LOS ANGELES: December, 2001 (Part 4)

When my therapist — now our therapist — asked William straight up, he answered straight up. And the truth appeared to surprise him as much as anyone.

So when Mel included your name in that email, you felt betrayed?

Yes.

Do you think of the house as your house?

Yes.

Mel, you have to understand this comes from how William was raised. He was taught not to trust.

She helped us understand William's indoctrination was common to those raised in immigrant households. His parents, who had studied hard and traveled far to a new country to work and raise a family, guarded their money with diligence. They were careful not to get cheated, or even to feel cheated.

William's fears came from a solid foundation in his upbringing. His anxiety about not having enough money, for example, will always be with him. He could have ten million dollars in the bank and still worry. This is how he is.

Mel, you have to work on setting boundaries, and William has to learn to loosen his. The love will do this. Time and knowing yourselves will do this, but you both have to do the work. The trust will be earned by both of you.

Back at the house, we contemplated what we knew about ourselves and what we hated about ourselves. William didn't want to be mistrustful of me. I, on the other hand, had cruised through life willy-nilly, trusting anyone out of fear of being alone. Perhaps it made sense that two people wrestling with trust from different perspectives would meet at a low point.

We had work to do. We did therapy cram sessions, three times a week. Between sessions, I sobbed. William listened as I spilled my anxieties.

I can't do this....I'll leave....I don't want halfway...and I can't not be trusted....I'm angry at myself....I should have known better....This was all too risky and I didn't pay attention....This isn’t even your fault....You are who you are and I didn't see it....Just when I finally figured out being alone, I slipped.

William had tears in his eyes.

I get how you feel, he said. But no matter what you decide to do, I'll keep doing my own work and keep learning why I'm like this.

His sorrow made me even sadder, but I still didn't know what to do. Until...I took one more risk.

At our next session, I handed him a piece of paper listing everything I owned and everything he owned. The house, our cars, bank accounts...everything.

For us to go forward, I said, I want the whole enchilada. Half of everything you own. And you can have half of everything I own....It's not as much, I realize, but it's yours. If you can't agree, I won't hold it against you, but neither will I stay.

Finally calm, I waited. I was done crying and berating myself. I felt love and compassion for William, but I'd already proven I could live a meaningful life alone.

William stared at the paper. And stared. Finally, he looked up.

I agree.

Really?

Yes.

I exhaled, almost crumpling in my seat. We got up and hugged each other.

Are you sure?

Yes. Absolutely.

And thus our leap was taken. The start of a leap, in any case. Over time, we learned the full scope of our trust would have to be cultivated bit by bit, slip-up by slip-up.

LOS ANGELES: December, 2001 (Part 3)

You what?

I wrote to "Landscapers' Challenge," but they replied we would have to spend at least ten thousand dollars to even be considered. So don't worry, that's that.

I was folding laundry and didn't see the look on William's face.

And you signed my name to the letter?

I looked up, and in an instant I knew this was a big thing. A small fissure that was actually a chasm. Shit, shit, shit...I've done it again...mistake, mistake, mistake...trapped.

You can’t sign my name to things.

It sounds like you don't trust me.

William started to leave the room.

Just wait. You don't trust me, and you don't think of this as our house, do you? It's your house and I'm just living here, right?

To his credit, William didn't walk away, but neither did he deny the accusation. Deep down, I knew I was fucked. No matter how sincere his desire for us to have a life together...he hadn't made the leap.

The sobs came fast and hard. I fell forward into a pile of sheets and cursed myself for my foolishness. Damn, damn, damn. I'd done it again. I was fine by myself. I was fine in my own apartment. I didn't need this. Why did I take this chance? I cried and cried from a heart broken as shattered china.

Eventually I pulled myself together. William stood motionless. He looked at me, worried, and put his hand on my back. He wanted to comfort me, but both of us knew we had already stepped into a hard truth. Trust.

Before we'd cemented living together, William had an idea that we should try some counseling. I'd spent three years in therapy before we had met and was a fan of my gifted therapist. She worked fast. She didn't allow for whiny jags, stopping me with "Okay, that's enough crying" or "You have no one to be mad at now….It's over." She had helped me get to my story through a combination of compassion and setting boundaries.

Though William had never stepped into a therapist's office, I was pleased he was willing to give it a try. We knew we had to make an appointment quick.

LOS ANGELES: December, 2001 (Part 2)

Entertaining. A whole new ballgame for William.

I wasn't kidding when I suggested this living together business might be invasive. I had furniture re-covered and new dishes stacked in the cupboards. My cookbooks were lined up, ready for action. Pots dangled, wine glasses sparkled, and candles glowed. The sounds of jazz filled our rooms. Tiny lights twinkled over the deck.

When the construction was done, we had raced from one room to another, admiring the new look. When we awoke after our first night, we had looked at the sunlight pouring through the French door in our bedroom. It's like waking up in a bed and breakfast, William said. Except we don't have to pay the bill and leave.

We were in our house.

We had added a new bathroom with a large clawfoot bathtub. Because William and I are on the short side, we used it as others might use a hot tub. At the end of a hard day, we filled it with hot water and bubbles, climbed in and shared thoughts, worries and ideas.

I'd been creatively sated remodeling the house and preparing for dinner parties, but now what?

Do whatever you want, William offered. Quit that stupid TV show.

I can’t. It's my income.

We can get by on my salary. Quit.

At the time, I was a dialogue coach on a kids' television show. It introduced a new cast of young actors every year and the executive producer had hired me to hone acting their skills and teach on-set etiquette. That producer, however, seemed to be the only one who liked having me there, and over the years my value deteriorated as one director in particular made my job near impossible.

This director needed a lot of control and didn't want me talking to "his actors." As my job was all about talking to actors, our situation became untenable. My sleeping hours were jam-packed with work-related nightmares. I hung on because I simply could not imagine quitting. Plus, in addition to the income, the company covered my health insurance.

So I didn't quit.

We curled up in front of a roaring blaze in the fireplace, our faces lit by red and green lights on the Christmas tree. We spent New Year's Eve with lasagna, red wine and our annual viewing of "The Godfather." We had a dinner party on New Year's Day, toasting each other from across the table. We were grateful to be finished with the construction and wished for our country to mend its wounds as we moved into 2002.

With my head full of renovation ideas, I developed an addiction to the Home & Garden Television network. Oh God, look at that kitchen. William called HGTV "porn for women." And I was hooked.

I was particularly enthralled with a show called "Landscapers' Challenge," where a designer and crew land in a homeowner's yard and whip it into a wonderland in twenty-seven minutes. We should have that, I decided, and wrote an email to the show's producers, hoping they would consider our lackluster backyard for a future episode.

This seemingly trivial act cranked open an unexpected gulf in our home. One of those didn't-see-it-coming moments that can rock a foundation swifter than an earthquake.

LOS ANGELES: December, 2001 (Part 1)

Two days before Christmas, I pulled my car into the driveway of William's house. Our house. I stepped out of the car, clutching a pet carrier with Spencer mewling inside. The two of us, feline and human, slightly stunned.

This felt like my five-hundredth move in a lifetime of moves, from western Canada to eastern Canada to New York City to Los Angeles. In each location, I'd set up a new living habitat from scratch. Packing, unpacking, signing leases and renting moving trucks. By this point, I'd lived in six places over thirteen years. I was sick and bored with the moving thing. Would this be the restful home I longed for?

William and his dog, a mutt named Stinky, waited in front of the newly painted front door. I'd chosen a dark red for the door. An auspicious color in the Chinese culture.

Welcome home, William said.

And we were. Spencer scurried, fur on end, from one corner to another. Stinky tried his best to sniff the cat's bum. William and I were locked in an embrace. Together. In our house.

Sidebar: the dog's name. When I took Stinky to the dog park, I would often disguise his name by shouting, "Inky! Inky!" Because when I called "Stinky," the strange glances shot my way were intolerable. William had adopted his pup from a shelter months before we met. He lifted the name "Stinky" from a comic book. What can I say? The dog believes his name is a term of endearment, and so it has become one in our home.

On the day Spencer and I moved in, Stinky matured from a puppy to an avuncular presence with the cat. He was nervous and, truth be told, afraid of the cat. One butt-sniff too many resulted in a good bat from Spencer's paw, but the two pets would make their way, over time, to a peaceable kingdom.

William grew to adore Spencer as much as he did Stinky and, believe me, his love for that dog competed with his love for me. Adjusting to a mixed-pet household was not without stumbles and scratches, barks and screeches, but we were determined to make it work. That Christmas, four stockings hung from the mantle.

The house renovation had lasted two months. We added space and color. I tore down the blinds and light filled the previously darkened rooms.

People will see, William said.

No they won't, I assured, and if they do, they won't care. Nobody cares about our business.

The contractor had created an archway connecting the dining room to a den area that led out to double French doors and our new redwood deck.

See, William, when people come over, they'll walk through here, pick up drinks and gather outside for appetizers on the deck. Then back inside to the dining room for dinner. Neat, huh?

What people?

Oh, people.

Who?

You'll see.

NEW YORK CITY: October, 2001 (Part 2)

Think we could get tickets to the game? William asked the next morning. The Yankees were playing the Mariners in the American League Championship Series that night.

I doubt it...Really, darling…it's the playoffs and it’s Yankee Stadium.

Yeah, I guess.

But we could go to the Bronx and…you know…walk around and get a feel for it.

And that's what we did. We hopped into a subway car packed with giddy Yankee fans. We skimmed along the rails and mingled as if we belonged. At the Yankee Stadium stop, we hustled outside, shoulder to shoulder, only to discover all the stadium ticket booths locked up tight.

We walked in a giant circle around the stadium. There were no tickets for sale...except...wait a second—

Single seat, single seat! a voice cried out from the one tiny booth left open.

William hatched a plan. We'll buy two separate singles and find a place to sit together.

Scheme in hand, he pulled out a credit card for the pudgy seller. The poor guy, crammed like a sausage into his workspace, shot us an intense look.

Two singles, please.

