Schloss Bellevue

 Bundespräsidialamt-
where the workers are.

Visiting Schloss Bellevue is an incredible treat: there are very limited tours allowed, they are given only to certain groups, and they book out years in advance. So I was very excited to have the opportunity to tour the ceremonial seat of the German President and the associated Bundespräsidialamt.



Our guide was a charming government worker, who started us in the office building, discussed its history, architecture, and the individuals who work there and then walked us to the Schloss. This is one of her duties as she spends a period of time attached to the President's office.

The lovely Schloss Bellevue, although the official residence of the President, is not where he actually lives (that is a government-owned home in Dahlem, not far from the other ambassadors, including that from the US). The flag seen flying from the "residence" does not actually indicate that the President is in his office (either here or at the Bundespräsidialamt), but that he is not in official residence at the Bonn Residence: Villa Hammerschmidt or on a state visit, when he would "reside" where the German flag was raised.

The official Guest Book

Original art, furniture to match

Great Hall

The largest hall in the palace is used for large receptions, state banquets, concerts, discussions, ceremonies awarding prizes and decorations and other events. The walls on the north and south side exhibit two large bodies of colour entitled "Begegnungen" (Encounters, 1988) by the artist Gotthard Graubner.

Seeing our group indicates the size of this room, a reception room which can also be used as a banquet hall.

I loved the paintings.

(Below, you see the painting on the facing wall, with me below it to show scale.)

Halloween and Zombies

The last two years have seen the emergence of the zombie trope replacing the vampire one. I have loads of YA and paranormals on my shelves, waiting to be read, with zombie leads, zombie heroes, dystopian zombified worlds and even zombie romantic leads (I know it's hard to imagine).

Coming home from a Halloween party on Saturday, we bumped into the best zombie costumes (we assume, since they did not go for our brains) that we have seen.

Well done!

(I asked permission to take this photo, of course.)

What I've been doing while I wasn't here...part 2 Aug 2011

And more that we did this month, with a few photos to relieve the eye...

• T2 entered as a vorschulkind into her last year before Grundschule, complete with Winnie-the-Pooh small schultuete. It hurts my feelings a bit when she tells me, "Mama, go!" But at least she hugs and kisses me before she sends me on my way. I'm glad that we didn't push for her to go to first grade this year, as she is enjoying it so. Erste Klasse won't be a bed of roses and I think she will have a grand time this year in kita.
• We went for a weekend religious retreat and really enjoyed the warm feeling, although it was a bit hectic because the following Monday—
• School started again, with T1 switching teachers (which makes us sad because we loved her old one). And wow- is 3rd Klasse incredibly harder than 1st or 2nd! (Kita resumes far earlier than school starts, at least here in Berlin.)
• We went to Amsterdam for the concert at the Hotel Pulitzer and found that suite 273 was charming, bright and airy. We met a lovely expat couple (Mexican and Portugese, respectively) and I need to send them some photos. We had "won" a package and we had :the weekend in a gorgeous suite (more bathrooms than we have at home!), a walking tour with visits to a historic distillery and a cheese cave, a wonderful meal with accompanying wines and a sommelier to guide us (and including what I think is the best piece of beef we have yet had in Europe), a boat tour through the canals, pontoon side seats during the Prinsengracht/Pulitzer concert (the director sat next to us, when he sat) and an invitation to the after party: we sat on a garden bench and "people watched", wondering who the people were that all the others were fawning over (our best guess:Dutch nobility).
• While we were in Amsterdam, the children were enjoying the Soester Fehde and I was a bit jealous: if I had known this existed, I might not have tried for our Amsterdam package but instead enjoyed this! They also did some boating and swimming with their cousins.
  
