it in Wales? “Don’t go to Terminal 3 unless you’re really sure your plane goes from there. Be sure you’re equipped with sleeping bag and flashlight. The woods are as cold and dark today as they were 200 years ago.”

Well. We survived that adventure and a very thorough frisking (woo!) and the fact that Malcolm seemed to have realized that it was now about two in the morning our time. He became what I can only describe as comatose and was unable to be woken for any reason until well into the afternoon. The rest of us just got spacy and grouchy.

The general mood was not helped by arrival in Berlin with 6 of our bags. Remember, we had made sure to fill our allotment of 10, so that leaves…right, four more. Ahh, our friend Heathrow again. After we cleared customs (did we clear customs? I must have missed that bit) and were met by Katy’s cousin Jan, we found our way into the depths of the Berlin airport to the “Lost and Found” desk. Surprisingly, they were quite helpful and told us that they knew where our bags were (London), what flight they were coming on (the next one, due in an hour) and that they would send them over to us once they got here. There was a brief moment of consternation over the spelling of Schroederstrasse and whether it should have that “e” in the middle or not, finally settled by deciding that in fact it was supposed to have an umlaut (Schröderstrasse), which her 1960’s era computer couldn’t do, so YES, it needed the e, and a short panic while we located our new phone number, but overall it went relatively smoothly.

Throughout all this, I sat at the desk, looking helpful, and smiling encouragingly at the woman behind the desk (who, I’m sorry to say, did not return the favor until after I had accidentally walked away with her pen and she yelled at me to give it back). I offered my expert opinion in the discussion over the necessity of the “e.” I wrote down my email address and watched her enter it into her computer using /u/ for and underscore and /a/ for @. I’m not kidding when I say it was old-school. As it turned out, the email was useless anyway as we couldn’t get on the internet for a couple days. The kids went to sleep in the hall outside, supervised by Jan. Katy dashed back and forth, “watching the children” but not really as she just couldn’t stand not being in on the action of organizing and of identifying the color and shape of the bags. Presumably in my semi-conscious state I would have done it incorrectly and we would have received the lost bags from the gaggle of Chinese tourists right behind us in line. Perhaps it would have been smarter for ME to go sit with the kids while she dealt with finding the bags, as that’s what happened anyway, but I probably would have just gone to sleep like Malcolm and then I would have been lost for the day—and I never would have gotten to discuss that mysterious “e.”

Jan helped us find a van taxi that could hold all six of us plus our remaining luggage (complete with car seat for Malcolm! Great!) and off we went. I’m a little bleary on the ride but I can say that Berlin does seem to uphold its reputation for being constantly under construction. The only real surprise was what appeared to be a collection of 20 or so beach volleyball courts, apparently ignored and left to their own devices, which mostly seemed to include growing weeds. In any case, we arrived at Schröderstrasse (note my use of the umlaut to avoid any confusion over the spelling) to find that Jan’s wife Verena was there waiting for us with baby Sonja and had stocked our fridge with essentials including homemade bread and homegrown flowers (is she great or what?). We managed to haul all the bags upstairs, remain social for a couple hours while the kids hung on the monkey net and eventually most of us napped. We’re here.