Weekly Food Find #2 (FAIL)

Sadly, we had a food find fail last week.  I was so excited at the thought of a once a week - or as often as we can squeeze it in- new food find.  We hit the jackpot with our first food find - Mezem was a homerun!
Last week we had to return to the eye Dr. where Marty will be getting custom made contact lenses.  I never knew this was a thing but with his high eye prescription along with a newly diagnosed astigmatism, the over the counter lenses that he and I have always bought do not work for him anymore.   So, thankfully, there is a place here in Berlin that makes custom made contacts just for your eyes.  He opted for soft and unlike the current monthly wear soft that I'm wearing or he had been wearing for years these new ones last for 6 months.  And as you can imagine they cost quite a bit more.  With the purchase of the contacts it requires him to go back frequently in the beginning to make any necessary adjustments. 

Thankfully, Mezem is within walking distance.  When we set out that morning we both had the thought of returning to Mezem for lunch after the appointment.  But while I was waiting for him I had an epiphany.  We always find a good spot and then just keep going.  But what about all the uncovered awesome restaurants in Berlin.  We certainly aren't going to find them by always returning to our favorites.  So with my hope of a new week food find, we spotted a vegetarian Asian place as we were walking to Mezem. 

 I mistakenly thought the name sounded familiar  (Zen House) and a restaurant a friend had recently recommended.  It was OK despite the great reviews on Trip Advisor and the fact that the place was full of customers.  Marty had "meatballs" that were kind of like falafel and good.  But we already have a great falafel place.  I had soba noodles and they were a bit bland. Like I said, it was good but I won't be back and I won't be recommending it to friends the way I did with Mezem.  Oh, well.  If we didn't try anything new we would always be at the same restaurants...which we typically are.  Win some lose some.  Marty has another eye appointment next week.  I'm debating.  Should we just go back to Mezem or roll the dice again.  Oh, what stresses I have in my life right now. 😄

Fun Day @ JFKS 2018

Fun Day really was FUN. Everyone was right.  It was much MUCH better than Fun Run.  Unbeknownst to us until just a couple days before, Benjamin's Lacrosse team was set to have a game, thankfully at JFK, the morning of Fun Day.  Marty, Josie and I all had quite full schedules that day as we were each assigned to an area to help set up, man all day and then help clean up.  Josie was actually set to be at about 4 or 5 places throughout the day.  Incredible that she was able to keep it all straight.

So at 8am Benjamin and I set off to get him to the Lacrosse game.  I loaded my bike basket with everything we ALL needed for a long day at school. 
Benjamin's Lacrosse team is mostly older

kids.  The 16 year old team nor the 12 year old team at JFK have enough players so they pull the 8 year olds up to play in games.  The size difference is quite comical.  The other

teams are mostly 12-16 year olds so our poor little 8 year olds look like babies!  But they played and lost but he had fun.  Benjamin is number 5 by the way.
Marty and I would take breaks from what we were doing to run over to catch a few minutes of game play. 
My friend, Fionnuala, brought along a lot of Mexican themed decorations so we set in decorating our booth and prepping the margaritas. Our booth was right in the thick of things and facing the stage which made it all the more fun.

After Benjamin's lacrosse game he came over to help.  I thought, well, OK, you can take money and make change.  He really wanted to make the drinks.  I didn't think this would fly.  I mean, he is 8 years old.  In the states there wouldn't even be alcohol on school grounds let alone an 8 year old serving it.  But Fionnuala said, "Ah, why don't you let him" So, with her approval - I still don't full know what is accepted here, I gave in and he had the BEST day serving up drinks.  He would ask the customers "with or without salt?"  if they said with he would take a slice of lime and rub it around the rim of the glass and then dip it into a dish of salt.  Then put the cup under the slushy machine to dispense the margarita.  He had it down to a science and happily served drinks all day.  He took breaks here and there to go buy food or play various games at the other booths. 

