Holding my Nordsee fish and chips takeout while standing by a slab of the Berlin Wall at Potsdamer Platz.

I am standing at the Espoo bus stop, headed for the Helsinki-Vantaa Airport to take us back to Berlin. I am holding the Helsinki regional bus pass that seemed to irk one particular bus driver on three separate occasions. While my pass, made of a firm coated paper, remained straight and unbent, Mark’s got crinkled and wavy and would not work on the bus scanners. One driver threw us out (she threw Mark out, specifically) when she wouldn’t let him board with me.

Mark and I in front of the Reichstag in Berlin.

The lonely and unused Tempelhof terminal, a colossal structure that took forever to walk around.

In Kaivopuisto Park in Helsinki.

Some windows of Berlin subways were etched with images of the Brandenburg Gate. This may have seemed like a good idea but it was counterproductive in that the etchings made the windows hard to see out of.

A Trabant parked on the streets of Cologne. I came home with five Trabbis: four miniature cars and a larger one that zoomed when you souped up the rear wheels.

Dirty, dirty mailboxes in Wuppertal.