Germany

Dateline May 19, 2016, Berlin

The overland half of our trip began behind what we grew up calling the Iron Curtain, and our first stop was Berlin, where we spent nearly all our time on the old East side. We rode the public buses and subways, bought a new lens to finish off our 'International' camera, and shared a table and a few fiery plum snaps with two German businessmen, one of whom asked us to make sure America takes care of them. We walked from the Brandenburg Gate to the stelae of the Holocaust memorial, to the parking lot over Hitler's bunker, to the matched cathedrals of Gendarmenmarkt. It was a day of seeing, up close, the things that were off limits when we were young.