I just want to make sure that I keep adding things, even when I don't have much to say. We start school tomorrow and everyone's pretty keyed up. The kids are excited, especially the girls, who get to start for real. Malcolm doesn't get to begin until next week, after he has his Einschulung, which, for those who don't know, is a big German celebration for kids starting first grade. We'll be sure to write more after that happens.

Meanwhile, I'm struggling to learn how to use computers here (all commands and keyboards are in German, so I can't really tell what I'm doing...more on that later, too) but overall feeling pretty good about getting started finally.

We're just back from a weekend in Hamburg and Elmshorn (a big town in NW Germany, Schleswig-Holstein) which was lovely and we had great weather. Hamburg has a part that was the basis for the design of the Charles River basin, but overall it's really a BIG port city. We also saw a good museum about Hamburg's role as the port of exit for a huge number of emigres to the US and elsewhere.

Con-FOOD-shun

Most of the time when we’re buying things we can figure out more or less what it is. Almost everything we see in the grocery store has a comparable or even identical item at home in the US. Granted, some of the packaging is a little different to accommodate smaller German refrigerators (i.e. square 1-liter cartons of milk instead of our big gallon jugs) but mostly it’s the same stuff.

There are a few notable exceptions. For one thing, there are different sizes (have you seen sausage by the meter—or even the yard—in the US? Me neither) or varieties (many, MANY different kinds of deli ham products, almost all of them some form of ham sausage—chopped, pressed, formed—and noone I know is enthusiastic about pressed ham). For the most part I can tell what it is, even if I don’t want it. On the other hand, it can get confusing when confronted with an entire dairy case filled with Frischkäse as to which one I want. Incidentally, I chose incorrectly and came home with the cottage cheese instead of the cream cheese. Sigh. Now I know to look for the cremig stuff.

Some things, however, have no identifiable corollary. Quark, for instance. I don’t really know what it is. It’s a dairy product, sort of a cross between yogurt and sour cream?—I can tell you that much and no more. It comes in many varieties. I’ve seen herb flavor, chili flavor, garlic, speise quark (which seems to mean quark for eating—why else would you buy it?), and vanilla quark which is a really yummy sweetened thing. But what’s actually in it? I have no idea. I bet it’s good with Rote Grutze on it…another one that doesn’t carry over. More like berry pie filling than anything else, but go ahead and put it on your yogurt, or your breakfast cereal, or your waffle, or, well, your quark. Why not.

And then there are the times when we’re just completely at a loss. We stopped for Kaffee and Kuchen the other day after going to a ceramic studio to decorate some items for our kitchen. The hostess was getting a little grumpy with our indecisiveness (not to mention our lack of German) and was pushing for orders. The kids kept picking up the cover over the muffins to see what kind they were (apparently quite the faux pas here) and then we couldn’t get a straight answer about what made hot chocolate different from kid’s hot chocolate (“there’s dark, and Italian, and this kind, and that kind, and kinder chocolate”) so by the time we finished ordering everyone was impatient. We sat and waited for a while and played with the ubiquitous bees in the sugar shakers, and eventually our food came. I got a lovely Mice-plate (a variety of cheeses), the kids got their muffins, Katy got strudel with both ice cream AND vanilla sauce (grrr). Mary (the one German-speaker among us, mind you) got a lovely bowl of ice cream with strawberries and whipped cream. Well, we assumed there was ice cream under there, because it was invisible under the mountain of sahne. We nibbled our way along like good little mice, and gradually plates emptied out and the ice cream became evident…and it became clearer why there had been so much cream. The Eis was…well…green. Not your mint-chip green, or your garden-variety pistachio green, no. This was GREEN. “What flavor is it, Mary?” we all asked. “Actually,” she said, “I can’t tell.” Seanna tried it. Malcolm tasted some. Annika too. Nobody could put a name to it. But, well, Eis is Eis, so she ate it all up. Eventually our hostess came and cleared the plates, and Mary asked what kind it was. “Elk-land,” she said. What? “ALGIN Eis,” (nice clear enunciation that time). “Did you like it?” Mary mumbled some non-committal answer, being unclear as to what she had just eaten. Keep in mind she’s the German speaker. “What was it?” we all asked. “I still can’t tell,” she had to admit. We all agreed on the word, especially after Annika confirmed having seen it on the board, next to vanilla, but none of us had an inkling what it could be. It seemed, oddly, to resemble algae. But who the heck makes ice cream with algae in it? And why? Is this some weird health-food thing where you to eat something bad for you and good for you at the same time? Or is it just a vengeful booby-trap for unsuspecting and annoying Americans? After looking it up in the dictionary, we’re fairly certain that it was in fact algae ice cream. Mary spent the evening convincing her stomach that now that it was down, better that it should stay there even if it was pretty gross.

