My friend Jack had reached out to two of his friends, Roman and Anca, in Berlin when he heard about my trip.
This is all of us together 🙂
We met Roman at noon as it started to rain, and we walked along the Berlin Wall memorial, and then through various parts of the city. We grabbed coffee and then tea at a Tajikistan tea room.
We sat on cushions, drank tea concentrate with hot water, and ate biscuits and jam. I can’t think of many better ways to spend a rainy day. Roman grew up in Central Asia (Uzbekistan, I believe), and told us stories of his family back in Russia and the both the similar and different ways of life there.
We spent a couple hours at the tea house until the rain died down and we continued on our walking exploration of the city, eventually passing by the Reichstag building.
After lunch/dinner we headed up north to the Wedding neighborhood to watch the Champions League final between Real Madrid and Juventus with some of Roman’s friends in an Irish bar.
Juventus seemed to be the crowd favorite, despite the well-liked German midfielder Tony Kroos playing for Real Madrid.
After the game we chatted some more with the folks at the pub before heading home.