One! he screamed at us in typical New Yorker fashion. He pounded the seating diagram, his stubby finger landing on the single seat in the entire stadium available for sale. I'm tellin' ya, I have one single ticket. Ya want it or not?

No, but thanks, anyway. We backed away.

Well, it was a nice try, I said. We almost—

You wanna see the game? The voice came from over William's shoulder.

Turning around, we came face to face with a man, standing alone, with two tickets shoved toward us.

Uh, sure—

Here, take these. Have a good time.

It was a command, not a wish. And he was gone. Instantly. Disappeared, vaporized before we could pay or even thank him. Dazed, we looked at the two bleacher seat tickets, then to each other to confirm this wasn't a dream.

And that's how we got into, hands down, the best baseball event of my life. When the national anthem played, we cried. An eagle named Challenger flew from the bleachers to the mound, and we sniffled some more. The crowd stood for every one of Roger Clemens' two-strike counts, and for every Derek Jeter at-bat. We cheered and howled, hot dogs held high, as if we were one of these brave souls and not recently flown-in Angelenos.

The game remained scoreless until the eighth inning, when Bret Boone hit a solo home run and New York worried. Bernie Williams countered with a solo homer in the bottom of the inning and New York rallied. With the game tied and the stadium on its feet in the bottom of the ninth, a 25-year-old rookie, Alfonso Soriano, hit a two-run homer to win the game for the Yankees…and we discovered, in the best way possible, that NYC was going to be A-OK.

Frank Sinatra sang "New York, New York" at the top of his lungs and we screamed until our voices were ragged.

Williams would soon retire, Soriano would eventually be traded, and Joe Torre would end up crossing the country to manage the Dodgers. And on September 21, 2008, a final game was played at Yankee Stadium. But for generations to come, people will tell tales of that stadium. Ours will include a story of the day New York City gave two out-of-towners a big, fat hug and assured us everything was all right.

We drank in the cold October air and laughed like giddy drunks.

NEW YORK CITY: October, 2001 (Part 1)

The sky, clear and blue. The sun, warm and lemony. Very like the weather people described for New York City six weeks previous. That day, September 11, 2001, ended grotesquely, dusty and dark. In contrast, October 21, 2001, ended jubilantly, clear and light-filled.

I'd spent so much time watching television footage of the September 11 attacks that my head rocked with the stories and my heart cracked for the loss. I wanted to stretch my arms as wide as a comic-book hero's and embrace the city in a giant hug. To kiss the tips of the Chrysler and Empire State buildings and nuzzle the Brooklyn and George Washington bridges. Enfold all of Central Park in my arms, caress the tops of its trees and murmur that it would all be okay...one day...again.

William and I arrived in the city on Friday, October 19. I didn't want him on a flight without me. The fear was irrational and yet, If something happens, I want us to be together played over and over in my head. This way of thinking had become a nationwide phenomenon.

Equally important was a desire to see the city for myself. To know that New Yorkers could and would survive the nightmare. Back in Los Angeles, workers were about to bring down walls and dig huge holes in the earth to expand William's house. Here in New York, other workers were bringing down wreckage and imagining a new landscape.

We settled into our hotel, across from Madison Square Garden. I peered out a window in search of the city's mood. I tried to gauge the emotional climate, but our hotel room was far too high. Not good enough.

Let's go out. We won't know anything until we hit the streets.

We left the lobby and stepped into the night air with the intention of a long walk, a longer drink and dinner. The very least we could do was support the local economy. I dressed in black, seemly for New York on an autumn evening, and because I imagined things might be somewhat funereal.

Our sense of solemnity was quickly shattered in an abundance of...well...sheer frivolity. Restaurants and bars overflowed with New Yorkers in high spirits. It could have been New Year's Eve or St. Patrick's Day. In the Village, we hunted for a drink or dinner only to find every establishment filled to the brim. Customers thronged, jovial in boisterous, raucous laughter and loud chatter.

We put our names on a list and waited on a crowded street, marveling at the energy of this recovering patient. We ate, drank wine and listened in on conversations around us. No one talked of "it," which made sense. At this point, "it" was still too fresh and horrible to speculate or regurgitate. I had the sense that New Yorkers longed to buck up and laugh, remember they were alive, their city was alive, and a new year was on the horizon.

After dinner, we wandered south toward Canal Street and smelled acrid, bitter air. At Chambers Street, our walk ended. The city's laughter had stopped far behind us, replaced by the sound of graders, backhoes and trucks. The night sky billowed dusty smoke, backlit in super-white illumination. Sawhorses and patrolmen prevented us from going further. William and I stopped and held hands.

On our way back to the hotel, we passed nightclubs and watched mini-skirted young women dance in the street. They threw their arms around any fellow in a uniform. Gratefulness concocted a spirited affection. Anyone in a uniform appeared likely to score in New York City that October. Even a mail carrier could count on getting bussed by a cute gal.

LOS ANGELES: December, 2000 (Part 3)

And what if, in two years, we discover we aren't successful as partners? I don't want to give up my great apartment, move across town, and end up looking for another place.

If we break up, find another apartment and I'll pay your rent for a year.

Why are you suddenly ready and willing, and spending? Why?

Because I want us to be together all the time.

I took his hand then looked away, because I didn't know what to say and my eyes were dripping. Finally. This time, he meant it. Time was no longer an issue because we were on the same calendar page and dangling from the same clock hand. I was sure of this and threw myself full-speed ahead into renovation plans.

We interviewed contractors and drew up layouts. I clipped pictures from magazines, wandered through design stores and Home Depot, and collected the paint chips he did not wish to see. And then, as we were getting ready to sign a contract with the building contractor, William said—

Maybe we should wait....This is a little fast....Maybe we don't have to do this right away....

On...off...light...dark...on...off.

And I lost it. I gritted my teeth, threw my hands up and wept.

Fine. Let's not do this. It was a crazy idea and I'm sick to death of getting my hopes up. You have ice-cold feet...keep 'em, I'm done.

I had lost it...and then the country lost it. Planes fell from the sky, buildings collapsed and, like so many others, we cried, lit candles and watched the endless stories on television. On the dining room table, our folders of house plans sat abandoned. Our conversations were silenced by news announcers and people far more lost than us.

I made spaghetti and mashed potatoes. Comfort food. We ate ice cream and drank wine. Comfort, comfort. We were mixed up, tumbling and raw from this terrible reality. William would pick me up at my apartment after work and we'd drive to his house. Along the roadside, flags rippled and candles sat lit on porches.

We're going ahead, William suddenly announced.

I ignored him and watched other houses out the car window, wondering about the families in them. Were they eating spaghetti every night too?

We're going ahead, he said again. We don't have time to fuck around waiting for things to be perfect. Call the contractor and let's get to work.

Tears rolled down my cheeks. I'm not even sure why; I was just so full. I shrugged, surrendered and floated into a new chapter. My body was limp and my mind limper.

I suspect the whole country measured time differently after 9/11. People compared the attack to Pearl Harbor and the assassinations of President Kennedy, Reverend King and Robert Kennedy. Already, a sense of before and after was setting in — as well as a serious reconsideration of how we used our time.

We proceeded with the renovation, signing paperwork with the contractor. I painted the living room myself, relieved to get away from the television and images of a burning New York City burnished into my brain.

And then William received a promotion at work. His boss took another show, leaving the project in William's hands. The director made him a full-time editor, and he was ready for the opportunity. William's editorial ambitions had begun to come true.

The studio planned to test the movie near their offices...in New York City. The entire filmmaking team would fly out to attend the screening.

And so, the day before a construction crew started work on our house, William and I flew to New York.

LOS ANGELES: December, 2000 (Part 2)

What would it take for you to move into my house?

My head nearly came right off. I readjusted the bolts on my neck and ignored him because I wasn't at all certain I'd heard him correctly. I carried on as if he hadn't said a damn thing.

You really should examine your relationship with your parents. I mean, there's loads going on there. Your withholding shit seems pretty angry, if you ask me.

Okay, but that's not what I'm asking you.

Where's this coming from? Seriously, you're making me nervous. I don't want to go there until I'm really sure you're going there.

Mel, I'm going there. We should do this. What would it take?

I definitely wasn't ready for this and had to think...fast. I took a breath to calm down. And another, and another, followed by a swallow.

Well, I guess making some physical changes. Expanding the house, painting it...stuff like that, to create a space that would be ours. Otherwise you might feel invaded and I wouldn't want that.

I stared out the passenger window. I studied a carpet store bright in primary colors, and next to it a seedy bar in faded pastels. I wondered who was buying carpet, and who was drinking tequila shots. There was life outside this car, and there was life inside this car. Which did I want?

Okay, he said. What if I gave you a chunk of money to renovate? You could do whatever you wanted to the house. Expand it, paint it, whatever — as long as you stayed on budget. You'd be the director and I'd be the producer. I wouldn't want to see paint chips. I wouldn't care what you did. What do you think?

I squinted and tried not to scream. I'd been chosen...cast, if you will. The part was mine, and it was the leading role. My resignation to single life disappeared as easily as cotton candy melting on my tongue.

Well, I answered, in a tone cool and sophisticated, that...should...work. There's just one more thing. One tiny thing.

What's that?

We were lit by intermittent by street lamps. On...off...light...dark...on...off.

Within two years of our living together, I would want us to get married. If that doesn't seem possible for you, then we should shelve the idea.

On...off...light...dark...on...off.

LOS ANGELES: December, 2000 (Part 1)

William arrived home from Berlin right before Christmas. I met him at LAX and ran into his arms. We hung on to each other, laughing and kissing as if he'd been away at war. My concerns after our final dinner in Berlin were distanced by excitement and joyous anticipation.

I'd decorated his house for the holidays. As we drove slowly up the street, I glanced over to catch his reaction as he spotted the house, trimmed in icicle lights with a tree aglow in the window. He smiled and entwined his fingers in mine, and I decided this delight was worth every hazardous, one-footed reach I'd made from high atop a ladder to hang lights from the eaves.

