October Report!

Matisse and friends at the Brandenburger Tor

October takes the cake so far for craziness. Both our work schedules went a little bonkers (Cassandra putting in many late nights with the US execs for Forrester Wave reports and Jay who went to Frankfurt and London for client trips). We had our first surge of visitors, a couple local Berlin festivals and 2 out of the 5 weekends we left the country for regional trips.

October 3 is German Re-unification Day when the country celebrates the fall of the Wall and country's ensuing "Einheit" (oneness). We hit the Brandenburg Gate early and walked the main alley 17 des Juni where festival stages, biergartens, brat stands and carnival games packed the area. We did a ride up in the ferris wheel then checked out before the crowds got bad. In the afternoon we hit Kurbis-Fest, a Schoeneberg tradition where the streets are closed off for vendors and strolling. Pumpkins everywhere. We learned that the pumpkins were actually imported from the States in yet another concrete example of American cultural exports.

Jay had some fun nights out with the T-Bird Alumni group at Octoberfest Spreeweis'n and a late night out with visiting Seattleite Kevin Quaid hitting clubs in Kreuzberg in a very uncharacteristic manner (for me, yet quite characteristic for Berliers) and returning home at 4:45 am. A record. For Cassandra's birthday we flew down to Spain and enjoyed a long weekend in Barcelona. (see other post for more detail). 

Visitors appeared in a welcome succession throughout, beginning with Jay's old friend from the Boulder days Chris Bartlett. Then Aunt Judy came in for a week, staying at a nearby AirBnB on Akazienstrasse. Seattle bud Kevin Quaid overlapped for a weekend and then the day after she left Jay's former co-worker Matisse Miller stayed with us for a few days, leaving on Saturday morning the 24th. In the afternoon Nonna Pam arrived for a couple weeks!

There are still some details to shake out, but we are feeling our feet under us and looking forward to the rest of the Fall season which leads into Christmas, and Germans go bananas for Christmas.

Some Oktober Pics:

Re-Unification Day

Das Tor.

Looking West to the Siegesaule "Victory" column. View from top of Ferris Wheel!

The Soviet Ehrenmal Tiergarten. Reichstag Building in back.

Cranes and crowds over Berlin.

STREETFEST! KurbisFest in Schoeneberg.

Kurbis (pumpkin) Kings in front of our neighborhood Kirche.

Street wine bar, later on at KurbisFest.

Fall rooftops.

Dominik Hess, T-Bird Alumni Group. Oktoberfest @ Spreeweis'n

Noch einmal Mass, bitte! (Mass = litre festbiers)

Bavarian Cap! Late show on the U-Bahn.

Berlin Marathon on Grunewaldstrasse



Neighborhood architecture.

Morning commute bike ride: Checkpoint Charlie. Just go a few blocks out of your way and you can cruise through some amazing historical landmarks!

Cold War open air museum at Checkpoint Charlie. 1950's-era motivational poster!

SPAIN TRIP! Sample Pics.

Parque Guell, Barcelona. In the land where we can actually understand people's conversations.

Cathedral. Here Cody is about to burn his thumb on prayer candles.

Tapas Bar!

Sagrada Familia

Ahem!

Fountain show. The amount of selfies being taken in front of this water fountain was truly ridiculous.

Razorfish Offices in Frankfurt. Jay work trip for Marriott International client kick off meeting.

Frankfurt Am Main Hauptbahnhof. Where my first European travel experience started, 25 years ago. (Black and white photo to communicate "old" aesthetic, since everything was black and white in 1990 before Facebook).

Kevin Quaid shakes up Jasper on Goltzstrasse

Auntie Jude flies in from CA for a week!

Light Show on the Brandenburger Tor

Kevin and Jay hit some club, 3am. No idea where we were.

Mid-ride banana on the Kirche steps.

Kurbis Carving with Matisse

End Results!

Kreuzberg cafe scene, replete with bikes. Wrangelstrassen Cafe.

Years from now, we will come back here and utter "Ich hatte gern eine Hausgemacht Kuchen mit doppio Cappuccino fur hier.." and we will remember these days of having young kids and living abroad and the biting Fall air and tasting the amazing apple cake that the cafes make alongside the steaming noise of the espresso machine and the low chatter of locals. No matter how much Berlin changes, the taste of house-made apple kuchen is a constant.