SIX Months!

I tried to find a cool picture
of us with something
"German" in the background
but really this picture sums up a lot
what we have learned and have
grown to appreciate while here. 

On Tuesday we celebrated  our "six months." It really is hard to believe we arrived 6 months ago from Seattle.  On one hand we are still so new here that it seems we've just arrived and on the other hand it feels like years since we left home.
It is hard now to even remember those first feelings and emotions.  Everything was so new and overwhelming and foreign. We were exhausted from the travel and even more exhausted from the 6 months leading up to our departure.  The most vivid memory I have of that time is after getting a brief tour of the house we would call home Marty and I each plopped into an uncomfortable chair in the living room and looked at each other despairingly and both said with our eyes more than our mouths, "what in the world did we just do?"  The kids, I remember very well, were giggling and playing upstairs.  At least they weren't questioning our decision.
But now here we are.  Six months in and things really couldn't be going better.  Sure, we still deal with lifes ups and downs just like we did in Seattle.  Things are not perfect but good, very very good. We have come a long way in the previous 26 weeks.  The kids are now very well established in school.  They both have made several very strong friendships and their social life is solid.  They are growing and exceeding expectations at school and are thriving in all ways academic. 

Josie and Benjamin in front of
their school, JFK. 

They seem to have matured tenfold since our arrival and I could not be more proud of them for coming along, willingly and happily on our crazy journey.  They have not once asked to go home. I honestly feel so thankful about this nearly every day.  So many of my friends here who arrived around when we did say that their kids ask frequently and often to
"go home."  They have embraced this adventure like champs and still remain curious and eager to do and see new things.
Marty and I are both doing very well too.  Marty's work on the radio continues to go smoothly.  We still marvel at this technology.  He gets to ham it up with his on air partner and producers who are also good friends.  So, he feels somewhat connected to Seattle friends, definitely more than I do.  His video production company is still doing great, in large part because of his awesome assistant, Erin, who is doing a spectacular job at holding down the fort and she has a way of keeping everything going smoothly.
I am finding my way here.  I've made a few really good friends. I'm not nearly as stressed at the grocery store.  I am learning some German, yet realize there is still so far to go.  The kids always have a lunch or snack packed for them every day, they nearly always have their library books in their bags on library day as well as permission slips, and I am starting to volunteer more at school. I have new eyes and a new heart for refugees and immigrants.  I have a bigger perspective of the world and am daily amazed at how similar and yet different we all are, as humans.
What we have learned during our 6 months is invaluable and it is difficult to even put it into words.  What I can put into words is how much closer and united we are as a family.  We spend significantly more time together than we did in Seattle.  Our family life and time together is of a much higher quality than it ever had been before.  I don't know if that would wear off with time here but since everything was so new and none of us had friends at first we really stuck together.  We were each other's everything.  And I know that probably isn't healthy in the long run but given that we are all fiercely independent it was a good way to reset as a family and Marty and I as a couple and really come together and KNOW we are and will always be there for each other. That we have each others backs.
In many ways it feels like we have climbed a mountain.  Maybe we aren't even at the top yet but it has been a lot of learning and a lot of work and a lot of rethinking of things we thought we knew - about one another and the world. The mountain looks pretty good from the top.  And now we get to go down, in slow and sweeping turns and see what we can discover in our next 6 months of heading down. Bring on the next 26!  We are ready.

Add caption

We Remember

 The school that Josie and Benjamin attend, JFK, had a special speaker for International Holocaust Remembrance Day.  I left my German class an hour early and met Marty at school.  The guest speaker was an 87 year old woman named Rachel Oshitskey who survived Auschwitz.
It was powerful and moving and sincerely bone chilling to hear her stories from the late 1930's and through the war.  She and her large family were living in the former Czechoslovakia.  She remembers that one day the Nazis were testing out their transport system and decided to load up trains full of Jews from her town.  After hundreds of her friends and neighbors were loaded up they were driven into the woods, told to dig their graves, shot on sight and then dropped into the awaiting grave.  The very next day they came for her family.  Her parents along with her several siblings and herself were loaded up and driven out to a different area of woods.  Word got around to the townspeople what had happened the day before.  Her siblings and herself all whispered to one another that on the count of three they would run and try to escape.  Somehow their parents did not hear the whisper and did not run.  Rachel and her siblings escaped unharmed but sadly her parents did not.
After bravely and barely escaping, Rachel and her siblings hid out in a small nearby town.  Apparently one of her neighbors who was a part of the same grave digging group that she and her family were a part of had fallen into the grave on top of his son and somehow neither the neighbor nor his son had been shot.  The man waited until 4 AM to assure the Nazi soldiers had left and then looked around to find out if there had been any other survivors.  Sadly, Rachel and her siblings who ran and that man and his son were the only survivors that day.  That same neighbor found Rachel and her siblings in the nearby town and was the one to tell them that their parents did survive. 

