Here's a beer story. Peter Preis was the son of our hostess Jenny Scwhartz-Nitka. She was Russian from Ukraine. She bought the old Netherlands Embassy in West Berlin and was remodeling when David and Faye Westbrook and myself stayed there in 1976. When Debbie and I got there on our honeymoon in 1977 all the remodel had been done and it was a fantastic place. Peter and his girlfriend then, Jenny, wanted to take us out on the town so we went to the main drag Kurferstendamm which was not far from the house in the Grunewald district of West Berlin. I don't you if any of you guys went to U-Kudamm, but it is below Kurfurstendamm and may have been shelters or something the military used during WWII. Don't remember exactly how we went underground, but before that we started at a cafe on Kudamm (short for the main street) where we had a few beers, then we moved to a restaurant where we had a cocktail or two, then wine with the meal. After all that Peter and Jenny got us to the place where we went underground. Forgot to mention that Peter knew everyone at the café and at the restaurant where the waiter brought us complimentary champagne. Back down underground. There was a large area if I remember right when we first entered. Tables, chairs and a bar. Don't remember if there was dancing or not. Off to the left was a wide hallway that led further down, and on each side were stalls about twenty or so feet wide and twenty five or so deep. The fronts were open to the hallway and there were stalls on both sides of the hall going way back. I don't think we made it to the end. When we entered the hallway we went in the first stall on the left and Peter greeted his friend. We four got complimentary schnapps and a beer. Each of these stalls specialized in a special schnapps and that's what we got. I can only remember the first specialty. It was vodka with buffalo grass in it. It was served ice cold in shot glasses. Peter had too many friends there. We zig zagged down that hall from one shop to the next never paying for anything. Peter introduced Debbie and I to all the shop owners as his friends from Texas.
We were all four flying to Hamburg the next day because Peter wanted to introduce us to his Italian friend who moved to Hamburg to open up an Italian restaurant there. Luckily the flight was early afternoon so Debbie and I recovered a little bit before we got to Tegel Airport. That was all turned around though shortly after wheels cleared the ground. Climbing fast and high the plane suddenly banked very hard to the left, then just as suddenly back to he right, then once more left then settled down somewhat to turn toward Hamburg. Those were the days when Brigatto Rossi was "kneecapping" executives and politicians in Italy and the Baader-Meinhof gang said they were going to shoot airliners down in Germany. Our heads were about to bust and my stomach didn't really start to settle down until the taxi ride from the airport to the restaurant. I had taken a bunch of deep breaths and so far so good. We got to the restaurant and Peter's friend met us in the back. He was taking us through the kitchen when I got a whiff of all that spicy Italian cuisine and I had to run back out the door. I made it to the flowerbed where I added a late breakfast to the soil.
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