I can’t figure out how to download or upload the video of this to this blog so go to my Facebook page to see me and Soham dancing in Tivoli.  So fun.

We took a long walk today through the center of Copenhagen.  We knew if we got lost we could just make our way back to the lakes, as they are called.  The ancient moat and from there we can get back.  So we wandered.  Aimless wandering, which is a form of walking meditation.  We discovered this beautiful church.

I sat in the first pew of this beautiful church and cried. I miss my dad so much, especially in churches.

Another kind of walking meditation.

Right behind these guys is the future palace of the Crown Prince and Princess which is currently open to the public.  The line to get in was over an hour so we skipped it, partly because it was very cold and windy.  

We saw lots of nooks and crannies like this. Behind the old exteriors are renovated office builidings, art galleries and even the wonderful Hamsa Yoga Studio.

Here is Dave teaching meditation last night. We have a sold out workshop and everyone is in for the whole weekend. Dave and I are thrilled with how smart, curious, and open these students are.

Copenhagen sparkles.  It is magic.  We love it.  It is cold and rainy and windy and then not.  The air is crisp and beautiful.  Absolutely everybody is 100% brilliantly fluent in English.  I am ashamed that I cannot speak another language and learning one or two asap is another new resolution. In the meantime, it was so much fun teaching OM yoga: Mindful Flow last night at the Hamsa Studio.  The students are way into it, very open, engaged, very participatory and lively.  Good, strong, smart practices.  Looking forward to a great Yoga Body Buddha Mind weekend.

Thank you to Soham, owner of Hamsa Studio, and Nanna, his assistant, for taking such good care of us. Soham has given up his apartment for us to use and stocked it full of goodies! Do you remember Soham from Istanbul? He came all the way to Turkey to take YBBM so that he could have that experience and then be able to more fully host us while we are here. Wow - very generous. It worked out well for him, too, since he has a nice, new Turkish boyfriend.

But first things first! Soham and Nanna brought us bikes! That is the way to go here and absolutely everybody rides them. Last night on our way to the Dag H. restaurant we counted less than 5 cars but many bikes.

The city has a series of lakes which once was the moat security system. They are populated by friendly ducks and swans. We liked how this swan had her feather fingers interlaced behind her back to open her swan heart.

Here is Soham at his beautiful Hamso studio. A 500 year old house in a back yard. Perfect. It is clean, simple, white, peaceful. Love it!

My current contemplation is how my dharma practice can help me expand my comfort zone.  I would love to be the kind of person who is just totally loose and comfortable in any situation, but I”m not.  Yet.  I’m working on it and step one is to clearly admit my comfort zone boundaries.  I don’t think they are huge but I do like a good cup of coffee in the morning and that is something that I can learn to let go of.  There are other things I might not tell you about but I don’t think the list is huge.  The whole point is not to be spoiled and to be able to be fine with whatever, so that I can be grounded and open and helpful to others no matter what.  This week offered several opportunities to practice this.

We got to the Berlin Train Station two hours early in hopes of getting a reserved seat.  No such luck.  Customer service was, well, kind of non-existent.  I guess the train employees are overworked at this point.  The station was packed.  Long lines.  Especially in the bathroom which costs 80 cents.  That really, really annoyed me and I almost lost my equilibrium then.  I mean, that is a basic human service.  But, what can you do?  Put the coin in the slot and for that you get a choice of 8 stalls in the biggest station in Berlin, and blah blah blah.  OK, I’m letting that go.  Onward.

The station is very modern and that is kind of cool. But the platforms are all outdoors. The wait can get pretty cold. I'm letting that go, too, and pulling my scarf tighter. Glad to have a scarf, right?

After a mad scramble, and getting kicked out of my seat twice, Dave finally found us two unreserved seats. Some people did have reserved seats including the nice old lady and her son who were next to us. They bought their tickets three months in advance. I settled in to finish my YJ article on Uttanasana.

The landscape is flat, flat, flat. Lots of modern windmills. The train ride was 7 hours but 45 minutes of it was on a ferry. Yes, the train went right on to the huge ferry and that was sort of fun.

We arrived in Copenhagen and got off on the wrong stop.  Nanna met us and put us back on the train for one more stop and then we were there.  Ta da!

Our last night in Berlin we decided to take the advice of our pal, Patti Rockenwagner, and have dinner at Le Henne.  It is a classic Berlin joint and has one thing on the menu — chicken.  She told us it was the best chicken in the world.  She also told us that when the wall was built it was put up right outside the window of this restaurant.  Also, JFK evidently had dinner here right after his famous Ich ein Berliner speech.  

Dave liked this beer a lot. He said it was smoooooth.

I loved the decor. The real deal. Can you see the cuckoo clock? Maybe that is the window.

