It's been 22 days since Diane tagged me and I am finally starting to breathe again and think of responding! Maybe I can even start blogging again soon. In the meantime, this meme, originating with Fabulous Me (who is such a funny read- go and see) and through Diane, will give me a chance to think about this rapidly passing summer.
So, What Couldn't I live without this Summer?
1. A chance to sit down.
I thought that I wouldn't get that and I've been running on my last dregs of energy. This is my 'week of freedom', when the kids are in school and I have no class and yet my idea of a great time is sitting here, for the first time, and just opening Google reader and catching up on everyone and grabbing a minute to actually blog myself.
2.Fans
As Diane mentioned, fans are a necessity. Here in Berlin, we rarely have warm weather, or anything other than chilly (to my upstate NY senses). But it seems to veer from cold and dank to hot and humid quite rapidly, without passing through temperate. So much so that at one 95F and humid point, I sent the German out to purchase a Klima. I came to my senses the next day and we returned it and got three fans instead. The very few ceiling fans available in Berline don't have extensions (and our new ceilings are quite high) so that's a point on my list for this week: order two ceiling fans/lights with meter extensions and then have them installed when they arrive.
3. Room Darkening Shades
I could look up at what latitude Brelin is and sound erudite, but I'm too tired. Suffice it to say that after suffering SAD during the winter, we now have 19+ hours of sunlight here and I am suffering the children's inability (and lack of desire) to sleep when it's tremendously bright outside. When it started, I got a burst of manic energy (as I've read happens in Alaska during the summer) as the natural cues to wind down disappeared and now I'm just tired. We have had the girls sleeping in our room (which came with shades as the windows are slanted) until we had the opportunity to run a curtain line in their room. Now the flannel sheets from the US will go up to darken the room and we will bring more back from the States (yeah LLBean!) next month.
4.Cottage Cheese
This, along with unsweetened yogurt, is allowing me to survive the German concept of breakfast. That is, they don't have any decent cereals and it's a little warm to be eating imported Irish oatmeal every day.
5.Drinkable Yogurt
Without this, my children would starve to death or I would go insane. My picky older girl will have nothing else for breakfast every day.
And that's about it, because the other things I require are required at all time (books to read, an occasional English language program to watch, US magazines, people with whom to socialize, etc.)
This is so late I'm not going to try to tag anyone. But if you would like to pick this up and run with it, pleaes post back here so I can be sure to check your summer necessities out.
New York to Berlin, New York to Colorado, it's a long trip...
16 July 2008
10 July 2008
Ausflug
I'm off to the last day of this session of German class: we are having a field trip to the Stasi museum. I'll be sure to let everyone know what it's like;)
added: It was an interesting trip. The museum itself was put together not by the State (which was ashamed) but by a people's group that wanted to preserve the apparatus of the Stasi and eastern Communist regime before it was dismantled and hidden by the apparatchiks.The building itself was a bit grey and 1950's office style because the head of the Stasi was born in the first decade of the 1900's and distrusted modernity. I had an apfelschorle in the canteen and watched the Discovery channel documentary on the Stasi that was playing on loop there (narrated by Roger Moore:)) and that, rather than the museum, really brought home what life was like in that period. They had a listening device that could be attached to your pipes 7 floors down and follow your life upstairs. they really did have cameras in false rocks in woods, and if you count unpaid informers, the Stasi had 500-700,000 informers watching and reporting on 16,000,000 people. That's a number unequalled anywhere else. I need to see The Lives of Others. Also, I'm told that the Stasi prison is more meaningful and I will try to make it there.
added: It was an interesting trip. The museum itself was put together not by the State (which was ashamed) but by a people's group that wanted to preserve the apparatus of the Stasi and eastern Communist regime before it was dismantled and hidden by the apparatchiks.The building itself was a bit grey and 1950's office style because the head of the Stasi was born in the first decade of the 1900's and distrusted modernity. I had an apfelschorle in the canteen and watched the Discovery channel documentary on the Stasi that was playing on loop there (narrated by Roger Moore:)) and that, rather than the museum, really brought home what life was like in that period. They had a listening device that could be attached to your pipes 7 floors down and follow your life upstairs. they really did have cameras in false rocks in woods, and if you count unpaid informers, the Stasi had 500-700,000 informers watching and reporting on 16,000,000 people. That's a number unequalled anywhere else. I need to see The Lives of Others. Also, I'm told that the Stasi prison is more meaningful and I will try to make it there.
08 July 2008
I'm back...and I'm very, very tired.
600+ entries cleared out of my GoogleReader queue (I just marked off the food entries, no way was I going to catch up), a few phone calls later, and a look at local upstate NY news and I am starting to feel a bit more in control.