Never let your guard down. Not for a second.

Fairs and Flea-Markets

I realize that after all that discussion about GETTING to the fair, I didn't really say much about it. In point of fact there wasn't really all that much to say, at least from my perspective. It was just like an American fair, really--you shell out a lot of cash for the privilege of eating food that makes you feel sick, going on rides that make you feel sick, and hanging around a big crowd of people who, well, you get the idea. But actually we had a good time. Everything was half price for kids' day, and we didn't go on the really crazy rides or eat the really greasy food items, so while we got tired out and stayed too long at the fair (as we McGraws always seem to do!) it was a good experience.

Today we had a different but similar sort of adventure. We went flea-marketing, looking to try to find some furniture for our as-yet sparsely furnished abode. How we thought we would get it home (remember, we have no car) remains uncertain. Yesterday Katy brought an armchair home on her head via the S-bahn, so I guess we would have figured something out, but as it turns out we didn't find what we wanted at a good price.

But I must say, whatever you needed you could find there. There were two that we went to, one the big one at Mauerpark in the northern part of the city, and one small one on the way. For the most part these are like an absolutely gigantic yard sale. It appears that people have cleaned out the garage and put everything in there on sale. Bikes, tables, clothes, what-nots, records (a vinyl shopper's paradise!), kitchen gadgets galore! Then there are people selling new items, a vast array of small household goods like rolls of tape, sewing kits, spatulas (bought one of those), plants, t-shirts...very difficult to go through and not see SOMETHING that you just have to have.

Most interesting to me was the crowd. Maybe it's just Germany, I don't know, but there was definitely more of an edge here than you'd find at a similar event in Boston. It was like the whole alternative-college-punk-GenX-coffeehouse-grunge population had come out to furnish their apartments, only they weren't buying stuff, they were just there for the scene. Tattoos, piercings, weird hair--all of which you see all the time here and which make the city fun to roam around--but the concentration of it at this spot today was more than I expected. It certainly wasn't Grandma and Grandpa Jones...though out back there were some decidedly aging hippy types who kind of looked as though they had spent a WEE too much time in Amsterdam...

Playground

We found another new playground, and this one has been quite a hit. The play structures they have here...even I think they're cool. Look at this crazy space-age climber thing. While many of the devices are really fun, this one is just three poles to climb up. Annika is like a monkey on it and zips up and down with no effort; Seanna fought her way up it after MANY tries and was incredibly proud. Daddy made it up once but that was enough.

At the top it has this a green button that goes "ding!" when you whack it. But you have to get to the top to hear it.







And check out THIS crazy alien ship! It's like a pyramid made of ropes strung really tight so you can stand on them and climb through them. We have one like this nearer our house, too, but it's not as big and with no slide.








Here we see your garden-variety sea of blue padded mountains to run up and down with a mini trampoline in the middle. Unreal. This place is SO much fun...and we're only showing a tiny bit of it. Not including the soccer court, mini soccer court, mini climbers, endless spinny things to make you throw up that ice cream you had before you came, ping-pong tables (sorry, tisch-tennis)...awesome.





This is what it looks like on a Sunday afternoon. It's like the beach--everyone has their shoes off (to play in the sand, of course--none of that mulch stuff here), picnics, newspapers, kids EVERYwhere. Make a day of it!

