last day of German class

soggy morning but the little Thursday market on Wittenbergplatz featured some flowers, which I deserve for surviving three months of intensive German courses!

In the background sit two landmarks of the old West Berlin: the Wittenbergplatz U-Bahn station and the KaDeWe Department Store, Europe's biggest.

jaspers school lunch

martha stewart of germany strikes again!

Dancing Clown Song - auf Deutsch

Cody's latest song. This one with a little dance. It's about a clown dancing and they prepared it for the Fasching Festival in February.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phv6fShCX5Q

Winter shows signs of weakening

Over the weekend we got out to the old Berlin Airlift airport at Tempelhof and did a family bike ride/picnic.

Here's a map visualization of the trip:

https://www.relive.cc/view/895872058

Also on Sunday we had direct sunlight coming in the kitchen window, which was a first for this year. There is something about having direct sun that is vital when you come through a long winter like you get here! Sunlight on apartment details is one of the things I will remember about this place:

Also on Sunday we had many events planned. The kids stayed over at friends on Saturday night (mommy and daddy went down to Kreuzberg to an old gothic church to see a silent film (Nosferatu) and a live piano and choir accompaniment.

So Sunday morning in the sunshine we stopped by a small bakery shop to pick up some goodies for breakfast on our way over to getting the kids.

Breakfast #1 with capuccinos and Franzbrötchen, croissants and apricot pockets at Janek & Silvia's with the kids.

Then back to Gleditschstrasse to prep for hosting pancake breakfast with Jacobia and MacCartan, (she's German, he's Irish, their kid Finbar is in school with Cody). Big pancake breakfast follows and great chatting while the kids play in the front room. We go to a park to enjoy the day. Suddenly, it is 2:30pm and we are due over at ANOTHER friend's house for classic Berlin coffee and cake. The Kaffee und Kuchen thing is huge here.

We say bye to Finbar and parents, then bike through the Volkspark to meet up with Georg and Ju and their kids Zecc, Samuel and Joshua at another playground. Sit down at their place 4:30 for apple walnut crumble and banana chocolate cake. And coffee. I've not drunk this much coffee in a very long time.

At 5:30 we head home. It is still light out. Everyone is out in the Volkspark, dragging the summer forward by sheer force of will. It is an amazing thing to experience. Here the sense of a communal event like a sudden spring day that banishes winter makes you sense you are part of some larger narrative in the life of a city. I suppose this happens in every city in Springtime, but here it is something worth remarking about.

Anyway, so we are excited about crawling out of the cave and stretching our legs. Good moods all around.

Jay shaved his beard. When I had it Cody would refer to me as "that spiky boy."

No more, now it is back to the sandpaper thing, but this is also a sign of Spring. No need for beards in the summer!

More Spring coming this week, it is supposed to also be nice tomorrow with sun. Yeah!

Friends from Switzerland up for the weekend!

Kath, Georg and Claire and Camille visited us recently and here are some pics from the ramblings about town.

Springtime song

To chase away the evil spirits of Winter, Germans do two things:

1. Teach their kids to sing cute songs about Springtime. Here Cody belts one out as we ride home from Jasper's school. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQeWDFn7dJY

Springtime song www.youtube.com

2. They celebrate Fasching - This week both kids celebrated the German version of Carnival/Mardi Gras. All kids dress in costume and get candy and lots of treats. Cody's party was a breakfast party and we parents provided the meal of breads, cheeses, meats, jam, nutella, honey, yogurt and fruit. 

Jasper's was at lunchtime and involved handfuls of candy and donuts. This food, in my mind, is the best part. The donuts are the jelly-filled kind covered with powdered sugar. During Fasching however, some are trick donuts and have mustard or ketchup inside as well. Ha! (this is a huge celebration in southern Germany, so we're lucky that it's even recognized up here in Berlin!)

Bad Shandau Weekend

The kids seem to find snow whenever it’s least convenient (typical kids, I guess). Two weekends ago we took a long weekend to visit the Elbe River Valley - specifically the towns just east of Dresden where there are some beautiful hills, fresh air and few tourists in an area called "Saxony Switzerland."

On a “hike” around The Bastei, a rock formation; amazing sandstone pillars – mountains almost that seem to protrude up out of the earth alongside the Elbe River. We had a slippery/wet/snowy walk around the manmade sidewalks and bridges (totally safe, I swear). The kids decided to make snowballs here/there/everywhere, roll in th snow, climb on little piles of snow, slide down the stone stairs covered in snow, etc. It was pretty, but of course the kids were soaked and cold by 11:30am and we had no choice but to go inside for an early lunch. Luckily we met a super cool American couple from Ohio with a 1st grade boy. They live in Berlin and were visiting this area for the weekend too. We enjoyed big bowls of potato soup and warmed up. 

Because the kids were soaked and couldn’t be outside for more than 10 min without freezing another toe or finger, we were basically forced go back to the AirBnB we had rented. (Bummer! right?!)

Well, fortunately,  there was an AMAZING "Terme" with a series of swimming pools and saunas a block away from our “Holiday Apartment." The kids wore their crocs there/we piggy backed them through puddles of slush. And, we spent over 2 hours trying the different pools, hot tubs, lazy river and even the sound pool (a salt water pool where sound is piped under the water and they project relaxing, abstract images on the domed ceiling overhead). 

All in all, it wasn’t a bad day. And, the boots dried out for the next day when they got soaked again by 11am when we took a little hike along the ridge over the town. Ah, well… 

By Sunday AM they were dry again and we visited the Königstein Fortress. Luckily there wasn’t as much snow there and the Fortress Museum was excellent with lots and lots of interactive exhibits and dress up so we didn’t spend as much time in the snow. 

Pic Additions:

The Bearded One at Dresden Hauptbahnhof. I came down later on the train.

Overlooking the Bastei formations (part of them - it spreads around quite a bit)

Famous (for Germany) bridge that leads to the ruins of a 13th century fort. There's graffiti carved into the sandstone from the 1700's, so people have been touring here for awhile.

Advantages to traveling here in off-season: you don't have to share ice-over treacherous staircases with any other tourists! Get 'em all to yourself!

Over the Elbe River

Back at the AirBnB, the kids are introduced to Monopoly.

Bad Schandau's Dorfkirche, right next to the BnB.

Day Two, walking the ridges behind Bad Schandau. 

Cody loves his poofball knit cap!

Tiegelwurst mit sauerkraut and salzkartoffel. DDR specialty!

Lost a tooth!

Day #3: Konigstein Fortress. Big Walls! It was never successfully attacked or breached.

The uphill tunnel after the drawbridge structure just inside the main entrance.

Prussian Generals look over the situation maps.

They spent a lot of time looking at the situation maps.

Drawbridge entrance. Very steep. Bad for attacking.

Back in the car for the trip home. Saschicher Schweiz, Check!