Rachel and her siblings then fled to try to find her brother who was living in the Ukraine.  Her brother's wife was extremely worried about housing Rachel and the rest of her husband's siblings because at the time the Nazis were searching home to home to try to find any and all Jews.  They came to the house and Rachel fled to a barn.  Even though the Nazi soldiers searched the barn - hefting a pitchfork into the hay to make sure no one was hiding there, she somehow escaped harm again.
Things then were "relatively calm" for a few years.  Later, Rachel and her remaining family were gathered and sent to live in a ghetto  area with deplorable conditions.  Several family members died during this time.
In 1944 near the end of the war Rachel along with the remaining family were collected from the ghetto and brought to live (or die) at Auschwitz.  She was carrying one of her nieces as she exited the train.  They were separating people into groups, old, young, healthy, unhealthy, men, women.  Anyone who the Nazis saw fit to work went into one group.  Anyone that was too young or too old or too frail were sent into another group. The latter group, the one with the old, young and frail were all killed within days of arriving.  The "healthy" ones were put to work. 
Rachel was carrying her niece off the train and when being separated they asked her if this child was hers.  She said no but she would very much like to stay with her niece.  The Dr who was assigning her to a group said "Why don't you put that child down over there and you get into that group over there"  Rachel believes that Dr. was the infamous Dr Mengele. And as evil as he was probably saved her life that day.

After a year or so of what I can only assume were indescribable conditions the Russians came and saved those living in Auschwitz.  She says as all the Jews were walking from the concentration camp to some kind of refugee center they were staggering from hunger and completely disheveled, some of the SS (Nazi party) wives were walking down the street with perfect hair and perfect clothes and all they said to the Auschwitz victims was "We didn't do it.  We were just following orders"  Not an "I'm sorry" or "How can we help"
Rachel said that not much help came in the years after the war and in fact the help that came dwindled over the years. She also near the end said "all of my 7 siblings died while all of the German child of the same age continued to go to school, were clothed and fed and lived" 
What I was left with is this was ONE of MILLIONS of similar stories.  Millions of heartbreaking stories.  #WEREMEMBER

Mellow Weekend

We had one of our first mellow weekends in a very long time.  Marty took Benjamin to soccer practice for the first time.  Fortunately, or unfortunately - because I keep trying to describe the insane number of injuries at practice - there was not one man down the entire practice.  I took Josie to a sleep over birthday party at a friend's house.  We hung out for the rest of the day and it was so nice.
Marty's good friends (and his very first boss) Brian and his wife, Pam were in Berlin after a business trip.  We had a lovely dinner in Zehlendorf with them and then Marty spent most of Sunday being a Berlin tour guide.  They hit most of the sights during the day and since the kids and I have seen them all before we just met up with them at dinner.  It was Indian, again, at Benjamin's favorite Indian Restaurant.  We go there so much now they know us by name and our order.  It was so nice to have Pam and Brian in town.  They are some of the kindest and warmest people you will ever met!  Thanks for spending some time with us, Allens!! We all loved it.  Please try to visit us again the next time around.

We ended the weekend getting caught up on the Series of Unfortunate Events series.  Josie is counting the days until the next batch comes out.  She has read the series in English and the first 3 books in German.
Such a very nice and very much needed mellow weekend.

Hello Darkness

Hello Darkness my old friend.  I know that is how the song goes but the dark, gray skies of winter have never been my friend.  I have struggled with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) for many years.  I remember when I was in Grad school I took part in a psychological study in which they had participants either sit in front of a sunlamp daily for a set amount of time or use a dawn simulator to wake up.  I was part of the study that used the dawn simulator and I have to say I used it for many years and it made a huge difference.  So much so that my high school students used to ask me  if I had forgotten to use my "happy lamp" if I was in a tired or cranky mood.  It really did make me feel differently to wake up to a naturally feeling, although simulated, dawn.  When teaching high school during the darkest days of winter I would wake up and leave for school in the dark and come home in the dark. And it truly did make me SAD.
Before coming to Berlin I worried A LOT about being too cold and hating the winter. I have to say I've been quite OK with the weather here so far this winter.  It is normally 5-10 degrees colder here than Seattle but it rains less and I've discovered that I hate wet more than I hate cold.  I've also discovered that crisp and cold is pretty nice actually.  I CANNOT believe I'm writing this.  I have notoriously hated the cold.  Anyway, I worried about the cold and I've been OK with that.  What I didn't worry about and should have was the darkness.  Berlin is so far north that we get 45 LESS minutes of daylight during the shortest of days than Seattle.  I felt like Seattle was so dark during the winter.  Thankfully, I wasn't aware of this fact when moving here because it may have deterred me.  Here are some other interesting stats.  The shortest day of the year, December 21st, Berlin has a day length of 7 hours and 39 minutes.  The longest day of the year here, June 21st, is 9 hours and 11 LONGER with a day length of 16 hours and 50 minutes!  Seattle has a shortest day length of 8 hours and 25 minutes and a longest day length of 15 hours 59 minutes.

