Planes, trains and automobile day. Today started with a few client calls, prepping the house and a 3.5 hour drive to Newark, NJ. You might ask why Newark and not Dulles, simple...$800. Tickets were much cheaper than DC area airports and a direct to Frankfurt.

So this trip and photographing a wedding. It all started in 2009 when we were living in Switzerland on an Expat assignment for Lisa’s company. The boys went to the a International School of Basel and Adam was a second year student there. Another Expat and I started a photography business and the school did a fund raiser and he and I decided to raffle off a free shoot, valued at $200. When we drew the name a young woman, a junior at the time won. When she came to acccept her prize I knew she was a special young lady.

Nearly two years later we were good friends. Her family and parents knew us all well. They would visit our house and we showed them their first US football game when the Ravens upset the Patriots and we went totally nuts.

We watched her graduate in 2010 and I promised her “if you ever get married Julia, I’ll come and shoot your wedding”. Well she’s getting married🤪

Just landed in Frankfurt and it’s 09:00. Didn’t sleep a wink on this brand new 777 but uneventful flight. Now we have just over an hour to get our bags, get through customs and make our train for a near 5 hour ride to Hamburg.

Today’s plan is to Check-in to hotel and see how we feel. We’ve done these overseas trips many times and know that the time change is going to smack us in the face in the next few hours.

As the beautiful and green German countryside passes by at nearly 100mph it is interesting taking in everything at once. The hills hold huge energy creating wind turbines, as far as the eyes can see. I just scratch my head when I see so many other countries prove they can successfully use green energy solutions and we continue to build on “clean coal”. Just sad.

Colin and I were met by Julia at the train station in Hamburg at around 3:30. It was time to walk to hotel room and get settled in. Our hotel was a Best Western, nothing fancy but a little east and west. The room, not big enough fur two suitcases, yet alone us two. We were able to unpack and get settled in.

After a short time out for a beer Colin and I came back to room to catch up on some sleep and napped from 5-9pm. We then rinsed off and headed out for dinner. I’ve said this before, but this is a very German city and not as multi-cultural as others I’ve lived in before. Bottom line, it was a little uncomfortable being out late and having to communicate solely in German, but that’s what we did. We had two really good pizzas and some beer and then crashed.

Today is Friday and up at 06:00 and ready for touristy shit all day with Colin. Gonna go some research and see what we can get into.

Colin slept like a rock today, still catching up from the flight and jet-lag. I was up early and ventured out to the train station for some comfort of Starbucks and people watching. I came back to the room with some breakfast and Colin’s mainstay while we lived in Switzerland, Fanta.

Julia was gracious enough to build us a great itinerary for the day and that was where we started. We headed out to the train station, as it is the center of the city. Then headed further west through the shopping district and to the town hall. The architecture here is just like most of European cities, just beautiful.

Today is Saturday and Colin and I were up early, around 06:00. Unfortunately for him, it was to sound of both diarrhea and vomiting. For nearly 2 hours, Colin hugged the toilet in the small bathroom and just dry heaved. He’s been through many stages of pain this morning and finally seems to have settled down and back in bed to catch up on some sleep. He thinks he may have gotten something from his dinner last night, a meal that I did not share with him.

Today is the day we came for, Julia and Alex’s wedding. The wedding is located in a tennis stadium, the Am Rothenbaum. We are planning on doing photos at the house where the bridal party is getting ready, then headed to a local park called Alsterpark, overlooking the Alster Lake. Then we we head back to the stadium for the festivities.

We got dressed and hailed a cab to the apartment for the pre-wedding shoot. Our cab driver was awesome, knew of the Washington, DC sports teams and we had a great conversation the whole ride. The bridal party was getting ready, applying makeup and sipping mimosas when we arrived. We took the opportunity to shoot the bride, her party and the men and their 4 groomsmen. After we wrapped up our shoot we headed to the tennis hall, a mere 300 yards from their flat.

The bride and groom have been married for over a year now so no formalities were a part of the day, just a celebration and nice words for friends and family. Colin and I enjoyed ourselves, drank, ate and danced to the wee hours of the night.

