Kirkus Berlin

There was a circus festival at Alexander Platz this week featuring the regular carnival foods and jugglers, comedy shows, fire eaters/dancers and aerialist. The kids also found the gigantic inflatable balls you can roll around in. Funny enough we had seen that at Schweitzer Mt. Resort when we attended Dena & JJs wedding last Sept but somehow didn't get cajoled into playing in them then.

Waiting for the u-bahn

Sunday's the subway doesn't run as frequently, so when we arrived we had to wait a "long" time... We have already adjusted to this new expectation. Seattle Metro is going to be a big let down when we get back.

10pm muffin

After an evening out at the Berlin Lachte kirkus festival at Alexander Platz the kids enjoy a muffin on the S-Bahn ride home.

Bit of the Wall by the Mall

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Cassandra Allen

new mobile number: +49-160-740 0053

cassandra_allen@hotmail.com

Tired of climbing stairs

Luckily there's a chair between floors two and three and a bench between floors three and four for a lil rest.

Neue Heimat

Sunday afternoon outing to Neue Heimat: a former industrial area of vast warehouses, train tracks and brick walls that has been taken over by the flea markets, food trucks and performance artists. Today they built a huge reservior and brought in some world class wakeboarders. A special pulley line called a "slingshot"fastened to two cranes drags the guys down the waterway over various ramps and tube obstacles. That was this week. Next week it will be something different.

Many of the buildings in this area are crumbling, but it does not prevent a skate park, coffee shops, a climbing gym and a yoga studio to open up. The area was mostly deserted until the spray-painters found it a couple years ago and decorated the hell out of every surface. Now it is the classic "rough around the edges" place where all the hipsters go for amazing street food, hearing local bands and flea market shopping to buy handmade clothes from local designers trying to get off the ground. 

Hot days require lots of water.

As if the spray-painted, brutal warehouse scene did not provide enough atmospherics, the more-permanent food trucks have built out eating zones incorporating the existing junk. This prevents people from eating their sugar-dusted Croatian dumplings and machiattos while sitting on rusty 55 gallon drums leaking ancient paint solvent chemicals. (which actually would be more attractive for many people around here). 

Warehouse canvas. A big space just waiting to be turned into hip-vana.

Performance artsy-ness.

Deejay, VW and wonderfully dirty brick walls.

Kinder play spot. Ball Pit! Cassandra monitors the action.

Who doesn't want to drop into a ball pit.

Broken glass from long-drained beer bottles is ground into powder that accumulated in the gaps of the cobblestones and unevenly-spaced bricks underfoot. Bike corrals are everywhere. There are also tons of selfie-sticks and hippies. People watching to beat all.

Saturday at the Reichstag

Reichstag: The German government building that houses the legislative body called the Diet. You can get a special tour of the dome which provides a wonderful view of the city. A self-guided audio tour lights up the sites as you circle up and up getting higher above the roof line.

Jasper's main concern is whether there is ice cream involved in this outing.

My, look at the architecture!

The Jewish Memorial.

And finally, a stop at the Winterfeldtplatz "rubber park" where sheets of it are suspended in the air, enabling a number of climbing and playing options. This is one of the kid's favorite parks and there will be more pics of this one.