My friend Bridget who lives in Berlin and also struggles with the darkness posted this graph the other day and it gives me so much hope.  Apparently from January 24th through February we gain 3-4 minutes of daylight every single day!!  We did celebrate the winter solstice knowing the days would now be getting longer but I had never broken it down to adding 3-4 minutes EVERY single day of day light.  It is now the end of January and I am noticing that it is still light, or at least somewhat light at 4:30PM.  We are making progress.  Sloooowwlly but surely.  Bring on the SUN and the nearly 17 hour day!

Specialty Stores

I've finally had the energy and the desire to venture out to the Specialty grocery stores here.  I have heard about the Turkish ones and the Asian ones and the Swedish ones, etc.  But mostly because the size of my old kitchen was a fraction the size of my current one, the idea of doing anything creative in the kitchen was not overly appealing.
My new kitchen is huge and lovely and I feel much more established here now and have the energy for meals other than spaghetti (sauce from a jar - gasp!!) or Abend brot (afternoon meal of mostly bread, spreads, maybe some scrambled eggs or roasted potatoes) or a simple soup.  So the other day after class I ventured to the local Asian market and found edamame, brown sugar and a variety of Asian sauces.  I also went to the organic store "Bio" which I go to sometimes but never with a specific list.  This time I found almond flour, nutritional yeast, soft tofu...  I was going to make us Yumm bowls for the first time in 6 months!  I was just a wee bit excited.  Cafe Yumm is one of our all time favorite restaurants that we originally found in Bend, Oregon.  While eating there probably 6 or so years ago Marty looked at me and said, why don't you try to recreate this?  I often try to recreate meals we have liked while eating out.

But I told him it is mostly just the sauce that makes the "Yumm Bowl" good and I'm not so good with sauces.  Lo and behold, they sell the sauces by the bottle.  Then started what became known in my family as the  drug ring.  You see, at the time Cafe Yumm was only located in Oregon so whenever my parents or my brother came to visit I begged for them to bring us a bottle of Yumm sauce.  You can't get it on Amazon... or at least you couldn't at the time and it has to stay refrigerated which makes it all the more difficult to transport.  But my family obliged whenever possible.  Then I found a recipe to make my own and I did a few times but it was never as good as the store bought stuff.  Then a few years ago a Cafe Yumm opened in Seattle and I was set!!
Now, it has been 6 months and we have not had access to our

My little baker's helper
He has always loved to bake.

beloved Yumm sauce.  I have made countless Yumm bowls for family and friends.  It became our standard Monday meal when I was teaching after school Spanish.  Or really whenever I didn't have much time to cook.  YUMMM.
With a recipe and some sage advice from my foodie friend Marjie on how to tweak the recipe I was set to go. 
So so happy to have Yumm sauce back in my life.  It was a bit more garlicky and a touch different than the original but I dare say I loved it.  So did Marty.  Yay! Yumm!!
With the brown sugar (which is hard to find in the regular grocery stores) we made Nestle Toll House Cookies.  Thanks, Liz for the legit chocolate chips.  Thanks, Karin for the mixer... and thanks Christian, Christina and Kodiak for the back up mixer.  Cookie success!!
I sense my grocery shopping will include at least a weekly stop to the Asian Market.  Maybe next week I'll try the Turkish... or the Greek.. so many to look forward to.

Josie makes a rare photo appearance so that she can lick the beaters
She has been in a "NO photos" stage lately.  Anything for a beater, though 😉

