Baldwins, Berlin, and Baden-Baden

Ahh, the three B's: Baldwins, Berlin and Baden-Baden. Not too different from the three B's of the OC: Boobs, Blonde, and Beamer. Anyhow, we visited two very different German cities in the last couple weekends. One was a chic resort town in the middle of the Black Forest and the other was an up and coming capitol city complete with urban sprawl and countless spires and skyscrapers dotting the skyline.

While Heidelberg was Luke's first official trip, Baden-Baden was Luke's first trip where he actually got out of his carrier and enjoyed himself. We were blessed with absolutely fantastic srping-like weather and enjoyed ourselves by eating dinner in an outside cafe'. Julia tried her hand at riding a tricycle but still has a ways to go. For some reason, she has mastered going backwards but can't get herself out of reverse.

We headed over to Berlin last weekend. Now Jen and I visited this place 11 years ago when we were starving college students armed with a Eurail pass and a credit card and we were both struck by how much this place has changed. Amazingly it has been twenty years since the Berlin Wall has been torn down and during that time, the city has totally reinvented itself. Sure, certain parts of the East are still preserved for ol' timesake but for the most part, East Berlin is now the "in" place to be. Speaking of old school East Germany, below is a picture of Julia with a Communist-era figure that was used on the East German "walk" signs. This cute figure has come to be a symbol of German "Ostalgia". Translated into English, this term refers to German nostalgia for the days of East Germany (Ost means east in German).

We also got a chance to go to a place about 60 clicks south of Berlin called Tropical Islands www.tropical-islands.de/en.html . In a nutshell, some enterprising gents transformed an old Soviet Airbase in the middle of the pine forest of East Germany into a sprawling beach resort. They put this "beach" inside an abandoned massive airship hangar. After installing some hard core heaters, tropical foliage, and tons of sand, they created a miniature Bali in the East Germany. It was fantastic! While the temperature was around 39 degrees and howling wind, the temp inside was about 78 and humid. All of us were thrilled to escape this brutal German winter for a few hours. Below is a picture of our little surfer, Luke Andrew and his adoring momma.

We also got a chance to see some other stuff in Berlin such as the Brandenberg Gate (see pix), a DDR museum, the Berliner Dom, Karl-Marx-Allee, Potsdamer Platz/Sony Center, and KaDeWe (the largest department store in Europe). Very nice. Wish we had another few days and a stronger exchange rate.

On a different note, check out the following site titled "Germany or Florida": http://community.livejournal.com/germany_or_fl

This is a recurring bit on Adam Carolla's radio show out of LA. Contrary to popular demand, these two distinctly dissimilar places aren't that differnt after all. Too funny.

Even funnier is this Berlitz commerical: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6077326441742307086