Twelve Reasons

Brian and I are getting a little anxious to get home to everything familiar to us. We've been thinking about it for a little while now... I've come up with 12 reasons why we look forward to getting home, even though we have enjoyed living in Germany this summer.

1. Window coverings. The aparment we're in now has HUGE windows... no window coverings. Thats especially bad at 4:30 in the morning when it gets very light outside (and inside). We've made do with sheets over the bedroom windows, but I miss Allison's black out drapes... she sleeps past 5 in the morning with those on the windows
2. No loud birds. Seriously... the birds here are freakishly loud and, like the light, get started at 4 am.
3. Allison's own room. Brian and I have relinquished the one bedroom in our flat here to Allison thinking that maybe we'd get a little more sleep. No such luck (reasons 1 & 2 lead to Allison thinking 5 am is the perfect time to wake up for the day).
4. Moutains. They block light when its too early in the morning for it to be getting light outside.
5. Adult friends. We miss you guys!
6. English. Not only is it a beautiful language, but we speak it fluently and understand it nearly effortlessly.
7. Memory foam matress topper. Enough said...
8. More than 2 TV channels. The only channels in English here are are CNN International and BBC World, and I'm sure sick of international news over and over again. I think I may never watch the news again...
9. Allison's toys. This poor girls has just been getting so bored (and cranky to go with it) with no real toys to play with.
10. Space for projects. With not much to do in the evenings (since Allison is asleep) Brian and I are both getting anxious to get back to our hobbies at home.
11. A car! Don't get me wrong, public transport is great here! But I do look forward to not having to carry all my groceries home from the market.
12. More sleep, hopefully! Between the light, the birds and the early waking child who has been sharing our room for almost 2 months, we really hope that going home and getting settled back in will equal sleeping past 5 am on a daily basis.

No place like home indeed, even when you've been somewhere fun and exciting. Only 11 more days, and those should go quick... London and Paris, here we come!

Museums

Thursday nights are free museum night in Berlin's museum district. Brian and I decided to take advantage a few weeks ago and we went to the Altes Museum... its the Berlin Museum of Egyptian Art, which is currently also housed with the Museum of Greek and Roman Art, since they're doing MAJOR contrsuction on several of the buidlings in the museum district. We had a great time, and Allison was a happy girl, even though it meant she got to bed late. Maybe having her favorite blanket along with us helped...




The major attraction of the Egypt exhibit is the famous bust of Queen Nefertiti. It was pretty cool, but then again, what about ancient Egyptian artifacts isn't cool?

One a completly different note, at a completly different kind of museum, I took Allison to the Labyrinth Childrens Muesum and met up with one of Brian's acoustics professors and her kids (yep, small world... they're in Berlin too!). This was a really fun place... tons of toys to play with and a sort of obstable course that kids could ride through on scooters, stilts, mini bikes, wheelchairs... all kinds of fun. Allison like being pushed around the course by mommy, but she wasn't too keen on being dressed up like the crossing guard cop.


We skipped Allison's afternoon nap for that day of fun, but I think she'd say it was worth it!

Allison's day at the Berlin Zoo

Allison has been begging us for weeks to take her to the zoo. Ever since we got here, its been "Please, please, PLEASE take me to the zoo!" Okay, not really. She can't say any of those words. And she doesn't know what a zoo is. If if she could, and if she did, I'm sure it would have happened that way.


We went to the zoo on Saturday. Let me tell you, theres a reason that zoo is famous. Not only is it HUGE, but its really nice. They have very few fences. Most of the outdoor animal areas are enlosed with large ditches and small electric fences where necessary. Allison had a blast.

She got to ride on Daddy's shoulders, which was tons of fun. "This is a way better way to travel than that wheeled thing mom always pushed me around in"

She got to play for a little while a the seal fountain. "Water! Now how am I supposed to get in there?"

She got to get up close with lots of animals.

"This thing looks funny, and it keeps staring at me..."

Her favorite were the monkeys, but I forget to grab on of those photos...

The absolute BEST part of the day, however, was at the aquarium. They have an open air koi pond there and you can touch the fish if you want.

Do you think she liked it? She's the one you can hear laughing... I guess a better question is do you think they liked her? I'm pretty sure that her little fingers looked a lot like fish food to them. Good thing they don't have teeth!

Berlin Botanical Gardens

Saturday we went to the Bontanical Gardens. They were beautiful. I had Burchart Gardens in my head, but this was different. Most of it was much more natural and wild, less manicures and landscaped. Their green houses were awesome though. Thats where we spent most of our time. Anyway, we took some great photos. This is my favorite one that Brian took... he's getting pretty darn good with that camera...

And this was one of my favorites that I took. They had tons of water lillies, which I loved. However, I don't know what that gross looking thing is near the lilly... I totally didn't even see it when I framed the photo in the lens. Oh well.

Allison did really well Saturday. She only took one short nap but she was so happy and fun. She loved walking through the gardens and seeing all the pretty flowers. It rained too, but she loved it. She's a true Seattle girl.

She did get kind of tired and loopy though. Like her mom, she gets silly when she's tired... we got a cute video of it.

The whole trip tuckered her right out... I can't remember the last time Allison fell asleep in her stroller.

