nations

my friend kathleen and i have talked our friend pete into going to berlin with us for a few days on our trip this september. it honestly didn't take much arm-twisting, just a 'hey, you wanna go to berlin with us for a couple days' and he said he was up for it.

berlin is not a city i know much about. it pains me to admit it, but it's true. apart from the general WWII stuff, the berlin wall and being familliar with the railstations i'm pretty much at a loss. i'm always up for new experiences so this should be a hoot. germany was not really one of the places on my list of 'hafta see it', but the more i think about it the more pleased i am that we're going. who knows, it may turn out to be my favorite place. if you want to add a comment and share berlin knowledge with me i'd love it.

i still have not met a country i didn't like, though i have my favorites so far. the uk is my current fav, with edinburgh as my top fav city (next to my hometown here in the us, of course). mexico is my second fav, with puebla as my top city pick. france and canada are tied. i need to go back to both to really decide since i've only been in paris and british columbia.

when i went to the uk for the first time it was a bit like meeting a celeb. my stepmom's an anglofile and seems to have passed on to me her love of british history. to see the tower of london, westminster, yorkminster...i was in heaven. there's something so spiritual to me about touching something historic. it gives such a sense of the outside-ness-of-time God posesses. that's what i love about art museums...you see the expressions of people that lives sometimes hundreds of years before, and for a brief moment you see inside their soul. the uk is great because i can 'get close' to the people and moments i've read about for so many years.

mexico was different than the uk because the current culture (being much further removed from american culture than the brits) was the thing that grabbed me, and that got me interested in their history. that was pretty much the opposite of my interest in britain. i loved the friendly, open and expressive social interaction, and the way everyone is so chill. the language is beautiful and it was fun to try to communicate.

when i got home from my first trip to mexico i bought tons of books on latin american history. i started going to a spanish-language church and eventually ended up dating an argentine on their worship team, which got me interested in south american history. my adoration for archaeololgy continued to fuel my interest in aztec, inca and myan history and culture.

hmmm...so really i should've been a historian rather than a travel consultant.