Ok travel from Africa to Europe. I visited the Zimbabwe side of the falls the morning of my departure. It was an incredible time. I wanted to get a few souvenirs and presents as well so was on the lookout for my street seller friends. The guys we had talked to before weren't there, in fact there was only one guy on the hustle at 7:30 in the morning.
You see I was up quite early to maximize my falls time before 10:30 when I had to go to the airport. I had it all worked out great, the taxi who was picking me up was getting me again and keeping my stuff in the interim. It was bison again.
Ok so I haggled across the bridge, got some stuff I was happy with, and then crossed the border. Smooth, though I found some locals that crossed into Zimbabwe just to do their grocery shopping. Cheaper prices see.
I cut into the falls and saw the whole side, Jes and I had cut the ends a bit, so from the first vista where you watch the water tumble over from behind to the last view of the bridge with double rainbow.
I broke my previous rainbow record of 15 with 19 total rainbows sighted. As before it was so full there were some vistas you couldn't actually see for the mist. But the turbo insanity of the Zimbabwe side where you see the whole fall and the horseshoe bit and you have to get at an angle to see the whole thing.
And I was soaked from the spray in my bathing suit. All in the plans but then I arrive at the airport some adventures later soaked to the skin. I checked in and changed and caught my flight no problem.
I was feeling weak after the first 2 hour flight chilling in my 4 hour layover. I was really tired, feeling over it, whatever but aware there was a 9 hour flight, another 4 hour layover and then a 6 hour flight. I did not feel ready. But God did me a big solid and the next flight was half empty, and my seat mate had taken my seat, so I kindly went and took over a row of three for me. It took me three tries and some embarrassment, but plane takes off I lie down and determinedly sleep til plane lands. Srsly. So then it felt like nothing after that and I got to Berlin feeling positively human.
Checked in with the nicest German I've ever met. I was here for 6 nights so everything came out of the bag and I spent a couple of hours on it. Went down to a local spot for veggie burger and double cocktails, showered, slept. Not even a thang.
Next day was my solo day in Berlin, so I walked to the Kathe Kollwitz museum. I am a genius of serendipity, so the museum was walking distance from my hotel and saw the cool Wilhelm gedenkenskirche which was the bombed church restored with beauty with the new awesome twilight themed chapel I wrote my last blog post at. Kathe Kollwitz rules. They had like all her work, lots of engravings and woodcuts and they had gotten permission to recast small her entire sculpture ouvre. I savored it seeing everything twice.
Beer pub and long wander back via some other spots.
J arrived at 8:30 am the next day, I met him at the airport and we caught up some and then kept him up by a walk to the story of Berlin museum which was a little cheesy but fun and involved a tour of a nuclear bunker.
Between the walking and museum and finding more German food, we kept him up til like 6pm. Good work. The next day we wanted to be big so we did checkpoint Charlie and walked all the way there, via the gedenkenskirche and the tiergarten (like central park v pretty and tons of songbirds) and some bits of the wall and memorial stuff. And we did the museum, which I remembered as better than I found it this time. And then we went to the topography of terror museum which I found full of good info but very reliant on historical photos and text. The best bit for me was listening in on the tours. My memory of Berlin was very don't talk about the war but listening to these kids talking was very much like taking responsibility and respecting history. I wonder if I'm seeing different things or if there has been a generational culture shift.
Next day we struck out to monuments Brandenburg gate Reichstag Holocaust memorial all in a row on the other side of the tiergarten so another long walk. Then we continued to the afternoon Brecht walking tour, his grave, house, library (in house), theater and square with memorial. The theater apparently still performs him often and keeps to his principals, even has some old timers who date from his time. Oh for knowing German. I had done the house and grave before but enjoyed them just as much this time. The guide did many cute anecdotes. And it's a beautiful house and a beautiful graveyard. Made me think how much our mothers would respectively love it. And the theater filled me with feels.
We trained home footbroken and spent our last day planning and scheming through Krakow. Plus watching Netflix and chilling.
And today we enacted one of our schemes to great delight. We are training to Prague and took a 6 hour stopover in Dresden, to which I have never been. I did not think it would be so beautiful because you know the bombing. But it's apparently a miracle of restoration, so we spent about 2 hours walking around seeing awesome buildings. We spent another 2 having a lingering Italian lunch overlooking the Elbe. And the last 2? Well it turns out that the annual Dixieland blues and jazz festival of Dresden was on today, so pretzels and beer on tap big crowds of enthusiastic listeners and about 7 jazz bands proliferated helpfully starting right at the train station and continuing to old town. Thanks God! Way to do your job of making the world awesome!
So we meandered through that on the way out and back. And there was much rejoicing. And I found out Prague is playing Madame butterfly and don Giovanni while I'm there. But tonight napful. I'm so sleepy for having lazed all day yesterday. This train is actually fun. And going through the Elbe valley so pretty.
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