Josie came by a few times to get money and check in.  The kids together took our winning raffle tickets to claim their prizes.  We ended up with the board game "Settlers of Catan"  all in German and we have never played in English so we are still trying to figure out the rules.  We also got a desk organizer, a ball point pen, a sketching notebook and a gift certificate for brunch for 2 adults a nice hotel in Berlin.  Overall, not too shabby for our 30 Euro worth of raffle ticket purchases.

I snapped a shot of
Josie while she was signing
with her choir on Fun Day

Marty manned the stage all day announcing various musical talents.  Some of the bands - mostly parents of kids who attend the school- were fabulous.  When there wasn't a bad, Marty played music from his specially created JFKS FUN DAY music mix. 
Everyone seemed to have had a really great time and even though this wasn't the schools biggest fundraiser it still brought in over 10K Euro for the school.  Not too bad for something that is fun for the whole community. 
They have already tried to book Marty for Fun Day 2020.  Will be interesting to see if we are still here then!!

Pre Fun Day Work Days

Last Spring dedicated volunteers started organizing Fun Day.  I didn't really know what Fun Day was as it is an every other year event.  Off set by the other other year Fun Run which our kids participated in last September.  Everyone kept saying, "Oh, Fun Day is SO fun!"  Fun Run is just about raising money but Fun Day is a blast.  So I thought I should probably help out with such a cool event.
They said they needed a DJ and MC for the stage where they would have live music.  Normally I do not volunteer Marty for things without him being there but I knew this was right up his alley.  At the time they talked about having a Prosecco Stand and my good friend, Fionnuala, volunteered and then looked at me to see if I wanted to help and I said, "sure!"    Shortly after we

volunteered to do this they changed the stand to be margaritas and then I was super happy that I volunteered to man this booth.
So then we all take off for summer but thankfully the people in charge were still organizing it all because nearly everything was set and coordinated when we returned in August.
One of the big things is a raffle.  A team gathers a TON of donated prizes (in this case 500+) from local businesses and then the winning tickets get to claim their prize at Fun Day.  The two women who signed up did a fantastic job of acquiring all of these prizes over the summer but one had since gotten a full time job and the other was invited to an amazing trip to Iceland to see the Northern Lights.  That left a big

whole in man power.  They asked me if I could help which I did and it was actually pretty fun.  I sold raffle tickets at the Elementary and High Schools during lunch time.  It was really a treat to be at school while our kids had lunch so I could see a part

of how their day goes while they are at school.  Josie, again, was a NO PHOTOS, girl.  But Benjamin and his buddies happily smiled for me while they ate their lunches together.

It was fun to see the kids get so excited about opening up their raffle ticket (high school aged and Elementary alike) which they normally did very excitedly right at the table where I was selling the tickets.  There were 500 winners and then probably 2,500 losers so they had a one in five chance of winning.  Our kids

each spent 10 Euro and each opened one winning ticket.  Later in the week I gave them another 5 Euro each and they both ended up with one more winner each.  So, as a family we had 4 winning tickets.  I have to say it did feel exciting.

At the end of the week of raffle sales and the day before Fun Day the same group of dedicated volunteers met to gather all the prizes that had been acquired and were stored in different places throughout the school.  The prizes were all wrapped - yes, over 500 prizes wrapped- although some gift certificates and things just put into a colorful envelope or a simple ribbon tied around it.  Then a sticker with a number was put on each prize which would then correspond to the winning number on the raffle ticket.  The prizes were lined up and then ready to be handed out.

The booths and stage were set up on Friday night for Fun Day and everything was nearly set.

Pants or Shorts

Every morning when Josie wakes up she asks me "pants or shorts today, Mom?" and every day up until today I have wholeheartedly replied "Shorts!  Definitely, Shorts"  Today for the first time since the first week of April we had weather that would be more pants weather than shorts.  But no worries.  The temps are supposed to be back up into the low to mid 80's by next week.  And even though there was a bit of drizzle today and temps were in the low 60's it wasn't too bad.  Especially since we know that next week will be summer like again.  Shorts and sandals until we can't bear it because we know that the long, dark, cold winter is right around the corner.

