FA+
Shop
Fear Of Missing Out Year
3 years ago
General
As we know that in 2020, COVID-19 the nation went into lock down. As I said I had the best year that 2020 would allow. Though people consider 2020 to be their worst year, my 2014 said, "hold my beer." While 2014 did not even take the cigarette out of its mouth and keep the beer on it hand to be my worst year, my mom died in September and I got infection that landed me in the hospital for Christmas. I decided not to miss out on anything, cause you just don't know.
I went to The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and always amazed how the show is done. There is a comedian who talks to the audience and warms up the crowd. They have the system so organized that people like me with mobility issues can get a seat with little trouble. The first time was back 2016, when Rudolph Giuliani was being floated as Sectatary of State. Ahh the halcyon days of youth. I assumed that Jon Batiste and Late Show Band would do music bumpers for commercial breaks. They do an entire show of music every time there is a show. They play all through the commercial breaks. If you get a chance to see it, dress warm its cold in there.
My sister's godmother gave us some money so we take a trip, we thinking about going on trip we thought about a train trip through Canada, traveling up the Pacific Coast Highway or going to Europe. We decided to go to Europe and decided to do several cities in Germany. We decided on Munich, Berlin and Amsterdam. The idea we could change our plans to other cities if there reasons like war and pestilence to change it. We did research on what we wanted to do, we each found several things that we wanted to do. We gathered more things than we could do in a week.
We rented a summer house with a pool that we went to before. Again we had a great time with BBQ and swimming. We rented the house for two weeks, so I went for one week and she had some time alone. On the day I went home, my sister had friend from Ireland and ger kids came. I took the afternoon train home. You would think it would be hard, everybody was having fun and enjoyable. Except when it was time for me to leave, it seemed the day wound down everybody seemed exhausted. So it so low energy I did not feel bad going away.
I prefer pools to going to the beach for this reason
We went to the opening of the Brooklyn Cyclones and we had a great time. We even got our picture with the mascots Sandy the Seagull and Pee Wee. My sister gushed at them "we missed so much." We are adults and the guys in the suit were to call sercurity. Everybody in the line kids and two adults without kids were in line. We went to several games and had a blast. Another thing off my annual bucket list. I went to a game by myself and got a great seat for hot dog race.
Between the innings there are various games and activities, one is the Nathan hot dog race. Three guys in hot dog costumes do a foot race, it is between mustard, ketchup and relish. There is always a joke one time mustard had a leaf blower to win the race. My seat was right above the dug-out for the race. It was a real sunny day when the hot dog race was over, I moved back into the shade. The ushers don't care, you have really good seats and your going to sit in them.
One of the things I always do is ride the Wonder Wheel while at Coney Island. I always take a swinging car, I always wonder what the point of non=swinging car is. I missed the 100 anniversary of the Wonder Wheel, something I regret. I was not going to go another year without going on it. I took in the haunted house ride Spook-a-raMy printerma. it made jump once or twice during the ride.
The thing I most proud of, I saw there was a White Castle near the Coney Island Boardwalk and did not eat there. I had a long bus trip home and eating White Castle is tempting the devil.
My printer decided it was time to die. I have this scanner since I opened this back in June 2009 and printers/scanners are expansive. I decided to wait to spend the money till after my trip to Europe. I would rather wait andsave my money for my vacation. After I got back I ordered I new printer. It did not come till November 1st and I scanned the pictures I had been doing. I have been getting the pictures ready for posting.
Also my sister's cat Fiorello https://www.deviantart.com/godzilla713/art/Fiorello-Too-Cool-For-This-839356460 has passed away. It was sad but, he was getting to old to be left alone. He seemed to fall ill quickly, his grooming habits stopped and his usually snow white fur got dingy. He was never a petting cat, anytime even my sister picked him up. We would a meow of protest. I found him on a lamp electric chord and he seemed caught. I picked him without a noise. I held him and petting him to comfort him. My sister came in and knew it was time.
I went to my local Alamo movie house for a Thor marathon It showed Thor, Thor: Dark World, Thor: Ragnarok and Thor: Love and Thunder which I was there from breakfast to lunch. The Alamo was in a mall so when I entered the Mall at 6A.M. all you heard was the security officers confronted people walking in. You people like me going saying going to the Alamo. It was a blast.