• T1's Zahnspange lost a piece while being brushed (with a soft toothbrush!). She needed to go for another impression and will get a new upper plate next week.
• The German shifted his Munich workweek a bit and came home to go to the "Faces of the Renaissance" exhibit at the Bode Museum (in partnership with the Met): it was gorgeous. The Bode itself was a lovely , extremely and ornate, gilded piece, but the exhibit was fabulous. We took a guided tour with my women's club and I'm sorry that we did: once again, I find the audio guides to be infinitely superior to a single human as guide. No matter how much that person knows, it won't be as much as the many erudite and recondite sources who put together the audio guide, nor will she have her own period soundtrack or the ability to be put on pause while one gazes and ponders. I'll probably make a repeat visit, with audio guide. During the tour, I took lots of photographs (I asked, as always, at the door and was told it would be fine with no flash): at the end of the tour, the guide told me that in this special exhibit, photos were not allowed (due to the many private owners of individual paintings collected) so I was lucky. Strange that no guard stopped me if it was actually forbidden, though.
  
• I took a bread course, an African cooking course, a Persian cooking course and a vegetarian Persian cooking course. I enjoyed them all, even though a woman in the bread class informed me, as I was discussing sourdough starters with the teacher (a Master Baker), that the US has only "squishy" bread. I asked if she had ever been in the US and she told me no, although her friend had told her all about it. The folks in the African and Persian courses were much more friendly and open. I wonder if there is some correlation between taking a cooking course in a foreign cuisine and not having negative stereotypes about foreign cuisine? (Perhaps that's a bit obvious:-)).

Now I have posted these, perhaps I can get going on some more current posts! I can say that I may expand on some of these and re-post as individual pieces, but I seem to never get around to doing it.

Pop Up Books: Bücherbox

July 6/I was walking back from a meeting with some friends when I ran across this movable art piece. I saw one at Grünewoche, but this was the first I have seen "in the wild". This is a BücherboXX
and it's both a piece of art and a usable "lending library"— one can take or leave books.

Werder Baumblütenfest

It's absolutely incredible how many posts I started and left hanging. This is just one of them.

The Werder Baumblütenfest is quite close to Berlin and I had been meaning to get to it ever since reading about it on another expat's blog. With over 500,000 visitors during its nine days, it is one of the largest "Folk Festivals" in Germany. We loaded up our bikes and sallied forth.

On the published "trail" we stopped at several locations and tasted the fruit wines: I particularly enjoyed the Johannesbeeren (current wine, both red and black). Each stop had wine for purchase in supplied or self-supplied containers and some type of food on offer (cake and Wurst being the usual), while some had play areas.

But as a relative non-drinker and hater of crowds, I am not the target audience (really, I am not for any crowded venue). I enjoyed looking at the flowers, but a second in the (very loud) city centre sent us out onto a bike trail where we actually enjoyed our day, stopping at a hilltop Kneipe to give the girls an Apfelschorle while we had a water and a platter of bread and cheese (the Germans were knocking back the Wurst and the wine as well). We enjoyed the view and the exercise and went home after a nice ride, enjoying a look at the local wine region.

Chaos from order and hopefully back soon.

Life's been so crazy that I even forgot to post my reading list at the end of the month. I have been working on posts for a while, but they aren't done. I'll link them here when they are done.

• Saw The King's Speech (two weeks before the Oscars)
• I visited an interesting museum, the Daimler Contemporary, and had lunch with my group.
• Went to Vienna for the weekend and saw Cirque de Soleil with a friend.
• Found a massage place, finally, and my back is still feeling the pain.
• Had a bad experience with T2's swim instructor and had to switch classes.
• Discovered that my blog had been scraped and my posts were sitting on someone else's web site.
  

In the regular and scheduled craziness, I'm taking:

• yoga Tuesdays and Thursday,
  
• my German class has restarted Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday,
  
• my German writing course is still running Wednesdays,
  
• the kids have speech therapy on Monday,
  
• T1 has swimming on Wednesday while
  
• T2 has it Friday (due to the above mentioned instructor issue),
  
• they both have recorder instruction on Thursday and
  
• T1 has art/ceramics on Friday.

Ice skating Saturday ended two weeks ago, so last week they went bike riding on Saturday while waiting for rollerblading to start.

This week, I also had Elternabends on Wednesday and on Thursday, as well as the massage and lunch with a friend on Wednesday.

