Back in August, I drove with Josh
for seven hours, from Berlin to Den Haag (697 km) to visit our long time
friends Cristina and Bernhard, who were celebrating their 10 years wedding
anniversary. I still find it hard to believe that it has been such a long time.
I remember when I flew to Portugal for their marriage: it was Josh’s first trip
on an airplane! Ten years after, we were again traveling across Europe to
celebrate our friends. This has been our first road trip out of Berlin and it
was remarkable for a couple of reasons. First of all, I drove for hours on a
plane, flat, regular road, only occasionally disturbed by towering wind
turbines and a bizarre assortment of hot air balloons.
It
might seem boring but I honestly didn’t feel completely at ease, since, as in
most of the German country, the highway (die Autobahn) has “no speed limit”.
Thus
"freier Fahrt für freie Bürger"! The time interval between the
sight of the headlight of an approaching vehicle in the rear mirror and the car
tailgating you is probably less than 5 seconds, especially if you are riding on
the left lane. The number of super sportive cars zipping down the left lane at
more than 250 km/hr is huge!!!!
If
you think that this speed is dangerous, consider how much more dangerous is to
drive ad a speed less than 80 km/hr! Basically, if you tried, you would risk an
accident at every mile. So, the safe approach is to stick with a 120-150 km/hr
(70-90 mph)…until Neatherlands, where we were back to a regular 81 mph.
We
arrived safely at our rented apartment in Den Haag on a late Friday night, exhausted
but happy: the apartment was very friendly and cozy, located in the city
center.
The
morning after we reunited with Giuseppe, who just arrived from Barcelona.
We were close to the Scheveningen
beach, but unfortunately we didn’t have the time to visit this location. We’ll
try to be back here in April-May next year for the annual International
Sand Sculpture Festival.
Then
we finally headed towards our friends’ house. They live in a beautiful neighborhood
in Den Haag. Our friends organized a wonderful party: their house was filled
with friends (some from our time in Nice), food and beverages.
Josh and their daughter Ines, as if time had
never passed, immediately reconnected and started playing. Last
time they spent some time together was 2 years ago, during our New Year’s vacation in Italy.
We returned back to Berlin the next Sunday
with the promise that we would meet again soon. Now that they live in
Netherland and we are in Germany, it’s so much easier to organize a reunion,
certainly much easier than when they lived in Brunei and we were in California!!!
A promise made, a promise kept: in October it
was Cristina, Bernhard and Ines’s time to pay us visit in Berlin.
On a regular basis, we are so busy that we
haven’t had really the time to visit this city, therefore we were very glad
that our friends wanted to explore a bit the town. After strolling around
Mitte, we had dinner at the Long March Canteen in Kreutzberg.
I’m not a big fan of Chinese food but the dishes in this Fusion-Asian
restaurant are phenomenal. In addition, the atmosphere and the setting, with
the long wooden tables and benches, dim lights and industrial inspiration, is
very peculiar and original. Thanks Brigitte and Reiner, our friends’ friends,
for the suggestion!
The next morning we just left
Boxhagener Platz (again?), where Brigitte was selling kids apparel in the local
market, when a piece of history materialized in front of us! A real, fully
functional Trabant 601, the most common vehicle in former East Germany, stopped
at the red light in front of us.
It
was like being in old 1960’s DDR movie!
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