That Parent That Friend

Since moving to Germany I have become "that" parent.  You know the one.  The one who signs up for something and forgets all about it or better yet just doesn't really sign up for things at all.
New friends at school told me to just give it 6 months.  In 6 months you will feel settled and then you can step up and help.  They were absolutely right.  We are coming up on our 6 month anniversary and for the first time I'm starting to feel on top of things.  But this process has helped me to understand "those" parents when I had very little understanding or sympathy for them before.  I always wondered why there were 18 hundred reminders for things regarding school.  Why would someone need so many reminders?  I could have used all those reminders here.  Here they just assume you've got it.  But in Seattle I was very frustrated by the parents who didn't show up for things or didn't seem to be invested.  Now I get it.  But sadly, I don't really get it.  I probably don't know the half of what a lot of families are going through both here and back in the US  but I surely do have more empathy and sympathy.  For most of the past 6 months I've felt behind the 8 ball. Somehow I've been able to let a lot of this go.  I didn't let myself get too bogged down in what I was not doing, about who I was not writing back (sorry to all of you that I owe an email or a text or a call or a letter - in addition to being "that parent" I know I have also become "that friend") Out of self preservation and survival really, I just had to let a lot of that go.  I can't even explain why it was all so hard it just was.  It is strange though because it wasn't a "that's terrible" hard it was just that everything took 10+ more steps than it took at home.  It often felt like I was swimming up stream or walking through quicksand.
Up until now I was the parent who continually forgot to send Benjamin to school with his library books, that forgot to sign reports or permission slips or didn't even know that one of my kids had a huge Thanksgiving feast and parents were supposed to bring in food.  I did it for one child but never knew the other one was having a party until he came home and told me that not only did he have a feast but that he rode a bus to another students house and had the feast there.  All without my knowing.  The best "that" parent came when I had apparently signed up to help clean the class room and I didn't show up because apparently I forgot to put it on my calendar and then the teacher sent out an email to the entire class saying that we really need to do a better job coming in when we sign up for things.  There must have been other parents who had forgotten to go in too, right?  It was directly to me but a bit passive aggressively it was.  Then the other parents wanted to know if the sign up list could be made public so everyone would know their date and guess who was right there signed up with fat letters on the very day the email was sent.  Yep, KARRIE RIEMER!  Yay, me.  Seriously, this was the one area in my life in Seattle I had down.  I volunteered, maybe too much, in each of my children's classroom.  I definitely wouldn't dream of not showing up when I said I would and I would have most certainly not only known my child was going to a party but I would have hosted it or at least brought in a bunch of stuff for it.  But... 6 months, give yourself 6 months they said.  And you know, they were right.  I'm feeling so much more settled and on top of things.  9 times out of 10 (or more) the kids have their library books on library day, their tests are signed (yes, that is a thing here) their permission slips are signed  and I have a chance to redeem myself on the next classroom clean up day.  I signed up for March 16th.  Here's to hoping I will remember this time.  Six months in and things are starting to feel pretty settled and pretty good.

Full Head; Sore Butt

My German classes continue to enlighten me and frustrate me in equal measure.  I am SO SO far from being fluent or anything even close and yet I keep at it.   Along with the other 16 of my fellow classmates we keep at it.  And often I laugh a little to myself at how childish we sound and how far FAR we have to go before we can actually even hold a simple conversation with a grocery store clerk. I know what it was like to go from knowing very little to no Spanish to becoming somewhat fluent and very comfortable with the language.  It was a ton of time and even more importantly a lot of excitement and passion and desire to know it.   I know I will not become a fluid German speaker, I just know it.
I often wonder how many of my classmates feel the same.  The other day one of them, out of frustration, asked the teacher "when we will learn x,y and z" And the teacher made a good point, they said German is a marathon and we need training and you can't run for 5 minutes and assume you are ready to run a marathon.  But then he said that he could understand that student and the rest of us in the class could understand him.  We all agreed enthusiastically that yes, we could in fact understand him perfectly even if his German wasn't perfect.  And that is when I told myself to always remember that the goal of learning another language is to communicate and that it doesn't always have to be perfect in order to communicate. But I continue to be truly impressed with my classmates.  They seem to be taking it all so seriously.  They have different colored markers and highlighters and are making charts of the verbs and the die, der, das',  and are really invested in the language.

Just look at the length of some of these words!!  German is Kuh-Ray-Zee

I'm definitely making progress but let's just say I've run maybe 400 meters of a marathon.  I'm impressed with myself that I sit and listen to 4 hours of nonstop German every day and understand probably 95% of it.  Granted the teachers speak very slowly and clearly and I know the context and I have a couple of text book to look things up. But still 4 hours of a foreign language everyday is a lot.  Not to mention the actual sitting for 4 hours everyday.  My body is feeling the lack of movement and the constant sitting.  We get a 15 minute break and a 5 minute break but that still breaks down to 220 minutes of nonstop German and sitting every day.  Sadly I noticed that my step count has gone from an average of 7-8 miles a day to roughly 3-4.  No wonder my body is hurting.
And my brain.  Today at the end of class I just kind of shut down. I was full. There was no more going into my brain.

I have noticed though that since starting the class I am engaging in the language around me so much more. I try to read the signs on storefronts and advertisements and break out the verbs and nouns and mull over the words I know and don't know, I overhear conversations on the street and on the bus and I understand some of it.

I sometimes feel that skipping the very first class, (A1.1) I have done myself a disservice.  There are things that I know I should know from this first class that would make my learning so much easier.  Not so much so that I would give a full 5 weeks to it but I feel like there was one step in the ladder I missed on the way up.  It is funny because I have always felt this way about my Spanish learning. I learned Spanish mostly by living in Mexico and loving the culture and the people so much that I wanted to learn how to communicate with them. It wasn't until later when I decided to teach Spanish did I go back to school and take a few classes just so I could get my endorsement.  But I've always felt a bit insecure with my Spanish even after over a dozen years of living in Spanish speaking countries teaching it for nearly 8 years.  It really makes me want to take some Spanish classes now that my Spanish has become so rusty due to lack of use.
I don't NEED German now the way I needed (in my heart and soul) Spanish then.  But I will keep at it.  I just signed up for the next 5 week course so at the very least I will have 10 weeks of German under my belt and will be able to look to my husband and children for the answers to my German questions from here on out.

