October 7 - Monday

Hi Guys! Sorry I haven't had anything exciting to post since the visit to Potsdam...I think I'm just on the downward slide to going home - and as it's the work week, can't imagine that too many exciting things will happen in the meantime.

One amusing item from yesterday was the laundry. This apartment building - which is 5 floors, 6 apartments per floor (30) only has two washing machines and one dryer. Each load takes 2:20...yes folks, that is 2 hours and 20 minutes to wash, and another 2 hours and 20 minutes to dry! So, as you can imagine - laundry is a half day event, at best. Oh, and did I mention that there are no lights in the hallway - so if you're going from the 3rd floor (which is actually the 4th, b/c they don't count the entry floor) to the basement, after 5PM, it's pretty damn dark (I actually resorted to the elevator for that!). So, after 4 hours and 40 minutes (yes, two cycles) of drying on Sunday - all of my clothes were still damp. I think that my goal, after my trip home, will be to figure out what the words on the dryer SAY - so that I know how to dry my clothes, as opposed to whatever I did on Sunday. Flat Tony is not in the pic - no need to have him lauhging at me too - but I thought you'd all get a kick out of the aftermath. By the way, my apartment STILL looks like this, as I type.

Lord help me, and just get me to 9:45AM on Friday when my flight leaves - and while you're at it, if you can make the lovely government shutdown not affect my travel until after I get to Indy - that would be great!

Good-night and God-bless,

from Berlin