Sony Centre and Potsdamer Platz Weihnachtsmarkt

On Saturday night we booked our babysitter for the last time this year. The plan had been to wander the Gendarmenmarkt, which I think the most charming and classic of Berlin's Weihnachtmarkts.

But it was raining.

So instead we went to see Mission Impossible: The Ghost Protocol at Sony Centre. (We enjoyed it although I was annoyed the sub-plot pertaining to Ethan's wife: it made absolutely no sense.) Then dinner at Vapiano, a quick and rainy look at the Potsdamer Platz Weihnachtsmarkt and home again.

(I like the architecture of Sony Centre very much: a great use of what was a bombed out and empty space and I am not much of a one for Weihnachtsmarkts unless it's snowing and they look cute: I don't eat many traditional, pig-based German foods, I don't enjoy crowds, and my alcohol tastes run more to the red wine and less to the anise/cardamom scented Glühwein. So I didn't really feel deprived.)

(photo courtesy of website)

Boo!

Berlin may not be much for Weckmänner, but it's starting to get into the spirit of Halloween. (These were very yummy, made with Quark.)

Mother's Day

Today was the first day the girls have ever "made" Mother's Day without my husband actually putting it together. We woke to loud clanking sounds and the girls running in to tell us not to get up.
I particularly liked how they had set the table, with Zebra having a place and and audience of kuscheltiere. Notice how they set my plate with my inhaler and a bee (to signify sweetness and because T2 had made me a bee card)? They also decorated our breakfast eggs with appropriate sentiments (and the correct egg decorating pens) and only one of those was not hard-boiled.

After breakfast, we loaded up the bikes and wended our way through the many closed streets (there was some sort of road race) to the Huttenweg, where we biked and explored the forest.

The Holiday Whirl: Will it never end? December 22-31

Sledding at Oma and Opa's House

After getting back from the UK (and counting our blessings that the weather did not interfere with our plans in any substantive way) we came back to a full schedule.

We got back Tuesday afternoon and sent the in-laws on their way with effusive thanks: we offered entertainment but they wanted to get back to prepare for the holidays (and every day my mother-in-law is not there is a day that someone needs to substitute for her on the organ and at the retirement home).

TMI following, feel free to skip: Then I got to fast. Wednesday morning was my (delayed) colonoscopy. After we extended he contract here in Germany, I realized that I needed to start actually considering my health, getting a three years too late annual exam, a full gyn, a mammogram (and ouch, they were extremely good at checking the margins!), a lung X-ray when my internist got tired of hearing me cough, and finally the colonoscopy. This is when I am grateful to be on extremely good Expat insurance (legal because we are here on secondment, otherwise not allowed to German residents). I think that with family history one can get checked for these things earlier than the German standard, but I'm not certain. What I do know is that my sister-in-law hasn't asked and she has an even stronger (worse) family history than I do: at her age I had been checked for 5 years. All was well with all the tests, the German prep for the colonoscopy was even worse than the American one, and I can wait four years until the next: Yeah.

Then more traveling:
Next came the last days of school and the drive to NRW. That's where we really ran into the weather issues that we had avoided traveling to the UK: 9 1/2 hours to travel a distance that usually takes us less than 4 1/2. The A2 was closed in the morning but then it reopened and we thought we could get through. Until it started raining heavily while -.5C and the Autobahn became a sheet of ice while all salt and grit washed away. We were actually very fortunate that the traffic came to a dead halt while we could see an exit and we wound up getting off, taking the kids to the (unbelievably packed) McDonalds we saw in the distance and checking the computer and with the in-laws to discover that there was a 26 km stau– we spoke to people who had stood on the highway unmoving for more than 10 hours. In our case, after consultation with our neighbors at the table to the right (they had a million maps!) and father-in-law, we wound up going south and detouring through Kassel before heading back north. It was much easier as we went south and it became colder with the precipitation being snow rather than rain. I was cursing that we hadn't chosen to take the train after hearing the forecasts, but we found out the next day that four ICE trains had been stuck on the tracks between Berlin and Hamburg due to cold and ice, so we were definitely better off in the car. We got there a bit before 2 am and carried the kids to bed.
Then we had a leisurely and domestic holiday. Some highlights:

This is an actual German Christmas tree. Those lights that you see are not cleverly designed electric lights, they are actual candles burning on an actual pine tree that is not sitting in a container of water (because they don't water trees here) in a room lined and roofed with wood and next to curtains.Amazing, isn't it? (Also, note no fire extinguisher or bucket of water in room). Keeps one on one's toes:).