I am also trying to declutter at least 15 minutes a day, I run about 7 loads of laundry a week (with three on Wednesdays when I change the linens), and I am "looking forward" to the seasonal change-over of clothing that I anticipate in three weeks.

The calendar is receiving a work out and the German needs to start referring to it— he actually scheduled a babysitter for one of the Elternabends for me, but he told her the wrong day! Luckily, she lives two streets over so it wasn't terribly inconvenient for her, but it was awfully embarrassing!

The Pergamon Museum and the 'Tell Halaf Adventure'

Pergamonmuseum (Eingang), Museumsinsel Berlin-Mitte

© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Foto: Maximilian Meisse

The Pergamon Museum is another of the Berlin State Museums. This collection of museums is just inspiring. Continuing on my quest to explore more of Berlin, we chose to visit the Pergamon

Museum (this Wikipedia link is out dated,it looks to be from 2006— sorry).

I took the quick tour with the audio guide (a bit over 30 minutes), which hit most of the major highlights: the Pergamon Altar, the Miletus Market Gate, and the Ishtar Gate and Processional Way (entering Babylon). The photos you see here are my own if not otherwise credited but they aren't as good as the ones you can see at some of these links. The huge architectural elements were overwhelmingly impressive. In particular, as I walked the processional way, which was actually only a fraction of the size that the real entryway to Babylon was (the real layout would not have fit within the Museum). As I waked along the Processional way, realizing that the larger second gate was still in storage and that the majority of the artifacts were actually either in storage or dispersed in other museums, I was still in absolute awe. No wonder that Psalm 137:1 "By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion." Being brought, enslaved , into Babylon must have been the beginning of the process of mental destruction as agrarian herders were enslaved and
brought into what was an immeasurably more advanced (Bible Map) civilization.

After spending time wandering in awe through these monuments, and hearing (through my audio guide) about the damage inflicted due to structural damage to the museum in the war- (particularly to the Market Gate, whose glass roof was destroyed, leaving the gate, which had been hollowed out for display, open to the elements), we were ready to proceed to the main exhibit: the Tell Halaf Adventure.

Tell Halaf was "discovered" by Baron Max von Oppenheim, the scion of a banking family who had no desire to enter the family business. Instead, he entered the German Foreign Service and was enamored of all things Middle Eastern. In 1899, he discovered Tell Half, adrift in the sands, and reserved a digging permit with the authorities. Interesingly, the exhibit makes it clear that he eventually reached an end point in his career because of his Jewish background and turned instead to his true love: a search for knowledge and understanding.
The on-line link says instead:

Ten years after the discovery of the tell the Ottoman authorities urged von Oppenheim to start exploring the site as French and British parties were now signaling their interest as well. Consequently in November of 1910 Max von Oppenheim handed in his letter of resignation to the Foreign Office in order to prepare the task that was ahead of him.

Not quite the same connotation.

In any case, the project is wonderfully detailed in German, English and French here
and well worth reading about. Baron von Oppenheim could have been Indiana Jones, except that he was an ethical and extremely methodical archeologist, not a hit and run exploiter looking for a profit. In fact, his doting parents and the Oppenheim bank funded his work, while he painstakingly recorded the flora and fauna and native songs of the area, as well as worked with professionals at the highest level of science at that time.
Oppenheim worked with the government and his share of the excavations were brought back to Berlin, where he exhibited them at an iron foundry. There are wonderful photos and video of the actual exhibits. However, in 1943, the foundry was bombed. The combination of extremely high temperatures and the water from the fire trucks made the basalt statues explode into thousands of pieces and the pieces were tossed in the basement of the Pergamon and other storage areas until after the fall of the Wall, when they were once again accessible and thought was turned to the possibility of reconstruction.
It's just sad how things that remained unbroken for 4500 years were destroyed and amazing how they have been reconstructed (where possible). It's not just the exhibited statues that are so interesting, but also the story, as we know it, that is so fascinating. Do check the project itself out.