Resist

On the way home from the swim meet when we were on the first of two trains getting home I realized that the Berlin Women's March was taking place right at that very time.  I had written off being able to go because Josie's swim meets normally go until 2PM.  But because she was sick and we left early it was only 11AM and just the right time for me to catch it.  The train we were on was going right past the meeting spot for the march so I called a very uncharacteristic and spontaneous audible and told Marty I'd see him at home in a couple of hours and jumped off the train at the Brandenburg Tor stop.  He and the kids continued on and he put Josie to bed while I joined thousands of other people who care about Women's Rights  - or at least that is how the whole idea started last year with an estimated 3.2-5.5 MILLION people taking to the streets to peacefully protest. 

The 2018 Women's March, which took place in hundreds of cities all over the world, was for people who care about Women's rights, sure but this march has turned into a place for people to raise their voices because they care about, in addition to Women's Rights, Rights for people of color, Rights for those in the LGBT community, Rights for immigrants, Rights for all.  And because it happened right after the presidential inauguration last year and over half of the US was pretty upset about who the new president was (Complete understatement!) It also turned into a protest against Trump.

I was moved by the speakers at the Berlin March who spoke in English with a variety of accents.  They talked about freedom for all, rights for all and how we need to rise up and use our voices against the injustices that are happening in our communities and around the world.  It was not lost on me that I was standing in a city and country that has known what it was like to be run over by a man and his government that was clearly carrying out atrocious injustices everyday and those that spoke out at the time were not heralded as heroes until long after. 

I realize that while atrocities are happening it is not always easy to speak up and speak out but I have come to a place in my life where I cannot remain silent about what is happening in this world at the hand of the president who was elected in my country.  I cannot sit idly by and just say that we can agree to disagree. It seems way too light of a statement for things that are going on today that are anything but light.
The march was a good step.  But I really want to do more, speak up more and find a way to make a change.  Two of my favorite quotes by one of my favorite men Martin Luther King Jr. are quotes I want to live by:
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter"
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere"

I truly and honestly cannot understand how it is possible that 38% of the US population can approve of what is going on, of how Trump is acting and the changes he is making.  I actually had to look this figure up and in looking this up I read something interesting.  The majority of people who approve of him approve of him BECAUSE of his behavior and not despite it? 

All of the things that I would think people would want in a president I find lacking in Trump:
1) Intelligent - nope
2) Compassionate - nope
3) Diplomatic - not even close
4) Honest -what a joke
5) Humble - Ha!
I could go on and on and on.
.
I can break it down into the people I think support him and I have to chalk it up to a very limited new source or sources and being surrounded by like minded people (which, yes, I am guilty of as well.)  I cannot believe that 38% of the US is that mean and selfish spirited.
The list of supporters must start with the true blue Republicans who will support anyone who runs under this party.  People who have money and would like to keep a president in office who will help them keep their money. Somehow, they must turn a blind eye with his stance on everything else are able to justify his behavior towards immigrants and people of color and women and our environment, and, and...  Likely there are large pockets of Christians who also support him and I'm guessing this is mostly because he is a Republican.  I don't know when the Republicans highjacked the Christians and claimed their party the "Christian Party"  I do not get this at all.  Most Christian Republicans I know talk about the "liberal" Democrats as if "liberal" were a dirty word.  I don't get this! I cannot think of a more liberal man or liberal example than Jesus Christ.  He was liberal with his love, with his acceptance of all, with his fight against injustices and fierce about protecting the "least of these."  None of these characteristics do I see in the current Republican party.
I think of the "talking points" that people who support Trump use and a lot of it, I'm assuming, voted for Trump because of his stance on abortion.  I do not understand those who are passionately Pro Life and who are not equally furious that thousands of mothers and their children will lose healthcare under Trump.  You cannot claim to be Pro Life just when it pertains to the life of a fetus, it HAS to carry over and you MUST continue to be Pro Life once the baby is born. 
So, I don't know where this will take me and I realize I probably have a lot more to say on this topic but I will leave it for now because I have to go get dinner ready.
But again, I would love to understand where the other side is coming from.
I am not looking for a public debate but I really honestly would like to understand how one can approve of anything that has gone on since Trump was elected.  If you are reading this and want to enlighten me my email address is: karriemg@hotmail.com
I truly want to know!  And for the time being I will use my voice and my actions to speak out against the wrongs that are happening to the "least of these" around the US and around the world.

Happy Birthday, Mom!!

Birthdays make me realize how far away from my family and friends I truly am.  On the 20th my beautiful mother celebrated her birthday.  I'm not normally with her on her birthday but it did make me miss the fact that we are on the same continent and especially within the same time zone.

