Wednesday, May 30, 2007

I'm Sailing

Mary and I were invited on a sailing adventure Memorial Day weekend with a good friend of mine for the early Sun days. I have been on a number of different boats in my life. Even a number of small sail boats. But I have never spent the night on a boat. I was a little nervous about motion sickness. I have only gotten motion sickness once on a boat. Mary and I were taking the ferry from Bridgeport, CT to Port Jefferson, NY and a strong storm blew in while we were under way. There was lots of rocking and rolling and it really hit me hard. I didn't get sick, but I really didn't feel right all weekend after that trip. I was a little nervous that I would feel the effects more in a smaller boat.

Mary and I got up early Saturday and headed to Baltimore to meet Kevin, Jessie and the rest of the sailing party for the weekend. We got to the sailing club around 10AM went shopping for provisions and hit the water. The boat was beautiful. We were on the Miss Ann a Beneteau 343 35' Sail boat. She is a wonderful boat.

The trip plan was to head south to Rock Hall for the evening and head to Waterman's Crab House for dinner. Watremans has the "amazing" crab dip which was Jessie's favorite place to go. I will admit the food was very good. I haven't had seafood that good in a while. I ordered some steamed clams for an appetizer and the Baked Crab Imperial for dinner. Both were amazing and very fresh. The steamers were so good even Mary had one or two of them.

We spent the night at a marina in Rock Hall. The people around us were very friendly. Many of them were older, probably retired. I was sort of prepared for the cold shoulder based on the fact that we were so young. However, he reaction seemed to be quite the opposite. Everyone around us was very friendly and seemed to be excited that "younger" people interested in sailing. Everyone was quick to introduce them selves and chat for a while.

The next morning we got up and cooed breakfast. Eggs and bacon mostly, but we had picked up some other stuff as well. The plan was to head to the western bay to anchor for the night and try our hand at crabbing. The wind wasn't as favorable so we didn't get much speed but we had 7 hours to make a 3 hour trip so we were not in a super rush. Around 4 PM the wind died and we decided to drop sails and motor the rest of the way to our destination.

We got to the Magathe river around 5ish and had an interesting time getting our anchor down. Once we were anchored we decided it would be a good time to try crabbing. We got our turkey necks (chicken necks weren't available) out tied them to some string and chucked them overboard. We had been taking bets on how long it would take us to catch a crab. The first time window of 30 minutes came and passed fairly quickly. We were quickly approaching the hour mark when a storm started to blow in. We left our turkey necks in the water and went below for the storm.

The wind picked up quickly and, while we were watching out the back, we noticed that our anchor had broken free and we were drifting toward a sail boat anchored near by. The men rushed into action Kevin started the engine and got us away from the boat we were approaching. Brian and I grabbed our danforth and sunk a second anchor. We were again solidly anchored in the cove. We went back below slightly moistened by the rain to wait out the storm.

Once the storm had ended we decided to cook dinner and check on our crabbing bounty. Needless to say we had caught nothing. The general consensus was that it was way to early in the season and we were a bit up the river so the water may have been a bit too fresh. The rest of the evening went with out incident. We stayed below deck because it was sprinkling out. Played cards and drank beer. A few of us still hoping to catch something left our necks in the water overnight to see if we would catch anything.

We had breakfast, cast away our turkey necks pulled up our anchors and headed home. Unfortunately the wind was not cooperating with us on Monday. We saw a few other sail boats out in the bay but sails up and they were going no where. We decided to just motor back to the marina.

So our first sailing adventure was great! Mary and I really enjoyed ourselves. The weather was great, even with a brief thunderstorm. It really was a great weekend and we hopefully will be able to make a few more sailing trips in the future. We are also considering making Kevin's international New Years trip next year. Lets hope they pick somewhere exciting.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Berlin Day 2

The remainder of our trip was just as exciting as the first day. Our plan was to see as much as possible in as short a time a possible. A few of the books we had read suggested that we visit sections of the city in a day. Berlin is quite large (remember it used to be 2 cities) and traveling from one spot to another could be very time consuming.

We woke up Saturday and cooked breakfast (one of the benefits of renting an apartment). Our plan was to meet Colin and Maria in the morning at a flea market/farmers market then visit Mitte which is the central borough of Berlin. We read that the line to the Reichstag grows quite long in the afternoon so our plan was to start there and continue on.

We took the U-Bahn to Colin and Maria's apartment met them and walked to the market. This was a very interesting place. Apparently this is a weekly event and there are all sorts of vendors set up in this square. From florists and fresh produce to jewelry and crafts and prepared food. I assume that many of the apartments in Berlin are about the same size as ours and kitchen space is pretty limited. This means that appliances, like refrigerators, are small. It seems that people rely on fresh produce picked up a couple times a week rather than our habit of trying to make it to the store once a week or so to get food for a while.

