Paris of the East

Budapest is magnificent!  I arrived from Sweden around two after a delayed flight out of Copenhagen.  The pilot actually came on and said that there was something wrong with the right engine and that a mechanic is on his way...reassuring.  So I'm happy to say that I'm typing this to you from my safe air BandB.  She doesn't have wifi so I can't post any pictures tonight but I'll work on it for tomorrow. 
After I got here and settled in I took a three hour evening stroll up to the castle and down into the city center.  The castle is amazing and with quite a feminine feel to it.  My favorite fountain was of a woman holding a plate with water pouring down.  I'll try to post it.  Glancing up toward the castle from the city center I saw another statue of a dancing woman (or at least that is how I interpreted it( btw this keyboard sucks!
I was walking up the opposite side of the river and found a flier for a lovely concert tonight at eight but didn't make it because I walked the wrong way down the street but no worries.  I'm going to try to make a concert tomorrow night at the academy of archtecture.  I'll give you the skinny after the show.  So I meandered up toward my street and had some dinner at a pizza/beer joint called Marxis.  Yea on purpose.  There was lots of grafitti on the booths which were separated by chicken and barbed wire with a red star hanging from the cieling.  A beer cost me a buck fifty.  UMMHUMM and it was good.  Gotta go back there. 
I'm gonna hit the hay, my head is still a little swimmy from the airplane ride...maybe yoga will help
good night!
love,
RTK

Inside the castle walls

My fav inside the castle walls

The parliament building

Chain bridge at dusk:) 

Malmo and friends

Today I spent the day with Mia, her new husband and some of his polish family.  We had a nice time mini golfing and then doing a little shopping.  I got a travel case for my backpack to protect it from the luggage loaders.  Mia told me that her dad was travelling by plane with a big backpack like mine and one of the straps got caught in some machine and tore the entire bag apart...yikes.  I don't want that to happen to me and now it is even less likely.  I'm headin out to Budapest tomorrow and am so excited!  I've heard that the old buildings are as romantic as any in Paris or Rome.  Ill update you on my day back on the mainland tomorrow:) love, RTK

Wedding weekend

Mia's wedding was beautiful.  She designed and made a classy white dress for the occasion and had decorated her venue with plenty of flowers and candles.  We had fun getting dressed together on Saturday morning and then stayed in our dresses until the early morning.  I don't understand a lick of Swedish so was lost during the speeches but when the music came we were all one people.  Great music!  

Sunday we all slept in which was wonderful.  I caught up on eight hours last night and slept the best that I have since getting on the road.  We played some trivial pursuit and went out for ice cream near the harbor.  Around dinner time we came back and ate some left overs from the wedding.  Mia's dad made all of the food which was so tasty.  I'm going to have an early evening tonight and catch up on some reading.  Talk to you soon.  Thanks for the messages and I hope that you all had a wonderful weekend.  I know I did.  It has been really nice to see an old friend and make new ones too.  

Got my wedding hair did by my new English friend D.  

Lina (Mia's sister) on her boyfriends boat

The handsome couple

Ladies DANCE PARTY!!!

Kissing Fish

Copenhagen is amazing!  That and I went with two amazing women.  D, Laura and I ventured from Malmo to Copenhagen this morning while Mia and Raphael finished up with set up for tomorrows wedding.  We strolled through the cobblestone streets checking out churches and shops and ended our afternoon at the kissing fish store.  It is an exfoliation boutique where tiny Turkish 'doctor fish' eat the dead skin off of our feet.  It felt like being tickled with feathers.  I'll post a picture!  

After the fish kisses, we walked down toward the canal and caught a canal tour given by a girl who repeated everything in Danish, English, and Spanish.  Phew, just when I thought I was good someone comes along and drops THREE language...dang this place impressed the crap out of me.  There was a beautifully modern opera house and an old theater, a magical castle and little mermaid perched on a rock. I had such a great time and finished the day eating three flavors of home made ice cream (snickers, brownie, raspberry sorbet) 

on the quai near the grand canal.  There were women chatting on boats while sipping white wine and men strolling in loafers around the decks.  Basically I was on a movie set.  I love this place.  Good night:)

Train to Mia's wedding

I'm taking a Berlin express train tonight to Malmo for Mia's wedding this Saturday.  Apparently I'm going to tour Copenhagen with a couple of her friends tomorrow which will be nice.  Today I visited the German history museum which was interesting.  I feel like I understand German history a little bit more now...but I did notice very little information about German women.  I'm still trying to fight off the jet lag:). Short post today cus I'm travelling.  

This is the entrance to the German cathedral.   I didn't go inside cus I was running out of time...and it cost too much for a church 

Super museum girl

Cheers!  Today I took a grand tour Berlin's museums.  I started at the Pergamon which was named after the Greek city and had a huge altar in the entrance.. A very grand way to start my day.  Then I saw the bust of Nefertiti at the Neues museum which was way better than the Mona Lisa cus it is made of limestone and plaster.  I do enjoy sculpture more than painting.  After the Neues, I breezed through the Bode museum and had a few chuckles.  There was a faucet with a nude ladies bust on top and on bottom...well the spout of a faucet.  It was so subversive! Lunch time was spent at an Italian cafe nearby and I'm convinced that my waiter had escaped from the Pergamon because he was a Greek god.  Or maybe a German god, none the less you get me?  

I swung by the Reichstag to try to get into the dome but my email request for a reservation didn't go through so ill try again tomorrow :(. But the good news is that I saw the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the Topography of Terror and the Jewish Museum Berlin.  Oh my goodness.  I didnt chuckle.  It was painfully sad.  Some were sickeningly vivid.  For example, the tower of terror which is a cement rectangular tower with a slit of light coming through from the street above feels so lonely and cold.  The life size pictures of SS police interrogating German men  at gunpoint  hanging right next to the Berlin Wall is terrifying.  The garden of exile was similar to the monument to murdered Jews because of the tall cement structures and even more disorienting as the cement planters are intentionally built on a slight slant.  Sensory overload in the afternoon!  

I'm marinating in my day and trying to decide if I want to take the third reich tour.  I feel like I've focused on that a lot and don't want too too much more.  But history does nothing if not teach...and so, in conclusion...feeling words of the day: grateful for this experience and my freedoms, exhausted;).  Ill catch ya later fishy fish.

A 'ghost station' where the eastern government rented tracks to the west but kept guards stationed to insure no shady business 

The memorial

Graffiti on the Berlin Wall 

Jewish museum Berlin 

Day 1 running into 2 or it might be three

I have lost track of time,  and for those that know me also know how unusual that is. My brain is scrambled eggs right now with a big dollop of emotionality so please bear with me.  

This is the end of my travel days and first day in Berlin, when I got into town I could only focus on the heat which seemed rather boring and inconvenient. But  after I found my accommodation, napped and consulted Rick Steves; I have found Berlin to be larger than life.  Not on a Vegas way but in a WOW so much modern political struggle (and engineering of mass murder) happened HERE.  So that is where the emotionality is coming from.  I feel blessed by her almighty to witness and humbly start to process the human suffering, anxiety, indignity, courage,  kindness, apathy, mean spiritedness and tragedy which came to an ugly head RIGHT HERE!  Tomorrow I'm going to experience more of Berlin and might have more feeling words to describe my day, thanks for checking in.   Here are some pics that I took on an early evening walk.  

Oh YES!  The humidity just broke and it's raining:)

Reichstag

Brandenburg gate

My tired self at the Brandenburg gate

 A very nice church near museum island (I don't know the name).