Over the last 10 days we have:
Over the last 10 days we have:
- Put together 29 pieces of Ikea furniture.
- Bought a couch and a washing machine from a discount outlet in NRW (the couch is a nice, angled black leater. The european style that allows pulling a hidden section out to form a bed).
- Brought all our belongings (that could be fitted in the trailer) back from the in-laws. We are still missing the coffee table, end tables and bookcases, but at this point they may stay there (we got a 9.99 end table at Ikea and the ottoman would be in the way of a coffee table).
- Brought all our belongings from the "furnished) apartment we had rented to our new apartment. Lucily, we had only bookcases (they seem to breed around me), printer stands, file cabinet, etc, there in addition to clothing, books and toys.
- Put together "closet" shelving for the closet under the stairs- the only one in the apartment. We still have some commercial shelving to put together for the keller, at which point some of the things stacked up here will go downstairs. This is the first time in 10 months that I have seen my kitchen implements and had the foodstuffs that we brought all unpacked: I have been revelling in Trader Joe's Indian food and whining that Aldi (which owns TJ's) doesn't carry anything remotely spicey.
- Had 6 lights installed and a curtain line put up, on which we have strung 6 curtains. I need to put 6 more up here in the wohnzimmer and then we need to put up lines in the dining area, the vorkuche and the children's room: right now, they are using our room because they couldn't sleep without room darkening curtains or blinds, as the sun is up here past 10. Our room (with slanted windows) came with rollshades.
- We have installed the washing machine and the dryer (which we had brought with us from the US: it was a fortuitous gift from a German family that had brought it to the US only to discover that one cannot retrofit German dryers to work in the US). The washing machine has a distressing leakage problem that we can't seem to fix so we will need to call a plumber in. Perhaps at the same time we can find a way to run a water line to the terrace, which I had hoped to have planted by now, but which I am starting to think will not happen until next year.
- We ordered a kitchen island from Bauhaus: the price was 40% of the analogous price at Ikea. I can't wait until it gets here. We are exploring kashrut right now and the tiny kitchen (that was what I gave up in order to have the area, the light, the windows, and the outdoor spaces) has no place to allow separation of milchig and fleishig. The first 6 months will be a trial and if all works out well, I think we will kasher the kitchen, dishes, et al.
I have unpacked all except for 6 boxes which are living in my cornfield (the vorkuche) right now.
We need: to get the lines up (I am going to use flannel sheets to darken the windows in the girls' room), get some more lights up,get a toaster, CD player/radio and a coffee machine. I think we have done pretty well for this short time, though.
We also need to get a TV. Although my sister-in-law generously gave us her older TV, it can't support our DVD/video player and I need to be able to let the kids see movies and to see the subtitles myself (I find it useful when watching German to read English, and even to read the German while listening to it). I'm also looking for a staning freezer on sale so that I can actually cut back on the 5 days a week that I go shopping with the ability to buy meat only once a week and to prepare meals ahead of time as well as to be able to actually store left-overs.
Enough of that..I hope to talk about at least a few of the non-boring things that we have done recently in the next few days. Tomorrow is my next to last day of German and the last day is an ausflug (field trip) so I hope to have some fun next week, during my week of freedom: it's the last week the kids are in school and yet I won't have class!
29 June 2008
E-M 2008 is over. Spain 1: Germany 0
A relatively boring and lackadaisical game. Germany just played poorly again, I think. I wish Turkey had made it into the final- they had more passion.
We came back to the old apartment to watch it, because we don't have a real TV in the new apartment yet and we wanted to enjoy the scen on Ku'damm if Germany won. We will still go out and take a look, but I doubt that it will be very exciting.
(I also needed to use the telephone and internet- looks like I won't have one until July 7th).
We came back to the old apartment to watch it, because we don't have a real TV in the new apartment yet and we wanted to enjoy the scen on Ku'damm if Germany won. We will still go out and take a look, but I doubt that it will be very exciting.
(I also needed to use the telephone and internet- looks like I won't have one until July 7th).
28 June 2008
Shafted by Deutsche Telekom...
I had heard, of course, that the telephone and cable companies in Germany were fat and lazy and incompetent and I am sad to say that my current experience is bearing that out. We had chosen DT partially in the expectation that they would actually have follow through and wew were willing to pay more for that. But even though we had an appointment for telephone and cable and fast DSL hook-up this past week, the time of our appointment came and passed.