This is my charmingly anonymous spouse and the girls. Note how warm they appear. The one without ski pants or waterproof gloves is the one taking the picture. The hill is the actual street outside my in-law's: the day after we arrived it became usable only if one entered above and exited below, Those who tried it the other way made loud revving noises until the German and the F-I-L dug them out. They seemed to enjoy it and we spent some time every day sledding here and on other hills in the area. We weren't as venturesome as my sister-in-law, whose husband dragged the kids on sleds up a steep hill in a neighboring town, then rode back down with them.

We met up for lunch with our former au pair in the US (I can't believe that she's about to start her internship in medical school) and had a nice chat: I wish we lived closer by and I hope she has the time to visit us after exams. All around a pleasant and domestic time, which included all members of the family playing instruments and singing carols as well as enjoying (adults only) the traditional Feuerzangenbowle. I actually like this, which is surprising because I generally hate Glühwein– perhaps because what I am served at Weihnachtsmarkts is more usually Glögg?

It was a relaxing and pleasant wind-up to a frenetic holiday season and the trip back took only four hours:).

The Holiday whirl: Community part 3

Off to a community holiday party, where Thing1 was part of the entertainment. She always looks very earnest when singing: I think that is because she is a bit uncertain of the words. It's hard to switch from English to German when the original is Hebrew. Next week I will ask her music teacher if he can give us copies of the songs so that we can practice at home before the next public show.

We had lots of fun and I met several other moms from both T1's class and T2's, which was nice.

The holiday whirl: Holiday Party part 1

Chanukah began on the 1st and we lit the candles and celebrated, but with the German working until today, this was the beginning of what will be a month over filled with activities.

T1 was shabbat mamma, so I put together a double recipe of chocolate chip cookies so that I could bake a batch for her and have a batch to bake for T2's holiday party next Tuesday. The double batch was almost more than my Artisan 5 quart could handle!

Then the German took T1 to her regular ceramics course but went an hour earlier so that she could add an hour of drawing to the 2 hours she does ceramics in: she loved it and we will try to split it at 90 minutes each in the future.

Then they rushed back because we booked our favorite babysitter (aghh- she's retiring from babysitting at the end of the month to open her own kita!) and went to the holiday party put on by my women's club.

It was formal dress, at a nice hotel, and with entertainment. The only thing missing was dancing (there was some, but it was entertainment put on by the hosting group). Lots of fun.

I enjoyed chatting with folks and bumped into a woman who recognized me from Thanksgiving, although we hadn't met before: it's a small world here in Berlin.

Thanksgiving

My three sweethearts, one anonymously

For the third year we went to the American Church in Berlin for their Thanksgiving Buffet and Concert. We are grateful that they have allowed their celebration to be open to those that are not members of their faith and their congregation.
This year was smaller and more intimate than last, with the entertainment being solely drawn from the congregation (which included a wonderful retired opera singer as well as a pianist who made me realize how long it's been since I heard Debussey and how wonderful his works are), while last year included professionals such as the Harlem Gospel Choir. They were wonderful, but this year was much more haimish. Although thre was babysitting and we had prepaid, we thought ahead and brought the double stroller and both the girls were fast asleep by the time the entertainment started and stayed that way through the concert, making it wonderful for all of us.
The celebration was on Saturday of course, as American Thanksgiving is not a holiday outside of Thanksgiving. It worked well for us as the German was in Munich on the day and the children were at school, so celebrating at home would have been impossible (I actually made a nice beef stew on that day— perhaps I'll post that later).

What I've been doing for the last month:Halloween

The holiday that we miss the most is Halloween.

Halloween in our old home is one of T1's favorite memories: our small area was a mecca for trick or treaters, with a large number of the people in our neighborhood putting time and attention into Halloween decorations, themes and motifs— even more than for Christmas. Here in Berlin we have tried trick-or-treating in Zehlendorf (the kids found the sheer density, as every Berliner with an interest descended upon this once American area, overwhelming), a private party (nice, but too old and thus too frightening for them), and this time we tried going to the Botanical Gardens.

This was quite a lot of fun and I think would be even more so as the children get older. T1 still reminisced over the trick-or-treating and especially our neighbor J's fabulous Halloween party, but they also had a lot of fun.

