nach hause - going home

6:30am CET and i'm up worrying about all we have to do before our flight. we give the apartment one last wipe down, drug the cat, and go. no one came to check us out of the apartment and take the keys so we throw them in the neighbor's mailbox and zoom to the airport.

at the airport we are so concerned with the logistics of checking in with the cat, and getting our VAT back (you can't if you have been in germany more than 3 months - now we know) that we don't have time to really process that we are leaving berlin for good. as we take off i see the TV tower in the distance and it hits me, i won't see that again for a long, long time.

i hate the frankfurt airport. i don't know anyone who feels differently. it sucks. we walk 45 minutes, that's after using the inter-terminal train, with a really heavy cat and arrive at the international gates for united airlines - a teeming mass of humanity fighting over one toilet and a vending machine. next time we come to germany we fly through munich.

our flight, on the other hand is a pleasant 10 and 1/2 hours in business class on the upper deck of a 747. life is good when the company is paying. we watch 4 movies and eat and drink whatever we like whenever we like. the cat is sleeping but we're not. there's too much to do and see! like watch the fjords of greenland turn into glaciers at one end. and later, to see mount st. helens, mt. hood, and mt. rainier peek their snowcapped heads out of the clouds below. then just past mt. shasta and glacier lake we see the california coastline come into view. we pick out landmarks below and start to get excited about being home.

it's 86 degrees in san francisco, and 100 in san jose, our driver informs us. a little of the excitement wears off. we start to get really tired. a hot, dusty house awaits us. but as we pull into our street, and see our house we are refreshed. this nice street, the cute houses, our cars, this is what we've been missing. inside the house the cat knows exactly where she is and finds her favorite spot immediately. we dust, and install the air conditioner. we order pizza (in english!!) and eat it on the cool floor of the bedroom with the (german) beer meena brought to restock our fridge.

sitting there, finally home, relaxed, and with nothing left to do, we realize just how exhausted we are. at 5:30am CET (8:30 PDT) we go to bed. it may be the exhaustion, but i just can't shake this melancholy feeling. i miss berlin. so does dan. perhaps if we sleep on it... .