Guten Tag, Dobry Den, and Greetings. So I’m overdue with updating the blog but it’s been a whirlwind trip thus far with little to no access to modern conveniences like internet access. It seems like the resorts of Kenya are a world away right now. I finally made it to Prague after a lot of trains, planes and boat rides including one taxi where I got the surreal opportunity to jam out to Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” with a middle aged guy who didn’t speak English. But more on that in a little bit.

In my last installment, I had just arrived in Sri Lanka. After landing, I found out that the Sri Lankans make the Kenya drivers seem like old women out on a Sunday drive. They are absolutely insane. Lane lines are more for looks than for guidance. And the motorcycles weaving in and out of traffic make the X-games seem like a bunch of sissies. I’m convinced that each day the Sri Lanka families that drive motorcycles play rock, paper, scissors to determine who gets to wear the helmet for the day. I think this picture explains a lot:

So after a nice stay in a plush hotel, we took a prop plane to an air force base and then a short boat ride later, we ended up at the Navy base. We were put up in a small house that came with a couple of Sri Lankan navy attendants that served us our food and generally took care of us. This doesn’t mean we were living it up like kings though. It was very hot (in the upper 90’s) and we had no air conditioning anywhere. And sleeping under a mosquito net is not as thrilling as some of you may think. I think I sweat off 10 lbs though during those 2 weeks. The training went very well though and the students were a joy to work with. It took a little while to get used to their head shaking though. They kind of do this weird shake of the head as you talk which means yes. It actually looks like they are saying no. In our introduction brief to the Commodore of the base, I thought him and his staff were upset with us the way they were shaking their heads. The food there was very good as well but tended to be very spicy. If we weren’t sweating from the heat outside, the food had equally as hot. Here are a few pics of the wildlife and training:

So once the training was done, I flew back to Colombo and stayed the night before actually starting my vacation. I caught a plane to Doha, Qatar again and it was equally as nice being in business class. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to fly in the back with the common people anymore! Although getting off the plane in Doha, I realized that Sri Lanka was actually kind of cool. It was something like 115 degrees there, but they say it isn’t bad because there is no humidity. Yeah right…Anyways, I changed planes and caught a flight to Munich. I was supposed to be in business class again, but they didn’t have enough people there so they upgraded us all to first class. Talk about nice…I had one of those seats that recline all the way back into a bed. I tried to sleep because I knew it was going to be a long trip, but I must’ve been too excited because sleep eluded me. After the 11 hour flight, I caught a train to the Munich main train station. There I boarded an 8 hour overnight train to Berlin. I was finally able to get a little sleep before arriving at about 7:30 the next morning. After a couple more trains, I grabbed a cab and got to the hotel. It would’ve been nice to take a shower, but my room wasn’t ready so I dropped off my bags and decided to do an English speaking walking tour. I am completely fascinated with Berlin now. The history there is so amazing. To think only 20 years ago, the city was divided by a wall and was mostly communist ruled. I saw a lot of historical sites including the location of the bunker where Hitler had committed suicide (which by the way is a parking lot for an apartment building). I also got to see Checkpoint Charlie which was the final checkpoint for allied citizens to get into West Berlin. Before I left Berlin, I got my passport stamped with the 16 stamps required to get through all the checkpoints. After finally getting back to the hotel, I took a quick nap and then went on a pub crawl with the same tour company. It was a great time. You haven’t lived until you’ve had Jaegermeister poured down your throat straight from the bottle under an overpass in East Berlin, rocked out to Elvis in an old communist drinking hole, or done the Irish Jig in the streets of Berlin at 1 in the morning with drunk Scots. The group consisted of mostly Aussies who I found out are certified professional drinkers. I managed to keep myself from getting too drunk though. The next morning I got up and went out to a few museums and saw some more of the historical buildings. And then that afternoon I just kind of got lost in the streets of Berlin. It’s such a beautiful city with a sort of mystique to it. It’s definitely someplace I would return to. And then this morning, I got up and got my ticket to Prague. By the way, the food in Berlin was also very good. Of course I had to have a few brats. Surprisingly though, there are an awful lot of Chinese restaurants in Berlin. I had no idea. Here are some pictures from my trip to Berlin:

Since it was only a 5 hour train ride to Prague, I decided not to take the overnight train because it had an 8 hour stop in Dresden and I didn’t feel like sleeping in a train station. So I took an afternoon train and got a hotel room for an extra night in Prague. I decided to do that instead of staying Berlin because the Czech Republic is supposed to be much cheaper than Germany. So that’s how I ended up in a taxi with a driver who only speaks Czech (to be honest, I’m not positive what the language is called here) blaring “Barbie” girl and other European neo-classic techno. I’m excited about seeing Prague though. You will have to wait until the next installment for that report.

This Saturday, I will be returning to Germany to meet my parents for my last week of my trip. I do need to send the warmest of congratulations to Matt and Liz Fine. Liz gave birth to my Godson, Nathan, last Thursday. Yes, they asked me to be the “Godfather” of their latest addition. He is absolutely adorable as you can see…

Well I hope everyone is doing just fine. As much as I’m enjoying my trip, I’m starting to get a little homesick. It will be very nice to be back in my own bed and getting back into a routine. Hopefully I’ll have a job when I return though. There are some rumors going around that my company is closing the Charleston office. I’m not sure what is going to happen though. There’s a chance that my next assignment is going to be a few months down in Key West working on another project, but I’ll let you know when I get back.

Thanks and all the best to everyone. As they say in Germany....Prost!