I met the family there after a class and the girls had already had their faces painted and done some crafts. Then we wandered over to a hay meadow and spent quite a lot of time throwing straw at each other (I think they enjoyed it more than I did). We did some walking around and enjoyed the grounds and then we bought the children each a small pumpkin, rented a sharp knife and a spoon and the children drew the faces and we carved the pumpkins for them.
Some more playing and some tree climbing and we went home, put tea lights in the jack-o-lanterns, and displayed them in the window.
(T1 wanted to pose with hers after her bath- please excuse my boxes- they are on their way to the cellar for winter storage.)

What I've been doing for the last month: A-ha and Amsterdam

Actually, I've done a few other things in that time as well. I'll try to get those posted as well.

We went to Amsterdam for the weekend because, after I procrastinated for so long, the cost of driving to Amsterdam was cheaper than me buying a train ticket, even with a 50% discount on DB. Since we were driving, we brought the children along. Luckily, the German had some points that brought us into free nights at the Hotel Pulitzer in Amsterdam. This was just as charming and quirky as one might expect from the description: multiple 18th century townhouses merged into a charming hotel. We had a room looking into the garden (no canal view:() but directly facing on a play set. This was important because we later discovered that Amsterdam has a sad paucity of playgrounds: the major one in Vondel Park, the largest park in Amsterdam, couldn't hold a candle to any of my 5 local playgrounds here in Berlin. They still enjoyed playing there, though.
T1 kept asking to be in T2's stroller and we were a bit intolerant (she's heavy!) considering how much walking around we did and that she wound up being sick the following week, but we still enjoyed ourselves. We spent the whole weekend walking around enjoying the blue sky and the wonderful weather and looking at things (with an tram ride and 1 boat trip). I love Amsterdam and I love the architecture there.
We had rijstaafl one evening which was lost on the girls— we wound up buying them a bowl of rice each to make up for all the items they didn't like.

The actual reason for me going to Amsterdam was to meet up with a friend who was there after doing an Art residency so deep in Ireland that I couldn't meet her there: 12+ hours travel time to reach a village in Ireland just wasn't manageable (and that would be plane to train to bus to walking or taxi the last thirty miles!). I had the chance to grab some tickets to A-ha's final tour the weekend she would be in Amsterdam and I thought it would be amusing to do that.

As it turned out, J was ill the evening we were to go and the German and I wound up getting a babysitter through the hotel (he had expected to watch the kids that evening). The sitter was lovely, fully multilingual and the cost was the same as a babysitter in Berlin, so we were very happy.

The tickets were supposed to be special, and after a bit of confusion at the Heinekin Arena box-office, we discovered why: we were directed to the VIP entrance. There we were given colored arm bands, offered a free check for our packs and coats, and shown to box seats where there was a free bar. If we'd known that was what "special" meant, we would have shown up earlier!

The concert was fun, even though I really didn't remember very many A-ha songs beside the most famous iconic MTV videos. But there was a lot of energy and a lot of dancing and it was nice to be out with the spouse.

This was the encore and we really enjoyed it:
(it's not my video, our view would have been from the upper right when facing the stage)

A bit of enjoyment

Even though a large quantity of our time was used up very painfully, we were still able to meet friends and family in western Massachusetts and have an "American birthday" party for T1 and T2. They love American birthday cake and I am always amazed by how good a cake from the local Big Y or Hannaford tastes. On 16 hours notice they did a really sweet split between the two themes: Pooh for T2 and Tink for T1.

It was great to spend some time with my brother and sister-in-law and their two younger kids (each a year or so older than ours). It's been a long time.

Yellow cake

This week has been school vacation for my older, but Kita was still in session for my younger for Monday and Tuesday. That allowed us to sleep in a bit (although T1 still gets up at 6 am) and to wait for the plumber this morning.

But when I picked T2 up today, she was unhappy: by coming in late, she had missed making a small cake, which everyone else had done and then taken home (I assume for Shavuot, which is a dairy holiday). So on the way home we stopped to pick up some strawberries and some Schlagsahne (whipping cream- I couldn't find a can) and then I googled around and we made this recipe:

(I love Allrecipes.com for the ability to change to metric, which allows me to toggle back and forth between my preferred method, weighing ingredients, and the ability to use volume measurement for liquids.)