Getting Lost

For Cleo…

Yesterday we decided to go get a little taste of home by going to the fair. Yup, a good old-fashioned American fair with spinning rides, cheesy games of chance, thumping music, and cotton candy. This one was the “Deutsch-Americanisch Volksfestival” (German-American People’s Fair) and their featured place from the US this year was Massachusetts. There are posters all around the city showing Sam Adams, the Red Sox, and a Cape Cod bathing beauty. We had to go see what this was about and get a taste of home. Besides, it was half price.

So full of confidence about our mastery of the subway system, we headed off to Dahlem where this event was being held. First we had to stop off at school to drop off some forms, then to the photo place to have Annika’s biometric pictures taken (remember the adventure at AAA getting passport photos? They’re no good here. Apparently the German authorities are a little bit picky about things like the precise placement of the nose in the photo.

OK, onto the U-bahn, which we haven’t really done yet—but how different can it be? We’re good with the map now, so we know that we take the U6 a few stops down to Hallesches Tor, then get onto the U1, then over to Wittgenstein Platz for the U3 to Dahlem. So, we hop off the U6 and…umm…the U1. Do you see the signs for it? Me neither. How about over here? No, that appears to be an escalator to nowhere. Back this way, I’m sure that we’ll find…our way out. Suddenly we’re outside. But wait! There! A sign that says something about the U1! I can’t really read it, but I think it says that the U1 is under construction and those buses—the ones lined up over there—are a shuttle to replace it. Excellent! This happens in Boston all the time, I know just what we’re doing now. On the bus (kind of a squeeze, but OK). Phew! Off on our way again.

Except…something doesn’t seem quite right. (Actually, I claim no credit for this. I am blissfully ignorant at this point.) Katy’s whiskers are quivering or something; anyway she heads off to ask the driver if we’re on the right bus. A few long moments later she comes back—yes! we ARE going the wrong way! SO! Off at the next stop, cross the street, into the U-bahn station here. Are there trains here? No! More signs that we can’t read! Grr. Back outside. Over here, this looks like it might work—another bus. Back the way we came, back to Hallesches Tor. Which, by the way, STILL has no U1 trains even though it’s at least 20 minutes since we were there last. At this point I’m mostly inclined to find a local Imbiss (food shack) and bury myself in a currywurst and a large beer, but there’s the kids to think of. And the fair!

So, another quick look at some signs we can’t really understand, then off to the escalator to nowhere—which turns out to go up to an upstairs track which just isn’t well labeled. Katy’s cornered some poor driver who may or may not speak English but who confirms that his train (labeled U3—but I thought the U3 didn’t come here?) is actually ALSO taking the U1 route while it’s under construction. So on we get, finally back on our way, our confidence only partially shaken…knees only shaking a little bit…

Postscript: on our way home after the fair, riding the U3. This is good, because now we only have to make one change (remember there isn’t a U1 to switch to). It’s a little crowded, so we have to squeeze to make room for the Italian teenage girls and their mother. They seem to know what they’re doing, full of confidence. Only a few glances at their map. We roll into Wittgenstein Platz, and they bounce up and off the train, heading out to switch to…the U1.

If I had enough Italian, I would have warned them. Or maybe not.

A new playground

So...we went in a metal plane that wasn't actually a real plane it was just like a statue thing. It was in the middle of a hidden playground. There was also a big slide that we really didn't like but you might like it. There are ropes you can walk on. We showed Mommy and Daddy where it was. We went there from summer program.

Grocery Shopping

Grocery shopping in Germany is almost exactly like grocery shopping in the United States except for a few things. Here’s a list of what they are:

1. They have this system where you put a certain coin into a slot on the shopping cart and push it in to unlock it from the line of carts. Then when you’re done with the cart you put it back in the line and your coin pops back out.

2. They have tanks like you would see with lobsters in the US but here they have fish in them.

3. They have 7 different kinds of ketchup. Here are a few: regular ketchup, ketchup with onion, Heinz kids’ ketchup, McDonald’s ketchup, curry ketchup, and spicy ketchup.