(In a fascinating side note, the goddess statue that you see above is on loan, for the first time, from Syria. Because as they were assembling the fragments in Berlin, 60 years after the destruction, they discovered that some of the fragments which had originally been brought to Germany by van Oppenheim in the original separation of the findings, as per agreement,were part of statues that were partially assembled in Syria! After being re-shipped to Syria, this statue was able to be completely reassembled for the first time.)

The Neues Museum

Entry to the Musem Isle

Continuing with this year's resolution to see more of Berlin (and by that I don't just mean walking by the architecture), I grabbed my Museum Pass on Monday and off we went. I would have preferred to see one of the National Galleries, but, having learned my lesson as to checking open days, I knew that Monday was closed for the majority of museums that I was interested in. However the Pergamon and the Neues Museum were available.

The Neues has only recently (2009) reopened after being closed for 70 years, since the beginning of World War II in 1939. It is an absolutely fascinating museum architecturally and one of the finest that I think I have ever seen. Please do read the above link which describes some of the controversy over David Chipperfield's design (some protesters attempted to have UNESCO place the Museum on its list of endangered World Heritage sites due to the redesign). To the right you see the view down the long hall to the famous bust of Nefertiti (shown below), which was discovered by Ludwig Borchardt in 1912. Believed to have been crafted in 1345 BC by the sculptor Thutmose, the paint you see is original. It is amazing to see this in person and no photos are allowed (therefore my shot from where photos are allowed) but the bust is even more incredible than the official picture I have included.
As we entered through the center staircase, I turned to the German and said how amazing I found the design, with the integration of recycled bricks and classic elements with stark modernity. That's when he told me how controversial the redesign had been. I wandered the halls in amazement at how perfectly the architect had incorporated the elements that were salvageable. I was so fascinated that I actually went to the gift shop and bought a "coffee table" style book on the design and rebuilding of the museum with essays by architects and I expect that I will read it slowly, chapter by chapter, over the next year. There's also a very good architectural visual tour on the web site of the museum.
On the right you see the south cupola in 1984, on the left you see it as it is today.


We spent a few hours wandering around, looking at the architecture and some of the exhibition highlights (like the Schliemann exhibit discussing the excavation and display of items from Troy–those that were not stolen by the Soviet Union during the occupation of Berlin). But we didn't see (or hear, using the once again wonderful and included audio guide) the quarter of it and I will visit again this year.

When deciding to see the Neues Museum, the most important thing to remember is that one needs to buy a timed admission ticket in addition to the regular ticket (or use of the museum pass). The ticket is free and can be purchase on-line or on-site, but it defines the time one will be allowed to enter (one can stay as long as one wishes) within a 30 minute period. Don't show up without one during busy periods or special exhibits, or one may wind up disappointed.

Picasso and Matisse and Klee, oh my

Museum Berggruen Berlin-Charlottenburg, Schlossstr. 1 © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; Foto: SMB

Following up on my "resolution" to see more of what Berlin has to offer, I met a friend on Friday and we went to the Berggruen Museum.
I have been looking at this museum almost every day for the last three years (I passed it on the way to dropping the children at kita and on the way to one of my classes) and the only time I attempted to visit, it was closed (memo to self- many museums are closed on Monday in Berlin).

This time, I did some research and my friend and I chose an open day. We chose this museum because it was close to both of us and we had been thinking about it for a while and I really enjoyed the visit: I normally look at earlier periods but I have been trying to expand my understanding of art since visiting the Peggy Guggenheim in Venice last year.

This museum and collection were left to Berlin by Heinz Berggruen, a German Jew who fled the Nazis to the US and, while in Paris after WWII became an extremely influential gallery owner and friend of many artists, especially Picasso.