Yellow Cake from Scratch (with a few changes)
160 g all-purpose flour
150 g white sugar
50 g butter
120 ml milk
5 g baking powder
5 g salt
8 ml vanilla extract
2 eggs

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour one 9x9 inch pan.
In a large bowl, cream sugar and shortening until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. Add flour, baking powder, and salt alternately with milk, beating just to combine. Finally, stir in vanilla. Pour batter into the prepared pan.--- I beat it a lot more and added the baking powder last.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Frost and enjoy.

Nutritional Information
Amount Per Serving Calories: 139 | Total Fat: 5.2g | Cholesterol: 27mg

Review: The cake is nice, I overbeat the Schlagsahne and wound up with flecks of butter (what's with that:)) and so sprinkled powdered sugar and sliced strawberries instead. Next time, I will decrease the sugar by 1/3 and increase the flour- the cake was a tad sweet for me. But the kids were happy, so that's a plus.

The week before Pesach

and all through the house, Mama goes crazy and the kids run amok.

This weekend I have been doing a generally spring-cleaning and a Pesach cleaning. Why do I do them together? Because as I pull all the chometz out of the house, wiping down shelves and trying to make the apartment Pesach clean, we are also in our first real week of Spring. Day after day of sun (so far 5 in a row!), temperatures in the mid-60's (17C and up), the children demanding skirts with no strumpfhose (so far I have persuaded them that leggings are summer stockings:)).

Last night until after midnight I was emptying shelves, cleaning them thoroughly after loading all food products into boxes (two medium U-haul, 1 small). Then we taped the boxes up and put them in the kellar.


The week continues.

We are at the epicenter

of the firestorm of fireworks (or so it feels. Kreuzberg is probably worse, of course). So far it has been 40 minutes and it still continues unabated. An apartment kitty-corner to us just burnt out. It was amazing how fast it went. The firemen were here but they seemed to be moving in slow motion and meanwhile the constant explosion of fireworks continued all around us. The windows rattle occasionally and every now and then there is the sound of something hitting the glass. I can't believe that people are driving in this: all our streets have fireworks exploding in them.

Next year I will learn how to take pictures of fireworks: this year they are all orange and flames and look like a picture of the inferno rather than the gorgeous things that they are.

50 minutes later and the corners of my street seem to be dying down... The firemen are about done putting out the fire although smoke is still escaping. The mini Cooper and the red car parked (illegally) on the curve look a little worse for the wear. Our car is (knock wood) fine so far (by chance we had a spot not in the way).

New life on our corner and the wind is shifting- they are hitting our windows (which you had better believe that we have closed!)

75 minutes later and it seems to be over bar the three firepots still flaming outside the door and the occasional crack. The firemen across the way are rolling up their hoses and starting on their way to the next call (tatoo-ta-ta, as the Germans say).

We had planned on going to Brandenburg Tor to do the tourist thing, but a combination of Thing2 still having a croupy and bronchial sounding cough after her several days of high fever, and my starting to have a similar cough, made us tell the babysitter that we would pay for the sitting (as an apology and because of the late cancellation) but not use it. I am glad to be home. Perhaps next year we can try for a more elegant Silvester Ball (now that we know we can get sitting) which will be indoors: yesterday and today were the coldest days so far here in Berlin.

What I've been reading in links: a real hodge-podge, Chanukah, Recipes, Economics, Reading

Some healthier latke recipes (NYT).

Smitten Kitchen's Best Latke recipe.

The Hanukah Market at the Jewish Museum in Berlin, with links to an exhibit on the conflation of Christmas and Chanukah.

A Jewish Parent's Guide to Christmas specials (in the US).

What happened to Michael Vicks' dogs...

Weight loss without gimmicks(NYT).

House parties about health care.

E-books gain traction.

November home sales worse than expected.

A Short History of the Great Depression, with links to many references and original documents.

You know that this is the most perfect movie ever, right?

Happy Walpurgis Nacht! And amazing political pumpkin templates.

picture credit

The man who brought Halloween to Germany, and why.

Check out these fabulous pumkin templates: Obama, Biden, McCain and Palin.

These are even better: YesWeCarve

What I haven't been blogging about.

It's Friday night and the German has just left for the gym, I'm watching the season premiere of Pushing up Daisies, I have just cleaned the kitchen, my feet are up, and I am drinking Diet Light. The week has been exhausting and, as Germans would say, stressful.

It started with Saturday's mobbing and then continued...