I love you, Mom!!!  Hope you enjoyed your day!
Love and hugs from all of us in Berlin.

Sickie at a Swim Meet

Josie had her 4th home swim meet on Sunday.  Liz and Stephanie wanted to come and watch her swim and were very interested in seeing our day to day life.  It was cool that a swim meet just so happened to fall on the weekend they were here.

Josie has been suffering through a pretty bad cold - deep cough, low energy, low fever and all over fatigue.  But whenever you ask her how she feels she says adamantly "I'M FINE!!" So it has been hard to tell if she is sick or just a moody preteen or what.  We made her rest as much as possible around the Cottbus and shopping trips on Friday and Saturday.
On Sunday she and Marty had to get up at 6:15 in order to get on a bus in order for her to get to her swim meet on time.  I have to say that these early morning Sunday swim meets are truly the one and only time I wish we had a car.  On Sundays the buses run much less frequently and especially at such an early hour.  So we have to catch an extra early bus and if for some reason you miss it another one doesn't come for an additional 20 minutes or so.

So she had to get up extra early and Benjamin and I followed about 90 minutes later.  He loves to drink coffee.  His mostly has half milk and some sugar and other half coffee.  But this morning he and I shared by second cup of coffee while riding the Sbahn together.
When we showed up she was sitting on a heater just shivering.  The pools are SOO incredibly warm that nearly of the adults bring beach attire (shorts, tank tops, flip flops) just to bear the heat so the fact that she was shivering told us something was up.  She swam her first race and came in 2nd place by a split second.  Then she went right back to sitting on the heater and shivering.
After maybe half an hour more of this we just decided it was silly to keep her at the meet and push her when clearly she was sick.  We had to find a replacement for Marty because for the first time he actually was the one and only announcer... just in time to bail out early!!  There is one more swim meet so we will see if he actually does the entire job by himself.

Stephanie and Liz gave one last hug before we headed for home an they headed for the train station.  They had to take a train that day to Frankfurt for their early morning flight back to Seattle the following morning. It was SO SO nice to have them here.  They were so easy going and enthusiastic about our life here.
After our goodbyes we walk to the first of two trains and a bus to get us home.  Josie is pretty lethargic and warm and ready for a long nap.  Normally swim meets aren't over until 2PM but since we left early it was only 11AM.  She would have the whole day to hopefully rest and recover.

Liz and Stephanie Visit

On Friday we were all excited to see Liz and Stephanie.  Apart from my sister, Kim, this was to be the first family to visit us since we arrived. 
Stephanie is getting her PhD at Davis but will be doing a Post Doc in Bristol England starting in September 2018.  Liz and Stephanie spent a few days there before arriving in Berlin.

They wanted to see what our life was like here but also Liz and Stephanie have been to Berlin several times and Stephanie even studying in Berlin for 6 months back in 2012.  So they wanted to see some of Berlin too.
We met Benjamin at school and all ate in the school cafeteria.  We met some of the kids teachers and hung out until Josie got out of school a couple of hours later.  Josie and Benjamin received a "shopping spree" with Liz from Liz and Oma for Christmas and they were looking forward to cashing in.  They still have their Christmas money from Grandma and Papa to cash in on as well and they are hoping to go shopping again during their winter break in a couple of weeks.
After school Liz, Stephanie, Benjamin and Josie hopped on a bus while I headed home with their heavy school backpacks.  They spent over an hour at a super cool toy store and then I met up with them for more shopping.  We had to wait for Marty to finish his radio show and then he met up with us at Benjamin's very favorite Indian restaurant.  Yum!!

Christmas 2.0. They had so much fun playing with Benjamin's new toys 

Josie got mostly art stuff as per her usual.
I swear we should have bought stock in Mcpaper - the local office school supply store.  The kids could spend hours and tons of Euro here!

The train ride is a lot more fun with friends and
card games

The next day we met up with Stephanie and Liz again on the train to Cottbus. Marty had set up a meeting the apartment manager so we stopped by the apartments and then we were all starving and wanted to go to our favorite German restaurant - Kertofflekiste. 

Unfortunately a very "German" interaction took place as we walked into a nearly empty restaurant at the very busy meal time of 3:30PM.  The guy working rushed to the front of the restaurant as we walked in and said I'm sorry but the restaurant is all reserved. 

What??? It was nearly empty, it was 3:30 on a Saturday and in Cottbus!!  He was so rude and didn't expand on his explanation just stared at us as if we were stupid.  Typical.
So we went to a Greek restaurant that turned out to taste more German than

Josie and Stephanie look so much alike!!  It is like twins separate by 14 years!

Especially when they don't show their teeth!

Greek especially after just returning from Greece where the food was amazing but we were all full and ready to head back to Berlin on the train.

But not before a couple of photos with the Spremburg Tor in the background.  And that sky is NOT photo shopped.  Isn't it amazingly blue??

