April 8, 2010 (Thursday)

Airport taxi. This day was supposed to be an easy day of travel, but instead will be a day of seven major miscues. When you first get up, you do not have a clue what is in store. We get ready in our Berlin hotel and repack suitcases for flights to Turkey. Have a nice breakfast in the very pretty dining room. Pictures of various famous people are on the walls. The hotel originally was a private home (need to get history from brochure). Paid the bill and headed downstairs to get taxi—well, there are two taxis waiting (1^st miscue of the day) because the lady at the front desk mistakenly called one when we already had one ordered the night before. So the two taxi drivers, a woman and a man, get into a heated discussion, and the lady from the hotel comes down and talks to them and motions for us to get into the first taxi with the woman driver. We comply but feel badly for two taxis showing up and one not getting the fare.

Tegel Airport. Our taxi driver speaks no English (we are getting used to that now) but gets us to Tegel airport in good time. The flight board at the airport shows our flight at Gate A05. We wait for a little while at Gate A05, but then are told we’re at the wrong gate! (2^nd miscue of the day) There’s been a change, and we need to go to Gate B25-28, in other words, right back to the area where we came into the airport! So, off we go rolling our bags. “See them bag rollers rolling they bags . . . “ By this time, a huge line has built up at check in, when we could have been at the beginning if we had gotten in line when we first arrived! Ugh. Since we already have boarding passes that I printed out back at the hotel, I go ask at the passport window if we can proceed, and am told we can go on through, so we do. Security this time, however, is very interested in Jerry’s backpack crammed with electronics, and looks it over carefully, opening up all the zipper pockets, etc. This is the first place Jerry’s backpack has caused any concern to security at all. The backpack gets sent through x-ray several times, wan checked, etc. Finally, they release the bag back to Jerry.

We are glad to clear the intense scrutiny of security, only to learn as we inspect the flight boards that our flight now shows a 45-minute delay! Ugh. We have to fly from Berlin to Istanbul, then clear security and visas with hundreds of other passengers at Istanbul’s International terminal, then find our connecting Turkish flight on down to Adana (near the southern coast) somewhere in the huge complex of the Istanbul International Airport. We are beginning to sense that our Istanbul connection to Adana is becoming iffy. As we are waiting, we discover on the flight boards that, instead of the connecting flight our itinerary scheduled us for in Istanbul, a direct flight from Berlin to Adana at the same gate actually was available—and, just to spite us, the direct flight to Adana takes off on time!! We already could have been in the air directly on the way to our final destination, but we had no knowledge of the flight from existing schedules on the Internet (3^rd miscue of the day). So, while we wait, we try to be productive with the dead time in the Berlin terminal by logging picture numbers with their corresponding descriptions into the database I will be typing up for Jerry when we get home. [This database will become a MAJOR project for Jean, as the number of pictures eventually will swell to almost 4000. Wow. She is absolutely incredible.—Jerry]

Finally, we board our Berlin flight to Istanbul! Hooray! However, I am trapped sitting next to the most malodorous woman! (I say again, What is wrong with these Europeans?!!) The odor was truly terrible and nauseating. (I really thought I was going to throw up.) If only she would not have kept moving her arms around, the stench perhaps would have been tolerable. On the flight, we catch a cute 2009 Sandra Bullock movie, “All About Steve” (“convinced that a CCN cameraman is her true love, an eccentric crossword puzzler trails him as he travels all over the country, hoping to convince him that they belong together”), and the laughs are a good diversion.

Istanbul. We finally land in Istanbul, get the shuttle to the gate, and get in the visa line, which is very long. The passport control line is even longer. We now are clear that we definitely are not making the connecting flight to Adana (4^th miscue of the day). Our hearts sink. What to do? What a surge of anxiety when you are with no one who speaks your language and you are missing your flight in a foreign country. A little bit of desperation creeps in. Standing in a line of hundreds of people in the Istanbul airport, we have to figure out our options and get something going to get us to Adana. I turn on my iPhone. [Thank God for AT&T 3G good anywhere in the world!—Jerry] and call Regina, our travel agent  at Travel Leaders, for help with our situation. She calls me back and says we have been put on a 10:30 pm flight to Adana, and that the Avis car rental place will wait on us (hopefully). Regina alerts Hilton and Avis about our late arrival. We have to go to the ticket window to get our tickets reissued for the new flight. We get that done and find our gate, then decide we’ll get something to eat.