Congrats to you Julia and Alex

Today is move day, headed to Berlin. We were up early and headed to Hamburg Banhoff to catch our train. The trains are extremely efficient, at least from our experience in Switzerland and Germany over the years. They can be a little chaotic but seats are usually assigned and trains are almost always on time. For this journey Colin and I ignored our assigned seats and took a rest in the cafe car for the 2 hour ride.

After arriving in Berlin for the first time ever, we hailed a cab to the Hotel Berlin, yeah cheesy name. The room was huge, much more “American” in size than the previous 3 nights in Hamburg. We took a rest and then headed out.

We were very fortunate to be in Germany for the first day of the World Cup 2018. The world champ German team was taking on the Mexicans in group stage. Now to say that fusßball was not a big deal, well that would be an understatement. The city of Berlin holds 3.5 million and for the final of the last cup match, over 1 million showed into the viewing area of Tierpark Berlin. We walked to the park, about 1/2 mile, and settled in with the locals. There was bratwurst, currywurst grilled pork, sourkraut and lots of beer to choose from. The road was at least 2 miles long and every few hundred yards was another viewing station so we just walked along each spot to take in the game and the people. Unfortunately the German team looked flat and were upset by the Mexicans.

It was a long day of travel, walking and drinking so back to room to head out for a late dinner. We headed to a small part of town right around the corner of our hotel and actually found a seat in a steak house for dinner.

This day was a success, time for bed.

A full day ahead of us today in Berlin and we started on Mobibikes.The mobile bike network in Berlin is huge. Everyone rides bikes. There must have been 10 or more brands that rented these simple bikes. Basically if you see a bike, it’s yours. Just scan the barcode with phone, it unlocks and go on your way. Wherever you’d like to stop, just get off and lock and then it is ready for someone else. We found these very convenient and located all over the city.

The plan today was a bike tour of the city, no less. So we rode our bikes 3.5 miles to the city center to meet the 40+ other English speakers headed out on the 4.5 hour tour. They broke our larg group into 17 riders and our tour guide was an Aussie by the name of Jeff. The ride was very well planned and took us to around 12 stops of historic significance throughout Berlin. They included the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, the parliament building, the Holocost Memorial, Tierpark, and many others.

Taking in the wall and memorial were very moving. 6 million Jews and people of other religions and classes of people were murdered across Europe in this horrible time in history and you could feel their spirits.

At the end of the ride, we journeyed another 15 miles. At that time we hopped back on our Mobibikes and headed back to our hotel.

Today is move day again. We headed to the Banhoff again to make our ICE train to Frankfurt. The ride takes us through the German countryside again as we stop in a very small tall called Erfurt. Once we reach that destination we have 6 minutes to hop off our train and catch our final train of the trip, one short ride to Frankfurt.

The plan today is to meet a good friend from Maryland that now lives in LA. She is in Europe for a business trip and Colin and I are meeting her for dinner and drinks tonight.

We headed out on the town around 4:40 and met up with our good friend Hilary. We walked the town, caught up on the last year or so and bar and restaurant hopped. After an awesome, genuine German meal, off the beaten path, we headed to the city center for the last Word Cup game of the day.

The game was just another reason to sit outside and drink beer but it was great to hang out with more locals. While we sat there taking in more soccer, the couple at the table next to us heard our English conversations and chimed in. They were two Brits from Essex, England and had consumed a good amount of beer already. Colin and them struck up a long conversation with them, both in heavy Brit accents, and we laughed all night long. They night went on and on, beers flowed on and on, shots of limencello, Sambuca and who knows what else.

The night ended late and will be one I’ll never forget. One of those nights you’ll never be able to reproduce but one that will be etched in your history for lifetime.

Today was the last of travel day. We set out at 9:00am to head toward the Frankfurt airport. Colin’s head was pounding from the fun the night before and I did warn him while he was having so much fun but he’s feeling it now.

As I sat on the plane for the over 8 hour flight I reflected on our friends, family, extended family, Germany and Europe and the state of my own country. We are very fortunate to be able to afford trips like this but also to hop across borders from continent to continent and until that is gone, I’ll enjoy those opportunities until I die.