Also later at the Alamo they showed what they called the Star Trek Genesis Trilogy that was Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV The Voyage Home and it was a blast. Though it happened on the same day that Nichelle Nichols passed away. It was years since I watched the films, there was things I forgot and enjoyed.
Then we watched the news carefully as the war in the Ukraine, about our trip to Europe. Then we did go, and it went well. We took Singapore Air business class to Germany. Holy Mackerel! Business class was great, you have an individual pod/seat . https://s3-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/milelion.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/25204403/DSC03340.jpg When we entered the and we chose plane we had to go to different aisles. You could raise a partition if you don't want to see the person next to you. The flight attendant uniforms https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.502574f238e18638ee4ca9179108d804?rik=oNnwPLBx%2bwlcqA&riu=http%3a%2f%2fwww.asiaone.com%2fsites%2fdefault%2ffiles%2foriginal_images%2fJul2016%2fsqgirl1.jpg&ehk=LKGeHXy9D%2f2aIothcDiChHklRxgbOL5eRI9Ji4OsG2g%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0 are unique and give good service. It was so different. They had table clothes for our seat tray, I had never seen anything like this. I had Lamb Shanks. It was worth the price, and they made our pods as beds. The level of service was amazing. We slept a little bit as our plane flew to Frankfurt. This flight was continuing onto Singapore, I wonder how that flight was and how long that was.
We took a train to Munich, the German trains had racks where you drop your luggage and go to your seat. The train was crowded and we slept more on the train. The trains had Wifi and ports to charge our phones. So we keep in touch with the world. My weather app was to tell where my phone was and was giving the weather for Germany.Viktualienmarkt
Our first hotel was in Munich was in walking distance from the train station. All of our hotels were Mariott's and it was a nice hotel. We went out to dinner and we chose a Greek resturant. I had something called Inferno Souvlaki and it was delicious. Also it stayed down or heart burn. We decided to have breakfast not at the hotel. We went to local restaurants and had things like a breakfast cheese and meat platter. The first day we took a hop on hop off bus tours just to get a great overview of Munich. We had a pleasant lunch and tour of Munich. We went to to top of the clock tower of city hall and got a great view of Munich. There was a cheaper tower trip, but the city hall has an elevator. The other had only stairs. We wondered the Viktualienmarkt and its various shops this was only day that rained. We were there for the Glockenspeil show and mechanical dancers, dueling knights and parade. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsfxTyhCzr8 I was protecting my feet as much as possible. So I was sitting on a bench as the knights duel. I was like so they were going to pass each other again. No the Bavarin knight was triumphant and look down at me. "Show you stupid American tourist sitting on a wet bench." For dinner we went to the famous beer hall Hofbrauhaus https://www.tripsavvy.com/hofbrauhaus-in-munich-restaurant-1519959 and this was the most touristy of destination meals. When we got there, the bouncers were outside with an English tourist drunk on the ground with ine shoe off. People are warned not to go here during Oktoberfest because it is more like spring break. We had gone after this. The beer and food was good, though this was the only place were the servers seemed curt. I think it is from dealing with serious drunks and such.
You can tell the tourists from the residents of Munich, the tourists were watching the Glockenspeil spellbound and the citizens just rushing around through the crowd. They are like "the Bavarian knight wins what a surprise." They were like me in Manhattan, "yes the Empire is tall. Now get out of my way."
One of the sights was the Angel of Peace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_of_Peace statue in Munich that was put up in 1896 and the angel decided to take a long holiday on 1910 and you can't believe her shock when she got back in 1950. She has not taken a sick day since.
The next day we took a day trip to Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany and called the Top of Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugspitze We took a train and bus because of track work. The bus drove through scenic countryside. We took a train and cable car to the top of the mountain. There is a glacier which we visited. My sister walked on the glacier and I did not. The thing that impressed me was the size of the mountains. Clouds seemed to be trapped along the sides of the Alps. There was majestic and foreboding at the same time.
There was snow at the top of the mountain, it was about 50 degrees in Munich. Zugspitze borders Austria and there is a cable that goes into Austria. Before the European Union there was a passport control and currency exchange if you want to go into Austria. Some people brought their dogs to Zugspitze. Riding the cable car your ears would pop on the down and up. I was exhausted by the time the end of the day.
I decided to go back the hotel room and rest.
.
