#25 Croatian friends as I depart for a busy berlin.

On my final day in Croatia I walked around in the morning with Robert listening to many more stories and singing jimmy buffett. I then lost Robert because while I went into a store he accidentally fell asleep on a bench so I couldnt find him. I decided it was time to head to the beach to catch some sun before heading north to the cooler weather.
At the beach I made some friends, two croatian girls and a german guy. We spent the rest of the day talking, swimming and lying in the sun. As it grew later we decided to go and have dinner together so I headed back to get my bags then headed to meet them along with Robert who had napped and woken up in that whole time. For dinner I ordered a fish platter. When it came it was 4 grilled fish, not 4 grilled fish fillets, but 4 grilled fish, head and all. They were just caught in the last 6 hours and as I tore them apart with my hands and ate them I could taste the freshness. One of the fish had some sharp looking teeth which made me nervous at first until I had his whole middle section in my mouth. While at dinner we decided to have a mock wedding with rings made out of straws and Robert being a little drunk decided to be the priest; this after his only advice to me was not to get married. Anyways, it was a good laugh and a good group to spend my last hours with in Croatia.
On the flight to Berlin I met a couple who had been traveling, James and Jamie who had gotten engaged during their vacation. We all headed to the same hostel, chatted a while and got to share some laughs and stories. Before we boarded the plane, when I was getting my seat I jokingly asked the lady at the ticket counter to sit me next to the cute girl. She said ok and that she knew who I was talking about and to consider it a gift. So as I was boarding the plane you can imagine how excited and anxious I was to see who this woman at the counter thought was cute or who she thought I would think was cute. When I got to my seat there sitting next to meet was large, older german man who had his hefty legs slightly over in my already squished seat. James, after seeing this and knowing the story slipped me a piece of paper that he had torn out of the magazine. When I opened it, it read 'no need to look any further'.
My first day in Berlin I did a walking tour to see all the major sights and hear about the history of this very significantly historical city. I saw the difference that still show between the east and the west, the holocaust monument and of course the berlin wall. There is a few portions of the wall still up. Since people try to take parts of the wall they have one the most ironic things up I've seen; a 4 ft fence protecting a 10 ft wall. I also got to see the bank from the movie 'Run Lola, Run'-if you havent seen this movie I highly recommend it. We also saw the famous Hotel Astor which is more famous in the last few years because it is where MJ held out his baby from the balcony. After the tour and wandering around the city for the day I got a good night sleep for my next big day. The main highlight of the following day was I went to a soccer match, Berlin vs Stuttgart. Before the game in the parking lot I got a german brat and beer. This brat was a little longer than a hotdog but put in a bun about a third the size of a hotdog bun, I was very confused and looked around to see if this was what they gave to eveyone or just a trick on me, it wasnt a trick on me. The stadium was great and the game although ending in a 2-2 tie was very exciting with spectacular goals and constant cheering and heckling through the entire game.
I am now in the north of Germany on the sea in a city called Kiel visiting my german cousin, Jan and his friends.

A girl in germany told me that eastern germany has seen some sad and hard days and a Nietche saying they sometimes use is that: there will often be stones in our path and it is important that we take these stones and build stairs with them.

Choos