Sunday Evening – Dinner with my new friends

Twelve of us arrived from all over the world for the “Dialogue with Germany: Visitors Programme on Capital Punishment.” We are joined by our hosts and interpreters.

Our first meeting was dinner….

Hmmm …. Should we eat the tomatoes?  There has been a big health crisis in Germany this week due to E. coli contaminated tomatoes, cucumbers, and bean sprouts…. I think most of us lived dangerously and ate our vegetables…

I had never met the other American on the trip, Elizabeth Zitrin, who is a lawyer that works the California abolition group, Death Penalty Focus.  Kristin, the director of our Texas group (TCAP.org) has worked with her and spoke very highly of Elizabeth.

Elizabeth and I were asked a lot of questions through the evening about the state of capital punishment in the USA….

I also had several good conversations with Nagendar Sharma, who is the associate legal editor with the Hindustan Times in New Delhi, India… He noted that although hanging is still on the books in India, it has not been used in seven years…

Ken Ito is a professor of music and a conductor and composer, but the death penalty is an issue that continues to be important to him.  We talked lots of issues, but especially about the poison gas cases in Japan and the difficulty of sparing the life of someone involved in heinous cases such as that, even through that person has turned their life around.

I got to spend a good bit of time with the creator of our trip, Dr. Odila Triebel, who is the head of Dialogue Forums for the Institute of Foreign Cultural relations (IFA). It was very interesting hearing her talk about the German history of the abolition of capital punishment, its origins in the Prussian kingdom, where even King Frederick Wilhelm was opposed to the death penalty. But then came World Wars I and II. During this period she mentioned how arbitrary the use of capital punishment had become and how it continued to sour the German people on its use. Eventually those wars ended and in 1949 while the German Bundestag (Parliament) was formulating their Basic Law (comparable to our Constitution), the Delegates decided to end capital punishment.

Tomorrow morning, we start at 8 AM, German time… meaning…. Don’t be late!  LOL

Auf Weidersehen Austin

Saturday afternoon I drove to Houston to catch my Lufthansa flight to Germany. I guess I should mention that although I have travelled all over the USA,  a little bit a Canada, and travel a lot in Mexico...I have never been to Europe. So this was my maiden voyage....

Additionally I have never flown in a 747.  I was pretty impressed. I don't know what things are like on other airlines, but I knew I was in for a treat when I asked for Bloody Mary mix for a beverage and she poured in vodka as well. Not only did they serve a real dinner.... with actual metal cutlery, but we also got a full breakfast. During dinner there was a nice period where the attendants were walking through the cabin with a bottle of wine in each hand... "Would you like red or white with your meal?"

Clearly, I've been riding on domestic airlines too long.... I was pretty much in shock with the great service.... LOL

I was planning to study up on my death penalty facts a bit and work on learning some more German... but the in-flight movies killed my ambition.  in my defense, I could say that in spite of the good food and great service, there was no internet/Wi-Fi.... so I settled for a couple of movies instead.  I especially like "The Adjustment Bureau"..... Have y'all seen it?

So I am up for breakfast on my 747 and arrive in Frankfort at about 8 AM local time and then off for another flight to Berlin.  Very efficient luggage service, btw.... the baggage handler was right off the jetway for our plane and the exit was also right there... no long walks through the terminal...

Sebastian from the IFA (our hosts) met me at the exit and put on a taxi to the hotel... Now I am in Berlin!