But the very best part was our waitress.  She was about my age, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that said G Star Raw.  Short, cute red hair cut and a plain, open face.  She asked us if we had come on an airplane.  She said that they usually have a lot more tourist/customers (even though the place was packed!)  Dave said jokingly that we were going to take the train to Copenhagen the next day but that who knows? maybe we would be back in Berlin in a week.  At the end of our meal, Dave went outside to get a taxi and as I was about to leave, she took my arm and said kindly, “If you are back in Berlin next week, come back here and we will help you find a place to stay and something to eat.”  Wow.  I was so touched by her kindness.

Today is the last day for the Jewel Heart on line auction.  There is a lot of great stuff including an OM yoga membership.  The monies will all go to benefit Jewel Heart which is headed by my great guru, Gelek Rimpoche.  This is a really cool way for you to support the dharma and all the activities of JH which are listed below and get something good for yourself and your friends.  There are trips, tai chi classes, gift certificates to great restaurants, etc.

Check it out!  www.jewelheart.org

Jewel Heart is a not-for-profit educational and cultural institute whose doors are open to all. Its purpose is to transmit the essence of Tibetan Buddhism in an authentic and accessible way. http://www.jewelheart.org.

Jewel Heart is headquartered in Ann Arbor, MI with chapters throughout the U.S. as well as Europe and Asia. His Holiness the Dalai Lama inaugurated Jewel Heart Headquarters in April 2008.

Jewel Heart provides guidance and practical methods to anyone interested in spiritual development as well as to those who wish to engage in Buddhist practice.

In addition, Jewel Heart supports many humanitarian and cultural activities. These include:

-Financial support for young Tibetan lamas training in monasteries-in-exile in India. It assists future Buddhist teachers to continue the work of preserving Tibetan Buddhism and culture and assures that many Tibetan Buddhist lineages will remain available.

-Financial support for Kongpo Province schools, a poor rural area where children have little to no access to education.

-Financial support for the Namling County Schools Project which builds schools in remote, underserved areas. The project promotes literacy, teaches Tibetan language and culture and enables Tibetans to compete and survive in greater China.

-Financial support for Jatson Chumig Welfare School in Lhasa, a non-profit, charitable institution run by Tibetans for handicapped, orphaned and destitute children.  The school trains students in traditional Tibetan arts & crafts so that they may become self-supporting.

-Financial and logistical support for artists engaged in traditional Tibetan arts as well as tours of Tibetan sacred music & dance.

-Sponsorship of Tibetan art exhibitions and fairs.

-Outreach activities for the Tibetan community in North America.  

There are 3 Yogashala studios — 2 in Istanbul and 1 in Ankara.  Monday, Tuesday and again tonight I teach at this one.  It is beautifully designed and a real treat to teach here.  Yesterday I taught a class for teachers and advanced students called Secrets of the Vinyasa Revealed.

This is Tracy, sitting in the lovely sun porch. She is originally from Vancouver BC and now lives here with her husband and teaches at Yogasala.

Another view of the reception area of Yogasala.

This was not a really popular part of the class. Alexis, second from the right, is the Director of Teacher Training here at Yogasala. We had a lot of fun talking yoga and life after class at Can's apartment. He made an amazing delicious dinner for us all.

We are yoga bonding, which is slightly different from yoga binding.

Mey and me. It was so wonderful to reconnect with her. We had so much fun together. She told me yesterday that she joined the OM yoga on-line Teachers' Directory and Network so she can stay in touch. Thank you, Mey, for helping to make our visit so special.

It's a beautiful day! And we feel glamorous in our sunglasses!

Let's all get in the picture!

Can took us shopping to the Grand Bazaar.  It is so ancient but locals still shop here regularly.  We saw young women in glamorous sunglasses right next to guys carrying tall piles of simits on their head.  A simit is sort of a cross between a bagel and a pretzel with sesame seeds.  He walks between the shops and if someone wants to buy a simit, he bends down and they pick one off the top of the pile, hand him some money and he is off to the next shop.  Old ladies with head scarves and long dresses next to teenage girls in Hello Kitty t-shirts.  It’s all here.

Each shopowner offers you a cup of Turkish tea or coffee. The tea is just as strong as the coffee. There are back rooms and upstairs and balconies and unknown depths.

Welcome to the Spice Market!

Every possible nut. And the desserts...yummy. The baklava gets sold out by 1pm but the white chocolate/Turkish toffee with pistachios inside? Well, those are coming back to OM yoga for the teachers and staff. The brown things hanging in the picture above are dried eggplant which people buy and stuff with something to make dolma.

These sweets are called Turkish delight. One of the Yogashala teachers, Neslihan, who has visited and taken my class at OM yoga, gave us a bag of it for the OM yoga teachers.