My sister wanted to do a museum free night, where the museums are opened late night. I was so tired that I almost took a cab from the train station to the hotel about three blocks. I brought a sandwich and had dinner in the room. I was so achy that I used a rolling chair to go from the bed to the bathroom. My sister went to museums and it was really crowded. She was perfectly safe and had no problem traveling.
I recovered and we than caught the train to Berlin. We had a long trip on the train and had service at our seats. The food was good. The Marriott was really for Business travelers and quite nice. The room had a walk-in shower that had a step up that felt that I should yell "Geronimo" as get out. My sister suggested we have a drink in the lobby and then I discovered her friend who was also worked in book publishing was there. He was going to the major book fair in Frankfurt.
He took us to a restaurant that went to, it made a roasted chicken that so good. It was not in any cause but it so good. It was so juicy and tender, can't explain how they do it. Then the three of us took bus tour in Berlin. It was interesting to see some of the old Berlin wall landmarks. This is one of the things I wished could have seen, the old Berlin Wall and flying on the Concorde. It was interesting to see the differences between east and west Berlin. One of the things I found was the walk/don't walk symbols. https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.bcd9eb4b26e432d7917373567a3568ab?rik=ZDJJ0J3iMFSvyg&riu=http%3a%2f%2fcharrette.co%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2fstoplightBerlin.jpg&ehk=8rurdXRLznm%2fEdu3aicuwfaa7Hf2wPIjvgiEjn68M%2bI%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0 They called Ampelmannchen and they are really cute. Something appealed to me and a lot of other people including making statues of them. https://c8.alamy.com/comp/RGGYAJ/ampelmann-statue-by-ottmar-hrl-for-the-25th-anniversary-of-the-german-reunification-berlin-germany-RGGYAJ.jpg We went to the East German Museum, https://www.ddr-museum.de/en which detail what life was like under communism. You tend forgot how much that government tried to control their people's lives. While in there you would what sounded like Darth Vader and we hard ever so often. It was a display on troops of East Germany including a gas mask. There was a sim of driving the East German car Trabant, there is a tour where you drive one around Berlin. https://www.introducingberlin.com/trabant#:~:text=The%20Trabant%20car%2C%20meaning%20%E2%80%9Ccompanion%E2%80%9D%20in%20German%2C%20was,photographs%2C%20graffities%20and%20souvenirs%20of%20this%20unique%20car You are warned that if you never driven a manual transmission do NOT even try this. We had dinner in the revolving restaurant in the Berlin TV Tower and it was an East German achievement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernsehturm_Berlin The restaurant originally spun once an hour, at the end of the rotation it was time to leave. Now its turns twice an hour. The food and drinks were delicious, it was sort of my birthday treat. The decor was interesting and nice. https://talesofabackpacker.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/IMG_20180305_202933_1-01-1024x768.jpeg
The nest day we went to the Reichstag, we could not got a tour. https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.75a2a6b370decc58fcf48a22989fd003?rik=YhJuo4vHuxgy8Q&pid=ImgRaw&r=0 There was too many people and we could see the outside. We went to the Jewish Memorial https://www.tripsavvy.com/thmb/9S6u3Ijmo0IfxqaysYYWU4XkkZw=/3008x2000/filters:fill(auto,1)/DSC_0034-5c66ec7546e0fb000194d619.jpg and the Bradenburg Gate https://cdn.wallpapersafari.com/54/9/uPSGrX.jpg then we decided to take it easy and doing some things by ourselves. We had a lovely dinner in a local restaurant. Our last night in Berlin was fun.
We took a train to Amsterdam which was a different rail road, it was a little chaotic and no crew around. We had assigned seats somebody was in one of seats and seemed a little slow to get out of our seats. Once we got into our seats and things were easy.
Our hotel in Amsterdam was nice, we went to what seemed to be a tourist with restaurants. There was a lot of head shops, a casino, and a supermarket. We decided to grabbed something to have for breakfast for us. Then we went to the Van Gogh Museum by tram. https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/nl One gets a real feel of the life of Vincent Van Gogh and the tollit on his brother Theo Van Gogh.
At the musuem was an exhibit on artist Gustav Klimt,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Klimt an artist whose art resemble pop art of the sixties, https://www.overstockart.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/adele.jpg which was interesting. I told my sister how it seemed that this was pop art and their was asign that said the art authorities did not approve of his style. That it was too modern and out there.
