Ok, I know, it took me a while to write something. When you move to a new place there is so much to do, it took weeks until our apartment was finally liveable. It is not done by now, but definitely it does feel like home. And we have two little kittens, which are growing everyday - and won't be kittens anymore soon.
Anyway, I was trying to get some smooth transition into this blog Seattle to Berlin. I thought about this during my long commutes in the train, and that's what I found: the bears. In the Northwest we have been seeing bears in the wild. In Berlin there are non, except Knut, the cute (now that he has grown not so much anymore) little polar bear, but even he lives in the Berlin Zoo. But, and that is the link, Berlins coat of arms contains a bear:

And it doesn't stop here: there is a theory that the name "Berlin" actually means small bear. Makes a lot of sense to me, and maybe to some of the german speakers out there too: "Ber" could easily be an old version of the current german word "Bär" for bear and "lin" is derived from "lein". Put the suffix "lein" on the german noun of your choice and you make it small. But, as I said it's a theory and there are other theories like Berlin being derived from slavic for swamp, making more sense as slavic tribes were the first to settle here (long, long time ago), and there are a lot of lakes and rivers, see a nice discussion at wikipedia here. Anyway, I like the bear link. Although, thinking about it, it could also mean "small beer". I don't know

Tags: Germany, Berlin