We ventured into 2001 with me busy coaching on a television series while William worked on his movie. If my short film was going to make an impression at film festivals, I knew I would have to write a screenplay, sell it and attach myself as director. So I dialogue-coached in television during the day and at home labored on what would surely be a spectacular feature-film script.

I was independent, creatively energized and had a boyfriend. On weekends we took turns driving twenty miles across the city to stay at each other's places. As it turned out, the entertainment-industry strike was averted, and our hearts settled into more secure beats. Like the rest of the country, we didn't know we were living in a cocoon that would soon be ripped away.

One day we were driving home from a visit with William's parents...maybe this was the trigger. Trips back home to spend time with parents can do strange things to the head.

Listen, I launched, it would help me a lot — as in a great deal — when we socialize with your folks…if you actually joined in.

What do you mean?

I mean you go all monosyllabic around them. You give one-word answers and the conversation stops until, like some kind of court jester, I pick up the balls and start juggling.

Really?

Really. I'm all by myself asking about your dad's work and your mom's journey from Hong Kong to England to New York, where she met your dad, who had arrived there from South Carolina. I mean, an immigrant in South Carolina during the civil rights era...what was that like? And all that before having kids and moving across the country?

You know more about them than I do.

Don't you think there's something odd about that?

And then William changed it up.

BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 12)

The buzzkill on our Charlottenburg experience had me tossing and turning under the Madison's downy comforter. I thought about all the places I'd been in the last month and all the times I'd missed William. My cheeks burned. I'd miscalculated. I'd come rushing back to Berlin believing we both wanted the same thing. That we were on the same page. That we could go forward.

An emotional life of skyscraping heights — and falls — had become tiresome. My acting career had worn me raw, with as much drama offstage as on. Too many near-misses. Too many "you got the job" triumphs, followed by months of perilous bill-paying. A jagged confidence, and angry glances at a telephone that refused to ring. Too many auditions. Too few auditions. Hopes attached to the short film I had directed getting into film festivals. Too many rejection letters.

I didn't want to be in a movie of my life anymore. I wanted stability and staidness, and I wanted us to be together in the same kitchen or in the same living room watching the same television show. And I wanted it yesterday, or soon, or sooner.

But one person alone couldn't make this happen, and if he wasn't with me, then perhaps I was best living alone with a quiet routine, and not racing my heart around the world. I looked over at William's face, lit by a waning moon. He was fast asleep and I envied his peace. His only clock was the morning alarm to get him up and off to work on the types of movies that held the promise of the life I longed for.

In the morning, we showered, dressed and took the elevator downstairs. We hugged and whispered "Six weeks." I waved good-bye from the bus window. William stood on the sidewalk in a grey drizzle, blew me a kiss and mouthed I love you. I smiled with my mouth in a quivery line.

I wanted the driver to be the same burly fellow who brought me here thirty days previous, but he was not. Life does not bookend itself into such clean completion. I wandered around Tegel airport...more lost than when I'd arrived a month ago.

BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 11)

The night before my flight home to Los Angeles, William left work early and we had a final dinner at a pizza parlor. The pie was savory, its crispy thin crust topped with fresh tomatoes and ribbons of basil. Icy German beer sent each bite on a frothy journey down my throat. All seemed right with the world. And then....

I missed you in Prague. I missed you in Paris and when I walked through the concentration camp...and in little Olomouc. It would be like this, in some pizza restaurant, and I would want to talk to you about these places. About what I'd seen.

William reached his hand across the table.

You know what I love? he asked.

Me?

It's true. Know what else?

Tell me.

I love that you got to go to all those places. I love that I was able to give you this because you're so happy when you're traveling. But I don't crave it like you do. It just makes me happy that you were happy on a train to someplace new and having an adventure.

Blink. Here's what I love: a man who can say what he means.

I flushed and adored him and figured it was time to revisit a distant conversation. As I'd passed through those landscapes on trains and ate alone in restaurants, I'd thought a lot about our conversation back home and my reluctance to even entertain moving in together. I assumed this was as prevalent in William's head as it was in mine. I assumed as I was spending days in travel and contemplation, he was busy at work thinking about...well, moi, and making plans. I assumed all that.

I'm ready to reopen the talk about our future, I started.

He took a bite of pizza and furrowed his brow into a question mark.

You know, the one about living together. The one where you couldn't believe we would never make that move, and how I thought we were fine in our own places. That conversation.

Okay...?

Well, it seems obvious to me now that we should consider how to make that happen. Because I want to be with you and I'm sorry I seemed ambivalent about that.

That sounds good. I can't see it happening any time soon, though.

William took another bite of pizza while a snake of angst crawled up my gut. This clammy coolness would repeat itself several times with us. He, perhaps to please me, perhaps simply speaking off the top of his head, perhaps voicing fantasy, would express a concept — like living together — then backpedal as soon as I came around to the idea.

What do you mean...any time soon?

I can't see buying a new place...and because there might be an industry strike, I can't depend on getting jobs in the future. We can't just jump into a renovation on my house....You said yourself moving in might be too invasive.

What do you mean...any time soon?

Maybe five years.

Five years? I whispered.

And in an instant, the golden romance of our Charlottenburg repast vanished. In its place I imagined a giant clock. Like the clock in Grand Central Station. Like the clock Charlie Chaplin clambered over. A huge ticking monster laughing at me.

Since I had wrestled with the age-difference factor, I thought I was over any misgivings about our relationship...until this particular pizza-pie dinner. For William, five years meant something different. I valued time differently than he did. I hadn't seen this and the knowledge kicked me hard.

William is a careful shopper. Meticulous. Painstaking. It drives me crazy that he deliberates so long before making a final decision. I am quick and impulsive and spontaneous, and had closets full of junk and two divorces to show for it.

But now I felt like a puppy in a store window waiting to be purchased. My flush of love morphed into a rosy fury.

Okay, let's take it right off the table. The whole idea. I'm not waiting around for you to get onboard with this one. Five years. No way. So, we'll continue to date, but no more commitment than that and if I get bored with us sitting on a fence...well, I'll be on my way. because I think five years is ridiculous.

William looked as if I'd slapped him in the face with the remaining pizza. Because of the dramatic tone in my voice and the "I'll be on my way" 1940s movie-type threat...he was close to correct.

He paid the bill and we meandered back to the apartment as if the conversation had never happened. I pretended. I acted. I sucked it up and chatted on about how I loved my life in my apartment back in Los Angeles and heigh-ho, heigh-ho...you're quite right...don't want to rush into anything...don't want to make any more mistakes...had enough of those....

BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 10)

On my last weekend in Berlin, William and I wandered along Unter den Linden, a wide boulevard closed to traffic at the time because it was occupied by an army of plastic bears. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the fellows, each about two feet tall. Separated into blocs of yellow, green and blue, row upon row of the animals stood facing the same direction, as if frozen in a military parade.

They could have been a symbol of reunification, or a precursor to the upcoming fiftieth anniversary of the Berlin International Film Festival, or something else. We never found out why they were there, but there was no missing them. We stared agape at this fantastical menagerie of plastic beasts.

Across the street, a mother wheeled a stroller and stopped to show her toddler the bears. The tot struggled out of his carriage, careened on chubby legs towards a blue bear and wrapped his arms around it. With a hefty tug he picked it up and dragged it back to his stroller.

The mother caught up to him, pried the prize from her child's clutches, and replaced the statue back in line. The boy broke loose from her grip and raced back to grab the bear. Once again he got his arms around the bear's tummy and pulled the bear along the ground. That bear was going one place and one place only. The mother spoke what could only have been useless logic. She picked up the screaming, bereft child and plopped him back into his seat with tears streaming from his eyes. He stretched his arms to his blue friend.

Seriously, there are hundreds here....Who would miss one little blue bear? I suggested. I know, William said, we should grab one and stick it in the back pocket of the stroller. Otherwise, he'll never be able to look at any blue plastic bear without trauma.

As we watched this picture of loss and longing, William and I were holding hands. I kissed his cheek. He turned to me and our mouths met. The afternoon sun was warm. The bears stared away and we smiled at the whimsy of this happenstance discovery. The mood of the afternoon was more tender because it was time for me to go. William brushed tendrils away from my eyes.

You're growing your hair.

I touched my head. Yeah, I guess.

Women always cut their hair after a breakup or when they're depressed.

Oh, that's your little theory, is it?

It's true. You're in love and you're letting your hair grow. That's no accident.

Hmmm. Just me in love?

Nope, not just you.

BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 9)

Back at our home base in Berlin, I tugged William out of the apartment on a Sunday afternoon and we visited the neighborhood of Charlottenburg. We left our Potsdamer Platz location via the S-Bahn.

Emerging from a station stairwell, we viewed tree-lined streets with enchanting nineteenth-century apartment buildings. The air, October-crisp as a Macintosh apple, warmed up enough to keep us comfortable. We held hands and strolled under maples dripping in red and gold leaves. We window-shopped and settled on an Austrian restaurant for an early dinner.

Back home in Los Angeles, William and I had explored our city's restaurants a couple of times a month. On other dates I cooked. I love cooking and William is an unfussy audience for whatever cuisine I set before him. Perhaps too unfussy — he wouldn't think twice about making a meal of beef jerky and Coca-Cola.

Does this broccoli have lemon on it?

Yup.

Hmmm.

I'd order two glasses of red wine to his one beer. I'd rattle off exotic menu items and he'd order steak and fries. I'd whip up a sandwich with roasted peppers, fresh tuna and arugula knowing he'd enjoy it as much as he would a McRib.

Seated at a picture window of the Austrian restaurant, we were lit golden by the setting sun. Classical music floated around the hexagonal room that could well have been a family's parlor in another lifetime. White tablecloths and large matching napkins signaled an elegant meal. We were the only customers and grateful for the courtesy of our highly professional waiter. Genteel in his black suit, white shirt and navy tie, he did not look askance at our bourgeois early arrival.

William drank a beer, amber and foamy, in a frosty glass. I sipped a German red wine and we chose an appetizer to share. Warm, breaded slices of duck lay atop braised red cabbage. The meat tender and the salad tangy, and...oh Lord, bring on more wine, this was delicious.

