Not a bad breakfast at the hotel. I really do prefer the smaller hotels or family run places for the staff friendliness. While this is not bad it does not measure up to a family run place. I would stay here again if I had no choice or was in this area of Honow.
Haircut, well this was different. The lady did not speak any English, however was very nice. I dropped Alyssa off and came back a hour later, still had to wait for her and talked to the lady doing her hair. Alyssa seemed truly surprised that she liked it. It is short and makes her look more her age, mature, with a short hair. Not sure she will like it in the morning. Not because it is short just because she will not be able to train it the way the lady did it. But it does look very nice.
After haircut headed out to explore the city. We took the train out to the Olympic Stadium and spent time looking around. Alyssa seemed to enjoy it although initially did not seem that interested until we started walking around and finding the signs in English and German. She should be speaking more German but is scared and says she can’t form the words. Had an okay lunch at the stadium and after a couple of hours headed off to T-berg.
We got to Tuefelsee str. and started out into the Grunawald. Alyssa was not happy to have to walk and I explained to her that I used to work in this forest and about how the hills are the highest in Berlin and they were created from all the ruble from the bombing of the war. The area is still as pretty as when I was in the city. Made it to the top of the first hill and both of us out of breath, not as young as I remember and sure don’t remember being out of breath. I use to run all the hills at lunch and at other times. Never this bad, old age.
Alyssa did not want to go any farther, but, I wanted to go up to T-berg and get a look at Site 3. So off I went leaving Alyssa on top of the first hill. Went I got up to Site-3 again out of breath. I was so disappointed at the state of what was done or the lack of such to keep it up. First all the memories and second the money wasted by the U.S. to have it trashed by people. Very sad to see what happens to important things (people get this way too) when they are no longer needed. While I was standing at the main gate looking in a car came up and stopped. Two guys got out and I could tell they were doing something, cause they started to get out cameras and began looking around. So of course yours truly started talking in broken Germany and English. Well the next thing I knew these two were cutting a holes in three fences (they said they had permission of course we were not near the road where this could be seen) and in we went, I had to join them at this point and cool. They took pictures of Site 3 and said they were with a marketing company that finds different (and I mean different) venues to hold special events. They are looking to a place to hold some announcement for a Telecommunication company on 4/19. I asked them how could they clean up a place like this for an event and was told easy. They bring in a crew and in a day do it, rope off areas they do not want people and then set up the event. When we were up on the roof and where the small dish use to be they were talking about filling in the holes, and hanging a “disco” ball and having the dance there. Well I was just thrilled to actually get inside the fence and into the buildings. The MP area is trashed as is the rest of the buildings. It is the only place I found anything that shows it use to be a US military site and that was a painting on the back office wall with a crest for the MP’s. The arms room was open and I snapped a quick picture of it and then walked through the rest of the main hall. I did not go into the British area but walked past the break room and it was the only area that was not damaged and trashed. Up the tower area and to the second and third floors and roof. WOW what a great view, I had forgotten what it looked like from the roofs. I remembered sitting up there in the summer and enjoying the nice weather. It was a great time. I tried to wave to Alyssa from the roof, but of course she did not see me. I snapped a bunch of photo and will check out the T-berg website and maybe try and post them to that site of what it looks like today. The last time I was here with Lorene they were shooting a music video and had Russian vehicles parked in front, but it was not trashed.
After retrieving Alyssa from the top of the hill, of course I had to climb it again and was dead. I love doing this and walking in the Grunawald and feel so good. The exercise I use to get here would get me back into shape very quickly. We walked back out and to the U-bahn. We went downtown and then a bus ride and Alyssa wanted a steak. We hit the Ku’damm and the Madero Steak house only to find it packed. Two ladies were right behind us and they decided to leave and so did we to find another steak place. A block away is another Madero and the two ladies and us had the same idea and wound up there at the same time. This is where traveling gets interesting. The restaurant looks packed. So in we go and since we want none smoking as do these “Italian” ladies. When we tell the girl no smoking she tells all of us to follow her and she leads us to the back and a whole section used for non-smoking totally empty. We get the choice of tables and pick out one and the ladies sit next to us. They are with the travel convention which is in town and the reason we are all the way out in the boon docks. During our conversation, in Germany, in a Spanish restaurant, speaking broken German, English and Italian the waitress (who speaks German) over hears that it is Alyssa’s birthday tomorrow and brings us a birthday drinks and tells us that if Alyssa has her passport with her so she can verify the date of birth we can get 25% off our dinner. Alyssa said the drink was to dry, and said she likes “Sex on the Beach” much better. It was a great steak and enjoyable. The one lady gave me her business card and said if we were ever in northern Italy, to call. The other lady was laughing and said she is always working. It was a good dinner all around.
It was then back to the hotel for bed.
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