It's been the holidays for the last two weeks, with kita closed. However, although my synagogue said that there would be babysitting, there wasn't. That put a serious crimp in my ability to actually pray and when I was fasting, made it impossible to even stay at services. Although Thing1 could run with the other children like a wild thing, Thing2 is just too small to be allowed to run up and down stairs with rambunctious children. Sigh.

This week was also a two day holiday, and I just gave up. We stayed home and played because Thing1 started a small cough and a low fever. (by Friday Thing 2 had a cough as well, but Thing1 has been fine since Wednesday).

I finally got our taxes finalized. Working with the German accountant we used through my husband's firm was stressful and annoying. After the German side is done, I will run them by my US acct. and go back to him next year: I don't appreciate dealing with people that are slow and don't return communications. That whole customer service concept. Strangely enough, the German side appears far more friendly. But they are done and sent off and we can anticipate a solid refund. That's annoying because I hate to give an interest free loan to the government, but gratifying because I had required them to withhold less than they said we should and it's pleasant to be correct.

I was supposed to have a book club at my house this week, but a combination of things came together to make me just give up: Thing1's illness, that I hadn't had a chance to reread the book that week, the chaos of my house and that the German had been leaving early and coming home late and I would have no time to tidy up and bake anything, that the kids wee spreading a wave of chaos like stones in a pond... So I rescheduled for two weeks from the date and I felt an immediate release from stress. The now amusing, but at the time peak of my stress, was when the person who had borrowed my book came over on Tuesday to return it and I wasn't able to open my door to ask her in or to get the book: the German had locked the door behind him when he left and Thing2 had taken the key and put it somewhere. So I had to call her on the handy and ask her to just leave it under the mat. Luckily, after about 15 minutes of concerted looking I was able to find it.

That was a relief because we don't have a spare. I tried to cut a spare last week and the locksmith said the key was controlled and only my landlord could provide a new one. The German hasn't gotten a new one yet and I need to follow up next week.

The power cable from my computer fried. It fried at about the same time that I found myself rather claustrophobically locked in my apartment. The German stopped by the Apple Store on his way home and found that the cable was still in warranty (the darned thing is only 2 1/2 months old!) but that they wouldn't sell it to him and then credit when we gave in the ruined cord, so he had to come home and grab the computer and cord and adapter and run back to the store. On the plus side, they relaced the cord with a German plug cord and we were able to purchase the American adapter for only 15 E (a savings of 90E). On the negative side, their Adobe Elements is not switchable to English, so I still don't have it.

We had another bi-lingual open house that the German attended without me because we couldn't find a babysitter available that early in the evening.

On the plus side, I invented a lentil stew that I was very happy with, had a great salmon dinner with rice and veg (with sweet chili sauce), and Thing1 helped me with making and baking cookies. Now I only have to make it through the three days vacation the children have next week and I can have a day to myself before my next round of German classes start.

I'm back in Berlin. Catching up, part 1.

And I really need to fill in some of the blank spaces in my blogging, but I'm a bit afraid that if I wait until I start uploading pictures and getting ready to blog chronologically, I will be totally out of the habit and never start again.

So, a quick run through.

• A 27 hour (in total) journey from Duesseldorf to upstate NY, left at 5 am German time, arrived at our final airport at 22:45, got there pretty whipped and late,Friday night but was up by 6 am Saturday morning to visit a close friend.
  