Berggruen left the art collection in a generous gesture of a low price to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. For this he was awarded the honorary citizenship of Berlin and the Federal Cross of Merit (Grand Cross 2nd Class) of Germany (Bundesverdienstkreuz, Großes Verdienstkreuz mit Stern und Schulterband). (cf Wiki above)

The museum has a collection of 85 works from Picasso, across his lifetime, as well as other artists that Berggruen collected personally) and I found it exciting and enlightening to look at Picasso's work across 80 years: I have never really liked the works that I saw, but now I see that there are many periods of Picasso that I do like. One of the most confusing points of the work that I have seen is that although Picasso painted in many periods, he did so whenever he wanted to, so one doesn't necessarily look at hos work and see a progression: in fact, his more classic works can be seen throughout his oeuvre and his technical virtuosity is seen from a very early age: when he chose to paint in less technical styles, it was a choice, not a lack of skill.

Salvador Dali said of Picasso that he was a great painter with no originality, that he was a master of copying styles, and I think it might be true as I looked through this collection which has masters of the different styles next to his paintings (which were not copies in the classical sense, but simply used the style of the period, such as Cubism or Fauvism– did he help create these styles or did he run with the thoughts of other artists?).

This looks amazingly like a Botero,
or does a Botero look amazingly like it?

He outlasted the originators and he had amazing technical skill, though.

While this is an amazing homage to Cranach the Younger

There is an entire section of Klee which I also found fascinating.Klee lost his post at the university of Düsseldorf because he was Jewish and fled to Switzerland, where he died while awaiting naturalization (although his mother was Swiss, at that time, as in Germany, nationality passed through the male bloodline).

(Although nothing at all is mentioned in the exhibition about Klee's religion or its effect on his painting and life.)

Well worth visiting and the audio guide (which is included with admission) is extremely well done and includes some introductions by Heinz Berggruen to his collection and some specific paintings,a s well as some interesting interviews with contemporaries of Picasso.

This is a Berlin State Museum, and if one purchases the annual pass for 40€ one can go to them all (lots of them!) on the pass (80€ includes special exhibits): so far, all the museums have included a free audio guide with entry and I am very glad: they lend quite a bit to an understanding of the material.

Oktoberfest 2010

Here are a few pictures from Oktoberfest 2010. I'm pretty awful at grabbing pictures of myself, so I hope that I can get a few of myself in the Dirndl and the German in his Lederhosen from the friend with the camera.

We dropped the girls with a friend on Saturday evening after services and breaking Yom Kippur fast because we had a 6:50 train to München on Sunday morning. It was a bit stressful because, although the German does this every week, he had forgotten that Sunday schedule in the early morning is a bit different than during the week: we had two long delays as we waited for our U-Bahns and I was a bit stressed that we wouldn't make it, even though I had us leave 15 minutes earlier that he had wanted (I had tried for 30 minutes, but my reach exceeds my grasp). We ran through the Hauptbahnhof (not easy when carrying a rolling suitcase down to escalators at speed) and got there at 6:50. Luckily, our train was actually at 6:52, because we took off on time.

We arrived timely in München and went to check in at the hotel. Because of Oktoberfest this wasn't the German's regular hotel, but a Westin a bit further out and which I liked even more than his standard. After we checked in, the German decided that we were on the wrong side of the hotel,called the desk and had them rebook ous on the side with the view of the city (I had thought the greenery view was quite nice): he was right. The other side had a gorgeous view of München with the Oktoberfest Ferris wheel in the background.

We showered and changed into our Trachten and grabbed the U-Bahn back to the Theresienwiese to meet M at his table at the Weinzelt. I have never seen so many people in Trachten in my life, starting at the Hauptbahnhof and continuing until I left the city. It took us a bit of asking, and a little dodging of big men who were unsteady on their feet, but we found it and our table and joined the party. We stayed from about 3:30 until about 8:30, when we bid our new friends good-bye. The food was lovely and the drink was fine— no beer in this tent except .5l of Hefeweizen!

We walked round a bit on the way out, peeking in several tents and enjoying the sights (for me, the fabulous different regional variations on Trachten).

