Last night, which was our first night in Berlin, I got so obsessive about taking photos of the Christmas market at Potsdamer Platz that I somehow dropped my glasses somewhere in the dark. We walked around the sidewalks and market walkways a few times to try finding them, but it was all in vain. I guess I will need to get new glasses now. At least they lasted me about five years… they were such nice frames. I’m the most annoyed by this because I’m generally very careful about my belongings, and I rarely lose anything.

Ed dropped his glasses, too, when he jumped that afternoon. My mom kept lamenting that the glasses she decided he would wear at the service would be an outdated pair, as the ones he wore fell into the water that awful day. I wonder where those glasses are now – if they floated up the top somewhere and have washed up to the shore, or if they have sunk to the bottom of the San Francisco Bay. At least in heaven, he doesn’t need to wear any glasses and will have 20/20 vision.

It’s been blistering cold since we arrived in Germany on Wednesday, and to make matters worse, the hours of actual daylight are so short while the nights are long. That makes it a bit more difficult for us when it comes to seeing everything we want to see with the limited light hours, and even harder to see the signs, which are obviously all in German. We were looking at the times for sunrise and sunset, and really, we only have the hours from 8am to about 4pm – that’s only eight hours  of natural light! So much to see with so little light.

It reminded me of Ed and how he used to do karate in the Sunset district of San Francisco. Because my parents wouldn’t let him take the car unless he were going to work and back, he had to take the bus to karate every time he went. In the fall and winter, when Daylight Savings Time would end, sometimes, he’d actually stop going to karate altogether for the season because our mother would nag him so much about “going out in the dark.” It sounds absolutely stupid, especially considering that the Sunset was literally right across the park from our house, but I suppose it was one of the many absurdities that my house had to deal with.

At least Ed via Bart gets to enjoy Christmas markets here in Hamburg and Berlin amidst all the Christmas lights in the dark.

Today, we spent our first full day in Hamburg, which began at the Miniatur Wunderland, a museum that houses the largest model railroad exhibit in the world, with almost 7.5 miles of railroads, with very true-to-life representations of Hamburg, Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, Switzerland, Austria, and Scandinavia, among others. The precision and detail that went into over six years of building this exhibit were very obvious, as even the tiny model people looked like they were interacting with each other, even in a large stadium that was represented. The changes from day to night and from spring, summer, winter, to autumn were stunningly well executed and made the exhibits even more fun to watch. It was even more amusing as we went about the rest of our day, and we started noticing all these things that the model railway system had on display for the Hamburg exhibit!

We brought little Bart around and pulled him out whenever we saw something that was particularly interesting, like the changes from day to night, or when we saw the model air planes taking off (into “real” clouds!). Ed would have really enjoyed this museum, and he usually never enjoyed museums. Like our dad and me, Ed loved miniature things, as he collected a number of miniature Japanese food, Disney, and Smurf figurines. If he were with us today, I know he would have been ecstatic… maybe not as ecstatic as the day he got to touch Shania Twain’s hand, but pretty darn close.

Happy Thankgiving, Ed. I miss you, especially when I am seeing things that I know you would have loved to see for yourself.

In less than 24 hours, we went from being in New York to Dusseldorf to Berlin, and finally to Hamburg. That translates to one cab, two planes, one local bus, and one high-speed Intercity-Express Way (ICE) train. We are exhausted to say the least.

We still trekked along, though, and after getting to Hamburg at about 2pm local time (or 14 hours, since everyone speaks in 24-hour-clock-time-language here. That takes some getting used to for me), we kept moving along to see as much of the city as we could given our limited daylight hours.

Neither of us knows German. Knowing how to say “hello” and “thank you” do not constitute knowing a language. So in our first several hours in Germany, we guessed what things meant and hoped that the few people we spoke with understood English. It worked out pretty well.

Ed took two years of German in high school. If I remember correctly, someone had told him that German would be helpful to him if he ever decided to go into business. I think that statement is questionable now, but either way, Ed took German anyway, and he absolutely hated it. He basically did as little work as possible to pass those courses and quit right away. I wonder what he would say if he knew I was in Germany right now. Would he have retained any of his German, would he be happy to know that I am here now?

I first got my passport when I was 20. I had just received a scholarship to study in Shanghai for a month, and since I wasn’t going to go unless I got the scholarship, I waited until I found out I received it to order my passport and expedited the delivery. It probably would have been smarter if I had just ordered it much before, but in the end, I’ve made that extra money I paid worth it. Germany will be the 14th country I will have visited by the time tomorrow is through, and my 15th will be New Zealand next month. This little booklet that I carry with me when I leave the country has been through quite a number of adventures around the globe.

My aunt, who is actually in China right now, had asked Ed and me if we wanted to accompany her on her China/Hong Kong trip last spring. I knew I wasn’t going to go, but I also knew Ed wasn’t going even if he had wanted to. My mom would never have allowed him to go. He did e-mail me a couple of times, though, to ask about what the passport application process was like, and how long it would take to receive. It always makes me sad to know that he was never able to leave the country and see the world outside of the U.S…. and really, outside of San Francisco, since he rarely left San Francisco unless it was to see me in New York or Boston. So much of life is wasted if you aren’t constantly learning and exploring outside of what is comfortable to you. To each his own, but I’m really excited and grateful for “my own.”