The German had taken the day off specifically to combine moving and this appointment (and this will definitely be the last time we move ourselves--- the work is backbreaking and exhausting) and when they did not arrive he called them. Much discussion later, the problem turned out to be 'a system error'. That means, of course, that DT does not need to make any effort to deal with the result of their error. Oh, excuse me, not their error, the system's error. The German was pretty unhappy with the concept and went up several layers, followed by a trip to the store where he had made the original appointment (which was incorrectly done by an employee) and the manager there assured him that a new appointment would be scheduled as quickly as possible, and certainly not even a week later.
We have a new appointment for two weeks from now. Right now, I am using the German's work computer (and it's quite difficult to use both the German keyboard and the wonky touchstick) and his UMTS card. It is very slow. So I won't be on-line much this week. Maybe I can catch up later...
The German had taken the day off specifically to combine moving and this appointment (and this will definitely be the last time we move ourselves--- the work is backbreaking and exhausting) and when they did not arrive he called them. Much discussion later, the problem turned out to be 'a system error'. That means, of course, that DT does not need to make any effort to deal with the result of their error. Oh, excuse me, not their error, the system's error. The German was pretty unhappy with the concept and went up several layers, followed by a trip to the store where he had made the original appointment (which was incorrectly done by an employee) and the manager there assured him that a new appointment would be scheduled as quickly as possible, and certainly not even a week later.
We have a new appointment for two weeks from now. Right now, I am using the German's work computer (and it's quite difficult to use both the German keyboard and the wonky touchstick) and his UMTS card. It is very slow. So I won't be on-line much this week. Maybe I can catch up later...
25 June 2008
Ger 3:Tur 2
This is pretty darn exciting... darn. In the last two minutes, Germany scored another goal to make it 3:2.
Owell. I'll go out and watch the crowd from the balcony. We are coming back to watch Germany in the finals: our lease isn't up until Monday and we want to take advantage of both the location and the very large TV which came with the apartment;).
It was an exciting game, with the first pair of goals scored in the first quarter and the last in the last few minutes. I was pulling for Turkey to pull out another miracle in the last minute, as they did twice before, but it was not to be.
Owell. I'll go out and watch the crowd from the balcony. We are coming back to watch Germany in the finals: our lease isn't up until Monday and we want to take advantage of both the location and the very large TV which came with the apartment;).
It was an exciting game, with the first pair of goals scored in the first quarter and the last in the last few minutes. I was pulling for Turkey to pull out another miracle in the last minute, as they did twice before, but it was not to be.
24 June 2008
Stopping to Exhale
Only as life is starting to become more normal am I realizing how stressed out and chaotic my life has been for the last 10 months. As I was living through it, I just kept slogging through it.
The move from the Pension in Prenzlauer-Berg, where we shivered and got sick, arriving in Berlin with inadequate clothing, coming from 80+F temperatures and landing in 60F and raining (and raining) and where I realized that SADD is real and that having constant rain = having no sun.
The extension, the new temporary, furnished short stay apartment. The Alien Registration, and Citizen and Marriage and Family registration and Schools registration and Driver's license registration. The 'my school' registration, and then the forms to allow the girls to go to school and then their school registration. The arranging of bus service and children's seats (resulting in my needing to carry the carseat for Thing1, considered old enough here to not require a 5-point harness, with which I disagree, up and down the stairs every day).
The arrival of the container and the arrival of the extra pallet, both delivered 5+ hours west of here. The unpacking of those and the dealing with red tape and idiots at the ports who can't find boats or containers or lading documents. The unpacking and repacking of boxes damaged by being left on a dock in Bremerhavn. The winnowing of our possessions as we decided what we needed in Berlin versus what should stay. The total inconveniencing of my kind in-laws, whose house we took a portion of and whose belongings we displaced and whose garage we filled. The additional extension of time in Berlin.
The waves of sickness for all of us, life starting to happen. Starting to read other blogs widely enough to interfere with my novelreading;-). Looking to see what is around, visiting the in-laws and seeing traditional holiday festivities. Eastercon for a weekend- the first ever away from the girls overnight. They liked it.
Starting to think that I like Berlin. Starting to think that I wish I had some time to actually see it. Starting to think about finding social activities and attempting to actually meet other adults. Got a longer extension of time here. Starting to really need social interaction.
Looking at and joining book clubs. Contacting other ex-pats, and finding some so homesick that they went home! Starting to feel comfortable in the city, no matter how bad my German is. Starting to organize my chaos and get my household under control.
Receiving the go-ahead to stay in Berlin as long as we want. Deciding on our neighborhood and finding an apartment that is almost perfect.
Moving this week.