Fruit Stand and More Sherpa'ing

The kids have been coming home together, solo, several days a week.  They have been begging for this since school started and were getting used to the commute from our other house but since we moved to our new apartment which is along completely different bus lines I was a hit hesitant.  Not about Josie.  She goes back and forth on the public buses to swim practice several times a a week.  And I wasn't even that worried about Benjamin doing it solo as he has become really pretty confident and competent on public transport but the two of them together sometimes can get heated and then they do something stupid and ....well, you know.  I worried.
I shouldn't have. They have stepped up to this challenge they way they have this entire move to Germany.  With grace and confidence.  Josie goes to Late Birds and signs him out.  They walk to the Sbahn station together (about a 7 minute walk) where there is a fruit stand.  They each get up to 1 euro (they bring home any change) to pick out a piece of fruit.  Josie now makes Benjamin do it by himself.  He has to ask for the piece of fruit he wants and then ask the person working to wash his piece of fruit.  Because the people working at the fruit stand do not speak any English he has to do it all in German.  Josie, apparently, has taken to just waiting outside while he does his buying and talking.  Haha!  She is so funny.  I didn't tell her to make him do this.  It was all her doing.  And somehow he listens to her.  He does get himself a pretty tasty apple that he eats while they wait for a bus that makes 4 stops before it gets to our stop and then it is a 5 minute walk from our house. All by themselves and they are quite happy and proud of themselves when they arrive home.
And now that I'm in classes nearly every day for 4+ hours, it is super nice to have an hour or so in the quiet house to get a few things done before they arrive. Since I just go straight to class right after school drop off I have very little time to get household things done these days.

On another note. 

We continue to sherpa things here that we would never even dream of carrying if we were in Seattle and had our car with us.  We are all really addicted to the sparkling water here.  It comes in 4 strengths and we get the most fizzy.  I bought 12 bottles before Christmas and my good friend, Fiounnaula, took me so that I didn't have to schlep heavy bottles.  Well we were out and we wanted more and I didn't want to ask to borrow a car, even though I KNOW she would have said, OF COURSE! So Marty and I - but mostly just Marty because he said one in each hand balanced him out and who was I to argue - took our empty bottles and carrying cases back to the drink store.  Like the shopping carts, you just pay a deposit on these and get money back when you return them.  So we walked the half a mile to the drink store.  They were obviously much, MUCH heavier on our return trip when we came home with 12 full bottles.  But like most groceries and things, we appreciate them so much more since we had to actually carry them home.  Happy to have my Sherpa with me for the heavy stuff!!

A Day in the Life of Benjamin Fritz

Benjamin often has really good days here.  Of course, he has some not so good days but for the most part he is really liking life here.
Last week Marty picked Benjamin up from school and they ate lunch in the school cafeteria just like old times.   On Thursdays I have German class until 1PM and he gets out of school at 1PM so I sense a lot of these cafeteria Dad and Benjamin lunch dates in the future.
On Thursday they had pancakes for hot lunch.  What??? Yep, pancakes with maple syrup cooked in.  Along with fruit flavored quark which is pretty much like yogurt with fruit jam.

 He was in heaven.  He also has library day on Thursdays and got a new library book.  He is really really into reading lately which makes me SOO happy!!
Then his best friend, Clayton, came by the lunch table.
And then later in the day before bed he enjoyed our fancy whirlpool tub.

Happy, Happy Benjamin.  Until the next morning where he currently fights the 7:00 AM alarm clock.

This is what he looks like most of the morning... Growing is part of it, I'm sure.  Most of his pants become too short overnight.

School and Cold Feet

This is not my school or the kids but
some of the school buildings here are just
super cool.  This is just one of the many
schools I passed walking to my class. 

Well, I was a touch nervous but my feet really were cold in the freezing sense not in the nervous sense as it had snowed overnight and my walk to my first day of German classes was quite slippery.
Just before we left for Athens we got a call that there was room for me in the German class A1.2. It was interesting because I am clearly a beginner and the message (which went to Marty's phone) was a woman speaking German very quickly.  So quickly, in fact, that he and Josie had to listen to it several times to get the call back number correct.  If the message had gone to me and I didn't have anyone in my life that understood German how in the world did they expect me to know that there was a space for me?  So crazy that they wouldn't leave the message in English.  But maybe they don't know where I am coming from and which language I speak but still at least she could have spoken really slowly and enunciate her words.

I had tested into this class but there was no room so I opted to take the very first class offered A1.1 because if I didn't I would have had to wait until at least the middle of February or even mid March before there would be a guaranteed space.   But since a spot opened up and the class was offered in Zehlendorf (A1.1 only had place in the Steglitz class) and because the A1.2 class had Fridays off instead of Tuesdays I jumped at the chance.  I was a bit nervous as I do understand a bit of German but not sure I was at the level to skip an entire 5 week /16 hours a week course worth of German.