Trying Out Everything

This school year both of the kids wanted to try new after school activities.  Marty and I were (and still are) very sad that Josie decided to drop out of the swim team. She was getting quite good or at least saw huge improvement, she actually liked to swim and we loved the parent community on the swim team.  Very very sad.  But, we both feel really strongly that as long as they are involved in something they should decide what they want to be involved in.

Last year Josie did mostly just Swim Team as it required practice 2-4 times a week and roughly once every other month (she attended 4 or 5 total) all day Saturday or Sunday swim meets. 
Benjamin last year did soccer on Saturdays as well as chess club and Late Birds (after school care) on Tuesdays, Late Birds and Robotics class on Wednesdays and Lacrosse on Fridays.  His school day also ended at 1PM!!  It was really like a half day for him every day.

This year Josie wants to do an acting club called ISTA, Odyssey of the Mind - I had never heard of OM before moving to Berlin.  It is a pretty cool club where the students run the show with a parent volunteer or two.  They then compete in Spring with other teams from all over Berlin and if they win they compete with teams from all over Europe and then in the end there is a final competition that is worldwide.  She is also doing soccer on Saturdays and wants to do Tae Kwon Do on Wednesdays.   She is much more of a little bit of everything than a lot of one thing. She is also in a NO PHOTOS stage so unfortunately, no photos here of her.

Benjamin has had a hard time deciding what to do.  He has lamented that his schedule is too tight and he "needs more down time"  Haha!!  He has nothing on his schedule other than school.  Granted he goes one more hour this

year, until 2PM but still.  He does Saturday soccer but his weekdays are wide open.  He tried Robotics class but said it was boring even though he loved it last year.  He tried a martial arts class that is run by a friend a couple of his friends attend.  He didn't like it.  He tried Tae Kwon Do and said it was "too many laps around the track and too many sit ups"

  This year he has landed on Tuesdays and Thursdays - lacrosse.  He mostly decided this would be fun because he is older and now the team plays with full gear which requires a fitted mouth guard, chest pads, elbow pads, gloves and a full on helmet.  Wednesdays he decided to play basketball and Saturday soccer along with a mid week recorder lesson with the music department during lunch time recess

which he loves.  He normally practices while Marty is doing his radio show which isn't such a smart idea.  He is still quite squeaky.
Hopefully we will be into a good routine here shortly because right now things still feel a bit chaotic as far as who is doing what each day.

Stunning Stockholm

Josie has been fascinated by Sweden.  She really REALLY wants to go to the Ice Hotel in the northern part of Sweden.  We even looked into giving a trip there to her for her 12th birthday but getting there is very pricey.  The hotel itself is also way overpriced.  I did a bit of research on it and we could stay nearby and just visit the hotel and see it because really who truly wants to sleep in a

room of ice!  It is a pretty unique concept.  The entire hotel is built every winter and then it all melts and they do it again each year.  There aren't that many rooms available and there is clearly just a finite days out of the year that the hotel is open.  But to get there and

stay would be really expensive.  So, we opted for a trip to Stockholm instead.
Because the kids and Marty get the American holidays off of work and school it has been our best bet for a long weekend getaway.  The flights are cheap because no one else in Europe has the long weekend and it is the perfect time to explore one city.  Last year it was Athens for MLK, Jr. Day and Rome for Memorial Day.
In preparation for the trip Josie did a ton of research on where to stay and what to do while we were there.  She had a long list of sites and museums to visit.  It made all the difference in our family dynamic for her to be the driving force instead of me.