We took a canal boat tour with wine and cheese which was fun and informative. https://www.viator.com/tours/Amsterdam/Amsterdam-Canal-Cruise/d525-75227P6 They were very helpful to people with limited mobility. Then we went to the Anne Frank house which was informative. https://www.annefrank.org/en/ One wonders if things went differently would she have been journalist or writer she seemed to have the skills. If the Germans had chosen wisely would Anne Frank be just an unknown housewife.
I could not go up to the hiding space of the Franks, I went around and got the place after the hiding space. I tried just did not and I got the idea of what it was like to hiding . The museum was nice and informative. Still very sad and heartbreaking at the same time.
The next day we went to the Houseboat Museum, https://houseboatmuseum.nl/bezoeken/?lang=nl after the war there were many houseboats and people still on these boats. Now the houseboats are attached to sewer system now, just imagine thousands of houseboats just dumping their sewer into the river. Aah, the sweet aroma in the summer. These houseboats range totally utilitarian to little floating mcmansions. It was fun and informative.
Then we went to the Cat Museum, a house for art about cats, which is a tourist trap. https://www.kattenkabinet.nl/?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=42&Itemid=1&lang=nl We knew what we in for. It was enjoyable. We enjoyed ourselves with everything. My sister wanted to have some of famous pancakes. So we decided to go before the train, except the restaurant was opened and it would 15 minutes before we could served food. That was too close for comfort for our train. So we grabbed something in the train station.
We took the train to Frankfurt again a little chaotic but once we in our seats everything was fine. Our last night in Germany we went to Roemerberg Square for dinner and a little sightseeing. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g187337-d12829280-Reviews-Roemerberg-Frankfurt_Hesse.html We could not travel too far, but it was enjoyable and fun.
Going home with flew again Singapore Air in Economy plus, you get more leg room in the seat. This is important for an eight hour flight and again it was enjoyable. At the airport I was called for added security screening. I think that it was done at random, it seemed to not directed at me. While on line some Australian tourist was standing too close and talking on his phone. Luckily he was not near is on the plane.
My sister and I decided to get to get a dog we adopted a rescue dog. We wanted to adopted an older dog rather than to train a puppy. We have adopted Maya, a Portuguese pendengo, and she is very attached to my sister. Since I live in the building, we can share responsibility for walking her.
I will post pictures of her when she settles in.
I went to The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and always amazed how the show is done. There is a comedian who talks to the audience and warms up the crowd. They have the system so organized that people like me with mobility issues can get a seat with little trouble. The first time was back 2016, when Rudolph Giuliani was being floated as Sectatary of State. Ahh the halcyon days of youth. I assumed that Jon Batiste and Late Show Band would do music bumpers for commercial breaks. They do an entire show of music every time there is a show. They play all through the commercial breaks. If you get a chance to see it, dress warm its cold in there.
My sister's godmother gave us some money so we take a trip, we thinking about going on trip we thought about a train trip through Canada, traveling up the Pacific Coast Highway or going to Europe. We decided to go to Europe and decided to do several cities in Germany. We decided on Munich, Berlin and Amsterdam. The idea we could change our plans to other cities if there reasons like war and pestilence to change it. We did research on what we wanted to do, we each found several things that we wanted to do. We gathered more things than we could do in a week.
We rented a summer house with a pool that we went to before. Again we had a great time with BBQ and swimming. We rented the house for two weeks, so I went for one week and she had some time alone. On the day I went home, my sister had friend from Ireland and ger kids came. I took the afternoon train home. You would think it would be hard, everybody was having fun and enjoyable. Except when it was time for me to leave, it seemed the day wound down everybody seemed exhausted. So it so low energy I did not feel bad going away.
I prefer pools to going to the beach for this reason
We went to the opening of the Brooklyn Cyclones and we had a great time. We even got our picture with the mascots Sandy the Seagull and Pee Wee. My sister gushed at them "we missed so much." We are adults and the guys in the suit were to call sercurity. Everybody in the line kids and two adults without kids were in line. We went to several games and had a blast. Another thing off my annual bucket list. I went to a game by myself and got a great seat for hot dog race.
