Ich bin in Berlin

Translation: I'm in Berlin!!
Sorry there's no pictures with this post, but I'm borrowing my friend Kristen's computer until we can figure out how to get mine hooked up to their wireless internet, so only text for now. I'm sitting here on Saturday afternoon in John and Kristen's sunny and spacious Berlin ground-floor apartment. Getting here was a trial of our patience, as travel can be so often. We flew out of Gatwick airport, which is way the heck outside of London, so we took the rather overpriced Gatwick express train and got to the airport two hours before our flight was supposed to leave. Supposed to leave. In fact, by the time our flight was supposed to be taking off, the departure board at Gatwick airport still said "Please wait" where our gate number was supposed to be. Really, what's the point of the "please" when we have no choice...it might as well say "Wait, losers" :) About 20 minutes after we were supposed to leave, the "please wait" was replaced with "Flight closing at gate 111," which started a mad dash to the farthest gate in the terminal. Abbey and I did fairly well in the ensuing "Amazing Race: Gatwick edition" and gained a tremendous advantage over the competition on both escalators as we had no rolling luggage. You see, like Southwest airlines, EasyJet has no assigned seating, so it's every (wo)man for himself. We managed to get two seats together in an exit row, and then proceeded to sit on the tarmac for at least another 30 minutes. We ended up taking off about an hour late, which isn't so bad except our friends were waiting for us on the other end and we got in at midnight, when John had to be up at 5:30! :( But it was such a great feeling to get off a plane in a foreign country and have smiling, familiar faces to welcome you with excitement. We took the train into the heart of Berlin and got to their apartment at about 1:15, I think. Their place is so cute and homey and spacious. I think our guest room could fit three of our London hotel rooms in it! I'll post pictures as soon as I can. We slept until 11:30 (!) this morning and woke up to a wonderful breakfast of fruit and fresh home-made muffins and coffee. How great is that!! Now we've got a load of laundry in the washer and we're off to explore the city with Kristen as our guide! :) I added a link to John and Kristen's blog to my blog, so check it out! They're working with campus ministries in Berlin and have been living here about a year now.