On Monday, after the German trundled off to work, I met up with some of M's friends who were looking about a bit before they left to various parts of the globe. We had coffee and then just wandered about a bit. I finally watched the famous clockwork automatons in Marienplatz and then we just walked, looking in shop windows (good heavens, my Tracht was cheap compared even to department stores!), looking at the Viktualenmarkt (wonderful "ancient tomatoes") and, after grabbing a tea, looking at the Residenz. It's too bad they needed to return to M's for a trip to the airport, because that is at the base of the English Garden and the weather was wonderful: perfect for walking through the gardens.

I met the German for lunch at Vapiano, a fast food Italian place that we also have here in Berlin and which I like very much: we split a Penne Arrabiata and a Salat with balsamic and beef.

Then I wandered back to the hotel and put my feet up (figuratively) while drinking Lattes and tea in the executive lounge, enjoying the view of München.

I went back into the city to meet the German and his co-workers for dinner at an Indian restaurant and it was good! The waiter gave me a warning when I asked how spicy the food was, which was echoed by the Brits that I was with,and I am glad I listened: the Jalfrezi was spicy enough for me and spicier than vindaloos that I have in Berlin.

Tuesday was more aimless walking in the fabulous weather and then a return to Oktoberfest and Trachten. Strangely enough, it was far busier on a weekday night than it had been on Sunday night and we had trouble finding a spot at the tables in a tent. We wound up in the Hofbrauhaus tent and it was nice: I had a 1/2 liter of Apfelschorle and the German had a Maas. We listened to a amazing percussion band up by the stone buildings that you see on the left and looked at the large statue of Bavaria, although we were too late to climb her and look out over the Wiesn from her head.

The Olympic roller-coaster (I didn't take it myself- I was still a bit queasy the next day. Not from drinking, but I'm starting to suspect that the food that we ate at the Weinzelt, although tasty, had quite a bit of MSG, to which I have a severe sensitivity.)

On Tuesday I decided that I needed to take an earlier train back to ensure that I would be on time to pick up the girls and re-booked the earlier (7:43 am) train. In the event, I was definitely right in doing so: although we moved in a timely fashiona nd I had good luck with the S and U connections, the traffic ws snarled on the way to the school, with a tunnel being closed and the usual Messe issue (the police should crack down on what Messe visitors do to the surrounding neighborhood in their cheap desire not to pay for legal parking) and I would have been late if I had taken the train one hour later. With my in-laws leaving immediately after dropping the girls in the morning, I feel a lot of stress even planning to be early.

This shows my nicely reserved seat from München to Berlin: I actually didn't sit in it until Leipzig because I wanted a window seat. However, my neighbor in the window actually wound up not showing and I just spread out a bit.

I got quite a bit of reading done this month, with two 6.5 hour trips to fill.

Synchronicity

What does it mean when my husband is at the store whose on-line catalogue I am perusing, at the very moment that I am longing for sold out items?

It means that I am a bit jealous, that great minds think alike, and that we both wait too long to get what we need: when he asked if they had any other color than black, the salesman looked at him with hauteur and pointed put that two days before the start of d'Wiesn he is lucky to find anything.

The salesman was right: every decent dirndl I looked at was sold out. I hope that, in a very non-German way, they actually order in during the season. The German also tells me that although on-line was sold out he thinks the store location has more in stock (they must: there was only 1 (ugly) item in stock in the childrens' section and that's just not possible). Otherwise I'll need to stick with my slightly too large and not very special already owned one.

Can it be Sunday already?

As is evidenced by my lack of blogging, I've been more chaotic and all over the place than usual.

We have had New Year's and Yom Kippur and Sukkot and a sadly great amount of time spent in synagogue was on the weekend rather than during the week. Sad because it has meant that I have spent the weekends being busy and therefore started each new week already tired.

We took a quick run to Dresden to use a free Starwood night before it expired and had a really lovely time at the Westin in Dresden: wonderful views, walking distance to the Center, on the river.
Dresden September 2009 Dresden September 2009

Thing1 lost an upper front tooth but has refused to allow the tooth fairy to visit and now she seems to have lost the little box she had that tooth in.

