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??