Passed the better part of the day on the train to Berlin, making a big checkmark across the country on a bright, warm day.

Someone was sitting in our seats on the ICE train when we boarded. A conductor came by and shooed them out. Later we stepped out of the little glass cage our seats were in to grab a coffee from the dining car, only to return to find that someone had pinched one of the seats. That time, we shooed them out ourselves.

Otherwise, I worked the whole ride, laptop on lap, connected to a T-Mobile Hot Spot.

So many things seem just like home, but then something will go strangely. You finish a salad, they bring you another you didn't order. You sit across from a woman on the train for an hour in silence. As she leaves, she rattles off a bunch of stuff in German at you.

Maybe it's part of the culture to seem or be in a perpetual state of slight annoyance. Certainly, expression in general is downplayed.

I see a lot of women who look just like my grandma. She would've fit right in. And my uncle Bob too. I bet when he visited, people walked right up and started yakking away in German.

Tonight we're in Mitte, Berlin. We rented a loft. Everything is gray except for the color we brought in. We love it; we wanna live in it.