But off I went.  I made my lunch along with the kids in the morning and after school drop off I made my way to my class.  From the map it looked to be just behind the Sbahn station.  It turned out to be a much further walk but I made with 15 minutes to spare.  Starting something new is hard and I thought about how nearly effortlessly both Benjamin and Josie started school here this year.
I was the first one to arrive at the classroom so I found a chair and put down my things and pulled out the books I had borrowed from a friend who had already taken this class -the books I ordered had not arrived yet.
The class slowly starts to fill up.  I talk with a couple of people are from the US who are sitting across the room.  When the teacher arrives there are about 15 or 16 of us sitting in a U-shape.  The teacher seems very German.  All business and all in German.  I'm a bit nervous because I know I skipped a level and not too sure what to expect.  It turns out 95 of the class all took level A1.1 together for the past 5 weeks so most people know each other.
The class proceeds all in German.  In fact, if anyone speaks English at all the teacher scolds you and says "kein Englisch" It is interesting because she never says that when people speak Arabic to each other or other languages.  Just English.
I understand nearly everything she says.  She speaks very clearly and slowly which helps and I know the context which also helps.
My classmates are all kind. There is an interesting mix of young and old.  There are 2 women (one in her early 20s and one is probably her early 50's who are both from Brazil.  There is a guy probably in his mid 20's from southern Italy.  There are a handful of students from Middle Eastern countries.  There are 5 of us, including myself, from the US.  One guy is from the Middle East originally but lived in Italy for 20 years and found it too stressful and too difficult to find a good job.  There is one woman from Norway who has a Pakistani father and a German mother.  The mix is truly interesting and the one thing I notice more than anything else is how seriously they are all taking this class and how supportive they are of one another.  I really don't "need" to take this class.  I'm interested in learning German but with Marty and Josie and some newer friends I could get help with German if I really needed it and as a teacher I could get a job teaching or subbing without really knowing German.  My guess is there are a lot of people in the class who really NEED to learn German.
So I mess up a few times but really try to understand everything and do the right thing.  It is funny because after teaching Spanish I now know what it is like to be on the other side of the table.  To not really understand everything or what the teacher is asking.  So... to my former students, I apologize for not being more sympathetic.  It is hard to remember what it is like to not understand something.  It seems that once you know how to speak a language you can't remember ever not knowing how to.

By the end of the class my brain was fried.  I was so tired and it felt like I had run a mental marathon.  When I got home I told Marty I really liked it but can't believe I have to do it again the next day and every Monday-Thursday for the next 5 weeks!! Yikes!! I made some popcorn and the kids and I did our homework together.  Josie thought it was HILARIOUS that she is about 100% better at German than I am and that she was able to help me with my homework.

Athens Day 2

Our second day was just as spectacular as our first.  We went to the #1 breakfast restaurant in Athens (according to Trip  Advisor) named Meliartos and it was YUMMY and cheap.  Actually all of our food and drinks were very cheap in Athens which is amazing because we thought Berlin prices were cheap compared to Seattle and now Athens is cheap compared to Berlin.

After breakfast we decided opt for a day in the city rather than 3 hours on a bus.  We walked up to the Acropolis and saw the Parthenon . There were incredible views and the sun even came out for us. 

One of the upsides to traveling in the low season other than much lower prices is that there are also much fewer tourists.  I can only imagine how hard it would be to get a good photo without a million other people in it.

The kids really took it all in.  We saw the Temple of Athena and walked under the ENORMOUS pillars. 

Temple of Zeus in the background

On our walk down we came across a huge stray cat colony.  The kids were in heaven.  There was another tourist that came along with a box of cat food and distributed it between the kids and three of them feed and petted the cats for at least an hour.

After the hike up to and around the acropolis we stopped by a place (Freskos) which was right around the corner from our Airbnb that served delicious Greek yogurt with your choice of different toppings.  Not only did you choose your toppings (different kids of nuts, honey, granola,fruit, smarties) but you also choose your percentage of fat in your yogurt (1%, 5%, 8% or 10%)  It was SO so good.  As was the fresh honey. 

After a short down time we went back to the Olympic Stadium and found the secret, local entrance around back which was free and open to the public but really only the locals know about it. 

We ran a few "races" and took a few cool photos and were very impressed with the view.
We went out the wrong way and got stuck after walking all the way down we had to head back up and exit the way we came in.  The kids were SOO tired and SOO hungry by this time that we caved and went to the same restaurant that we had gone to the previous night out of hunger and desire to have just as good of a meal for our final night.  And it was even better than the night before.  Yum.
We agreed that we met some of the nicest, warmest and friendliest people while in Greece.  We also agreed that we ate some of the yummiest food since arriving in Europe 6 months ago.
So in the end 3 nights and 2 full days was definitely worthwhile.

The kids kept up with every step. Both days
we clocked in between 9 and 10 miles