Between the innings there are various games and activities, one is the Nathan hot dog race. Three guys in hot dog costumes do a foot race, it is between mustard, ketchup and relish. There is always a joke one time mustard had a leaf blower to win the race. My seat was right above the dug-out for the race. It was a real sunny day when the hot dog race was over, I moved back into the shade. The ushers don't care, you have really good seats and your going to sit in them.
One of the things I always do is ride the Wonder Wheel while at Coney Island. I always take a swinging car, I always wonder what the point of non=swinging car is. I missed the 100 anniversary of the Wonder Wheel, something I regret. I was not going to go another year without going on it. I took in the haunted house ride Spook-a-raMy printerma. it made jump once or twice during the ride.
The thing I most proud of, I saw there was a White Castle near the Coney Island Boardwalk and did not eat there. I had a long bus trip home and eating White Castle is tempting the devil.
My printer decided it was time to die. I have this scanner since I opened this back in June 2009 and printers/scanners are expansive. I decided to wait to spend the money till after my trip to Europe. I would rather wait andsave my money for my vacation. After I got back I ordered I new printer. It did not come till November 1st and I scanned the pictures I had been doing. I have been getting the pictures ready for posting.
Also my sister's cat Fiorello https://www.deviantart.com/godzilla713/art/Fiorello-Too-Cool-For-This-839356460 has passed away. It was sad but, he was getting to old to be left alone. He seemed to fall ill quickly, his grooming habits stopped and his usually snow white fur got dingy. He was never a petting cat, anytime even my sister picked him up. We would a meow of protest. I found him on a lamp electric chord and he seemed caught. I picked him without a noise. I held him and petting him to comfort him. My sister came in and knew it was time.
I went to my local Alamo movie house for a Thor marathon It showed Thor, Thor: Dark World, Thor: Ragnarok and Thor: Love and Thunder which I was there from breakfast to lunch. The Alamo was in a mall so when I entered the Mall at 6A.M. all you heard was the security officers confronted people walking in. You people like me going saying going to the Alamo. It was a blast.
Also later at the Alamo they showed what they called the Star Trek Genesis Trilogy that was Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV The Voyage Home and it was a blast. Though it happened on the same day that Nichelle Nichols passed away. It was years since I watched the films, there was things I forgot and enjoyed.
Then we watched the news carefully as the war in the Ukraine, about our trip to Europe. Then we did go, and it went well. We took Singapore Air business class to Germany. Holy Mackerel! Business class was great, you have an individual pod/seat . https://s3-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/milelion.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/25204403/DSC03340.jpg When we entered the and we chose plane we had to go to different aisles. You could raise a partition if you don't want to see the person next to you. The flight attendant uniforms https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.502574f238e18638ee4ca9179108d804?rik=oNnwPLBx%2bwlcqA&riu=http%3a%2f%2fwww.asiaone.com%2fsites%2fdefault%2ffiles%2foriginal_images%2fJul2016%2fsqgirl1.jpg&ehk=LKGeHXy9D%2f2aIothcDiChHklRxgbOL5eRI9Ji4OsG2g%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0 are unique and give good service. It was so different. They had table clothes for our seat tray, I had never seen anything like this. I had Lamb Shanks. It was worth the price, and they made our pods as beds. The level of service was amazing. We slept a little bit as our plane flew to Frankfurt. This flight was continuing onto Singapore, I wonder how that flight was and how long that was.
We took a train to Munich, the German trains had racks where you drop your luggage and go to your seat. The train was crowded and we slept more on the train. The trains had Wifi and ports to charge our phones. So we keep in touch with the world. My weather app was to tell where my phone was and was giving the weather for Germany.Viktualienmarkt
Our first hotel was in Munich was in walking distance from the train station. All of our hotels were Mariott's and it was a nice hotel. We went out to dinner and we chose a Greek resturant. I had something called Inferno Souvlaki and it was delicious. Also it stayed down or heart burn. We decided to have breakfast not at the hotel. We went to local restaurants and had things like a breakfast cheese and meat platter. The first day we took a hop on hop off bus tours just to get a great overview of Munich. We had a pleasant lunch and tour of Munich. We went to to top of the clock tower of city hall and got a great view of Munich. There was a cheaper tower trip, but the city hall has an elevator. The other had only stairs. We wondered the Viktualienmarkt and its various shops this was only day that rained. We were there for the Glockenspeil show and mechanical dancers, dueling knights and parade. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsfxTyhCzr8 I was protecting my feet as much as possible. So I was sitting on a bench as the knights duel. I was like so they were going to pass each other again. No the Bavarin knight was triumphant and look down at me. "Show you stupid American tourist sitting on a wet bench." For dinner we went to the famous beer hall Hofbrauhaus https://www.tripsavvy.com/hofbrauhaus-in-munich-restaurant-1519959 and this was the most touristy of destination meals. When we got there, the bouncers were outside with an English tourist drunk on the ground with ine shoe off. People are warned not to go here during Oktoberfest because it is more like spring break. We had gone after this. The beer and food was good, though this was the only place were the servers seemed curt. I think it is from dealing with serious drunks and such.
