A Busy Week...

Ahhh, I'm back. Last week was busy, but amazing. I was assigned to accompany the 10th grade class on their study tour to Berlin. Yes, assigned, what a bummer :)

While there we had a fantastic time seeing the German Parliament building, a film park, the Jewish monument, and we went up in the iconic Berlin TV tower, which was a disappointment. Our tour guide Christian said that he has never had the privilege of going inside the parliament room. The film park staff showed us around some sets of German movies, we got to see a casting show and how different video effects work.  That evening we went to the Blue Man Group. I have one thing to say, "Go!" That was one of the most fun shows I have ever been to.  If any of you have the opportunity to go, please do. Overall the trip was a great success. We had an opportunity to bond with some of the kids and see an amazing city with great history. (We also found the American Embassy.)  

But the best part of the trip came Friday morning after the kids left...I know that sounds bad. But when Ashok and I, both being car fanatics, found out that the Frankfurt Auto Show would be going on just a few hours away, we couldn't pass it up. We bought our train tickets in advance, sent the kids on the long bus ride back to school and took a train ride to Frankfurt. Of course being on a student missionary budget we took the cheap tickets. This means that the 4 hour train ride from Berlin to Frankfurt took 8 hours and 3 transfers.  But we got there. Saturday we decided to look up the closest Adventist church and see if we could score a potluck. We found one right in downtown Frankfurt and met two extremely nice English speaking people. They told us all about the car show, and how the population of Frankfurt increases by over 1 million people during the week of the show.  They also made it very clear to get there early if wanted to see the big hits like Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Audi, etc.  So the next morning we were up by 7 and standing in line by 8.  This show was amazing. I'm used to the Seattle car show, with barely 1.5 one-story buildings with cars....this particular expo had 12 buildings, all of them two stories. One of those buildings was specifically dedicated to Audi.  They built the building from scratch just for this show.  I took a bunch of pictures, but if you would like to see them please look at my facebook album.

I'm very glad I had the opportunity to see this amazing car show, it was a great early birthday present.  And thank you to all who sent birthday wishes my way while I'm over here.

See you soon :)