All in all, it was a really great way to spend a Saturday.

More Discoveries in Berlin

This last Saturday we explored more of the city... this time we visited Hauptbanhof (the central train station) and to take photos of the horse sculpture outside. Allison enjoyed crawling around outside for a while. The horse is crayz looking, but it has a neat story. Apparently it was commissioned when the goverment decided to move the capitol to Berlin in 1990. It uses and highlights parts of an old major station and chornicles the railway history in Germany.

While we were there, Brian caught this awesome picture of Allison. Isn't it amazing?

We also went to visit the Neptune Fountain. Allison loved that. She had a lot of fun playing and crawling around the water.

We also visited several churches. One was full of statues and was just gorgeous inside, one was ancient and had an amazing, gorgeous organ, one was recontructed and preserved in its post-war bombed out state... that one was really amazing. They took the pieces of the frescoes and mosaics that covered the walls and ceilings and pieced them back together where they could. But, I didn't bring those photos along with me... guess you'll have to track me down when we get home to see those. =)

Daily Life in Berlin

Its certainly an interesting switch for me. Not only did I go from working mom to stay home mom for the summer, I am staying home in a foreign country where I don't speak the native language. Let's call it an adjustment.

Allison and I try to get out everyday, either between nap and lunch, or nap and daddy coming home. Allison loves to take walks and see people, and its good for me too. We take walks into the Tiergarten (Berlin's answer to Central Park... we can be in it in a short 3 minutes walk from our apartment), we head to an internet cafe every few days and we go to the market every few days (European's have small frigdes... about half the size of a small one by American standards). Usuallz a trip out will take us at least 2 hours. I go three metro stations away for the market (its the closest of the really cheap one that I like) and at least 2 metro stations away for an internet cafe. Its good for us to get out.

In the down time at home, Allison has been absolutely entralled with the large mirror-doored cabinet in the living room of our flat. Narsacistic much? Yes, she is kissing her reflection.

She has also been pretty intent on the daily unpacking and inspection of her clothes.

We've really been lucky with the flat we ended up in. The couple we're renting from is inredibly nice and they have a three year old, so there are some toys left in the apartment that Allison has enjoyed playing with. Thats been a real life saver for me.

As for me, I've been spending my time working on Allison's birth announcement cross-stitch (I know, she's almost a year old now, but my goal is to finish before her brithday...) and reading. I also should be studying for my level 2 teaching license exam, but I just haven't been able to bring myself to that yet. Maybe when I run out of other things to do... altough I have found two H&M stores in Berlin that sounds like a far more appealing way to waste, I mean spend, my time (and money).

On a side note, Allison has cut her third tooth on the bottom row, and we think she might be teething her top 4 right now... time will tell!

Discovering Berlin

We spent our day out discovering some of downtown Berlin. We had so much fun. Berlin is absolutely amazing. Here's a little taste of what we saw (on foot!) today.

The Brandenberg Gate... major crossing point from East to West Berlin

Remnants of the Berlin Wall... only a few pieces are left. I was surprised at how thin the wall was... not more than a few inches! The whole path of the wall is marked through the city with brick.

The Berliner Dom... huge, AMAZING Lutheran Cathedral. We'll post more photos of this when we visit again and don't have dead camera batteries for the interior

Monument to the Slaughtered Jews... its a whole city block of rectangular stones. A little strange, but pretty cool all the same.

The Reichstäg... Germany's capitol building. Theres a really cool glass dome on top.

Overall, here's how we feel about being in Berlin togther. More another time!

Safe and sound, just not as planned

Allison and I made it to Berlin, just not quite as we expected to. Lets just say it was an interesting experience...

I was far too excited to sleep well on Tuesday night, so getting up and to the airport on time was no problem. The airport was the problem. Actually I guess it was air traffic control and the weather in the midwest or the east coast or somewhere between where I was and where I needed to be. My flight out of Salt Lake was delyed, twice, by air traffic control. Since mz flight was delayed, I missed my flight to Berlin Wednesday evening my minutes. Literally I'm pretty sure I saw my flight be Berlin leaving as my flight from Salt Lake was landing.

Continental only flies once per day to Berlin, so Allison and I received a nice hotel room in downtown Newark, New Jersey compliments of Continental airlines. On the bright side, we both got a good nights rest that night. Thats probably a good thing, since I haven't quite had once since. Allison only slept about 3 hours on our flight to Berlin (an overnight, 9 hour flight) and jet lag has been hard on her... she's been waking up at 10 pm from what she seems to think is supposed to be a nap, and wants to play until 1 am. Its been an interesting battle, but I think we're over the worst of it and I'm a few nights from total victory. Last night's prepared strike of a melatonin spiked bottle really helped on that front... both mom and Allison got at least 9 consecutive hours of sleep for the first time in days.

Germany is absolutely beautiful! Its very green, which reminds me of Seattle. Besides trying to get over jetlag, I've been learning how to get to and from the market (an important, almost daily tas), the metro, the internet cafe and playing with Allison. This weekend we plan to get out and do something fun...

Brian is learning a lot in his internship, even if its not necessarily what he was expecting to learn. I'll enlighten you all on that in another post. Sorry, but no photos yet. I'll be sure to get some downloaded and ready to post for next time.