During her 4th grade year in Seattle her teacher did a really cool school project that involved the students getting into groups of two or three and then planning a trip to Scandinavia.  They were given an allotment of money for their trip.  Each morning they would roll a dice or some other game to see what their fate for the day would be.  One student found some money on the train, another lost their passport and had to take an entire day of their imaginary trip to get it replaced.  Ever since this school project Josie has loved Sweden and even routed for them in the World Cup even though we were living in Germany who was also playing the World Cup.

We found a flight that left late on Friday night meaning the kids could go to school for the full day on Friday and Marty could do his Friday morning (in Seattle) radio show.  Our flight left Berlin around 9:30 PM arriving in Stockholm just after 11:00.  We get to the hotel and are all comfortably in bed in our beautiful, luxurious hotel room (Josie has pretty high standards- ha!!  unlike her mother who could care less about how nice a hotel room is...)
Saturday morning we wake up and fill up on the enormous breakfast buffet. One of Josie's highest priorities was to stay in a hotel with a good breakfast.  She nailed it!!  This place had everything and it all was SO so tasty. 

We knew Stockholm would be pricey so we really filled up at breakfast and tucked away a couple of rolls for later in the day.  I had also brought some snacks from Berlin to tide us over in between breakfast and dinner.
We started the day off by heading to the Technical Museum.  She has read up on this place and it was the number one thing on her list.  We arrive shortly after it opened and ended up spending the majority of the day there.  There were all different types of rooms to explore and hands on experiments and things to do.  The kids were engaged and happy for hours! 

Late in the afternoon we decide it was time to move on.  We had just a bit of time left in the day to squeeze in a trip to the Medieval Museum.  Josie picked out this place specifically for Benjamin as she thought he would love it.  By the time we got there we just had 20 minutes before it closed.  But in true Riemer fashion, we blew through it and saw quite a bit in just 20 minutes.  It was free entrance so that helped as well.  After the medieval museum we realize it is dinner time.  We had eaten the rolls but the kids never once asked for a snack or treat.  Amazing.  We look up different restaurants and all agree on a highly rated burger place, even though Josie is a vegetarian. 

We ended up at Barrels Burgers and Beer and it was downright DELICIOUS.  Benjamin and I got regular beef burgers which were much better than your average burger.  Josie and Marty got the veggie burgers.  I'm not typically a huge fan of veggie burgers, neither are Marty or Josie but these were the BEST veggie burgers any of us have ever had!!  It was chickpea based with a ton of spinach and herbs.  It was crunchy on the outside and tender and moist on the inside.  The buns on all our burgers must've been homemade.  So SO good.  We just got free tap water along with a side of regular fries and side of green bean fries (also delicious) and the bill was 60 Euro!!!  Wowsa!  Dinner in Sweden was twice the price, easily, of Berlin. 
The next day was our big sightseeing day.  We got up and happily filled our stomachs with the tasty breakfast filling up on all the goodies we didn't have room for the first day.  We decided to buy a group sightseeing/hop on hop off boat and bus card.  We normally don't do this as it seems a waste of money but their public transportation is not cheap and there were so many museums and things that Josie wanted to see.  For once this type of option made sense.

We get to the first hop on hop off bus and hit our first item on the list.  We sadly had mixed this up and got off at the wrong place but no bother, it was a beautiful view of City Hall even if we didn't have the free pass to go inside the ballroom to view the Blue Room where the Nobel Prize winners dine each year after winning. 

Our next stop (after riding on the top deck of the hop on hop off bus for a bit, was at the Royal Palace.  This was on the top of Josie's must sees and she wanted to be there for the changing of the guard ceremony.  The kids throughout this entire trip were really fantastic.  They walked over 8 miles each day and we hit over half a dozen museums and other historical sites.  They were engaged and curious every step of the way.  I was really impressed.  At the Royal Palace they both grabbed audio guides and went through the palace learning about the past kings and queens and their families.  There was even a queen Josephine.  I had a great photo of them with their audio guides and our Josie with a photo of Queen Josephine but very sadly while in Stockholm I accidentally deleted ALL of my photos!  All of them from the past 4 months. The last time I downloaded them was BEFORE our Rome trip at the end of May.  That is why this post has taken so long as I was hoping that Marty could somehow recover them.  Sadly, I think they are lost.  Sniff, Sniff... they were just pictures :-(
After touring the Palace I really had to use the bathroom... what's new, but this time it helped because we didn't know it was time for the changing of the guard but the bathroom was right by where the ceremony takes place.  So we all got to pee and see the ceremony. 