Last Friday we finally came to a decision on the move to Munich: it's really been on the burner, going back and forth, since June. The final result will be that the German will work no more than 4 days a week until January, that we will have a bit over three weeks of vacation between now and then and that after the 1st he will go to 3 days a week, which is manageable until the end of the school year. So the girls keep their friends, as do I, and all our arrangements will continue and I can start to relax: those of you have moved in Germany know just how horrifying and stressful the concept was: giving three months on this apartment and only having apartments available to view in 1, 3 months notice on utilities and gyms and ballette classes, having to uninstall and reinstall lights and renovate.... Yes, although at this point I was almost psyched at the concept of Munich I was definitely still more than unhappy with the thought of moving!

Great companionship checking out the new W on the beach:) October 2009

So after finding this out, I ran away from Friday to Sunday to Barcelona (as previously planned)and it was wonderful: weather, architecture, food, companionship and weather. Walked a lot and looked at things from the outside and had a great time.

Came back from low 80's to chilly and high 40s and a late end and early start to the week.

The best tuna tartare I've ever had, at the new W in Barcelona October 2009

The girls were exhausted this week: Thing1 was so tired on Tuesday that when I picked her up at school she actually wept and begged me not to make her go to swimming. I'm going to guess that she must have been a little sick, although she had no fever. In any case, we stayed home and had an early night with movie. On Thursday I was called in to pick her up from school early because her remaining upper front tooth was so painful and we stayed home again. That night, her tooth came out and now she looks like the cutest little vampire in the world:). It brightened her mood. We had some negotiation over what would inveigle her to allow the tooth fairy to take her tooth and we determined "something with ponies and fairies".

Luckily, here in Germany there is no shortage of such and she wound up with the new Lillifee DVD and a Ponyfee book. Perfect for her reading age and I am finding it useful myself- now I know that I can, sortof, read in the 6-8 age group.

This week culminated with Simchat Torah and another weekend in synagogue. The girls were pretty happy with this, as there was definitely candy being tossed about. The German was a bit wobbly as l'chaim and kiddush were being made with Russian vodka!

We also made a quick run to Ikea- T1 and T2 adore going there. Another blogger mentioned that she had been there this weekend and was overwhelmed by lost and rowdy children and Germans with no idea of personal space.
I certainly agree that many Germans have no idea of personal space- I particularly loved the man who thought that stepping between my crying child and her mother and not moving was a good thing to do- while standing in line himself at the childcare area! But I have never seen/heard announcements for more than lost child or two, because the main reason that folks go to Ikea with their children!) is to take advantage of the free supervised spielplatz. Often we go have a coffee and chat for that hour, although this time we picked up another Benno (in schwarz-braun) for downstairs. Then we all went up and ate salmon and boiled potatoes and frites. That after a lunch of grilled steak and mashed potatoes. T1 said it was "the bestest day".

Only two more days before my German class is over and a two week vacation until the next one starts--- yeah!

Visiting the Reichstag

Today we kept Thing1 out of Kita to spend the day speaking in English. Tomorrow is her English test and we are pretty certain that she is going to fail it.

This entire situation has been a bit of a cluster. When we came to Germany, we were greatly concerned that the girls' lack of German would cause them social problems (and loneliness). After much discussion and speaking to a pediatrician, we put them in a German Kita so that they could learn German and socialize (and so that I could take a German course as well). The German made a point of speaking only Deutsche to the children. When Thing1 had her 5 year check up in July, the pediatrician was concerned that she was still behind with her German and had problems with some vowels.

Now, in November (actually since August, when they spent a week with the grandparents) Thing1 preferentially speaks German and she has lost her "th". I have great difficulty getting her to speak any English (although she still understands everything) and Thing2 is mutter sprache Deutsche. This is a problem because my German is so limited.

It is also a problem because the bi-lingual schools here accept on the Engish and German mothertongue sides differently: there is no problem for English mothertongue speakers and a great oversubscription (and consequent lottery) on the German mothertongue side. If Thing1 fails the test, I am not certain that we can get her into a bilingual school and that would be a catastrophe. We do expect to return to the US and there are really no paths to German integration into the US school system. Since she will already be one year behind the US (children start later here), I can't imagine how damaged she will be if she loses more time to become English fluent when we go back. When I am not so tired, I will write up a long post on how this system works and how totally messed up foreigners are by it.

