Cousin, cousin

Yep Anya was here with her boyfriend Juan. They arrived about an hour late on Sunday with German Wings... all the way to Schoenefeld. So in the meantime while waiting for them we consumed two beers (mainly me), a burger (mainly Jack), a packet of fruit Menthos (mainly both)... and I think we were about to consume something else when the two love birds appeared.

It was wonderful to have them here and Anya seems happy which is incredibly great to see. I skipped a couple of classes on Monday to hang around with them and overall we managed to do quite a bit. For starters going up to the Reichstag first thing in the morning... without a queue it was great. Afterwards while walking towards the Soviet Memorial we stopped at a small memorial/sculpture where an American History teacher gave us a bit of a history tour about it while waiting for his tour group.... quite fascinating the people you meet in this town. We had lunch in Chagal and dinner and drinks on Oranienstraße - a fairly newly discovered (by your humble) street which is only 20 mins walk from our place but has fantastic cocktail bars and restaurants :)

We also managed to squeeze in a trip to Zur Letzten Instanz for grilled pork knuckle, to the satisfaction of Juan, who didn't seem to get enough of it :) And one evening was spent watching Napoleon Dynamite. The guys also brought and dropped off 'Into Thin Air' - a personal account of the 1996 Everest disaster, which I speed read in two days... and in exchange Ancha took my latest Harry Potter novel...

It's good to have family here! I can't wait to be in Russia in two weeks :)