Notes from Berlin

Last Saturday mom left me yet again to go to the Fulbright student conference in Berlin. She tried to hide her imminent departure from me by packing in the bedroom so that I don´t see the suitcase, but of course, I always know.

Things are not so bad of course because Kiril is very good to me and takes me out whenever I want to (well, except for one time that he put his foot down when I demanded a walk only half hour after we came back from the previous walk).

Mom is having a great time in Berlin. She went to two tours yesterday, one of the Reichstag building and one of the Cold War Berlin. The latter was, as expected, fascinating. She saw remnants of the wall (photos coming soon) and visited the Checkpoint Charlie museum that contains photographs, articles and personal items from successful escapes from Eastern Berlin. Just amazing.

In the evening mom tried to check out tango in Berlin. She had done the homework, found places and addresses, and was so excited she even dragged poor Ted, another fellow Fulbrighter from Bulgaria with her. They found the place without problems, thanks to the amazing eagerness of Germans to help with directions, as well as Berlin´s equally amazing transportation system. Mom raced upstairs and entered the room, where a weird tango was playing. Soon after, more weird tangos followed, and then the music switched to fox-trot, vals, and other ballroom dances. WTF? Mom ended up giving Ted a mini tango lesson and then took her shoes off in silent disappointment. At that moment, a German lady asked mom about tango and when she noticed the disappointment on mom´s face, exclaimed: "why didn´t zou go next door then???"

Yep. The milonga was in next door. Who would have thought that the building that looked so residential had more than 3 spacious, beautifully decorated dancing places with excellent sound proofing???

Oh well. Hopefully tonight mom will have better luck. In the meantime, she will help Ted with a performance art project. This should be fun!