Off on Urlaub...what shall we bring back?

Well, we are starting to get into the European tradition of taking vacations. It's been about a year since we last took a 4 day vacation and now we are off to take a two week one! This is actually the back half of our ticket here and therefore the last time we expect to be flying business class for a while (boo hoo). We are flying out of Duesseldorf to Orlando. Why out of Ddorf, you ask? Well, because we had expected to be in Duesseldorf by now. Why to Orlando, then? Because both my brothers had promised to meet us at Disneyworld with the children , the parents were supposed to be in Boca for the sun and we would have a wonderful family reunion.

The best-laid plans... My mother has been ill, and therefore won't be there. Both my brothers, for separate reasons, have decided that they cannot make it. Our family reunion has turned a little lonely. So we decided to extend the vacation a week, spend the expected time at DisneyWorld (absolute Heaven on Earth for Thing1) and then go to upstate NY to see the family for a few days. We will fly into White Plains airport, which will give us a chance to stop by Thing1's most-missed friend to play for an hour or so, give me a chance to say hello to good friends and to check out the new siding we put on the house after we had already rented it out and left, and the German a chance to run by Costco.

Of course, we expect to go with very empty suitcases and to buy clothing at the outlets in Orlando. The German plans on getting me an iPod, himself a MacBook (although he should look at the cheaper Sony, I think) and I have a zoom lens (back oredered before I left) waiting for me.

In addition, I have about 45 books waiting at my parent', which I will be packing up and sending in an M-bag to myself. I expect to also send, by post: brown sugar, chocolate chips, molasses, boxes of baking soda, vanilla extract, Nyquil and children's Motrin. I have acknowledged that I cannot send myself gefilte fish and will therefore simply eat it every day with hot white horseradish. I will do the same with Special K and Kashi (as we are getting close to running out of our supply here :-( ). I'll bring back a huge tub of Balmex and as many diapers and Costco wetwipes (non-alcohol, non-allergenic) as we can handle.

So, what else should I bring back/send to myself?

Sick again...

Besides, we are sick again. Strep throat, went to the Dr. on Saturday, she prescribed antibiotics for myself (on day 4) and the German (day1). Not contagious by Sunday, bt still sucking back the lidocaine throat drops (I had gone into an Apotheke on Thursday and said "Can I have the strongest medicine for Halsschmerzen that doesn't make me ill from the taste?" and the ones I got are quite good.

It's a small world after all, part two.

So I mentioned that we had visited some friends in Dahlem. The smallness of the world is proven because we know this family from our small yown in New York: they lived in our small cul-de-sac neigborhood. K had noticed the German on the subway and mentioned it to his wife; the second time, he said "Hello" and of course it was the German. We had totally forgotten that they were ex-pat Germans returning to Berlin because we had been so focused on D'dorf. We went for Kafe und Kuchen (a very nice quark cheese cake, I need to ask M for the recipe) and to see their new house (very nice and with a lovely backyard, complete with a large red fox who visited while we were looking at it!).

Then we took all the children (their three and our two) out for a walk at Domaine Dahlem. It was komische that last time we visited we were just minutes away from them. They have a daughter a few years older than Thing1 and a son a few years older than that and he was just wonderful playing with her, getting her to see all sorts of things and being careful not to lose her while running around. The oldest daughter is a teen-ager who helps with the horses and gave the kids a bareback ride on the horse she cares for: they were ecstatic! The smile on Thing1's face was priceless. She had a great time. Thing 2 got a bit of running about in and then conked out in the stroller and slept through the rest of the walk and the train ride back.

I had a ticket for a (very) late movie at the Berlinale but we were not able to get any babysitter for the weekend, I couldn't find anyone else who wanted to go, and I just bagged it.

Another German Stereotype fulfilled...

So today we were dashing off to make a visit to friends in Dahlem, which is in itself a very funny story for another post. So the Things are dressed in parkas, and Thing2 is running down the street with her usual lack of gloves and with her hat hanging down (it's a constant struggle) when I note the German is speaking with an older German man. They seem quite congenial and after they parted I asked my German what the discussion was about. Seems the passer-by felt that he needed to help us out by saying "Your daughter needs to wear a hat." My husband answered, "That would be our business, I believe" to which the passer-by reponded, "If you can't figure it out by yourself, then I need to tell you." I personally would have handed the man Thing 2's gloves at that point and suggested he try himself, but the German is more polite and just ignored him.

It's amusing because just yesterday the German came home and told me that while walking down the street he saw a man leave a soda bottle by a tree next to his Audi preparatory to driving off and that the German stopped, stared at the driver and said "I assume you want to pick up your bottles", provoking the driver to ask if the German watches out for the whole world. He said, "Yes, I do", the man picked up his bottle and drove away.

Not quite the same thing, but perhaps in the neighborhood.

It's a small world after all.

Just finished watching Lost. All the scenes with Sayid in Berlin made me feel so, I don't know, in the center of the universe.

Back to thoughts of addiction...

I have known for a very long time that I have an addictive personality. I started smoking quite late- at 19- and was addicted for 15 years (I gave it up for the German). I haven't had a cigarette since I quit because I'm afraid that if I did I would start smoking again.

Sometimes I can displace one addiction with another: I am realizing that my new interest in blogging is interfering with my reading addiction. Usually, I read: Newsweek, Businessweek, The Economist, Forbes, Money, Publisher's Weekly, Fortune, Jewishweek, US News & World REport, Babytalk, and a few other magazines, as well as a goodly number of romances, science fiction/fantasy, children's lit, gardening books, travel books, and cookbooks (some of those genres overlap and not saying that I do more than fantasize, in particular in re cooking).

