In Berlin!

I’m on a five-day junket through Germany with my dad, his sister, and her kids. (Aunt Noa, Gilat, and Shaul all live in Tel Aviv.) We’re primarily here to put a headstone on Grandpa Franz’s grave (he died here in 1981) and take care of some family business near Dresden.

We arrived in Berlin at 9 this morning after an overnight flight from Boston, stopping just long enough in Paris to change planes and have Air France lose our luggage. Annoyingly, I had purchased a rolling-bag specifically for this trip which claimed to be carry-on-sized, and then was forced to check it at Logan. It’s now 7 p.m. here and there’s no sign of it. So much for the much vaunted German efficiency, although in their defense, it is Good Friday, and technically the French lost our luggage anyhow. Our hotel isn’t all that far from Potzdamer Plotz, for those Berlinophiles in the house.

Spent the afternoon seeing the Berlin Jewish Museum and sipping coffee to stay awake; tonight will be family dinner with my grandfather’s mistress and then a much needed night’s sleep.