[in medias res] amazing

germany has both ice cream cafes - pics soon - and toilets that have 2 different flush buttons to let you choose how much water is used. that may be worth a picture too.

day 12 - august 16th

corinna and daniel made me a real spread of a german breakfast, with lots of meats and cheeses and fresh rolls and tea and juice. and they introduced me to soft-boiled eggs! there are, apparently, 2 ways to eat one, the proper/dainty/slow way, and the aggressive way - chopping off its head. we all got out the chopping blocks.

then she and i went off to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the new one by the brandenburg gate, which was very intense, a really well-done monument and gallery below. i felt weird taking pictures there even though a lot of people were. we walked through the tiergarten to the sony center, a HUGE new mall and condo complex, where i found a german kitchen store with a sale ... trouble!

then we met daniel at an ice cream cafe, which apparently are all over the place there. the whole menu was ice cream concoctions, including a plate of "spaghetti" or "lasagna" all made out of ice cream. yum. and expensive - 6-10 euros for one of these. it's the breakfast dilemma in a different form: usually savory-or-sweet?!?! (which is solved by getting a monte cristo), but here chocolate-or-fruit?!?! (which corinna solves by getting fruit but ordering chocolate for daniel).

mine, with some kind of egg cream liquer on top.

daniel took us on a driving tour next, including karl marx allee with its big box apartments leftover from communism, and then we had a spanish dinner in prenzlauerberg (where they live) followed by good drinks at Tarot, one of corinna's favorite bars, where i learned what "longdrinks" are. rather, i learned that the germans have a term for a category i didn't know had a name. we walked through the kulturbrauerei, which i posted about here. another pic:

meanwhile, my nice little swollen jellyfish imprint had turned into an oozing burn. you can see the outline more than the ooze here. luckily i was staying with 2 doctors who set me up.

day 11 - aug 15th

today corinna & daniel both went off to their day jobs saving lives, and i slept in and then had a minor meltdown that i was by myself, in a country where i didn't speak the language, less than halfway through my trip and very ready to be home. corinna had bought be a book the night before on berlin, so i read it and plotted out my attack on the city, did laundry, sorted email, and took it easy thinking it might be the only day i had to relax the whole trip. i was right, actually. plus it was raining. corinna came home early, before i even made it out of the house, and she took me on a nice driving tour of the parts of the city we hadn't seen the night before, and then we and her cousin went to her favorite restaurant, a pub-style place which had a huge menu. i tried a drink i could never get in the U.S. - a "bananenweizen" which is wheat beer with banana juice. they thought i was crazy, but it wasn't too bad! forgot that last night with the schnitzel i had a local favorite, a wheat beer with red flavoring (strawberry maybe?). they also make green. it was yummy. no pics from today.

[in medias res] to germany

now arrived in berlin, spent yesterday seeing the sights from a boat on the spree. me & corinna in aleksanderplatz:


super grafitti art on the side of the tacheles kunsthaus. wish my inside pics had come out better, cause it was cool.

[in medias res] olbia

coming into the port of olbia, where we saw an incredible number of giant ferries in & out all night. this is how your fish are farmed:


one of the ferries with a warner bros. obsession (well, most had it!):


why. yes, of course you can play tennis on board:


is it a communications tower? an airport runway marker? it does have a red light on top.


nope, it's only the world's largest sloop (single-masted boat). est. 200 feet long, and taller mast. carbon fiber hull - yes, that's what they make racing boats out of, which are maybe 50 feet and have a hull budget of around 300 million. can sail 17 knots. crew of 15. the boat behind her was pretty, too.


and just for scale, here's us and another 40 foot catamaran sailboat in our parking spots for the night:

[in medias res] ouch!

a perfect outline of a cute but feisty little purple & brown jellyfish. i guess i got in its way.


and finally, a great day of sailing with winds around 20-30 knots. the windsurfers and kitesurfers were having a ball.

[in medias res] golfo de orosei

at arbatax, where the line begins (and ends!?)



my birthday dinner, with b & v and fantastic lighting.


a cloud in the sky!


our captain


staring down a ferry ... those things MOVE and they're BIG.


an (abortive) attempt to get the spinnaker up


another perfect day ends