We find a pub, and while waiting to get served, I was checking over our new tickets and suddenly noticed the departure time on our boarding pass is 6:35 pm, not 10:30 pm—and it’s 6:34 NOW!! (5^th miscue of the day). What had happened was, Regina had booked us on the 10:30 pm flight, but when we went to the ticket window to get our new tickets, the lady had bumped us up to an earlier flight, which was nice, but had failed to tell us she had bumped us to an earlier flight since they had open seats on that earlier flight! We rush to the gate, and there is absolutely no activity. OMG, have we missed the plane? I ask an attendant at another desk and am told it’s okay. The plane has not boarded yet. So, we sit and wait and wait and wait and wait—seems Turkish flights are perpetually late. Finally, an attendant shows up, and we all load up on shuttle busses and get taken out onto the tarmac to get on the plane. On the shuttle we talked with a nice Turkish man who used to live in Los Angeles, very fluent in English. Also, about 6 guys from the U. S. military are on the shuttle. Suddenly, we feel a lot safer J. We finally load the plane, and, thankfully, the stinky lady sits by someone else. Yikes! I feel sorry for the poor person sitting by her.

Adana. The flight from Istanbul to Adana is several hours. (Turkey is a huge country.) We finally arrive in Adana about 11:00 pm and load another shuttle from the plane to get to the gate. Unfortunately, our Los Angeles friend told us to get off at the wrong stop, and we had to walk a long way to transfer from the international to the domestic terminal (6^th miscue of the day). At the door, we show an attendant our baggage claim ticket and he personally walks us to the domestic gate and to the Avis counter. He’s very nice. We are beginning to experience the Turkish hospitality. The Turkish people really are very helpful. We get all the paperwork done and get the rental car, a grey/silver Renault that runs on diesel. The attendant turns on the car and shows us the switches for the lights and other elements of operation.

Adana Hilton. We head off to the hotel and get there just fine, but then realize we don’t know how to turn this car off and then restart it (7^th miscue of the day). So I call the Avis guy back at the airport, and he explains that the key is a black credit card looking thing—not a regular key, and a “stop” button shuts the car off. So we start experimenting with the key/entry card and make sure we can start/stop the car and lock/unlock it. That done, we go inside the Adana Hilton Hotel and check in around midnight. Our trip from the Askanischer Hof hotel in Berlin to the Adana Hilton in Turkey, which was supposed to be about 5–6 hours, has taken us 15 hours. We reviewed the day’s events and realized we had gone through a whole series of about seven major miscues. Well, in any case, we’re fine now. With determination we have pushed our way on through to our final goal of getting to Adana, Turkey and are back on track. The Adana Hilton is very nice—after all, it is a Hilton! We find out they have laundry service, so I get our dirty duds together, and housekeeping picks up the bundle to be returned to our room tomorrow. We shower, bathe, and clean up—feels so good! We record some more pictures, review plans for tomorrow, and off to bed about 1:00 am in a king size bed in a large room—yea!

April 7, 2010 (Wednesday)

Germany. We wake up in our train’s “deluxe” cabin, and we’re in Germany! We figured out how to change my bunk bed into a sofa, and the porter brought our breakfast of cold cuts and bread.

Berlin. We pull into Berlin, and an announcement is made that the train will make three stops, and the second stop is the main station. So, the train stops once, and, at the second stop, we (along with a nice couple from Australia who heard and understood the intercom announcement like we did) get off—but it’s not the main station! The train attendant sees us having exited the train and gets very strident about us getting off at the wrong stop. We do not know what we heard wrong, but two couples seemed to have heard the same thing. We get back on, and while waiting for the next stop, chat with the couple from Australia. They also are traveling on a grant, because the lady is an art professor and is in Germany for one week to view certain pieces of art. They appear to be about our age, and we laugh about how you finally get grants toward the end of your teaching career. Finally, we’re off at the “main station,” which was the third stop, not the second, and soon are in a taxi to our hotel.

Askanischer Hof. The Askanischer Hof is a small boutique hotel, but our room (#16) is huge. We are on the second floor with a great view of the avenue outside. Guess this huge room makes up for the itty bitty rooms in London, Paris, and the train! The hotel is along the main downtown avenue that is a premier business and marketing district. We learn later the next morning that the hotel used to be the home of a prominent Berlin family that had significant history in Berlin leading into WWII.

Pergamon Museum. We get directions to take bus 100 to Museum Island. We finally find it and get to the museum area. The bus ride takes us through some pretty parks. The stop “near” the museum isn’t really that near at all, and we walk a good ways on to the museum island. Finding the Pergamon Museum was confusing. We get in a ticket line of some kind, but I just don’t think it’s right, so I go up to the front to ask, and learn that there’s a different line for the Pergamon Museum. So off we go to the next long line. This line is really long, and that does not make my “boy scout” happy. When we finally get to the ticket counter, we see why the line was moving so slowly. Only one person is selling tickets for hundreds of people!! These Europeans!! And, aren’t Germans supposed to be the epitomy of “efficiency”? We finally get in, and I have to put my backpack in a locker.