• Discovered that a friend's storage unit had not been cleaned out, as had been promised to the both of us, and therefore we would need to take care of it for him, as he couldn't rely on anyone else.
• Did a bit of shopping, picked up: 2 small coffee grinders, 2 microplanes, a small mandolin, a goodly amount of coffee (from Dunkin' Donuts. For some strange reason, the Berlin outlets have not been receiving their bean shipments over the last several months and I'm not fond of either Starbucks beans or German brands. We have Jamaica Blue for special, but I like DD for regular and decaf.) 
• Mom gave us a great dinner of chicken, corn on the cob, and berry pie (we made two crusts together as I needed practice on my pie crust). I complain all the time about the miniature chickens in Germany: I don't understand how anyone can serve chicken to a family here as they are so small. And gosh, do I miss real corn on the cob, fresh and juicy and still sweet as the sugar has not yet converted to starch.
• Spent some time visiting with the parents and a brother and his wife and kids, whom we miss dearly. Picked up wine boxes and started re-packing the piles of books that had been accumulating for months in my room, as the orders from Amazon came rolling in. These books and the others that I accumulated (as well as the magazines I purchased) were all packed into three wine boxes in preparation for the packing into M-bags and then being shipped to us in Berlin. I know it seems crazy, but it is far more cost effective (and swifter) for me to get my books this way than to bring them into Germany from the UK. While we were getting wine boxes, we saw my mom's car and 
• We also visited the Apple Store: finally decided on what laptop would be the replacement for the German's US work computer, that I have been using for the last year:  I chose the MacBook. I was tempted by the Air--- it's just so cute. But no internal DVD/CR-Rom drive made it a non-starter for me. Also, it's slow. I stared at the MacBook and the MacBook Pro for a while, and then I decided on the MacBook. Why, you ask? I really wanted a small laptop. I have a Dell with a 21" screen and that's the reason that I have been using it as a TV transmitter and carrying the German's lenovo around instead. I craved the lightness and ease of handling. I did get the faster processor, upgrade the memory and buy it in black, though, and it feels sleek and sophisticated. Great key action. I am having a real learning curve on it, though, as my last MacOS was 7.5 and this is Leopard. I have really gotten used to a right mouse button and I need to start understanding how to access those actions with a single button. I got an extended AppleCare warranty and Office (though it's not installed yet) and I will be playing with this more in the future.
• On Sunday up at 6 am gain,visited my friend again. Spent more time with brother and family, did a bit more shopping. Went to Barnes and Nobles and bought scrapping mags, digital photograpy mags, and some scrapping materials. Went out to dinner at a really great Thai-Sushi place where the Thai spiciness gave me tingles and the tuna te-taki melted in my mouth. I have a photo of my dad's sashimi appetizer I will need to add later: it was amazing. How can such a tiny town as that have such great sushi, Indian, Vietnamese and Thai where here in Berlin I can find only one decent Tibetan place (in terms of ethnic restaurants?)
• Monday up at 6 am again to get ourselves down to Westchester county to visit my other brother and his wife and kids, and to visit our dear friends and their daughter, Thing1's best friend. We ran into serious traffic on the Thruway and wound up taking the scenic route through the mountains: lovely, but longer. We were driving my dad's car, so at least we had a navi to help us out. 
•  When we got to P's house, she had an enormous pile of great clothes and shoes to hand down to the girls. That's been such a life saver for us, reducing the amount of clothes we really need to buy for the girls to almost nothing.  I chatted books with the girls for a while (V was reading Breaking Dawn and my copy was in the car;)). We packed them up, and then headed out to have a late breakfast/ early lunch with my brother A, his ex, P and their two girls. I'm sorry that we weren't able to see more of them, they are really growing so quickly.
• Then on to Costco, where we grabbed more wet wipes (those things are da bomb), ink and toner cartridges, some CF and SD cards, some cherries (Rainier and Bing) for my Dad and thence to J's. We drove by our house and saw the kids and the tenant by the fence playing, but with our limited time we drove by: more important to spend time with J and A and E. We spent a lovely evening with them and wound up not leaving until 22:00, leaving poor A exhausted behind us. We took away the fresh and beautiful gingerbread cookies that J made for us, as well as enjoying a wonderful grilled steak dinner. Home around 2 am.
• Up late on Tuesday, at 8 am today! We reserved a U-haul and then had breakfast with the parents and friend L. Dealt with the paperwork at the storage facility, cut the lock and then the German dropped me off for my long awaited ( a year now) hair cut and hi-lites. Mmm. I fell asleep in the chair for a minute. Then I picked up some shoes for the girls at Stride-Rite (black with sparkly sequins for the family wedding when we get back to Germany, pink with flowers and lights for school play shoes), got passport photos taken (for the replacement permanent passport that I need to get as soon as I'm back in Berlin) and then the German picked me up with a full U-Haul. We then headed to our own storage unit and spent several hours going through B's things. Things we felt that he might want or had sentimental meaning we put in our own unit, then we repacked items for the dump and the salvation army. That took us until dark and we met the parents and L again for dinner at the same Thai-sushi place: it was so good that we wanted to eat there again. fter dinner we moved the truck back to the unit, finihed sorting, then left it there and went back to my parents again and chatted late into the evening with dad while we packed and weighed our suitcases and packed and sorted the books and hand me downs and other materials. All the clothing more than 2 years out for the girls was re-sorted and re-packed to stay in our storage unit and be shipped in a year or two.
• Up bright and early on Wednesday morning. Raced to get the truck and dump the dumpables. then we headed to my brother's to give him the donatables and to kiss everyone good-bye. Then dropped the truck off (what kind of vacation would it be if we didn't rent U-Haul and tote that bale on it?) and back to my parent's to get the boxes (three of books, another, 45 lb box of hand me downs) and head to the Post Office. I must say that, considering the mailing prices even when using M-Bags we might, next time, be better off just shipping a partial pallet to ourselves and adding a few boxes of consumables to the lot. We will certainly think about it before then.
• After the post office went back to have a cup of coffee and chat and hang with the folks before my dad went in for a cataract operation (went very well) and we needed to be dropped for our flight to Denver (with a short lay-over in Cincinnati/North Kentucky).

