Checkpoint Charlie

Richard and I went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum. It was expensive and strange. The museum was opened in a house, a couple of years after the Berlin Wall was built. It consists of a series of small rooms linked by narrow passages and filled with random crap. About half the stuff in the museum is art, the remaining exhibits are various escape devices such as cars with hidden compartments, suitcases which people hid in and even a huge hot air balloon that two families used to escape over the wall.

After looking around the museum we met up with my friend Keiko. Walked around looking for food. We eventually found the place I had gone to with Mitch. We ate falafel and pizza. Keiko ate cake. Greedy Keiko. I noticed a Mafia guy sitting at a table when we arrived. After about 40 minutes, he started talking to the staff about something. It seemed like things were going to get nasty. After a while he left. The owners of the cafe made a series of phone calls and a couple of tough-looking guys arrived. We decided to leave.

In the evening I met up with Mitch and Peter for dinner. We went to an Indian restaurant again. This one was much better than the one we had previously been to, both in terms of the food and of the service. It was sad to be seeing Mitch and Peter for the last time in quite a while, I've really enjoyed spending time with them and hearing about their various adventures in Silicon Valley before and during the Dot Com era. Mitch invited me to San Francisco to hang out with him sometime. I'll definitely take him up on the offer.