I was in a mood for schnitzel and this was the place to have it. As with the duck, the veal was sweet and the breading light and crispy. My entrée came with boiled new potatoes and a green salad dressed in a lemony vinaigrette. William ordered a beef dish served with horseradish and a freshly-made applesauce.

We took bites, shared forkfuls across the table and savored exquisite flavors. I would always remember this meal as one of our best, in part because we happened upon it at the end of a long walk, but even more because we were far from home and experiencing it together.

And I would remember this dinner forever because of the light. A caramel-colored October light found its way through tree branches to lay its long fingers across our tablecloth. As the sunlight disappeared into twilight, we stirred cups of cappuccino and spooned up a fluffy pancake-type dessert simmering in a warm plum compote. So, so far from home.

It was Auschwitz, in all of its beauty and sadness, that gave even greater value to this dinner in Germany. The idea of together had deepened for me. My awareness of time and how I intended to spend it grew in importance. William took my hand and I could not explain why my eyes were wet. I squeezed his palm with a rush of love.

Time. Together. Home. I turned these words over in my head as if I'd only just learned them.

OSWIECIM: October, 2000 (Part 2)

I was grateful to be on my own at Auschwitz as Kaspar took off for a couple of hours. Because this was midweek in late October, I was nearly alone at the site. Gray skies with a light rainfall seemed appropriate. In silence, a morbid history surrounded me with its brick walls and barbed wire. The harrowing iron lettering over the gate: Arbeit Macht Frei. Work will set you free.

Much has been written and filmed about the Nazi concentration camps, but being there is an entirely different experience. Traveling from Berlin, where I'd studied the beginning of that power, to here, one of the cruelest sites of human atrocity, made my head reel. How recently these events had occurred. Certainly I knew dates and such, but being at the place created a fresh and ghastly resonance.

In Berlin, I pictured a mother holding her child's hand as they shopped for school supplies or celebrated a birthday or wandered around the zoo and then...they didn't.

In the Auschwitz museum, I stared, stupefied, at displays featuring huge piles of leather suitcases, stuffed toy kittens, wiry eyeglasses, high-heeled pumps, worn Oxfords, and dentures. These were not the day-to-day belongings of an ancient society. Fifty-five years ago, a businessman had carried one of those briefcases, a five-year-old girl clutched one of those toys, and a university student had strutted in a pair of those tan leather pumps and then....they didn't.

A teddy bear resembled one from my childhood, a child's party dress was not antiquated, and journals and books were not from the Dark Ages...and it seemed to me they should have been. My mind could not encompass this terror being so very modern. I ruminated on Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur. What is wrong with mankind that in the face of scientific achievement, in a world of modern medicine and higher thinking, we can backtrack into such horrific behavior?

This place shook me deeply, as it was meant to do. I stood in the long, cold stables where Steven Spielberg had shot scenes for "Schindler's List." In these stables, where prisoners once lived stacked on top of each other, I experienced what a movie could not possibly convey. My hand grazed the frame of a wooden stall and I imagined other hands touching these same splinters. In the death chambers where women and children were herded to be showered and gassed, I felt a clawing loss of my own air as my stomach clenched.

After an hour and a half, I met up with Kaspar. In the rainfall we walked to Birkenau, or Auschwitz II, where bodies had been dumped into a green and murky pond. We stood still, side by side, under darkening afternoon clouds. Kaspar was kind to be there, and kind enough not to speak.

Our drive back to Krakow remained quiet. This time Kaspar's eyes stayed glued to the road. He'd had taken this drive before and knew chit-chat was impossible. As we parted back at the bus station, I palmed him a tip and wanted to hug him, but it didn't seem right.

In the dark of evening, I stumbled home to my hotel. I nibbled at some food in a Chinese restaurant, but my appetite was negligible and I gave up. Later I crawled into bed and wept. That night brought horrific dreams filled with awful images. I would remember this day forever, and that is as it must be. The Auschwitz museum had made its point.

When the German army packed train cars with innocents and journeyed them into hell, they separated parents from children, husbands from wives, and siblings from each other. My last night in Krakow, curled up in that hotel bed, I imagined what that terrible separation might be like. My month in Europe, both with and away from William, was sealing the relationship in my heart and I needed to let him know that. No, I can't imagine we would live our whole lives apart. No.

OSWIECIM: October, 2000 (Part 1)

Bus schedules had been checked and rechecked. My eyes blinked open early, and after breakfast I made my way on a drizzly, cold day to the station. But the nine o'clock bus to Oswiecim was nowhere to be found and my rudimentary Polish was useless in getting information.

I paced the platform as if I could will the bus into place. I studied and re-studied the schedule. I kicked myself for my mistake. Or was it my error? Inside the station it took a total of one minute to deduce a coherent conversation would not be viable with my language skills.

The nine o'clock bus? Oswiecim?

I pointed to my watch in a silly clichéd movie gesture. The ticket seller waved me aside.

Back outside, the posted schedule indicated the next bus would leave Krakow at noon, if these itineraries could even be trusted. Because I planned to leave Krakow the next morning, this was my only opportunity to visit Auschwitz. It was beyond my comprehension to have come so far, be so close, and not pay homage to the terrible place where so many lost their lives.

A stocky gentleman of maybe forty years hurried toward me. Dressed in a worn beige overcoat and with an errant lock of thin sandy hair falling over his brow, he gave me an energetic look from bright blue eyes. He wiped his hair back with his bear paw of a hand and asked, You like to see Auschwitz?

Well, yes, but I missed the bus....I'll come back later.

No, no...young lady...I take you....Here...my car. And he pointed to a beige wreck of a Volkswagen Rabbit and urged me forward as if it were a stretch limo. How could I get out of this? What excuse could I drum up without insulting him? The Rabbit hardly appeared capable of a trip around the block, let alone out of the city. And who the hell was this guy, anyway?

Ummm...thanks, but I can wait for the next bus.

No, no...I take you....I show you....Private tour!

How much?

Instantly I was negotiating, translating Polish zloty to U.S. dollars and arriving at fifty-three dollars for a return trip. This was one of those moments. One of those spontaneous travel moments. The rush of the back and forth over the money clashed with deciding whether I could trust this guy.

Okay.

My name, Kaspar.

Nice to meet you.

From the back seat, I listened to the engine of Kaspar's Rabbit grumble as he gunned us out of Krakow and into Polish countryside on an hour-long journey to the concentration camp museum. The car rattled and shook along with my nerves. I was certain a single pothole would doom us to wreckage.

Once we were out of Krakow and on a two-lane road, I grew more alarmed at the carefree style of my driver. Kaspar wanted to chat. He seemed to see nothing wrong with turning halfway around in his seat to converse with me. His hands stayed on the wheel but his eyes were rarely on the road, and the highway was hardly straight. My crazy chauffeur careened around bends with no more than a casual look-see beforehand.

Kaspar also believed his English-language skills were top-notch. I had zero idea what the man was saying. Truly, I was mystified, and I didn't care. I just wanted him to face front and focus. And yet I couldn't overcome my good manners. Whenever confronted with a language barrier, my habit is to simply nod, laugh, or express dismay as I pick up clues from my conversational partner's tonal quality or sound level.

No kidding?

Oh, yes, I know...very frustrating.

Terrible.

Yes...ha, ha...funny.

It took me nearly the entire trip to understand what Kaspar meant when he jabbed his index finger at the window and cried Crumbles! Crumbles! After six such interjections, I realized the man was pointing out crash sites. He was communicating that this was a dangerous road on which foolish drivers made deadly mistakes on a regular basis.

I trusted. There was little choice from the back seat of a Rabbit in this Polish Grand Prix. And we eventually pulled into the parking lot of the Auschwitz camp. I stepped out of the car with rubbery legs. Kaspar, as it turned out, was a fair and good travel guide. He led me into the main building of the museum, made sure I had the correct ticket, and we coordinated a later meeting time when he would give me an extended tour of the camp. Private tour!

KRAKOW: October, 2000

Book, book, book. Food, food, food. Bed, bed, bed.

This was how I jumped off the train in Krakow. A woman with a list and a mission.
While traveling I read, a lot. In restaurants, on trains and in hotel rooms. I was downing an average of five books a week as I scurried across Europe. I'd turned the last page of a novel at the end of the six-hour train ride from Olomouc to Krakow.

The railcar creaked to halt and I alighted in a city painted gold as the sun dipped. A promising vista, but I was without a hotel reservation, I was hungry and I had nothing to read. And that was before I learned some sort of business conference had most of the city's rooms booked.

Filmu.

Krakow sits on the Vistula River and, like Prague, was left fairly undamaged after World War II. The German army invaded Poland and used Krakow as their headquarters. The small city houses a population of just over seven-hundred thousand and is divided into walkable districts. The most engaging area is Stare Miasto (Old Town), a walled center enclosing a large market square attractive to tourists, locals, and certainly me.

In Old Town I searched for a hotel room and found a place for exactly one night. The next day, after much scrounging, I would luck into another room for two nights. Both hostelries charged thirty-eight dollars a night, including breakfast. A water closet down the hall meant no private bath, but I was used to that. Neither was comparable to my expansive apartment in Prague, but to even find a pillow on which to lay my head was fortuitous.

After a cursory glance at my first hotel room, I raced back out to the streets to find a bookstore. There were many, but none with books in my language. I whipped through four stores before spotting one lonely rack of English paperbacks. Not exactly bestsellers, but I was desperate and grabbed a couple of British spy adventures.

Room: check

Book: check

Dinner: Hmmm?

Twilight settled over Krakow. Restaurant windows framed in lace glowed amber in candlelight. Cobblestone walkways reflected lamplight and the scents of roasted meat floated from doorways. Couples swayed, teetered and giggled, presumably after pre-dinner cocktails. The city's atmosphere radiated warmth and giddiness.