4. They have purple beans that look like green beans but they’re purple.

5. The plastic bags cost 50 euro cents, so you have to bring a backpack or your own bags.

6. Frosted Flakes are called Frosties in Europe. I also saw Special K and Shredded Wheat.

7. Ice Cream comes in a rectangular plastic container.

8. They have a gigantic frozen pizza section. They have pizza with tuna and onions, with salmon, with artichokes…practically anything you could imagine.

9. They have this one kind of drink called Spezi that is Coca Cola with orange juice. It sounds very bad but it is very good.

10. They have very many different kinds of cheese. The first one we opened was very stinky.

These are some interesting facts that I found out about Grocery Shopping in Berlin.

The Zoo

1. There was a monkey that was swinging and climbing and going in a tropical house and he was so funny and my Mom could talk to him. It was so fun.

2. There was two baby jaguars and they loved to play together and wrestle. There was a rope that they swung on when they grabbed it with their claws. They didn’t look the same. One was black and one looked like a regular jaguar (with spots). It was really cool cuz I could basically see the black one’s skin under.

Red Bear packing

Here are pictures of Red Bear as he helped Mommy and Daddy pack.

First Day at BMS-Hort

Today we went to HORT. (That's the BMS summer program). We had breakfast, then we went to the playground, then we had lunch which was this noodlish stuff and it was really really good. After that we drew animals and we played with hula hoops and jumpropes and then we drew again and then we went home.

It was all in German, but everybody spoke English also. There was a story time and first we started listening to Pippi Longstocking in German (Daddy says "Pippi Langstrumpf"! and also "good choice for your first German story, ANNIKA") but then one of the teachers brought us to a separate room and read us a story in English called The Three Questions.

Summer School Program is about to Begin

So tomorrow morning the children begin their Summer Program. This will be their first introduction not only to German Schooling but to their fellow classmates. The program is run by the afterschool teachers at the school we will be at but is optional so many but not all their classmates will be there.

We need to supply breakfast, snack, sunscreen and a water bottle. Not so different than camp programs we are used to. However, the Germans have the nifty little boxes called "pausenbrot" for carrying their snacks. I checked out the contents of the little boxes at the Zoo today to see what people put in them. I saw sandwiches in one, carrots in another, and pastries in a third. I think my children will have yogurt, fruit and bread with jam for breakfast and then a sweet crunchy item and a juice box for snack. We'll see how they compare to their peers and then we'll reevaluate.

So what to pack in their back packs is my curiosity. Annika wonders what language will be spoken. Seanna wonders where they will play outdoors and what they will do. Malcolm wonders how the children will be split. Will they play as one big group or will they be divided by grade level. We'll let you know what we find out.

Our First Day

Finding Our Way...and some other stuff

We’re definitely getting better at moving around the city, at least our part of it. We’ve been on the train (S-Bahn) a few times, now, and it seems as though our local station (the Nordbahnhof, for those of you keeping score at home) has several of the major cross-city lines going through it. We can take any of the trains here and go directly to Friedrichstrasse (museum island, though it’s easier to walk), Unter den Linden (Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag, Holocaust Memorial), Potsdamer Platz (Sony Center, Arkaden shopping mall)…even on to Julius-Leber-Brucke which is in Schoneberg where Jan and Verena and Sonja live. And by the way, that is a MUCH more, shall we say, complete part of town. Here it feels like you have to walk around and kind of search for things to find what you need (like, say, a bank that has people in it?) but there you can find everything—or at least it seems that way.

Yesterday we took a little sight-seeing trip to the center of the city. We still have to do things in small doses; we started at the Sony Center (really not so exciting) and the big shopping mall (ice cream in the shape of a hamburger or spaghetti is really still ice cream for lunch) and then decided to head for more serious environs. We walked along the route of the Wall, between the Tiergarten and the Holocaust memorial, looked at the Brandenburg gate, and strolled over to the Reichstag. Before you assume that we’d had a big day, remember that we didn’t go IN any of these places. As I said, small doses. We’ll have to go back for a more thorough look when we have some visitors to take there.

Throughout this walk the sky was off and on cloudy, wet, sunny, and windy. It dumped once or twice for a minute or two but then the sun was out. As we headed back to go get on the S-Bahn again, we passed the “statue men” who were doing their best to raise money from the tourists. There had been some sort of confusion during the rainshowers over various cups of money and while the clown was no longer shouting at the bronzed guy, he was now a VERY grumpy looking clown statue and the bronze guy had given up and was chatting with the silver guy over in a doorway. Kind of surreal, to say the least.