You can tell the tourists from the residents of Munich, the tourists were watching the Glockenspeil spellbound and the citizens just rushing around through the crowd. They are like "the Bavarian knight wins what a surprise." They were like me in Manhattan, "yes the Empire is tall. Now get out of my way."
One of the sights was the Angel of Peace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_of_Peace statue in Munich that was put up in 1896 and the angel decided to take a long holiday on 1910 and you can't believe her shock when she got back in 1950. She has not taken a sick day since.
The next day we took a day trip to Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany and called the Top of Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugspitze We took a train and bus because of track work. The bus drove through scenic countryside. We took a train and cable car to the top of the mountain. There is a glacier which we visited. My sister walked on the glacier and I did not. The thing that impressed me was the size of the mountains. Clouds seemed to be trapped along the sides of the Alps. There was majestic and foreboding at the same time.
There was snow at the top of the mountain, it was about 50 degrees in Munich. Zugspitze borders Austria and there is a cable that goes into Austria. Before the European Union there was a passport control and currency exchange if you want to go into Austria. Some people brought their dogs to Zugspitze. Riding the cable car your ears would pop on the down and up. I was exhausted by the time the end of the day.
I decided to go back the hotel room and rest.
.
My sister wanted to do a museum free night, where the museums are opened late night. I was so tired that I almost took a cab from the train station to the hotel about three blocks. I brought a sandwich and had dinner in the room. I was so achy that I used a rolling chair to go from the bed to the bathroom. My sister went to museums and it was really crowded. She was perfectly safe and had no problem traveling.
I recovered and we than caught the train to Berlin. We had a long trip on the train and had service at our seats. The food was good. The Marriott was really for Business travelers and quite nice. The room had a walk-in shower that had a step up that felt that I should yell "Geronimo" as get out. My sister suggested we have a drink in the lobby and then I discovered her friend who was also worked in book publishing was there. He was going to the major book fair in Frankfurt.
He took us to a restaurant that went to, it made a roasted chicken that so good. It was not in any cause but it so good. It was so juicy and tender, can't explain how they do it. Then the three of us took bus tour in Berlin. It was interesting to see some of the old Berlin wall landmarks. This is one of the things I wished could have seen, the old Berlin Wall and flying on the Concorde. It was interesting to see the differences between east and west Berlin. One of the things I found was the walk/don't walk symbols. https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.bcd9eb4b26e432d7917373567a3568ab?rik=ZDJJ0J3iMFSvyg&riu=http%3a%2f%2fcharrette.co%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2fstoplightBerlin.jpg&ehk=8rurdXRLznm%2fEdu3aicuwfaa7Hf2wPIjvgiEjn68M%2bI%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0 They called Ampelmannchen and they are really cute. Something appealed to me and a lot of other people including making statues of them. https://c8.alamy.com/comp/RGGYAJ/ampelmann-statue-by-ottmar-hrl-for-the-25th-anniversary-of-the-german-reunification-berlin-germany-RGGYAJ.jpg We went to the East German Museum, https://www.ddr-museum.de/en which detail what life was like under communism. You tend forgot how much that government tried to control their people's lives. While in there you would what sounded like Darth Vader and we hard ever so often. It was a display on troops of East Germany including a gas mask. There was a sim of driving the East German car Trabant, there is a tour where you drive one around Berlin. https://www.introducingberlin.com/trabant#:~:text=The%20Trabant%20car%2C%20meaning%20%E2%80%9Ccompanion%E2%80%9D%20in%20German%2C%20was,photographs%2C%20graffities%20and%20souvenirs%20of%20this%20unique%20car You are warned that if you never driven a manual transmission do NOT even try this. We had dinner in the revolving restaurant in the Berlin TV Tower and it was an East German achievement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernsehturm_Berlin The restaurant originally spun once an hour, at the end of the rotation it was time to leave. Now its turns twice an hour. The food and drinks were delicious, it was sort of my birthday treat. The decor was interesting and nice. https://talesofabackpacker.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/IMG_20180305_202933_1-01-1024x768.jpeg
The nest day we went to the Reichstag, we could not got a tour. https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.75a2a6b370decc58fcf48a22989fd003?rik=YhJuo4vHuxgy8Q&pid=ImgRaw&r=0 There was too many people and we could see the outside. We went to the Jewish Memorial https://www.tripsavvy.com/thmb/9S6u3Ijmo0IfxqaysYYWU4XkkZw=/3008x2000/filters:fill(auto,1)/DSC_0034-5c66ec7546e0fb000194d619.jpg and the Bradenburg Gate https://cdn.wallpapersafari.com/54/9/uPSGrX.jpg then we decided to take it easy and doing some things by ourselves. We had a lovely dinner in a local restaurant. Our last night in Berlin was fun.
