From Berlin II By Sahand Rabbani from Berlin II Dear Friends, With a six-hour layover in Berlin's Tegel Airport, I thought I'd pass the time in the city. Arriving on an overnight Airberlin flight from Chicago where I slept none, read, and watched several episodes of the Big Bang Theory thanks to the generously stocked in-seat entertainment system, I was particularly exhausted. Adrenaline kept me moving for the next several hours as I checked my suitcase at the airport and plowed through several modes of transit (bus, S-bahn, U-bahn) into town. I targeted a self-involved coffee shop in the Mitte district referenced in the New York Times "36 Hours" column and passed the morning drinking coffee and eating lots of those delicious German sandwiches made with fresh artisan bread and cured meats and vegetables. Afterwards, I ambled east along the river for five kilometers in the hopes of tracking down a doner kebab for lunch in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district, but my clock ran out and I had to duck into an U-bahn station before my meal to race back to the airport. My memories of Berlin from my visit in 2008 were faint (see "from Austria (Vienna), Slovakia (Bratislava), Germany (Berlin)"), but I did recognize Alexanderplatz and its imposing mall from which I bought my first international SIM card six years earlier. I was happy to be on my way to Rome, another city I was to visit again after six years. Sahand Copyright © 2024 Sahand Rabbani All rights reserved.