Anyway from there we went back to our most helpful cousins house, were treated to a lovely lunch, piled a whole bunch of stuff in a taxi van, and came home in time to meet our messenger guy delivering our passports. Now at least we’re registered with the city as living here. By now it was time to eat dinner so we headed off to a small (almost local) pub/restaurant. I’m sorry to say that the beer was disappointing but the food and atmosphere were outstanding and made me look forward to getting more familiar with life in Berlin.

We did get the TV that was loaned to us set up in time to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. The kids discovered today that not only do they show entire events (a LONG bike race, every heat in the swimming races, etc.) but they show them more than once. Why doesn’t American TV understand that it’s more fun this way?

Arrival

We traveled more or less uneventfully via London Heathrow—which, from the inside, seems to take up about half the country of England. Within the new Terminal 5 there are warnings not to go to the “B” gates because it can take 40 minutes to get back—and that’s in ONE TERMINAL. What if you go to, say, Terminal 3? Is it in Wales? “Don’t go to Terminal 3 unless you’re really sure your plane goes from there. Be sure you’re equipped with sleeping bag and flashlight. The woods are as cold and dark today as they were 200 years ago.”

Well. We survived that adventure and a very thorough frisking (woo!) and the fact that Malcolm seemed to have realized that it was now about two in the morning our time. He became what I can only describe as comatose and was unable to be woken for any reason until well into the afternoon. The rest of us just got spacy and grouchy.

The general mood was not helped by arrival in Berlin with 6 of our bags. Remember, we had made sure to fill our allotment of 10, so that leaves…right, four more. Ahh, our friend Heathrow again. After we cleared customs (did we clear customs? I must have missed that bit) and were met by Katy’s cousin Jan, we found our way into the depths of the Berlin airport to the “Lost and Found” desk. Surprisingly, they were quite helpful and told us that they knew where our bags were (London), what flight they were coming on (the next one, due in an hour) and that they would send them over to us once they got here. There was a brief moment of consternation over the spelling of Schroederstrasse and whether it should have that “e” in the middle or not, finally settled by deciding that in fact it was supposed to have an umlaut (Schröderstrasse), which her 1960’s era computer couldn’t do, so YES, it needed the e, and a short panic while we located our new phone number, but overall it went relatively smoothly.

Throughout all this, I sat at the desk, looking helpful, and smiling encouragingly at the woman behind the desk (who, I’m sorry to say, did not return the favor until after I had accidentally walked away with her pen and she yelled at me to give it back). I offered my expert opinion in the discussion over the necessity of the “e.” I wrote down my email address and watched her enter it into her computer using /u/ for and underscore and /a/ for @. I’m not kidding when I say it was old-school. As it turned out, the email was useless anyway as we couldn’t get on the internet for a couple days. The kids went to sleep in the hall outside, supervised by Jan. Katy dashed back and forth, “watching the children” but not really as she just couldn’t stand not being in on the action of organizing and of identifying the color and shape of the bags. Presumably in my semi-conscious state I would have done it incorrectly and we would have received the lost bags from the gaggle of Chinese tourists right behind us in line. Perhaps it would have been smarter for ME to go sit with the kids while she dealt with finding the bags, as that’s what happened anyway, but I probably would have just gone to sleep like Malcolm and then I would have been lost for the day—and I never would have gotten to discuss that mysterious “e.”

Jan helped us find a van taxi that could hold all six of us plus our remaining luggage (complete with car seat for Malcolm! Great!) and off we went. I’m a little bleary on the ride but I can say that Berlin does seem to uphold its reputation for being constantly under construction. The only real surprise was what appeared to be a collection of 20 or so beach volleyball courts, apparently ignored and left to their own devices, which mostly seemed to include growing weeds. In any case, we arrived at Schröderstrasse (note my use of the umlaut to avoid any confusion over the spelling) to find that Jan’s wife Verena was there waiting for us with baby Sonja and had stocked our fridge with essentials including homemade bread and homegrown flowers (is she great or what?). We managed to haul all the bags upstairs, remain social for a couple hours while the kids hung on the monkey net and eventually most of us napped. We’re here.

