Bowie pinches nerve, cancels festival appearances

The funny thing about a plan is, well, you know the scoop. We figured we'd have 3 chances to see David Bowie, so we ditched the first. Now, as you may have read, Mr. Bowie has pinched a nerve in his shoulder and has been advised to cancel his remaining festival appearances. Read about it here. Bummer. Slipknot is not a consolation prize in this case.

At Oxegen at least, the replacement headliner is a bit more of a fair replacement: The Darkness!

Today is our final day in Berlin. Last night we were bold and tried some traditional German food. I actually ate something called Pig Knuckle, and I must say it was about the most disgusting thing I've ever swallowed in my life. Mr. Sean Hoffman ate some kind of raw herring, country style and for him it was about the worst meal he ever had. Our "authentic" German dining experience was made even worse by a noisy graduation party from Mexico of all places.

Sean apparently has an uncanny sense of direction and managed to steer us back to our u-bahn stop almost by sense of smell. At least in Berlin, I have begun to defer to him for navigating the streets. Although the subway (u-bahn) and I get along famously.

Tomorrow we're off to Copenhagen, by train. It will take ten hours and we will pass briefly back through Hamburg. Of course, the last bit will be over water by boat. Should be fun.

Overall, Hamburg was actually more fun. Comparatively, I'd say Hamburg feels like a Milwaukee or even a Minneapolis to Berlin's Chicago or New York. Our bus and boat tours of the city allowed us to see most of the sites from the outside (Brandenburg Gate, miscellaneous bits of the remaining parts of the Berlin wall and such) but we never really went into many places. The shopping, however, has been extremely tempting. I've already bought two pairs of shoes and several shirts. I found a gift for our friend Heath Henjum of the Olympic Hopefuls et al, a 1976 Olympic Games t-shirt, so if you read this Heath, you have a present coming upon our arrival home.