The move from the Pension in Prenzlauer-Berg, where we shivered and got sick, arriving in Berlin with inadequate clothing, coming from 80+F temperatures and landing in 60F and raining (and raining) and where I realized that SADD is real and that having constant rain = having no sun.
The extension, the new temporary, furnished short stay apartment. The Alien Registration, and Citizen and Marriage and Family registration and Schools registration and Driver's license registration. The 'my school' registration, and then the forms to allow the girls to go to school and then their school registration. The arranging of bus service and children's seats (resulting in my needing to carry the carseat for Thing1, considered old enough here to not require a 5-point harness, with which I disagree, up and down the stairs every day).
The arrival of the container and the arrival of the extra pallet, both delivered 5+ hours west of here. The unpacking of those and the dealing with red tape and idiots at the ports who can't find boats or containers or lading documents. The unpacking and repacking of boxes damaged by being left on a dock in Bremerhavn. The winnowing of our possessions as we decided what we needed in Berlin versus what should stay. The total inconveniencing of my kind in-laws, whose house we took a portion of and whose belongings we displaced and whose garage we filled. The additional extension of time in Berlin.
The waves of sickness for all of us, life starting to happen. Starting to read other blogs widely enough to interfere with my novelreading;-). Looking to see what is around, visiting the in-laws and seeing traditional holiday festivities. Eastercon for a weekend- the first ever away from the girls overnight. They liked it.
Starting to think that I like Berlin. Starting to think that I wish I had some time to actually see it. Starting to think about finding social activities and attempting to actually meet other adults. Got a longer extension of time here. Starting to really need social interaction.
Looking at and joining book clubs. Contacting other ex-pats, and finding some so homesick that they went home! Starting to feel comfortable in the city, no matter how bad my German is. Starting to organize my chaos and get my household under control.
Receiving the go-ahead to stay in Berlin as long as we want. Deciding on our neighborhood and finding an apartment that is almost perfect.
Moving this week.
21 June 2008
What I haven't been blogging about.
Is that I am just tired.
We did really enjoy going out last night but it's not that it helped me catch up on any sleep. The girls are pushing me to the limit every day with bed time. They went to sleep with the babysitter at 8 pm without a peep, but as per usual with us, it's 21:15 and Thing2 is still running in and out and even Thing1 is doing it tonight. It's broad daylight out there and I understand that they want to stay up, but that's why we put dark blinds in their room! And the yelling: every night I have a headache after bedtime.
The German just got home, so a few orders from him seem to count more than anything I say. And he just got home because he's been putting furniture together all day. He drezzed his EC card by accident and so is not able to go shopping by himself. So the girls and I had to go along with him to Ikea, which is a bus ride and a walk away. Thing1 was able to go to the playground, but Thing2 is too small and she needed to shop with us, a process she finds tedious. Even though we had done all our research in advance, printing out all the furniture that we needed and even though we walked into the store from the back, we were able only to get information to give us some site locations: we needed to go upstairs and get custom modification on the printout for our kleideschrank. Also, while I was waiting for the German to get the row
numbers, I saw the white Anneboda and I liked them very much. So instead of getting the much more expensive Pax sliding door wardrobe and pink dressers, we got each of the girls an Aneboda kleideschrank and nightstand and a three drawer dresser to share. We got a highboy, a lowboy, 2 nightstands, a dresser and a large kleideschrank ourselves, as well asa few lights to put in to go with the ones we picked up yesterday from the BauHaus. All our bedroom, living room and dining room furniture will be in the relatively new schwarzbraun. Our current bemustert schwarze Billys will go upstairs to the gallery and we will pick up a few bookcases and schubladen in schwarzbraun for the entryway.
We found a "man with a van" from Craig's List (in itself a surprise because CL is generally so inactive here) who picked us all up at Ikea and then helped the German unload and spent a few hours wiring light for us: German apartments come really stripped, with bare wires hanging from the walls and ceilings. We have to purchase and install 12 light fixtures and I think so far we have 6 or 7. We will need to mail-order the ceiling fans as they are relatively uncommon here. And we still have so much to do and can't do anything on Sunday: the country closes on Sunday.
We did really enjoy going out last night but it's not that it helped me catch up on any sleep. The girls are pushing me to the limit every day with bed time. They went to sleep with the babysitter at 8 pm without a peep, but as per usual with us, it's 21:15 and Thing2 is still running in and out and even Thing1 is doing it tonight. It's broad daylight out there and I understand that they want to stay up, but that's why we put dark blinds in their room! And the yelling: every night I have a headache after bedtime.
