One chapter has closed and another begun. The Magical Mystery Literary Tour has ended. Our intrepid adventurers have all left Berlin. Some returned home, some continued on extended journeys to England, Spain, Poland, and within Germany. Many of them have stories to tell you, and I will be sharing them with you as the Kafka Project's research in Eastern Europe unfolds. In all, the tour was indeed magical. We had astoundingly beautiful weather, and although we were a most diverse group, we all got along very well. Good friendships were formed. It was such a good experience we may indeed do it again next year.

And now the Kafka Project has begun in earnest. The first step in the Kafka Project's Eastern European Research began with a meeting in Kleinmachnow, south of Berlin, in a bird and flower-filled garden on a quiet cobblestone street.

Byron and I are the guests in the home of the family of another of Kafka's loves, Grete Bloch. Eva Bloch Turner, and her husband Jack. The Turners keep a garden apartment in this lovely house built for Eva's grandfather in 1933. Until the reunification of Germany in 1989, this peaceful and quiet street lined with mansions and villas was in East Berlin, and only the best, highest-ranking Communists lived here.