At the airport, we gave L a kiss good-bye and went to deal with the lovely Delta check in process. They really want you to use the computer kiosks to ckeck in, but since we hadn't been able to check in on-line (a consistent problem based, I think, on our mied passports and our travels ending in Germany. We passed through some experimental security equipment and had a relaxing wait for our plane. We volunteered to be bumped, but weren't taken up on the offer (boo).

I'll pick up on the 2nd and 3rd parts of vacation tomorrow.

Duesseldorf

Monday, June 9th

It's May, glorious May...

Started out with a rain shower but ended crisp, clear and lovely.

Went to another book club last night, to discuss the Tudors. Most of us had read The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory, which I greatly enjoyed.

I have always had a thing for that period, from reading through Shakspeare's histories (starting with Henry IV pt II (why, you ask- I have no idea why I started with part II!)) and I found the book fun but frothy, with a decent description of the court and how it worked. I did think that some of her theories of the history were wrong. In particular, her presentation of the relationship between Anne Boleyn and her brother George as being actually incest**us rather than charges laid solely to allow Henry VIII to actually go through with murdering her are really her own: no reputable historian considers that those charges are true .

But it was great to get out for an evening and I'm looking forward to the next meeting.

Today we slept in as much as the girls would let us (not very) then tidied up, played for a while, and had a late breakfast.

When I put Thing2 down for a nap, I went down with her and the German and Thing1 headed out to a market that would be open today (May Day is a legal holiday here in Germany and in most of Europe). We need to buy milk every other day here because 1. it is sold in liters and 2. our refrigerator is too small to stock enough liters to last longer and 3. I can't drag even more liters in my little trolley every other day. There were no chicken breasts available, but I had two in the fridge and made an interesting recipe that allowed me to stretch them through stir frying. I may add it later....

After the girls were in bed I made a marble cake: tomorrow Thing1 can frost it with me.

And now Desperate Housewives and, if we have time, Brothers and Sisters.

Burning the chometz...

Of course I can't do that, as I have no place to actually burn it. But yesterday I packed most of the chometz in the flat up into boxes, finishing up this morning. I sealed the boxes and sold it (on-line. I love the Internet) and tomorrow morning I send the girls out with the German while I do the final thorough clean through and wipe down. I need to remember to save somepieces of bread so that Thing 1 can find them in a ritual search before lunch;-)

I ran out this morning to the Kosher deli and picked up (at price gougingly high cost) kosher-for-Passover wine, matzoh, gefilte fish (yeah- it was labelled Hungarian style so let's see if I actually like it), matzoh meal, cookies and a chicken. I already had the eggs, potatoes and bitter herbs, so now I only need the walnuts for the charoseth and some time and I should be ready to start the preparations by mid-morning. This will be our first solitary Pesach, so luckily the girls are really too young to understand if I do a poor job of it and I am sure that I will get better at it every year.

I also met up for a quick lunch with Snooker : she was going to share a local sushi place with me, but due to my time constraints (darn kids) we wound up having to meet too early and instead did a very nice little Chinese place. My chicken with green curry was nicely spiced and tasty and we enjoyed (at least I did) a pleasant chat and get to know each other session. I'd try for sushi again next week but since it's school break my next week is a yawning span of amuse the children time: perhaps we can do it next month.

It was fun to check out another area of Berlin: I'm starting to feel that I am actually seeing some of it and I'm just enjoying walking around and looking at stores. Amusingly, a store that I had attempted to find last week (and walked in the rain 40 minutes to discover had moved) was a few doors down from where we had lunch. Serendipity. I will be there again next week.