A stone-walled restaurant caught my attention. Tapered candles stuck in wine bottles flickered with tiny flames, casting shadows off the ancient brick. Settled at a table with my book and a glass of wine, I exhaled with satisfaction. Small potatoes roasted on the hearth of an open fireplace in the center of the room. Customers helped themselves to tender charred morsels. I dined on borscht, pork stuffed with prunes, two glasses of red wine, mineral water, cappuccino and as many of those potatoes as I could pluck from the hearth.

The next morning my I started my exploration of Old Town. As in the Czech Republic, a youthful exuberance resonated from cafes offering internet services. Posters hanging on city walls advertised all sorts of artistic performances and gallery viewings. I trekked up Wawel Hill to Wawel Castle and Wawel Cathedral, and further on to the Jewish district with its synagogues and cemeteries.

Across the main square, pigeons fluttered into nooks and onto windowsills of apartments and offices. I rested on a bench alongside the Vistula, munching on an apple and a homemade pretzel, salty and warm, I'd picked up in a farmer's market. Under the shade of a stone archway, I studied the details of the architecture around me. I was grateful this jewel of a city had not been obliterated in the war — but the next day I would see, up close, the handiwork of the Nazi regime.

In a short telephone conversation with William, it was impossible to describe all that I'd seen in these three cities. The routine of his workdays continued unchanged and he seemed content with that.

"I miss you."

"Me too."

OLOMOUC: October, 2000

Olomouc, a town with a population of a hundred and four thousand, had been recommended as an agreeable stop on my way to Krakow. Across from its train station, a charmless, gray-slab high-rise hotel waited for me. For a mere fourteen dollars I booked a clean, top-floor room with pristine white sheets and a cozy duvet. Breakfast in the downstairs dining room was included. It became increasingly clear that prices in the Czech Republic would soon change as mobs of world travelers discovered these jewel-box villages.

The previous night, I had celebrated my exit from Prague with a farewell dinner. I cast myself in a movie from the nineteen-sixties: imagine Elizabeth Taylor circa "The Last Time I Saw Paris." A dining room, grandly ornate in gold and red, with heavy drapes framing floor-to-ceiling windows. An all-male wait staff on guard, straight-backed in black suits and white gloves, ready to serve.

Each course was elegantly ported across the room on a silver tray, then flamboyantly swooped to eye level as a shining cover was pulled away to reveal its contents. The entree was a dish of braised meat glazed in a rosy sauce, with a parsley sprig daintily adding color. Was I underdressed in my black corduroy pants and black sweater? The ambience screamed for a jade cocktail dress and strings of pearls.

Solitary travel sits well with me. The opportunity to silently observe and to embrace the challenge of getting from here to there. Reading books on long train trips, no problem. I'm fine with every aspect — except the evening meal. It's at the end of the day, as I sip a glass of wine and peer out a dark window, that the pangs hit and I want to be with him. To hear of his day and tell of mine.

Olomouc, perched over the Morava River, was delightfully free of tourists. A small town full of churches and palaces. The city, painted in pastel tones, spoke of a peaceful existence. Pale blues, yellows and creamy stone blended with windows trimmed in gold or sienna. The October light cast a pink tinge on the masonry. Stone trumpeters balanced on rooftops next to statues of bishops solemnly blessing the city down below.

Cobblestone streets and a village center with a towering fountain welcomed me on this warm, sunny day. Small store windows featuring fine Czech glassware and china clamored for attention. Workmen repaired streets, carpenters remodeled apartments and schoolchildren chased pigeons. Old men in hats and women in headscarves chatted in small groups.

A young tour guide in Potsdam, Germany, explained a social chasm that had occurred since the fall of the wall. Under the Communist regimes, people would retire by fifty years of age and the state would take care of them. As a new democracy replaced the old system, those in their late forties or early fifties panicked. Their children jubilantly stomped the Berlin Wall to pieces while the older generation was preparing to end their working lives. But now they faced...what? Who would pay their rent, their medical bills? Who would take care of them?

Suddenly, with a long future ahead, fifty looked far too young to call it quits. To make matters worse, as capitalist elements worked their way into society, an older citizen would notice a neighbor who suddenly owned a big-screen television, or a laptop computer, or a new car. A social competitiveness closed in.

The twentysomethings thrilled at no longer being forced to speak the Russian language imposed on them. Their vistas opened to include the entire world via speedy internet connections. Jazzy, stylish blue jeans and all kinds of movies and music showed up. Nightclubs sprang open and the possibilities for variety in higher education spoke of serious money in their futures.

But for the middle-aged, things could not have looked bleaker.

In Berlin, striking laborers camped in tents by the Brandenburg Gate. They argued for higher wages, but construction chiefs could hire new immigrants for a fraction of their pay. It would take years, perhaps generations, for these societies to adapt to their new democracies.

Olomouc townspeople huddled with worried faces as pigeons flapped for crumbs. Guilty twinges grappled at me when I ordered up a dinner of schnitzel, salad, beer and a cappuccino...for a total of four dollars. The area could benefit from an onslaught of tourists. I resolved to stop my joyous, secret buzz whenever I discovered empty towns. These places need an influx of western cash, not just western idealism. I left a hundred percent tip, and that seemed measly.

KUTNÁ HORA: October, 2000 (Part 2)

After those two unsettling tours, I joined townsfolk lunching under maple trees at a pizza restaurant. Biting into a slice of thin-crust basil and cheese, I counted myself lucky not to have lived in a time of rich Burghers and poor peasants staving off the plague as crazy monks concocted macabre art installations.

By five o'clock the autumn air cooled, the robin's-egg blue sky had deepened into navy, and I zipped up my sweater. It was time to return to Prague. Reading on an outdoor train station bench while occasionally checking the track for oncoming engines, I regretted not bringing a heavier jacket.

After an hour, I hopped on to a warm train car. A dark landscape passed by outside my window. Home, home, home to Prague, the wheels rumbled....Home, home, home to my little apartment. Good day. Weird but interesting.

A young blonde conductor moved down the row, clicking her metal hole-punch on passenger tickets. She smiled and took mine. I was so content thawing out my chilled body and fantasizing about a hot bowl of borscht that I didn't notice her expression until she rattled off something in decidedly stressed Czech. She shook both her head and my ticket in my face. I was on the wrong train, barreling off in the wrong direction.

Hovno.

The train stopped to kick me off into the middle of God-knows-where in the Czech Republic. A station sat empty but for a lonely ticket seller, a young man with about three words of English to match my three words of Czech. His few were mostly taken up chastising himself. Apparently, his wife had been nagging him. She say, learn English! He wore a pained look and banged his fist on the counter. I consoled him and considered patting his hand, but that seemed a tad forward. The guy really needed a hug, but we weren't going there.

Okay, look...we'll figure this out. I need a ticket to Prague. I have to get to Prague...Praha...tonight. My finger tapped at my watch. He attempted to explain that it would be two tickets, two trains, and not for another hour.

Travel is a leap of faith. Despite being cold and tired, and despite the nightmare visuals from Kutná Hora in my brain, I trusted somehow, some way, this young man would get me back to Prague.

For an hour, no one else came in or out of the station. What a lonely job for this guy...late at night in the middle of...where, exactly? We occasionally eyed one another and shared the self-conscious smiles of people who do not speak the same language. We bobbed our heads like popinjays until I heard the welcome squeal of train brakes. My friend pointed and nodded and I danced an international goodbye polka before jumping aboard.

I finally arrived back in Prague later that night, my travel confidence soaring with the surefootedness borne of surviving on foreign soil. I remembered my trepidation back in my Los Angeles apartment. And I thought of William back in our Berlin apartment.

Was he eating a sausage with mustard before going to sleep? Was he wondering where I was? I wanted to say Guess what I saw today and I got so lost in the dark of night and it was so cold and the language undid me but I made my way back and here I am in a Prague restaurant eating pork medallions in cognac sauce with boiled potatoes and a glass of red wine all for seven dollars. And I miss you so, so much.

KUTNÁ HORA: October, 2000 (Part 1)

With Prague as a home base, it was my intention to visit a couple of small towns in the Czech Republic. The next morning I boarded a train for a day trip to Kutná Hora, a medieval town settled by a group of monks in the year 1142 and well-known for its silver mines.

In his hilarious account of European travel, "Neither Here Nor There," Bill Bryson writes of this same borough. I remembered Mr. Bryson's admonition to avoid, at all costs, one particular and gory monkish site. Duly noted and thank you, Bill.

I disembarked and, unsure of where the train station was in relation to the actual town, trailed a group of Czech students on their own sightseeing excursion. Surely they would lead me to the town....Oh, hey...where are we going...? In there...? Okay, then—

And I landed in the exact spot I wanted to avoid. The one place Bill Bryson alerted his readers to shun: the Sedlec Ossuary, or the bone church of Kutná Hora.

The Black Plague of the thirteenth century swept across Europe, killing millions. Here, in the town of Kutná Hora, a monk went completely cuckoo as bodies piled high. With the assistance of his half-blind brother monks, he constructed a ghastly "holy" shrine to the victims...using the bones of the dead.

I found myself trapped in this stifling, horrific and cramped display. Stuck behind a gaggle of giggling teens, retreat was not an option. Forced forward, I tried not to even glance at the bone chandeliers, the bone candelabras, the bone chalices and the hundreds of skulls hanging from the ceiling. I failed.

Hard to miss the cavernous holes where eyeballs used to be. I pushed my way through the crowd, out the back door and into a fenced graveyard to suck in the clear October air and....good Lord, it went on. Skeletons of bony scarecrows were everywhere. As if randomly dropped, skulls lay staring at a blue sky. The joint was seriously creepy and foreshadowed my further misadventures in Kutná Hora.

Climbing hilly territory through the picturesque and walled village, I arrived at a gothic, fortressed peak. A painted sign advertised visits into a defunct silver mine. The ticket seller informed me the current tour would be led by a German-speaking guide, and perhaps I would be better served by a private English guide. Yes, please and thank you I agreed, using my entire Czech vocabulary.