So we booked lunch at the Reichstag, following the recommendation that doing so would allow us to bypass the security line (which it did- we had no line at all at our separate entrance and the friendly security man allowed Thing1 to use the bathroom while we waited for the (extremely slow) elevator).
We ate at the Kaefer Berlin im Deutscher Bundestag, and as this article states, had a fabulous view. I found the food to be adequate and the German pointed out that we were the only diners not to order the veal Schnitzel. My beef rouladen with knoedel and rotkohl was decent, the German's Venison with noodles and "cranberries" was too salty (though he ate it) and so was Thing 1's Noodles with red sauce (on the side), which she did not eat. Hard to believe anything could be too salty for me, but I gave Thing1 some of my rouladen to eat instead. We had a nice pate of deer with salad as a starter and for dessert Thing1 had a Disney Eis (a Donald Duck mug filled with strawberry and vanilla ice cream, two waffle cookies, and two decorative streamers) which she loved. The German and I shared a creme brulee, served in a high cup and a little too sweet and a little too liquid, but arranged nicely on a plate with some streaks of passionfruit and mango puree.

Then we wandered through the dome. It's just gorgeous.

After letting Thing1 run about (it was more fun than the Habitrail Gem exhibit at the Museum of Natural History in New York) we had to run to get home before Thing2 got back from school. We grabbed the 100 to the Zoo and then a cab home and made it with 6 minutes to spare.

Then I ran off to go shopping (it's at least every other day here) and when I got back the German went to his scheduled haircut. When he got back, he grabbed the two computers with destroyed power cords (remember, we had 3 but the Mac was under warranty) and brought them to the corner computer shop, where he picked up an adaptable power cord (clearly, we expect this to happen again).

A bit of a struggle later, the girls in bed, we return to deal with open enrollment periods that don't allow access from German work computers: I don't know when we will ever be able to send the one from the US back!

Tomorrow, the test.

see:
German Bundestag

Duesseldorf

Monday, June 9th

Amsterdam and Delft

Friday June 6th-Saturday June 7th


Amsterdam


Delft

Wilde Pferde

It was a rainy Fridaynight and a wet Saturday as we gathered ourselves up to go see the wild horse round up in Duehlman. It was soggy and gray but we got
there about 9 am and walked around looking at the horses that had already been coralled prior to what would be a cutting out of the first year stallions for sale.


The girls had a lot of fun walking and looking and petting the many already tamed horses that were waiting to compete in the "rodeo" that would take place after the cutting. There
were many Wildepfereden there in individual rope enclosures with signs showing when they had been purchased at prior sales and who the owners were: an awful lot of horse crazy girls and horse clubs. In addition we watched the Frieians being unloaded (there would also be a Friesian show). Then we wandered the area, picked up some pikante strudeln (there's not an awful lot of non-schweine food here in Deutscheland) and sat on the bank of the stream for a bit (we had brought a blanket and some drinks).
Here you see a horse-drawn bus bringing people in from the far parking lots.
Around 12:30, or about 30 minutes before the gates would open and an hour before the actual show would start, the kids just became too tired, so we bundled them up, the younger on the German's shoulder and Thing1 in the stroller and took them back to the car. We were able to sell our tickets at the gate for the price that we had paid;-), so we got to walk around for free rather than pay the (lower) price for grounds tickets, so we were pretty happy. I bought a DVD of the round up and next year we will buy sitzplatz and get there at 12:30 which should leave us fresh for the show!

Afterwards, since both girls fell asleep in the car, we drove the half hour to Muenster and took a quick drive through, as I'd never been there. Both the German's parents had gone to University there (it was where they met) and his sister had done her University work there as well and liked it. It was a cute (and very small) town and I could see why it has the title of Bicycle Capital of Germany--- I have never seen so many bicycles in my life. There were huge herds of them, like passenger pigeons, resting everywhere.