The market was filled with people and each stand had something interesting to look at. We all decided to try a local sausage which was a foot long thin sausage served on a very small bun that was essentially a handle. I tried some fresh OJ which was very good. Kate, in an attempt to reconnect with her roots, tried an Alsatian flat bread with cheese on top. It is similar to a pizza. We were getting ready to leave when a jewelry vendor caught Mary's eye. We stopped there for a few minutes and ended up with a very nice necklace with a black pendant. It was a great beginning to day 2 and it was still early!

Colin walked us to over to the Zoo and we hopped on the 100 Bus which is a great way to see the city. This bus route stops at a lot of the major attractions and really gives you a great feel of the city. Unlike riding a subway you get an idea of where things are in relation to each other. We hopped off at the Reichstag and got in line. The line wasn't too long, but there was a wait. Fortunately we had lots of entertainment while we waited. First a group of mime/puppeteers performed for us. There were about 6 of them and they were moving this stick figure human character thing. They would make the character dance and interact with the line. It was interesting to watch. At some point they moved on to another location.

As we got closer to the steps we saw something pretty interesting. A group of people stormed the steps and posted a whole bunch of banners on the pillars of the Reichstag. Of course they were speaking in German and their fliers were in German so we really had no idea what was going on. But it was pretty moving to see an act of democratic free speech in a different country. The "disruption" was over pretty quickly and everything returned to normal. The short wait in line was worth the view from the top.

There is a glass dome one top with a spiral ramp that goes to the top of the dome. The entire structure is beautiful and fun to be inside. There are great views of the city both as you circle up the dome and from the roof deck of the Reistag. You can really see from this vantage point the Berlin is a growing city as there were a lot of construction sites visible.

We left the Reichstag and continued onto the Brandenburg Gate which was originally built as an entrance to the city but now pretty much sits right in the middle of the Berlin. The gate became an icon during the years of the Berlin wall because it was right in the middle on "no mans land". Not much exists of the wall, but in parts of Berlin there is a brick path that traces out the old footprint of the wall. It is easiest to find on the street between the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate.

From the Brandenburg Gate our plan was to walk along Unter der Linden and over to Bebelplatz which was the site of the book burning. On our way to Unter der Linden we passed the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The memorial was pretty amazing and it is fairly large. The site takes up a city block and it is an arrangement of stone pillars which look like a cemetery. The pillars are not all level or true so it give the appearance of an older cemetery. At the edge of the monument the pillars are rather short, towards the middle the pillars get taller and you are completely surrounded. It is a very interesting place. Beneath the monument is a museum which is dedicated to telling the stories of different Jewish families who were deported during WW II. In the last room in the museum the names of the Jews who perished are projected on the wall and read allowed. It is a very moving exhibit.

We left the museum and it was getting late. We decided to grab lunch (although he sun was setting) and continue on our way. We walked along Unter Der Linden for a while stopping at a few trinket shops and just taking in the street. We finally came across Bebelplatz and we hit it about the right time. The monument here is a room below street level. The room is a "library" with empty book shelves that are painted white. The entire room is lit brightly. You look down into the library from street level through a window in the square. We continued on to Check Point Charlie and out last stop for the evening.

Checkpoint Charlie was an interesting place. As with many location where the wall once was there is an interesting mixture of construction, ultra modern building and older buildings. The checkpoint itself is completely gone. A replica of the American shed is in the middle of the street at the checkpoint location. There are a lot of trinket shops nearby. There is also a Checkpoint Charlie museum which I had mixed feeling about. I think the idea of the museum is great and the collection of items that were there were interesting. However it seems as if this museum was created without much thought to the layout or perhaps the "curator" never received any formal training. There seemed to be a number of repetitive exhibits throughout the museum and the layout and flow was rather confusing. At one point I had gotten totally lost and couldn't figure out if I had been in this room before. I then went to Find the rest of the group and I found myself in a completely different part of the museum which I may have missed if I were by myself. Maybe over time this museum will be refined or redesigned. The exhibits are worth while as they are it just doesn't have a coherent flow.

Well it was getting late and we needed to have dinner. The Sony Center is located in east Berlin neighborhood of Potzdammer Platz. It is a very new area which contains an outdoor mall/entertainment center. We decided to head over there for dinner. We ended up at the HofbrÀuhaus which was an excellent choice. We tried some "authentic" authentic German chain restaurant food and had 1 liter beers. We even got a pin for ordering the "medium" size. Of course I immediately regretted not ordering the large, only because I wondered what bauble I missed out on. Alas after a liter of beer I was not ready to have any more. So after a very long day we headed back to the apartment. For another viewpoint to this days activites check out Troy's Blog.