Leaving

It was exciting (which is never good when trying to catch a plane) but it all worked out in the end. Phew. We managed to get everything into the bags and into the car only one hour later than we intended, then back to Roslindale to take care of the last minute details (like printing a list of boxes for the shipping guy…did I mention that we didn’t do that before we left? Oops.) We had, surprisingly, only eight full bags instead of our allotted 10, so we decided to repack one of the big boxes into bags to take with us. Rather, we decided to have Uncle Sam (who just happened to stop by to say goodbye—thank goodness, and thanks Sam!) do it, as we were occupied with…ummm…I can’t remember. Whatever it was it was important. He was always better at getting that last item in the car than me anyway.

I would like to know who ordered that tremendous rainstorm that we had to drive through; as much as I appreciated the spectacular view of the two Hancock towers framed by dense rainshowers, and another of a huge bolt of lightning hitting the airport, I can’t say it reduced my anxiety about getting there on time at all. Anyway we did finally make it to the airport with our full entourage despite a couple brief and unintended detours. We were grateful for help with getting carts, loading luggage, moving baggage, stress reduction…No major problems with security, found some snacks and bathrooms, got on the plane for preboard, and with only a short runway delay we took off into the sunset.

Getting Ready to Go

‘Everyone should move every 5 years or so.’ I heard this once a few years back and thought to myself, “nice idea I guess, but how on Earth would I pack all the stuff?” Which kind of turns out to be the point—because in fact one CAN’T pack all the stuff, so you have to throw at least some things away (in some cases, finally). If we had moved twice in the last twelve years—even if we’d moved once!—perhaps we would have had a somewhat smaller ordeal in terms of getting ready to leave. I’m not going to say we really whittled our belongings right back to the bare minimum, but it was certainly refreshing to go through some of the junk that’s been piling up and think about how badly we needed it (if at all). So now we only have two houses worth of stuff (one going to Berlin, one staying at home) plus all the extra stuff that we gave up and shoved into boxes.

On the other hand…this process was NOT helpful or relaxing in terms of getting a family of 5 ready to leave home for a year. It just takes too much time, which frankly, we didn’t have. Nor was it helpful that our children didn’t seem able to conceptualize that a) yes, we were really going, b) it was happening soon, c) they couldn’t just take everything they owned, or d) it wasn’t going to get packed by magic no matter how cool it is when Hermione packs Harry Potter’s stuff with a wave of her wand. So I suppose you could say we had kind of a tense week—but I did ultimately resist the urge to throw a large weight through the TV screen, so that worked out OK. I suppose staying up all night packing wasn’t the best plan in either but, well, we didn’t do it earlier and time, she goes. So there we were.

There also remains some question about the wisdom of moving ourselves to Grandma’s house during the packing week. It was good in that we had our own stuff out of the way (not to mention that in some rooms we didn’t see the floor until Saturday), but we kept having to drive back and forth, we were constantly leaving things at one house that we needed at the other, and we ended up with TWO refrigerators to clean out. Like THAT was going to happen. So next time we’d have to think it through (again).

Here’s the other thing—there’s just way more stuff to do when you’re leaving for a year than you can possibly anticipate. All sorts of little things kept cropping up that absolutely had to be done before we left—except each of them seemed to require several OTHER steps. That trip to the doctor for an annual physical, for example, led to a question about vaccines, which led to a lengthy wait while the NP tried to find out if I really needed that vaccine (their internet was down, so they never did find out—but they decided to give it to me anyway) just at the time that I was supposed to be going to a dentist appointment. Then TWO more follow-up appointments to finish the vaccination cycle. How can one possibly have time for this when trying to pack??!!? Not to mention selling the car, changing insurance, getting copies of every piece of paper you can think of…I’m glad we’re finally here so we can do all that stuff on THIS side of the ocean (opening bank accounts, registering to live here, buying as little furniture as possible).