First, the children got in the way. Losing my daily train commute to work took out a 90 minute per day period when I could read without interruption. Here the 3 hours+ per day German course and daily shopping (with trolley) get in the way. Now my BW and NW are piling up in the corner- I'm about two weeks behind. Also, instead of reading some of the more serious books on my to-be-read shelf/pile, I am busy seeking out widgets and trying to figure out link-backs. Ex-pat blogs have, to a great extent, displaced my travel reading (although I am in the midst of, and enjoying the travel/memoir/cookbook Trail of Crumbs by Kim Sunee). But the mark of the true addict is that I would rather give up sleeping than not get my reading in for the day. The amount seems to vary, but there is a certain amount that I need to do or I just won't go to sleep. And I still need to shoe horn going to the gym back into my life or I will start fearing my physical (I already fear swimsuit season).

Anyone else have the addiction?

A Blogging Addiction?

So Diane over in Martinis for Two is asking whether she is addicted and whether that addiction requires, perhaps, an intervention. An interesting comment, as my Reader is at 97 blogs and counting.

So, right now I am blogging (and reading blogs) while there is a load of laundry in the washer and another in the dryer (there is one waiting to be folded). I am finishing my 2nd cup of coffee, the kids are at school, the dishwasher is cooling preparatory to being unloaded. I am watching Moonlight on the other laptop.In fact, hold on, this is a good scene... ah, I'm back.

Well, I'm new to blogging (and can anyone tell me how to make links through that connection at the bottom? And how do track backs work?) but I have been part of an apa for over 25 years (since I was in high school, for those counting) and the others in that apa have been some of my closest friends and confidantes throughout my life. The difference is really immediacy (in both directions), expense (blogging is far cheaper if one already has the connection), and the ability to incorporate cool widgets and photos.

So, perhaps this blogging and its equivalents are a type of addiction, but the I have been addicted to reading for almost 40 years (back of the toothpaste tube, anyone?) and I have come to terms. On the other hand, blogging is beating out my German HW right now, so perhaps I should check the self-destructive tendency, pull out my notebook, and get going on that... bis Spaeter!

What should I call this post?

So yesterday was an interesting one. I met a woman from my German class at Alexaplatz and we went to Prenzlauer Berg to 1. grab a coffee and 2. for me to visit the St. George's Bookshop . Y is also in Berlin with her husband, a German, being detailed to a project here for a 3 year contract. (Parenthetically, it's been great that another adult joined my class, because sometimes being surrounded by kids 20 years younger can get a little old, although they are all very nice.)

We found a cute little place, sat down and put our feet up on bags of coffee beans and started to chat. Both of our dad's had similar life experiences and I was enjoying learning about her life, when an older (perhaps late 50's?) German man asked her if we were American. She said that she was Israeli and I American and the gentleman than asked me who would win: Obama or Clinton. In my poor German I pointed out that McCain was also running, but I told him who I had voted for in the primary and then I added that of the three current candidates, McCain, Clinton and Obama, I felt confident that any would be a reasonable President.

At that point, the gentleman agreed, and added that Bush was like Hitler. My response was, no , Bush might be stupid, but he is not a mass murderer. We then cheerfully wished each other a good day and waved a happy Tschuss to each other as he left.

After he left, Y and I discussed the conversation. She felt that he should have responded more sensitively, particularly after she had mentioned that she was Israeli. I felt that it really went to the point that many Germans realy have not come to terms with their complicity in the Shoah. That anyone could , in all seriousness, equate Bush with Hitler is just ridiculous and devaluing to the murder of millions as well as perhaps making the person who uses the comparison feel better about his collective guilt. The man drinking coffee behind us, German, perhaps in his 30's, chuckled. I turned to him and asked if he thought what I was saying was funny (perhaps I was feeling a bit confrontational) (and also perhaps I was being a bit snarky and sarcastic) and he said No, he absolutely agreed with me. So perhaps there is an age shift.

It reminds me of my mother's neighbor at home, who is an older German, old enough to have been alive and knowledeable and perhaps complicit in WWII, and how he once said to my parents that what Americans did to Germans in POW camps was comparable to what the Nazis did to Jews in the death and labor camps. And he said that, knowing that my father is a death camp survivor. An interesting pathology.

On that note, I was reading in Brit in Germany about the current DeutscheBahn exhibition on its role in the mass murder of millions: a necessary part that created the ability to carry out "The Final Solution" and a very profitable one to the Bahn (they charged per head). The exhibition produced a bit of a stir and I saw a newsbite on BBC so I had gone over to Potsdamer Platz to see it. Once there, I needed to ask direction, because the actual exhibit is both very small and well screened off with the screens on which the copies of documents are placed.

Of course, I am not German fluent, so I could only scan it. But I found the "banality of evil" moving while also considering that once again I think Germans are very kind to themselves in not inflicting the actual scenes of horror upon themselves.

And after this, when I went to St. George's, I picked up 4 books on the Shoah. Was it related to this? Perhaps not. But perhaps I find myself emphasizing more the "need to know" when I see the world around me pretending not to.

The view from my kitchen window...

This is a meme from Lulu's Bay in Cairo

She asked what we could see out of our kitchen windows. Since my apartment is in a traditional style building, built in a square around a central courtyard, my kitchen looks into the center, which is not so interesting.

So I have included as well a bit of the view from the front balcony :-)

That cobbler...

This is the third time that I've made this cobbler from the Pioneer Woman cooks: it's just great. And, with a convection oven, less than 30 minutes from opening a cabinet door until the first spoonful.