On the way to Berlin

I just arrived at the Excelsior Hotel in Berlin for the start of this trip. On my way, though, I blogged offline for a bit, so I'm going to paste those entries here. I will update it at the end.

Travel

6/29/08

It’s so hard to say goodbye… but I just did that to my wife and daughters and now I’m at the BWI airport. And of course, the experience has been “an experience” already.

First off, I got pulled aside for a “random” security check. It seems like every time I travel alone I get pulled aside for these security checks. I don’t think I can complain about racial profiling, but it does feed into my general paranoia that my youthful looks cause me more harm than they do me good.

As I was going through security I noticed that the air-conditioning had mysteriously ceased. I wrote this off to some weird security measure necessary for properly screening bags and assumed that the AC would reappear on the “other side”. But no, I was sadly mistaken. Turns out, the air-conditioning was out in the whole terminal! Now, if you’ve ever been to Baltimore in the summer you know that the only thing that makes the city bearable in the summer is AC (and, in my opinion, that’s the only good thing about Baltimore – regardless of the season). So this was another bump in the road.

And the cherry on top: due to thunderstorms in the NY/NJ area, my flight to Newark has been delayed for at least a ½ hour.

So I’m sitting here in the terminal sweating away with no idea of when I’m going to get out of here but desperately hoping that this is the worst-case scenario and that I won’t miss my flight to Berlin.

An update from Newark…

My flight took off about an hour late and I arrived at Newark at 3 pm. The flight was a nightmare for me, though, as the plane bounced around a whole lot at the start of the flight and upset my (apparently) fragile stomach. I was pretty nauseous for all of the flight but I held on until the end and did not use the paper bag in the seatback directly in front of me. I did, however, use the first restroom I could get to in Newark and proceeded to throw up a couple of times. Given my recent history of stomach woes (which began on a flight to Israel), I’m not too concerned, but I am somewhat dreading the flight to Berlin. My wife doesn’t seem too concerned, though, so I guess I shouldn’t be either.

Lauren is on her way here from Dulles. Her flight was also delayed, but last we spoke she was due to arrive at around 4:30 pm. I hope she makes it.

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In Berlin:

Lauren did not make our flight. But I did meet up with Neal and Dvora Scheindlin. We met in the airport and sat right across from each other on the plane.

Despite what the woman at continental told me over the phone on Sat. night, there was a kosher meal for me on the flight.

Based on my previous experience with my muscle-relaxant medicine, I popped one pill at the start of the flight and slept for almost the duration of the trip. There were some "American" college kids sitting in the row behind me and they were kind of annoying, but I managed to ignore them for the most part.

The weather here is close to 70 with little humidity. Still, I have to figure out how to use the AC in the room. TV is flat screen with a ton of German channels. Internet is expensive - but vital.

The official start of the program is not until 5:30 pm. We'll probably get a group together to wander Berlin before then.