We took a train to Amsterdam which was a different rail road, it was a little chaotic and no crew around. We had assigned seats somebody was in one of seats and seemed a little slow to get out of our seats. Once we got into our seats and things were easy.
Our hotel in Amsterdam was nice, we went to what seemed to be a tourist with restaurants. There was a lot of head shops, a casino, and a supermarket. We decided to grabbed something to have for breakfast for us. Then we went to the Van Gogh Museum by tram. https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/nl One gets a real feel of the life of Vincent Van Gogh and the tollit on his brother Theo Van Gogh.
At the musuem was an exhibit on artist Gustav Klimt,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Klimt an artist whose art resemble pop art of the sixties, https://www.overstockart.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/adele.jpg which was interesting. I told my sister how it seemed that this was pop art and their was asign that said the art authorities did not approve of his style. That it was too modern and out there.
We took a canal boat tour with wine and cheese which was fun and informative. https://www.viator.com/tours/Amsterdam/Amsterdam-Canal-Cruise/d525-75227P6 They were very helpful to people with limited mobility. Then we went to the Anne Frank house which was informative. https://www.annefrank.org/en/ One wonders if things went differently would she have been journalist or writer she seemed to have the skills. If the Germans had chosen wisely would Anne Frank be just an unknown housewife.
I could not go up to the hiding space of the Franks, I went around and got the place after the hiding space. I tried just did not and I got the idea of what it was like to hiding . The museum was nice and informative. Still very sad and heartbreaking at the same time.
The next day we went to the Houseboat Museum, https://houseboatmuseum.nl/bezoeken/?lang=nl after the war there were many houseboats and people still on these boats. Now the houseboats are attached to sewer system now, just imagine thousands of houseboats just dumping their sewer into the river. Aah, the sweet aroma in the summer. These houseboats range totally utilitarian to little floating mcmansions. It was fun and informative.
Then we went to the Cat Museum, a house for art about cats, which is a tourist trap. https://www.kattenkabinet.nl/?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=42&Itemid=1&lang=nl We knew what we in for. It was enjoyable. We enjoyed ourselves with everything. My sister wanted to have some of famous pancakes. So we decided to go before the train, except the restaurant was opened and it would 15 minutes before we could served food. That was too close for comfort for our train. So we grabbed something in the train station.
We took the train to Frankfurt again a little chaotic but once we in our seats everything was fine. Our last night in Germany we went to Roemerberg Square for dinner and a little sightseeing. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g187337-d12829280-Reviews-Roemerberg-Frankfurt_Hesse.html We could not travel too far, but it was enjoyable and fun.
Going home with flew again Singapore Air in Economy plus, you get more leg room in the seat. This is important for an eight hour flight and again it was enjoyable. At the airport I was called for added security screening. I think that it was done at random, it seemed to not directed at me. While on line some Australian tourist was standing too close and talking on his phone. Luckily he was not near is on the plane.
My sister and I decided to get to get a dog we adopted a rescue dog. We wanted to adopted an older dog rather than to train a puppy. We have adopted Maya, a Portuguese pendengo, and she is very attached to my sister. Since I live in the building, we can share responsibility for walking her.
I will post pictures of her when she settles in.
