On our way 1st class on Continental?

It was actually a lot better than we expected. Our girl Gaye is shown here taking a load off in my seat somewhere over the Atlantic.

After missing our flight to Aberdeen, we finally made it and toured Dunnottar, the local medieval castle, right as the Har rolled in.

The pictures below are what the castle looks like without the Har. You can click on them for a larger image.

After the tour of the castle, we went to the nearby town of Stone Haven, where we stopped at a pub facing the marina. That's Renee's brother Blake, our host while in Aberdeen. Upon enetering the pub, the people inside greeted us, theoretically in English, but we couldn't understand a word. We drank an ale and it was great!

Apparently we enjoyed the only three great weather days of the year. As you can see, it was very pleasant following our lunch where we had sampled some "interesting" local cuisine.

Renee took advantage of being in Aberdeen during the OffShore Europe Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) convention. We checked out many of the booths until it got too hot. They don't feel the need for air conditioning.

Next, on to Berlin where we stayed at the luxurious Hotel Adlon Kapinski. Here we are dining at the hotel on the veranda with the Brandenberg Gate behind us, where JFK gave his famous "We are all Berliners" speech, but from the other side of the gate.

When our waiter and mâitré de complained about the street musicians always playing the same music, night after night, we felt obliged to do something about it.

So we grabbed their guitar and played some good ol' rock n' roll, much to the delight of the hotel staff listening in the distance. (At least that's what they told us)

We met our Swiss cousins at the Adlon bar for nightcaps. We checked out of the Adlon and moved over to the Hilton, where they were staying, and made plans for a day of discovery in Berlin.

Renee was thinking of buying one of those fancy German cars and shipping it to the States, but she didn't fit.

Note the Van Karajan Music Hall in the background.

I bought some Leiser shoes for my dad since they didn't have any big enough for me. I told them I was the owners' son so I think they charged me a little extra. In the background is the bombed out Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. There are some other views of it that you can click on for a larger picture.

Later that night we went to dinner in the up and coming Hackesche Höfe area of East Berlin. It's full of restaurants, bars and clubs.

We all then flew to Zurich and drove to Bern. It was the first time Renee & I had ever visited one of our nations' capitols. Bern is like a fairy tale city with the river Aare running through it. Absolutely beautiful!

Renee & I stayed at the Bellvue Palace overlooking the river. Here Renee is enjoying breakfast on the terrace with the Aare in the background. The weather was perfect.

Renee is acually sitting directly above the Swiss Gold Reserve, the largest amount of gold gathered in one location on the planet. She said she could feel the energy.

A first for Renee was riding on a Strassenbahn back to the hotel. It took a while to figure out how to validate our passes, but we learned that it helps to stick them in the right slot.

We arrived in Luzern and walked around staying near the lake. It was very picturesque with the lake contrasting with the snow capped mountains in the distance with all the colors of the city contrasting with the green countryside.

We lunched on a floating restaurant docked on Lake Luzern after walking all through the lakeside neighborhoods filled with shops. We saw many other tourists and even made it into a Casino for a few minutes until the money ran dry.

Another day of sightseeing around Bern where we went to the old part of town. It is much lower than where our hotel was located and they had recently received torrential rains and most of the area had been flooded out. This church was high enough to have avoided that problem.

We finished off our stay in Bern the same way we started, with a meal on the veranda at our favorite table. Very romantic!

We left Bern via Zurich and headed to Amsterdam. We checked into the Hotel Barbazon in the Red Light district and desperately searched for a laundromat, which we did find in the nick of time.

While walking around the Red Light district, we stopped in a quaint restaurant for lunch. The food and service were great but the other patrons were questionable. Notice the "studs" behind us all leathered up and looking for action (click the picture for a larger view). That's very normal for this part of the city.

We had dinner for the second night in a row at the restaurant in the Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky. I just had to have that 3 mousse dessert smothered in chocolate sauce again. It was quite elegant and luxurious.

Walking on the wild side in the red light district. It's a lot like Bourbon stree in New Orleans but much nastier and scarier. Tons of wierdos just keep coming endlessly. I guess you get used to it if you live there.

We made it back in one piece and I was even able to make my softball game that night.