The wait was worth it. The museum is stunning! Besides the reconstructed great Altar of Zeus (taken from Pergamum, Turkey) and the Ishtar Gate (great processional gate entrance of Babylon), the museum also has items from Miletus (the Miletus market gate) and other wonders. This museum, literally packed with famous archeological artifacts, has so much to see. We even have an extra temporary exhibit to view called “Return of the Gods,” which is an exhibit about the Greek gods. Also, a magnificent coin collection, about which we had no idea, has one of the most comprehensive and magnificently preserved coin exhibits in the world. Jerry is just floored at all the illustrations for his classes, especially his Exploring the New Testament class. We spent five hours in the museum and 1 hour in line for a total of 6 hours! [That will become the record for time spent in any museum of our entire trip.—Jerry]

A beautiful old church at the front of Museum Island catches my photographer’s attention, and Jerry takes some pictures. I need to research the church to find out the name and how old it is. We think possibly the church survived the bombing of Berlin in WWII. [Jean later found out the following history: The church is called the “Berliner Dom,” or Berlin Cathedral. This Evangelical Church was built between 1895 and 1905. At the time the church was built, the edifice was considered a Protestant counterweight to St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. Bombed heavily in WWII, reconstruction of the church structure did not begin until 1975. Restoration of the interior began in 1984, and in 1993 the church finally was reopened.—Jerry]

Mondial Hotel Café. We walk down the boulevard until we finally can catch a taxi back to the hotel. We freshen up in our huge room and are off to find supper. We end up at the Mondial Hotel Café just up the street. What a find. Wish we had stayed here, because the staff falls over themselves helping us, even though we are not even staying there. For example, I asked about WiFi, and they gave us their code to use FREE. We called Jerry’s sister, Cindy, to check on the Stevens/Hyde clan, our house-sitter, Angela, and my Mother. Checking in with everyone was nice. We asked if a computer was available, and, wouldn’t you know, the hotel manager brought a laptop to the table, hooked it up, and let us use it for FREE. We checked email, etc. So, the folks at the Mondial Hotel, where we were not even staying, were very helpful, and, to top off everything, the food was delicious!

We went the short distance back down the street to our hotel, where I use the front desk computer to print our boarding passes for tomorrow’s flight from Berlin to Turkey. Also, I arrange for a taxi at 9 am tomorrow. Overall, a great day. Off to bed.

For a video of the Berlin action today:

April 6, 2010 (Tuesday)

We’re up at 5:45 am, get ready, pack, and take luggage down to the hotel lobby to leave until after we get back from our day trip. When we get back this evening, we have an overnight train to catch from Paris to Berlin. Our day trip is out into the French countryside to find the town of Angers, where a castle that long had been an important medieval fortress, the Château d’Angers, houses the famous Apocalypse Tapestry that Jerry is dying to see.

The cab comes right on time at 7:15 am, and we’re off to Gare Montparnesse station for our train. The station is huge. We get a little breakfast from a café where the servers were very rude. They refused even to try to help understand selections and prices, speaking French only, dismissive of our presence, and motioning we should just get out of line if we could not speak French. I managed to speak enough French to get us a little bite to eat for breakfast. Jerry got so mad at their rudeness. All he could think of were the young American boys spilling American blood on French beaches to save France from the tyranny of Nazi Germany.

Then we are off to view the boards to determine which platform our train will be on and look for an ATM. (We need more Euros.) I tried to get info about the trains, and Jerry found an ATM. The platform number is supposed to be posted 20 minutes before the train leaves. We have a long, cold wait. The terminal is exposed to the outside air, and the waiting area is cold and drafty. Our anxiety level rises as time passes and our platform number still is not posted. Finally, when we have only 9 minutes before our train is scheduled to depart, the platform number we are supposed to go to shows up on the main board, so we rush to that platform and hop on the first car we get to just to make sure we are on the train. We figure out what car we are on and discover we are several cars away from ours. We have to walk through several cars to get to our reserved seats. We finally find our seats just seconds before we are off to Angers. Whew! That was close! [If you would like to see where Angers, France is, click the Google Maps link below. After you are finished, use the back button on your browser to get back to this page.—Jerry]

Angers Map (Google Maps)

