May 21, 2004
BERLIN, GERMANY

We arrived in Berlin, Germany. After a loooooong trip. Maybe a 15-hour flight to Frankfurt (is that right? For some reason, I keep thinking about the food...) where we had a one-hour stop-over (large airports are all well and good, but the downside is trying to run frome one end towards the other end to make it to your connecting flight in the space of 20 minutes) and then a, um, 2 and a half flight to Berlin.

Because of our very short stopover... as expected, our luggage got left behind. It's a good thing that Lufthansa (which i realize now means 'airplane' since 'lufthavn' means 'airport') has flights practically every hour or two from Frankfurt to Berlin. So we got our luggage the same day, that afternoon. Unlike the time when our luggage got left behind in Manila while we were already in London. That wasn't too bad though, since the airline gives us money to tide us over until we get receive our luggage.

First impression of Berlin? Well, the airport is really nice. And it's cold there (duh!). And we toured the airport looking for our lost luggage and a possible place to stay (we went there without any prior hotel booking) so I think I can safely say that it's really nice there. I always feel kind of... sad whenever I see MIA or NAIA and compare it to other airports. NA/MIA is always so... small. Cramped. A foreigner's first view of Manila are the squaters area situated near the highways which is found near the runway of the airport. And our runway! Yeesh! It's very short. Pilots only have a one-go for touchdown because if you land too late, you can't brake properly and have to fly off again for another go (that happened to my dad before). You know the saying that if you've driven in the Philippines, you can drive anywhere? It's probably also true for pilots: if you've landed in the Philippines, you can land anywhere. Airports can probably symbolize the country when you try to compare Philippines to other countries' airports. And that's just really sad. Because an airport, especially an international one, is the one that gives visitors their first impression of the country. Of course we should try to make it look as welcoming and nice and prosporous and possible. But I guess we just can't :(