On Monday evening, June 14, 2010 we enjoyed an interesting cocktail party attended by other experienced "Virtuoso" cruisers, including a whole gaggle of Australians. Very friendly and fun, but boy can they talk! For dinner, we joined a table for six and found out that the Aussies are mere pikers when it comes to the gift of the gab... we discovered the Scots not only have a charming accent, they can spin a yarn till the cows come home! What a talk-fest between these residents of Edinburgh and Glasgow! Ronna and I were exhausted from all the banter and retired relatively early since we had a 7:50 am boarding time for our motor coach ride to Berlin.
Despite a three-hour journey, Berlin was more than worth the travel effort. We had been there before while on a cruise with the whole family 10 years ago and really wanted to visit again. It's a magical city with gorgeous wide boulevards, immense parks, a sophisticated food scene, exciting entertainment options, amazing history and much more. We totally agree with John Kennedy's speech on June 26, 1963... "Ich bin ein Berliner," even though it is grammatically incorrect. (He should have said, "Ich bin Berliner.")
We weren't planning on doing that much shopping, but once we visited Berlin's KaDeWe we were completely mesmerized by what we consider the most fabulous department store on earth! KaDeWe is short for the German translation of "North American Department Store," but they have taken our humble Macy's and reinvented the whole category! KaDeWe's huge size is moderated by incredible merchandising displays for every conceivable product you could imagine. I was looking for an across the shoulder "man bag" to carry my iPad. They must have had 200 different types in all price ranges. Every major designer brand on earth has a separate boutique area, tastefully laid out with gorgeous display cases, lighting and ambiance. Then the ultimate: KaDeWe's Food Hall... it beats Harrod's or any other food emporium we have ever visited. Hundreds of thousands of food products from all over the world... like 200 different kinds of sausages, 500 types of teas and coffees, exotic produce, chocolates from 30 countries... and a wine shop featuring 100-year old vintages. It was five football fields of gastronomic glory! We could have spent days in this place.
But alas our time in Berlin was limited because we had a 3+ hour bus ride back to our ship in 5 o'clock traffic. We made it back in time for our evening departure and today's "Day at Sea."
We said this 10 years ago... "We need to spend a week in Berlin!" To me, it's right up there with New York, London and Paris for fabulous urban fun.
An interesting observation made during our bus rides: We could learn some lessons from the Germans when it comes to sustainable energy production. On our trip to Berlin we saw hundreds and hundreds of huge wind turbines along the motorway. Germany has more than 20,000 such electricity-generating machines and some German territories get nearly half their power from the wind. They're not pretty, but these huge three-blade turbines make sense in areas that have plenty of wind. We need more of this kind of energy production in the US.
Since we are at sea today (Wednesday) we slept in and then attended a terrific seminar on food and wine hosted by the ship's exec chef and none other than Larry Stone, well-known Bay Area Master Sommelier and currently the head of Francis Ford Coppola's Rubicon Estates Winery in Napa. He gave us all kinds of great tips about food parings, aerating and properly tasting wine, history of Inglenook/Coppola wineries, etc. Much fun and we had no clue he and his family were on board until we read today's schedule! A much-appreciated surprise!
We, of course, have met lots of very interesting people. One couple next door introduced themselves after dinner a few nights ago. He said he was head of an aerospace parts company. Thanks to our satellite Internet connection and Google, we have since discovered he made $5,500,000 in salary and benefits last year and has $45,000,000 in pending stock options. Thanks Forbes.com and welcome to high-net-worth cruising (and snooping)!
Tomorrow: Tallin, Estonia.
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