After the Palace I really wanted to go to this one street where a photo has been taken and is basically the stereotypical postcard for Stockholm.  And it just so happened to be a few minutes walk from where we were standing. We find the street but the lighting is terrible for a good photo. 

But right behind it was the Nobel Prize museum which was really super cool and informative.  Again, the kids learned a ton and were so eager to learn.   After solving a treasure hunt about the Nobel Prize and the museum they each received medal chocolate coins. 
After the Nobel Prize Museum we hopped on our first boat and it was gorgeous.  Really just a small water taxi and being in and around water reminded how much I miss water all around us while living in Berlin.  There are lakes here but it is different.  Actually a lot of Stockholm reminded me of Seattle. 

We toured a bit on the boat and then got off at the Vasa Museum. 
This museum was also on Josie's list.  It houses the world's only 17th century preserved war ship.  It sank off the shore of Stockholm back in 1628 and in the early 60's they dug it out and restored it.  I can't remember exactly but something like 98% of the boat you saw reconstructed in the museum is original.  It really was something to behold.  And at the risk of repeating myself AGAIN, the kids were so into learning about this sunken war ship. 

After the museum and just a few steps away was Stockholm's token amusement park the GronaLund. 

Our Stockholm Pass gave us free entrance into the park but much like the Puyallup Fair the entrance fee doesn't get you on any rides.  We decided to splurge and all go on this super high swinging ride.  The view from the top was really breathtaking!  It was so cool to see Stockholm from up in the air. It was cheapest to buy a package of tickets so the kids had enough to go on one roller coaster and one kiddie ride.  Josie was a great sport to go on this baby bumper car ride with Benjamin with their final tickets.  She had to struggle to get the strap over her head as she was really just too big for it.

After the rides we were hungry for dinner and because we were all still raving about our delicious burgers from the previous night and because we were in the same area we decided to go back to the same place for dinner a second night in a row.  I know that is so taboo to be a new place and go to the same place twice but we end up doing this more than I'd like to admit.  Thankfully the second night was just as good, if not better, as the first.

Reading, as always, these days
He is finishing about a book
a week. 

Our third and final morning was Monday. We still had a few more things we wanted to see and do and since our flight didn't leave until 3:30, thankfully we had some time. Skyview was first on our list.  Our Stockholm passes were good for 24 hours and since our first place was a misfire at the City Hall our tickets weren't stamped until our second place (the Royal Palace) and by the time we had gotten there the day before it was well passed noon. This served us well on our final day as we still could use our Stockholm passes until past noon on Monday.  The view from the big glass ball was pretty spectacular too.

 After Skyview we still had a bit of time.  We didn't really have time to get to a museum and really enjoy it so we opted to go to the famed Skansen Museum and walk around a bit. 

 I was also impressed with the kids this trip not only at their curiosity and level of engagement and everything we did but also on the last day since we had to check out of our hotel and didn't want to have to waste time going back to the hotel before heading to the airport we carried our 3 day packs around with us the entire day.  Each one carrying their own pack.

Never thought I'd see this day!  Neither of them complained about it either.  Amazing.
Skansen was just OK.  We didn't see much but then again we didn't have much time either.  We ended up at the airport with time to spare and all reveled in our whirlwind trip to Stockholm.  Marty and I talked about how neither of us had Sweden on our list of must see places while living in Europe and most likely we would have never come over to Stockholm from Seattle but we are both so so happy that Josie had her sights set on this city as we both thoroughly enjoyed getting to know it.
So long Stockholm.....