The Columnist Manifesto

Clue #1: passport required
Clue #2: George Clooney (The Good German) and Matt Damon (The Bourne Supremacy)
Clue #3: that last post with Google in German.

I'm sitting with B in Kaffee Einstein on Friederichstrasse, where they offer really good coffee and free WiFi. This would be perfect except that we are being pounded -- pounded -- by cigarette smoke. This will necessarily shorten my blog post.

Yesterday, I blogged briefly from our old haunt, the Starbucks at Hackesher Markt. I make no apologies for going to Starbucks, even Starbucks in Germany, for two reasons. First, I've gotten over my "Starbucks is heinous" thing. I take back nothing negative I've ever said about Starbucks. I just feel I've had my say and now I'm moving on -- which includes getting coffee there from time to time.

Second, and more importantly here in Europe, Starbucks offers a smoke-free environment. Sometimes a person needs coffee sans cigaretten.

The problem, once again, is internet access in Europe, a subject that I've blogged about before. (See here and here and other blog posts from May-June 2005). Although I've been teased about this, the topic is very interesting to bloggers and web surfers traveling in Europe, believe me.

Since there's no internet access at the apartment we're staying in, I'm once again an internet refugee, carrying my laptop around in my backpack in an ongoing quest for (preferably free) WiFi. Starbucks, in its squeeze-every-dime-of-profit way, is joint ventured with T-Mobile (here, T-Punkt) just like in the states. Though at Hackesher Markt's Starbucks, B's was able to free-ride another local wifi signal on her iMac.

On the itinerary of possible internet access points: Berlin Public Library!