Jonny & Charlie (and Siegfried)

Saturday afternoon, Priscilla, Micha, and I had just exited the metro and were trying to orient ourselves when an old man feeding ducks on a little bridge 100 meters away took note of us. "Where do you want to go?" he called out to us in German, wildly waving a half empty bag of bread in the air. We approached him and asked how to get to the Museum Island. He gave us directions and then noticing our accents, asked where we were from. "I'm from Florida," Pris responded. "Ah, Florida," nodded the man, "and how is my old friend Siegfried doing?" At this point I exchanged looks with Pris wondering if we should make a speedy exit, but then the man reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a series of photos, the first of which was of him and his wife with Siegfried & Roy. Then came a photo of him as a young child with Charlie Chaplin during Chaplin's visit to Berlin in the 30s. And then a photo of him shaking the hand of Charlie Chaplin's daughter, many years later. When he turned around the photos we saw that each picture had been turned into a postcard. We also learned his name was Jonny, and that he was 91 years old.

"I have many friends all over the world," Jonny told us. "We write each other and they ask me for information and I ask them for information and this is how we learn about different things." I'm almost ashamed to say that the first thought that popped into my head was, "I wonder if this guy has ever heard of the Internet." But then I thought about how much I learn from my friends all over the world, stuff that Google can't really teach me, and that it would be nice to have a pen pal. So using Micha's back for support, Jonny wrote down his address which is now lying on my dining room table. Now I just have to find a way to turn the below picture into a postcard and send it to him. I hope he likes it.