[A little history from Jerry: The Apocalypse Tapestries were ordered by Louis I d’Anjou, who wanted to depict the scenes of the Bible’s book of Revelation. The master weaver contracted for the work was the famous Parisian artist Nicolas Bataille, working with Robert Poinçon, who designed and executed one hundred tapestries from 1375–1382. Only seventy tapestries survive, a loss of the Revolutionary period of French history. These tapestries are the oldest, most extensive, and best collection of medieval tapestry in the world. They are important not only for their craftsmanship and artistry, however. They are important to biblical scholars because they are a silent testimony to how the images of the Apocalypse were interpreted in their day. The conceptualization and depictions in the scenes of each tapestry panel become a commentary on fourteenth-century political struggles in the turmoil and uncertainty of Western Europe under Muslim invasion and conquest. In the tapestries, the forces of Antichrist are strikingly Muslim in appearance, dress, and weaponry. Only 71 years later, in fact, after the completion of the tapestries, Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire fell to Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire in 1453. Thus, in a way, their world did come to an end. They really were not all that wrong in seeing the “end of the world” coming.—Jerry]

An hour and 40 minutes later we’re in Angers! Miracle of miracles, outside the Angers train station the Garmin gets a signal and directs us right to the castle! The hike is a short uphill walk. Road construction made the way a little confusing, but suddenly the castle appears up ahead. The castle grounds are so beautifully manicured!

We get our tickets and head straight for the Apocalypse Tapestries Museum housed in part of the castle. The time is about 11:15 or so. Yea! Photos are allowed! Just no flash. Jerry is in heaven. We enter the museum area and are taken aback by how huge the tapestries are in real life. Jerry proceeds to take pictures, and I follow along, but mostly I sit on the benches and stare in wonder at the scenes before me. By a little after 1 pm, two hours later, we are starving, but we do not want to leave the tapestries yet, so we eat some peanut butter crackers I have in my pack and drink some water. We then go through the exhibit again in sequence through the tapestry panels, with me attempting to translate the descriptions. With Jerry’s help, we manage to go through the scenes of the book of Revelation depicted in each panel of the tapestry.

After hours in the museum, and some time in the museum store, we finally leave the tapestry exhibit. We walked around the castle grounds and up on the turrets. The castle grounds and the vistas along the walls are beautiful. A little café on the castle grounds looks delightful, and we stop and get a Coke. We have a nice conversation with the waiter who is from Algeria. His English is very good. We hate to leave, but we need to make our train back into Paris.

We walk back to the Angers train station and get assistance from an attendant to get the correct platform and boarding station (S). The train ride from the French countryside back into Paris is uneventful. We arrive back at the Paris train station and hail a taxi, but our driver speaks NO English. I manage enough bad French to ask him to take us to the hotel door and wait while we get our baggage at our Hotel Louvre Forum. I can’t believe he actually understood me, but apparently he did, because we arrive at our hotel. We retrieve our bags in storage from the hotel lobby and are off to the Garde d’Lest (east train station). We get our platform information and then get some supper at a café (lasagna and Greek salad). Very good! We test the Garmin a little, because she worked when we were in Angers. The unit is back to refusing to get a satellite fix. We are starting to hate that thing!

We board our overnight train to Berlin and look for our “Deluxe” sleeper. Well, not exactly what I thought, to say the least, about accommodations called “deluxe.” I tried to clarify to the attendant that the room to which he pointed us simply could not be our room, because our tickets said “deluxe.” The attendant nodded yes he understood, but that this was, in fact, our room. Jerry got so tickled at me in this whole exchange with the attendant and evidently my expression of disbelief in response. I thought we surely had the wrong car and coach or something. I told the porter (who spoke no English) “no, we had deluxe” and he nods and points to the little sleeper with bunk beds. Yes, there is a shower that’s about 6 inches wide, and yes, there is a small sink on a moveable arm that either has to be moved into the shower or over the commode to get in the bathroom! Now that’s “deluxe”! Funny how pictures in a brochure can make rooms look so huge. We learn only later from seasoned travelers that since we have private accommodations, no matter how small, the privacy itself was “deluxe.” Otherwise, you share bunks of four with anyone and a common bathroom for the entire car! So, in fact, the porter was exactly correct. He had taken us to our “deluxe” cabin.

Jerry was nonplussed by the cramped quarters. He simply immediately went into his “boy scout” mode and got us all organized and set up efficiently, making extraordinary use of every square inch like he was on a campout in the cramped quarters of a tent. Yea for the boy scouts! I wrote in our journal while Jerry set up his charging stations on the commode. Yes, that’s right. On the commode. The only electrical plug in our entire “deluxe” cabin is in the tiny little bathroom right above the commode with no shelf. Glad we didn’t accidentally flush anything down.

Finally, lights out, and I attempt to sleep, but the sounds and train movement makes rest for me difficult. Jerry, however, had his earplugs and did fine. In any case, we’ll wake up in Berlin tomorrow morning!

Here is a video of the Angers action today: