Well everyone I survived the Berlin trip. Training was intense and exhausting. But I only had 2 times when I was really tempted to drink - Mon. night we went out for a group get to know you dinner and everybody except me had beer. I asked one of the women what was a good german non-alcoholic drink and she told me about this lemonade that you can only get in Berlin, so I thought I'd try it. First off lemonade is supposed to be yellow and this was green and it tasted more like apple juice then lemonade. I was so distracted by trying to figure out what it actually tasted like, that I forgot about drinking. Second bad moment was on Wed. when I was robbed. Soemone lifted my wallet from my purse in the restaurant at Breakfast. (The only time my purse wasn't with me 100% of of the time & even then I only left it for 2 min. to go to the buffet, ok that was dumb, but still.) Someone foudn my wallet and turned it into the front desk, but all my cash was cleaned out. I lost about 280 euros, 160 Cdn and 110 USD. Thank God they left my credit cards and bank card, or else I would have been really screwed. This left we with the rather urgent challenge of finding a bank machine. The lady at the front desk assured me there was one by the closest subway stop (15 min walk) WRONG, it was by the subway stop after that in a completely unmarked building. I must have walked by the building 5 times and asked 3 different people for help before someone was able to point it out to me. Fortunately my bank card worked. PHEW. At that point I was tired, hungry, hot and my feet hurt and a cold beer woudl have been really nice, but I settled for a giant ice cream sunday and in the end it was even better.

Once I got over the robbery / cash crisis, I actually had a pretty good three days of sight seeing in Berlin. The public transit system is awesome so it was really easy to get around. I hit all the major tourist spots and lots of museums.

And on a really happy note, I hit my 9 months sober mark last week - but I didn't make it to any AA meetings in Germany, so I'll get my 9 month chip tomorrow night at my home group.

--splitimage