Dressed in a white raincoats and hardhats, we began our excursion. Glass cases held exhibits of miners' clothing. Elfin leather boots and child-size chainmail leggings made the point that the adult miners were tiny in stature, and the low-ceilinged caves further proved it. The silver mine tour of Kutná Hora is not for the claustrophobic.

Similar to my experience in the bony chapel, there was no going back. The caverns got progressively narrower to the point that my backpack bumped off the walls. My guide pointed down, down, down to a pale and creamy pool of greenish water. He explained a typical miner's week required six days of hard labor in pitch-black conditions, and each work day consisted of a fourteen-hour shift. Such a workload would cause great thirst, but it would be a terrible mistake to drink the water far below. Highly toxic, it would result in sure death.

Between the mad monks and tiny overworked miners, I was privately calling Kutná Hora...Kutná Horror.

PRAGUE: October, 2000 (Part 2)

Prague, mostly left intact after World War II, is often described as the Paris of the nineteen-thirties. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the city's fairytale architecture and the adolescent exuberance of its citizens have quickly made it a must-see for travelers. Hollywood started making movies in the Czech capital, and one could see why. Prague has castles, a winding river, and stone bridges, including the impressive Charles Bridge. Also, Prague is cheap — almost as cheap as the Paris of the thirties, I'll say. For thirty-four dollars a night, I snagged an entire apartment for myself.

Arriving late in the evening, I was hungry and tired after navigating my way from the train station to the pension. Its front door opened into a small foyer. Not completely sure I was in the correct place, I crept down a hallway like a suspicious cat. Past a small kitchen with a table set for two was a door leading to a bed-sitting room with couches, chairs, a black-and-white television and two large beds. Shuttered windows opened to a view of the city. I looked around, fully expecting others to show up and share my new home.

I went back outside in search of a light dinner. In a dark, lamp-lit pub, I quaffed a large draft beer, ate a bowl of onion soup and dark bread...all for a buck and a half. Maybe the Paris of the eighteen-thirties, I was thinking.

Breakfast, included in the apartment's nightly rate, became a major highlight. Every morning I rode the elevator to the top floor for breakfast. Actually, "banquet" would be more apt: old-world sideboards laden with platters of cheeses, cold meats, bananas, pears and apples. Baskets filled with breads of all shapes. Jams, jellies and blocks of creamy butter. Boxes of cereals and containers of creamy (read: high-fat) yogurt in myriad flavors. I put aside all thoughts of an American diet and dug in.

Fueled and sated, it was time to hit the streets of Prague. I wandered over bridges and through stone portals into secret gardens where large, abstract sculptures sat under trees dripping with yellow and red leaves. With no one around, I sat on a bench and opened my novel for a quiet read.

Later, I walked through Staré Město (Old Town), with its market square and shops filled with amber bracelets and necklaces. Its cobblestone streets led me past pastel-colored buildings covered in posters for theatre, music and dance productions. Outdoor cafés welcomed both locals and tourists with frosty beers or caffè lattes.

Old Town's Jewish neighborhood, with an ancient synagogue surrounded by a black iron fence, brought to mind the evil cleansing masterminded by a Führer to the north. An outdoor farmers' market overflowing with peppers, apples, breads, meats and cheeses reminded me of Communist food lines of the not-too-distant past.

Now Prague hummed with internet cafes. Political and artistic voices were free to express opinions. Like I said, it had an adolescent charm. I saw a new generation forsaking cynicism, anxious to participate in the world at large. As in Berlin, the city's young people embraced the English language, and fast. Certainly quicker than I could learn Czech.

I took a lunch break at a cottage-style restaurant next to the Charles Bridge. Seated at a wooden table, I looked out a window with diamond-shaped panes. I wrote in my journal, and like a character out of a fairytale, dined on a cheese plate and a bowl of cabbage soup with a glass of wine.

PRAGUE: October, 2000 (Part 1)

I spent a couple of days doing laundry, filled our hotel room fridge with groceries, cuddled my boyfriend, kissed him goodbye, and left on a foray into two countries. I purchased train tickets to the cities of Prague and Olomouc in the Czech Republic. These would be followed by visits to Krakow and Auschwitz in Poland.

The train pulled away from the modern landscape of Berlin and... here it was, the Europe of pure fantasy. Mountains in autumn light rose high and I pressed my cheek against the train window to see...to see...trees abundant in red and gold.

The train sped over trestles across winding rivers and we rolled straight into the picture books of Hans Christian Anderson...castles. Also embedded into the green hillsides were homes cut in gingerbread patterns and villas like small palaces with turrets. Their shuttered windows opened wide to inhale the clear October air.

A tiny crumpled woman sat across from me in the train compartment and smiled. I nodded a silent greeting and she proffered a wicker basket. I looked inside at the apples she was offering. I chose one and bit into the fresh-picked sweet-and-tart fruit. Without a word, we shared. The trip to Prague lasted four-and-a-half hours. I could have skimmed through the countryside for days.

Doesn't he miss doing this? Isn't he curious?

With me away from Berlin, William worked, ate the food in the fridge, worked, watched television, worked, read, worked, and slept. We would exchange brief phone calls. I felt slightly guilty gallivanting around the Czech Republic, but he assured me he was fine and not missing traveling.

Is it possible to be so different and be a couple?

BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 8)

When William and I first started dating, we spent a lot of time at my place. Finally, it came time for an overnight in his house and I drove across town full of curiosity. He greeted me at the door with a big smile as he held tight to his rambunctious dog's collar. Stinky was a mere pup, overly exuberant, and shot his snout right for my crotch. Nice to meet you too.

Once inside, William led me on a tour of his house. Basic, white walls, exceptionally clean, big television, red couch...a guy's place. I noticed all the window blinds were shut tight. No light. It would take years for me to truly understand the depth of William's need to travel under the radar. Incrementally, it became clear to me.

His clothes fit two sizes too large and other than occasional gatherings with his high school friends, he didn't socialize. After attending a party or dinner with me, he'd question everything he said or did and then cringe if he believed he'd made a misstep.

I didn't know how to respond to these insecurities because I thought he was amazing. What I saw was a confident man willing to be alone. I saw a man sure of himself at work and a man who could make me laugh as I wandered the world, spilling self-doubt. It can take a long time to see the whole picture.

He'd spent the day of my first visit cleaning his house, but what was really impressive was when he started opening cabinets and cupboards. I was at the latter end of healing my hot wax burns, but William wanted to be certain I had all I needed. In the bathroom he showed me bandages, gauze and ointment for my injuries. In the kitchen he showed me my favorite snacks I'd mentioned in passing over our time working together. There were Pringles, bagels, saltines and ginger ale. In the fridge he had angel food cake, whipped cream and strawberries.

William listened. William took note. I saw, for the first time in my life, that love was an action more than it was a notion or a feeling or a squiggly rush up the arms.

On that anniversary night in Berlin, I recalled our fiery first date and looked at the regret etched across his face. I read his love note, threw my arms around him and hugged hard. It's a "doing" thing, this love business. Also, I was about to leave Berlin for another adventure, and I was already missing him.

BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 7)

I arrived back at the Madison hotel in Berlin at two in the afternoon to find William, on his day off, tucked asleep under the duvet. I crawled in next to him and melted into the perfect bed. Ah yes, this is what money can buy. My six days in cheap Parisian hotels gave me an appreciation for luxurious linens, a bathroom brimming with hot water and a shimmering kitchen.

The next day was our two-year dating anniversary. William planned on being home by eight at night. I made omelets and salad for dinner. I bought small frosted German cakes, opened a good bottle of red and set them next to a lovey-dovey card. The KaDeWe gift bag with the leather wallet rested next to his dinner plate and I waited. And waited.

He forgot. He didn't call. This oversight was a throwback to our first few months of dating. He'd say, I'll be over at five-thirty. I'd say, Okay.

Back then, I believed him. I prepared. I was ready and I waited. Sometimes for two hours. Absolute stubborn martyrdom prevented me from phoning to ask, What the hell are you doing? Why aren't you here?

By the time he would arrive at my apartment, all chipper and nothing's wrong, I would be a chilly, tight-jawed, don't-touch-me mess.

This is not going to work if this seems normal to you.

What? What?

It feels like my time with you is unimportant.

That's not true….It's really important.

You say that but when you show up two hours later than you said….

He got it and showed up on time from then on. This is one of William's more winning attributes: he owns his stuff, wants to improve, then does. I own my mistakes, want to improve, and forget.

However, back in Berlin, he slipped. I thought we had worked this issue out two years earlier. It was well near eleven when he made his entrance into a clichéd scene out of a crummy B-movie: me asleep on the couch, a table set for two, candles burned to the quick and....

Look, the guy is working his ass off while I trip around Europe like a kept woman. I had no business griping — but that didn't stop me. I peeled open my groggy eyes and glared across the room. He opened the card and dropped his chin. I gloated. He unwrapped the gift and shook his head. I silently shrugged in an uppity way.

What can I do? How do I make this up to you?

Write. Something corny. Really sugary and you'll be forgiven.

William went to a desk and found a small pad of hotel stationery. He sat down with a pen and wrote. I kept quiet, curled up in a chair and marveled that he was writing anything. I thought back two years to when we worked on my movie and he virtually cupped me in his palm at the mix sessions. How he took care of me and my work. Of how that had never happened to me before, with anyone. I was acting witchy and whiny when he sat across from me on this October night in Berlin and handed me a note.

October 18, 2000

Dear Mel,

In the past two years of my life, I have made advances at work, settled into becoming a homeowner and taken care of a dog. But all these things wouldn't mean nearly as much as they do if I didn't have you to share them with. Thank you for not only making my life interesting but also for making me a better person as well.

Love (I may not say it often, but I do mean it),
William

Note to self: get over self.

PARIS: October, 2000 (Part 5)

I lay on my Parisian hotel bed and thought of William and his ambivalence toward travel. He's especially put off by my style of peregrination. I like to get lost and find my way home. I like non-chain hotels. I like trying new food and chatting to locals. William prefers luxury and secure surroundings. He wants to know exactly where he's going, how long it will take and what will happen when he gets there.

