the longest word in the world

Third line. Truly astounding. The lady who gave me this form assured me that "this is a real German word."

We rented an apartment! It is two levels with a living room, kitchen and balcony downstairs and two bedrooms and a balcony upstairs. It faces away from the street onto a nice garden. It has a fahrradparkplatz (fahrrad=bike, can you figure out the rest?) and a basement storage space for us. And, best of all, it is next to a park and only a few minutes from great coffee (they make cappuccinos with 1/2 and 1/2)!

If you want to send us cookies our address is:

27 Apostel-Paulus Strasse

10823 Berlin Germany

Come visit us soon.

I made a friend

I call him "Chester A. Arthur." He doesn't have quite the same mustache but he is considerably cuter.

We met him when we were out getting fruit at the farmers' market. Berlin is crawling with farmers' markets and produce stands. You can still do all your shopping by going to the different shops, to the baker, the butcher, the vegetable shop. You can of course also go to the supermarket, but the prices are higher (sometimes twice as much) and the quality is worse. Probably in the winter it will be a lot more convenient not to trudge around through the snow. We will see.

Germany is great! Today we had a beer (bier) while watching the Italy-New Zealand game. It was 1-1, which was not too exciting, but what was exciting was this sign I found on the way:

It's zip-tied to an old rusty bike and it says, "Now I drive a car. Thanks, Nord-Kurs!" and the phone number of the auto dealer.

We have no new apartment yet but I am going to work, and I even got some nice data yesterday.

how to get hold of us

No pictures today. Triffid has a phone! if you want to spend lots of money on international calls you can reach her at (+49) 0160 994 481 78. Soon I will have a phone too, and you will be able to call me.

The system of registration here is entertaining. You have to register your address with the authorities. You can't get a bank account until you have a registration. You will have trouble renting an apartment until you have a bank account. And, of course, with no place to live how can you register?

In Berlin

We made it to Berlin with no problems. Well, amost no problems... Kitty is still loud even on children's benadryl. Here she is in her carrier. But the only way we could calm her down was to keep her under my coat! All the kids on the plane loved her, but the TSA agents didn't so much.

We have a temporary apartment in Zehlendorf, which is a 20 minute walk from the institute. Here is a view from the balcony. The place is very small and yesterday the doorknob came off in my hand. I think we are going to move as soon as we can!

Yesterday Germany destroyed Australia in the world cup, 4-0. There were lots of fireworks and car horns after the game. At the moment, everyone at the institute is watching Holland-Denmark, and since most of them are from Holland there is a lot of orange in the room. Who knew that orange was the national color of Holland? I didn't.

Today the collection truck for yard waste and compost backed into the tree in the front yard and snapped a 6" limb clean off. The branch snagged on the truck and just went, crack! Luckily, they were the yard waste collector, so the driver just cut up the limb and threw it in the back.

...and, it's raining again

Seems I was a little spoiled in Berkeley with the weather. It's raining here, it has been raining for two weeks, and it's forecasted to rain for another week. But, we had one day of sun in Newport so I got to go out and walk around in the shaggy mossy woods. The upside of all of that rain is there are lots of great plants! The grass is three feet high.

Everyone is so much more happy when it's sunny, except maybe the llamas. They don't feel the rain-- the only benefit of sun for them is that people are out, and they can follow you around the pasture. This is Pugsy. He likes to try to sneak up on me.