On a rain-soaked evening in Berlin — the 4th of July marking the occassion of the U.S. Embassy re-opening near Brandenburg Gate — the mutual appreciation machine was in high gear.

Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit, in his opening words, said there are things one remembers their entire life and seeing John F. Kennedy speak before Rathaus Schöneberg was one of them — and not just because he got a free day from school. Reflecting on Germany's recent breakdown in unquestioning American loyalty on the Iraq War, he turned lemons into lemonade and lauded the American influence on his country, pointing out that Berlin's loud protests against the Iraq War were an indirect product of the sixties anti-Vietnam movement experienced in the United States.

But in a reminder that all is perhaps not yet forgiven, ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who presided over the bitterest period of protest and who was invited to the opening ceremony, refused to attend.

The dominant theme, however, was that of a new dawn for the US-German relationship, one which has notably improved in the last few years after a low point circa 2004 during strong disagreements on Iraq. The dignitaries on hand appealed instead to historical highpoints in the trans-Atlantic friendship.

Ex-President George Herbert Walker Bush, in power in the heady final days of the Berlin Wall, said, "Today, we fit one of the last pieces of a historic puzzle into place. The reality that it lays bare — a new American embassy in the capital of a unified Germany, fitting in the heart of a Europe that is indeed whole and free and at peace, is in fact a great and noble dream realized."

Angela Merkel said, "I thank president Bush for the role the United States played. We will always protect our friendship. We take your concerns seriously."

US Ambassador William Timken, who cut the ribbon, said he took the rain as a good omen.

Today, with sunnier skies on the 60th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift, the nostalgia heavy Amerikafest celebration takes place with the original "candy bomber" of the Airlift, Gail Halvorsen, in attendance. The fanfare will pay tribute to the epic past of German-American relations and leave one to wonder, beyond flowery rhetoric, what is in store for future relations.