These differences do not make me right and him wrong. But they are differences nonetheless, and how can you join lives together when the rims of the canyon are so far apart? I wondered this as I lay on my bed in the "Irma la Douce" garret (I changed movies in my head).

I traveled by train to Versailles for a visit to the palace. So did everyone else. A mass of fellow tourists created a sardine-in-a-can experience and made it difficult to imagine what the day-to-day might have been like in the seventeenth century.

I'm a snob about these things, these people....I know I set myself apart and think I'm better — I do and I have no defense, none at all — and then I run. I got out of the palace rooms with their ornate wallpaper and brocade furniture, and went far away from the chattering crowd. I tripped lightly across the gardens in the backyard of the palace. I raced from the grandeur and found myself alone and wandering the town of Versailles.

I would guess most people take the train to this place, visit the main event, and then leave. A-ha, I discovered gold in my act of escape. I came upon a farmers' market where locals filled baskets and net bags with flowers and red apples. I ate an authentic Salade Niçoise in small restaurant. I read my book and listened to the beautiful language spoken by a group of women as they chatted and sipped white wine. I fantasized a life in a town like this. I would dress simply and my voice would ring musically in French.

I walked back to the train station, stopped at a pâtisserie and bought a raspberry tart. I unwrapped the tissue and bit into the sweet red berries floating in thick, pale yellow custard. William would like this aspect of my adventure. Maybe that was the answer: tempt him with tarts (or become one).

For my last two days in Paris, I planned trips to a flea market and a blues club. Because I now understood the late dining protocol, I left my hotel at six forty-five p.m., rode three metro trains and walked five blocks to the blues/soul food joint for a seven-thirty arrival. I was ready for some music and collard greens.

The tables, quaint with their in red-checked cloths, sat against stone walls decorated with photos of American blues and jazz masters. It made me proud to see the appreciation the French have of our music. It may be the only thing they admire about us, but it's a good choice.

I settled into a seat and looked around the candlelit room, dismayed that I was the only person in the place. This was after I killed time at the hotel and traveled slow to make a decent entrance. I crawled blocks, window-shopping to ensure this wouldn't happen. Dammit to hell, turns out I wasn't getting the Paris thing down at all.

I nursed my way through two beers and a fried chicken dinner until ten-thirty, when the musicians arrived to set up. I had the sad realization that Paris at night is not for the single woman who'd spent a long day sightseeing. I look forward to one day visiting Barcelona and Madrid, but I hear it's worse there...They don't eat dinner until midnight. That's a lot of gazing in windows and kicking pebbles over cobblestone.

At eleven I paid my bill and set off to locate my three trains back to the hotel. I hadn't heard a single note of jazz or blues, but I looked like someone living them.

My last day in Paris was spent at les Puces (the fleas), the largest location of antiques for sale in the world. Of course, I wouldn't be buying furniture, or anything, as it turned out; the plaisir is in the looking.

Because we are so young in North America, a European flea market is an overwhelming world of preserved history. Fine, polished carved wood expertly inlaid with ivory or tile could be an everyday bed for two. Marble side tables, gilt chandeliers, art-deco lamps, the paintings and the books....

I wandered awestruck for the entire morning. At one o'clock I was charmed by dealers setting up lunch in their stalls, for customers and themselves. Platters of fruit, cheeses and meats were presented on tea tables. Wine chilled in silver buckets sat next to etched glasses waiting to be filled. As a non-buyer it seemed inappropriate to partake, but I found a nearby restaurant to enjoy a salad, cheese platter and glass of wine. Civilization at its best.

My only regret on departing France was that I hadn't spent more time outside the city. Other than my trip to Versailles, I missed the gentle quiet of a small town and would have liked that. For now, au revoir, Paris, and merci beaucoup.

PARIS: October, 2000 (Part 4)

Warm October sunshine and freshly washed air sent me into a new day. The Metro in Paris is a cinch and I easily found my way to La Tour Eiffel. I elevatored up and oohed and aahed at the view. Since I'm not a fan of crowds, especially crowds of tourists, I duck and avoid them where I can. So I walked down, down, and more down to street level.

When I think of Paris, I think of its parks. Lovely, green, open spaces with inviting armchairs scattered under trees. Children riding on carousel horses or giggling at marionette shows. Old men flipping through newspapers and tossing baguette crusts to pigeons.

Or the small overgrown glen where I discovered benches and curvy walkways. I settled for a picnic lunch of camembert, bread and red grapes. Purchased, I might add, with the requisite angst of terrible language skills. I got everything wrong and suffered the disgust of various Parisian shopkeepers. They threw their hands in the air at this American stupey-dupe. Had I not been prepared for the snobbery, I might have taken it personally, but much has already been written about this and I was right at home playing my part. No...money goes here, not there....No, no, no...you pay for the fruit there, not here....No...that's not enough....

Lord, kill me now. I thrust my palm forward with a wad of cash. Take what you like, just give me some lunch.

I did not go to the Louvre. Crowds. I did go to the Musée d'Orsay and highly recommend it. Housed in a former train station, the museum is dedicated to the Impressionist period with a dazzling collection of furniture, sculpture and paintings. I was entranced for hours.

The Jardin des Tuileries provided a satisfying rest stop to people-watch and sip hot chocolate. I took a spin on La Grande Roue, the giant Ferris wheel, and marveled at the city from on high. The white stone buildings and lush green of tree-filled parks far below made me want to stay, study and converse in flawless French. This would, of course, not happen and as I examined Paris from that high-flying perspective I was reminded that observation was the task and assimilation a mere fantasy.

I was only able to book my hotel room for two nights, so I arranged other lodging for my final four nights. I moved into a hostelry for thirty-five dollars a night, including breakfast. I opened the door to an attic room perfect for one person. I smiled at the slanted walls and the single, tiny paned window. Not only was it cheaper, but it was also better and cleaner.

No two ways about it: I'd found my "American in Paris" garret. Off the bedroom, an itsy-bitsy bathroom with a sink and shower for, again, an ice-cold dousing. A water closet was situated down the hall, which wasn't a problem because no other guests were on the floor. The room, cozy with flower-patterned wallpaper, had a staying-at-Grandma's feel.

PARIS: October, 2000 (Part 3)

Heavy rain sprayed the windows of the airplane and bounced off the tarmac. We'd landed at Aéroport Paris-Charles de Gaulle and I took note of the jackets the airport staff was wearing. Bright lime green...exactly the same shade as my own raincoat. Already a fashion misstep and I hadn't even deplaned.

Do as I Say and Not as I Do #1: In the winter, Parisian women wear navy, black and brown. If they are feeling adventurous, burgundy. No one, unless they are directing traffic at Charles de Gaulle Airport, wears lime green. Ever. Pack accordingly.

It is possible to stay in Paris at little cost. You will pay the price in other ways, however. From my travel book I found a hotel in the Marais for forty-two dollars a night, including a breakfast of bread and café au lait or hot chocolate.

Draped in heavy, dusty curtains, my living space was dark and oddly romantic, in starving-artist fashion. I pulled the fabric aside then wiped grime from my hands. A small balcony overlooked the busy cobblestone street lit in neon and corner lamps. Traffic swished below in rainfall. A small bedside lamp gave the room a warm glow and hid muck stuck in corners.

I wanted out into the city. I grabbed an umbrella and my guidebook, and searched for dinner.

Do as I Say and Not as I Do #2: Arriving at a Parisian eating establishment anytime before eight p.m. for dinner is foolish. Do that while wearing a lime green rain jacket, and you'll be delegated to Ringling Brothers status. I sat at a window table, the only customer in the restaurant. I proudly (one could say defiantly) ordered a prix fixe meal and a glass of red wine, and watched Parisians scramble on tiptoe through puddles outside.

The soundtrack to my dining experience was the drone of a vacuum cleaner as a waiter cleaned the floor in preparation for real guests, who would arrive well past my six-thirty seating. I ignored the vacuuming fellow as much as he ignored me.

The food, to be honest, was not great. An ordinary green salad, a bland imitation of beef Stroganoff, and pudding pretending to be mousse. The joint pissed me off and I felt like an idiot, which pissed me off some more. My first Parisian dining experience made me grouchy. I'd made my entrance as a rube.

Perhaps a hot bath and a good night's sleep would excise the disappointment and help me start the next day with a fresh attitude. Back at the hotel, I turned the bathtub spigot and watched a dribble of cold water splash against the tub enamel. I waited, touched my fingertips under the spill, and the penny dropped: forty-two dollars a night in Marais does not buy hot water.

I sponged off in the cold, whipped into pajamas and socks, climbed into bed, and fell asleep to the slurpy sound of tires on the street.

BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 6)

The next morning I wandered into KaDeWe, Berlin's largest department store — comparable, I'm told, to Harrods in London. William and I had our two-year anniversary coming up and I wanted to get him something special. The store, opened in 1907, now employs over two thousand people to sell its high-end wares on nine floors.

In men's accessories, I found a black leather wallet for William. The salesman, efficient and exceedingly professional, boxed, wrapped and handed me the gift. For a moment I pretended to be a rich European, as if this shopping expedition were an everyday occurrence.

Danke, I whispered. He didn't leak any opinion of me and I smoothly moved away, elegant KaDeWe bag in hand, and rode escalators to the apex of the building. As if cresting the peak of an oceanic wave, I arrived at the top floor and paused at the culinary vista spread before me.

Chefs in tall poplin hats and white twill jackets expertly flashed knives and sliced through roasted meats or filleted, pan-fried fish at myriad eating stations. A vast array of cheese, meat, fish, bread and pastries in sparkling glass cases overwhelmed my eyes and revved up serious salivating. The delicacies department in the KaDeWe is a glittering salute to all things gourmet.

For a late-evening picnic with William, I chose a tangy Roquefort and a chunk of Swiss. A thick slice of chicken pâté, a loaf of rustic farmer's bread, and a bottle of Riesling would provide a Willkommen for William. The next morning I would fly away for six days.