Tonight, we are packing our bags for our Thanksgiving trip to Berlin and Hamburg. I’m absolutely obsessed with Christmas markets, and when I found out about the famous German Christmas markets during a visit to a mini Christkindlmarkt in Chicago in 2009, I knew I had to go to Germany around Christmas time to see this for myself.

I’ve decided to pack my teal peacoat for the trip. It’s made of thinsulate, so even though it is slimming, it is actually quite warm. I still remember the first time Ed saw me wear it last winter. He saw the color and said, “What is this? Why did you get a coat that color?” And then a few minutes later: “Would you consider returning it?” My brother thought that all jackets and coats should be black, brown, or some color in between. He was not a huge fan of colorful or bright clothing. In fact, when I remember now, pretty much all of his clothes were black, brown, tan, white, grey, or some shade of blue.

Since then, though, I’ve probably purchased even brighter colors since I’ve been trying to mix up what I wear and be more creative. Maybe the earthly Ed wouldn’t have liked it, but I think that the Ed I imagine in heaven would like it a lot, especially when he thinks about his petite little Asian sister walking through the throngs of people in Hamburg and Berlin, standing out in her bright teal peacoat. I’d be hard to miss, right?

Tonight, Chris and I went to Yuji Ramen at Whole Foods on Bowery for their eight-course ramen omakase. We sat at their counter at Whole Foods, where only six of us were allowed at a time to be served by Yuji himself. We were served ramen in the shape of shells, ramen broth from a French coffee press, and monkfish liver filled ramen shaped like candy topped with freshly grated wasabi. It was a really unique tasting experience, especially coming from a Japanese guy who always thought he didn’t even like ramen.

While on one of the final courses, I realized that my rich mussel broth ramen had a tiny dead fly floating on the top. I alerted one of Yuji’s helpers, who got Yuji’s attention to make me a new bowl. It reminded me of the time when (I think) it was my 20th birthday, and my cousins, uncle, and Ed took me to Chapeau!, a really quaint French restaurant in the Richmond in San Francisco. When my dessert came to the table, I started digging in, only to realize that there was a long hair lying across my little cake. Ed was trying to get the attention of the waiter so that he could bring me a new dessert, but because I liked the taste of the dessert so much, I obliviously just kept on eating it. “Stop eating that!” Ed scolded me.

Ed would have been pretty upset if he saw that dead fly in my mussel broth tonight. I wish he could have real ramen with me just once.

Today was my second session with the therapist. We spent more time during this appointment going through my family tree and discussing the people in my life who I considered my support in the last few months, how they supported me, and how that support may have changed as time has passed. We discussed some of the grudges that people in my family continue to hold despite some incidents having happened over 40-50 years ago, and how those grudges have somehow been passed down to later generations.

While discussing all this, I started thinking about Christmas gifts. This seems completely unrelated, but the main reason I thought about this is that I don’t really want any gifts. What would be great is if we stopped obsessing over what to give and buy people for Christmas (in other words, creating a very unnecessary stress fest during a time that should be joyous) and instead gave people something that money cannot buy – our time. It’s trite, but it’s so true. If we gave more of ourselves and our time to be with the ones who really matter (not the people you are “obligated” to be around. I really mean the people who matter to you), we would be happier as a people. If all my friends offered their ear to listen to my frustrations and stopped telling me to just see a therapist because as a “professional” she should be able to shed insights that my friends could not, I think that would be enough.

I told my uncle in an e-mail the other day that I had a meeting with a therapist this week. His basic response to this was that he understands how I feel, but I should be aware that our family is not that only dysfunctional family that is out there, and there’s no such thing as a perfect family. Even families that seem like they are fine have secrets that they tend to hide from outsiders. And he sent me this link so that I could see what a functional vs. dysfunctional family would be like.

It’s true that there’s no such thing as a perfect family, but that doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be opportunities for me to find ways to better understand the dynamics of my family and why they are the way they are. I don’t want to be like the rest of the members of my family who continue to hold all this pent up anger in them about how they were raised and what they were deprived of. It’s led to generations of misery. Frankly, I went through the list in that link, and my family meets probably 3/17 of what makes a family “functional,” and if I had to include my extended family, it meets even less of them. Knowing that there are other very dysfunctional families out there shouldn’t be my justification for accepting things as they are today.

Since the spring, I’ve been subscribing to Birchbox, an internet company that will send subscribers generous, high-end samples of cosmetics, skincare, and even occasionally accessories and food items for $10 per month. It’s like a way to discover new products and things that are compatible with your face, skin, and style without exploring these things in a store. I’ve discovered a lot of things through it that I really like, and I’m going to admit now that I spend a decent amount of time on their main e-commerce site and blog reading about new products and skincare tips. I suppose you could say it’s like a guilty pleasure to click on their Twitter bit.ly links and spend too much time reading and looking at sparkly girly things.

I started thinking about the pleasure I get out of receiving my monthly Birchbox in the mail and reading the blog, and it made me realize that immersing myself in these activities, because of the fact that I don’t have to think too hard about it and it causes me absolutely no stress – it’s almost like a nice distraction from reality itself. When I’m reading about how to use a highlighter pencil or looking at the latest Essie shades, I momentarily forget about life’s problems and stresses and pains, and I just live in the moment of these seemingly trivial pursuits. Maybe we all need some form of this in limited quantities to stay sane.

Anyway, Ed would probably be happy if he knew I was doing this. He always used to scold me and say I didn’t indulge myself enough. I guess this is my small monthly indulgence that I hope Ed is smiling about up there.