In Berlin

John admitted to getting something wrong yesterday and I actually am beginning to get to the point of feeling sorry for him. It has taken me a while—he and I both tend towards acting like we know it all, and I suppose I’m particularly intolerant of my own faults in him. So I used to be just glad when he admitted I was right. In this case he was convinced that American Express traveler’s checks were the best way to bring money on our trip. That was true 20 years ago, but American Express has lost out to Visa in Europe and ATMs have changed access to money when traveling. John has never been good at adjusting to the world changing, and that is getting harder for him. It actually didn’t work out too badly—the place that he found to cash travelers checks will waive the fee if you cash a large enough amount and we will do that next week to get the cash we need to pay for our apartment in Prague.

Once we had figured that out yesterday we went to a very interesting anthropological museum in the suburbs, at the Museumszentrum Dahlem. It was lunchtime by the time we got there—I was ok with that (and we found a Chinese food stand for a quick cheap lunch) but our daughter was frustrated. She is very interested in museums, may want to make that her career, so she wanted lots of time in the museum. She wants not only to see everything but also to read everything. She and John go at about the same pace, so that works well. Our son is having trouble sleeping and was tired so he and I left early. I think he finally slept better last night.