But now, perched high on a leather stool at a stainless-steel counter, I ordered a glass of white wine and feasted on a baked potato stuffed with browned mushrooms and sautéed spinach. On the side, a spicy red cabbage salad.

I ate and watched the hoi polloi of Berlin shop for...what? A special cocktail party, a business lunch, or just a family dinner. What a hell of a way to eat. I could live on the top floor of the KaDeWe.

BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 5)

Here's what I knew about us after two years together:

OPPOSITES ATTRACT

he likes	she likes
late nights	early mornings
new things	old things
sweet	salty
action	drama
fantasy	real
sleeping	bike rides
crosswords	yoga
pizza in	Italian out
staying home	traveling
blinds closed	blinds open

I learned what made William nervous about foreign travel. He didn't want to offend, get lost or stick out — all things bound to happen in the face of another language, currency, culture and landscape. I too could be apprehensive, but tended to jump in anyway, whereas he was content to remain on the sidelines.

We walked under and through the Brandenburg Gate into a crowd that bopped to live rock music, quaffed steins of beer and munched hot sausages. We bought our own sausage sandwiches and settled at a picnic table to people-watch.

This is the furthest I've been away from the Madison since I got here, William mused.

Directly behind the hotel was a high-rise mall with shops, movie theatres and a supermarket. On his one day off a week, William slept in, did laundry, bought groceries and maybe went to an English-language movie. Walking a total of perhaps three hundred feet from the Madison. If I hadn't come to Berlin, I'm not sure William would have seen much more than that. This is his nature, while mine is to coax and lure him into the world. The die was cast and we would be ever thus. The prodder and the prod.

William's work days began early and ended after ten at night. This left me alone to explore Berlin. I bought a seven-day bus and train pass. Berlin's subway trains are fast, quiet and clean; the buses smooth and efficient. I was struck, again, by a skyline etched in the silhouettes of cranes. The hammering of construction created the city's soundtrack.

Berlin is home to a large Turkish population. After a long morning walk, I stopped at a street vendor for a doner kebab, which is a Turkish wrap sandwich. Hot tender lamb and grilled vegetables crammed into fluffy pita bread. To work that off, I wandered over to the shell of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

Bombed in the war and nearly destroyed, Berliners have kept the remains of this church as a testament to what happened in their city. Its charred walls droop in a kind of artsy slouch. Newly built architecture has been added to the carcass, creating a modern sanctuary able to house 1,200 worshippers. Because so much of the former West Berlin had been replaced, it was evocative to see evidence of another time.

I bought a ticket and attached myself to a walking tour led by a young American fellow. We would venture a total of seven miles, beginning with Tiergarten Park and the Brandenburg Gate. We looked high up at the Reichstag, home of the German parliament. Reopened in 1999 after years of architectural renovation, including its signature glass dome, it was once again the hub of German politics.

Our tour continued into the former East Berlin, where grey monoliths of ugly Communist apartment housing still existed. We saw remnants of the Wall and took photos of the square guard box known as Checkpoint Charlie. We found the recently excavated site of Hitler's suicide bunker, where he and Eva Braun kicked off, and I was reminded it wasn't all that long ago his horrific reign existed. Knowing it as a historical event and then standing where it actually happened instantly transformed the concept into reality for me.

I thought of every movie I'd ever seen about WWII or the Cold War, with their black-and-white images of frightened people. It was chilling enough to step on the grave of a monster, but on that sunny, blue-skied afternoon, I didn't know it was a foreshadowing of further October adventures.

After the walking tour, I visited the "Topography of Terror," an outdoor museum strung along a preserved piece of the Berlin Wall. The site is where Nazi and SS headquarters stood before Allied bombing destroyed them. The exhibit tells the story of the Nazi rise to power and the hellish torture of the Gestapo. Black-and-white photos lay bare the rounding up of the Jewish, gypsy, intellectual and gay populations, along with details of the Nuremberg Trials. Excavations in 1987 unearthed Gestapo cellars where political prisoners were tortured and killed.

My long day ended with a meander home in a light rainfall. The sunny autumn weather disappeared and I wanted a glass of wine, a hot dinner and my boyfriend. He came home unusually early at seven-thirty. We supped on spaghetti and played Scrabble, and I told of what I'd seen in Berlin and how disturbing it was to be up close to that terrifying regime. We tucked into bed, and wrapped tight in his arms, I hoped the images of the day wouldn't seep into my dreams.

BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 4)

The Madison sat across from the gigantic Sony building. William had sent me digital pictures of the neighborhood and I could confirm I was in the right place. I flew up to his floor, stepped out of the elevator, found his door, and tapped.

There are few sounds as gleeful as the footsteps of true love running to greet its very own. His tip-tapping feet made me smile. Whoosh, the door opened and, from the look on his face, I guessed William was equally amazed I'd come so far.

The studio apartment, with its Japanese aesthetic of hardwood floors and tawny stained doors, looked fresh and welcoming. Off the bedroom area, double doors led into a green-glass and marble bathroom. An efficiency kitchen shimmered in stainless steel and dark granite.

William opened a bottle of red wine and we toasted our reunion. He fried up a couple of bratwurst links, placed them on wheat bread, and spread spicy mustard on top. For William, Germany was sausage heaven. At almost every street corner one could find a seller grilling away. The cool air of those October days was permeated with the scent of seasoned meats that could tempt even the most determined vegetarian.

After a hot bath in a luxurious tub, we crawled under silky white sheets and a fluffy white duvet. I slept the deepest of sleeps after, good God, seeing Paris and getting to Berlin all the way from Los Angeles — in one day.

William had the next day off and we slept until noon. I awoke rested and ready for a new world. After coffee, I pushed open a heavy apartment window, a sturdy example of Germanic construction. We were situated in a bustling, well-trafficked area of the city, but couldn't hear a thing with those windows closed. I looked far below to the street, where people called to each other and the sounds of honking wafted up on a breeze of barbecued sausage.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the reunification of East and West Berlin in 1990, the city had become enormous. From our apartment window I studied a skyline marked with construction cranes perched high on the glass and steel marvels growing across the landscape. For architecture buffs, Berlin had quite a show going on.

And what a day to wake up in this city, the third of October in the year 2000. It was the tenth anniversary of the reunification and the city was poised to party. We started with a stroll through the Tiergarten, a lush, tree-filled park covering one square mile with fourteen linear miles of swirling paths running through it. An urban glen comparable to London's Hyde Park or New York City's Central Park.

In 1772, Frederick II (the Great), King of Prussia, decreed that any couple wishing to marry or any person wishing to become a citizen must plant a tree. There's a thought. He was an early green guy and the city flourished in flora until it didn't...during WWII.

The trees canopied over us were a mere fifty years old. During the Allied bombings, the park was destroyed and most trees were lost. In the years following the war, any remaining growth was used for fuel as Berliners faced harsh winters. The Allies placed guards around the Berlin Zoo after some citizens climbed the walls and slaughtered animals for food.

As we left the park, I looked down and noticed the embedded print of the former wall. This was it. We were walking on top of a curved and harmless pattern of The Wall. The source of broken families, restriction, espionage and death, reduced to a worn stencil.

We followed the wall's path to the formidable Brandenburg Gate, an edifice commissioned by Frederick II to act as a symbol of peace. Minus the twenty-eight long years of anguished separation between East and West, the gate can now do its job. On October 3, 2000, this was the focal point for Berliners celebrating their anniversary.

BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 3)

Berlin's Tegel Airport is situated five miles outside the city. The metropolis has grown to eight times the size of Paris, at 340 square miles, since the reunification of East and West Berlin.

William's hotel, the Madison, was located in the neighborhood of Potsdamer Platz. Because William didn't know how tight his work schedule would be, I assured him I could find my way to the Madison. I did some research and, what did you know, the airport shuttle stopped right in front of the hotel. I changed U.S. dollars to Deutschmarks, found the bus and hopped on. On the ride I whipped up doubts about my research and teetered up the aisle to query the driver.

Potsdamer Platz? I asked in a small voice. My Parisian confidence had disappeared.

He nodded, but I wasn't certain that he understood me.

Madison hotel? He nodded again, more firmly this time, and I entirely missed his hint to get back to my seat and leave him alone. Instead, I stayed next to him and hung on to the metal post. We both stared out the front windshield as if I had suddenly appropriated the position of co-captain.

Fortunately, for everyone's safety, the driver ignored me and kept his eyes glued to the road. It couldn't be this simple, could it? This bus stopping exactly where I needed to be? But I had nothing else to say. I only knew hello, good-bye, please and thank you in German.

Danke, I squeaked, finally careening back to my seat to sightsee nighttime Berlin. We sped past pizza parlors, little brick apartment buildings and wide boulevards full of trees. I pressed my face against the glass and wished I was with those people drinking wine, laughing and eating spaghetti.

The bus passed the few older buildings left standing in Berlin after World War II. Destroyed in the war by some fifty thousand tons of bombs, Berlin today was a city in transition. During the war, a thousand bombs a day were dropped on the city. Ten percent of them never exploded and continue to be a hazard when construction crews dig up the metal cigar-shaped tubes. Crews at Tegel airport alone have excavated more than five hundred bombs.

As we left the older buildings behind and transitioned to an ultramodern world of skyscrapers, I popped my head forward, hoping to catch the driver's attention. Perhaps he'd forgotten my stop. Potsdamer Platz. I whispered it over and over. Potsdamer Platz, Potsdamer Platz....It felt good in my mouth, like a hard candy. Other passengers disembarked along the way and soon I was the only one left on the bus, in the dark, in a foreign city with a burly driver....Potsdamer Platz. Potsdamer Platz....

Scheiße.

I took a deep breath, held it, and decided to believe that the driver and I were in agreement on the goal: The Madison hotel in...yes...Potsdamer Platz. Saying it calmed my nerves.

And then, there it was. Gleaming and new: The Madison. My new home. Through its glass doors was a sharp, contemporary lobby. I was relieved and wanted to hug the driver, but he didn’t seem up for that. After a few too many dankes, I stepped onto the street, bag in hand, and waved "so long" to the driver. He displayed no reaction.