The German just got home, so a few orders from him seem to count more than anything I say. And he just got home because he's been putting furniture together all day. He drezzed his EC card by accident and so is not able to go shopping by himself. So the girls and I had to go along with him to Ikea, which is a bus ride and a walk away. Thing1 was able to go to the playground, but Thing2 is too small and she needed to shop with us, a process she finds tedious. Even though we had done all our research in advance, printing out all the furniture that we needed and even though we walked into the store from the back, we were able only to get information to give us some site locations: we needed to go upstairs and get custom modification on the printout for our kleideschrank. Also, while I was waiting for the German to get the row
numbers, I saw the white Anneboda and I liked them very much. So instead of getting the much more expensive Pax sliding door wardrobe and pink dressers, we got each of the girls an Aneboda kleideschrank and nightstand and a three drawer dresser to share. We got a highboy, a lowboy, 2 nightstands, a dresser and a large kleideschrank ourselves, as well asa few lights to put in to go with the ones we picked up yesterday from the BauHaus. All our bedroom, living room and dining room furniture will be in the relatively new schwarzbraun. Our current bemustert schwarze Billys will go upstairs to the gallery and we will pick up a few bookcases and schubladen in schwarzbraun for the entryway.
We found a "man with a van" from Craig's List (in itself a surprise because CL is generally so inactive here) who picked us all up at Ikea and then helped the German unload and spent a few hours wiring light for us: German apartments come really stripped, with bare wires hanging from the walls and ceilings. We have to purchase and install 12 light fixtures and I think so far we have 6 or 7. We will need to mail-order the ceiling fans as they are relatively uncommon here. And we still have so much to do and can't do anything on Sunday: the country closes on Sunday. Also, we have a school party tomorrow at which both the German and I need to fulfill duities and then he needs to drive 6 hours west so that, bright and early Monday morning, he can load a trailer with the bits and pieces that we have at the in-laws (such as our beds! Finally, comfortable beds again!).
The annoying thing about all this is not that it needs doing, but that this weekend in Berlin has so many great things going on and we really can't manage to do any of them! There is a street festival at Nolldendorfplatz, "48 Hours" in Neue Kolln (where one of my classmates has a showing), a book festival with tumblers at Unter den Linden.
What Super Hero are you? I'm a mild-mannered reporter...
I was going through my reader and ran across this quiz on Heather's blog and thought I would check it out...
You are Superman
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test
You are Superman
| You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.  |
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test
20 June 2008
Wow. Victory to Defeat in 15 seconds. Croatia 1:Turkei 1, then after Elfmeterschiessen 1:3
We went to Kreuzberg to eat dinner at our favorite, Everest and to watch the game. I was hoping that Turkei would win so that I could see if they got really excited in Kreuzberg. The regular play ended 0:0 and we needed to race back home to let the babysitter go while the game went into overtime. When we got back to the apartment, it was still 0:0 and the babysitter stayed and watched with us.
First Croatia scored in the last minute, then Turkei scored with 15 seconds to go, plunging Croatia from the heights to the depths., Then came the Elfmeterschiessen, which I have never seen. That has each team shooting at the opposing goal from the 11 meter line. Croatia fumbled its first shot, made the second and fumbled the third. Turkey made every shot and that was the end.
The TV is showing the celebration, which is about 100 yards from here, but it is amazingly (comparatively) quiet now that Ku'dam has been mostly closed to vehicular traffic. My dream game will be Germany vs. Turkey. I think we will wake the kids up after that to go out and see the celebration. It's next Wednesday and the in-laws will be here helping us to move. i don't think we will turn over this apartment (and its huge TV) until the E-M is over.
added: It's pretty cool out there, 1000's ofpeople, men, women, childre, all walking up and down Ku'damm. The German says that this is the "unofficial" fan mile, where fans can go to display pride after a game. In several cities there are official areas.
First Croatia scored in the last minute, then Turkei scored with 15 seconds to go, plunging Croatia from the heights to the depths., Then came the Elfmeterschiessen, which I have never seen. That has each team shooting at the opposing goal from the 11 meter line. Croatia fumbled its first shot, made the second and fumbled the third. Turkey made every shot and that was the end.
The TV is showing the celebration, which is about 100 yards from here, but it is amazingly (comparatively) quiet now that Ku'dam has been mostly closed to vehicular traffic. My dream game will be Germany vs. Turkey. I think we will wake the kids up after that to go out and see the celebration. It's next Wednesday and the in-laws will be here helping us to move. i don't think we will turn over this apartment (and its huge TV) until the E-M is over.
added: It's pretty cool out there, 1000's ofpeople, men, women, childre, all walking up and down Ku'damm. The German says that this is the "unofficial" fan mile, where fans can go to display pride after a game. In several cities there are official areas.
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