KaDeWe and Mezem

 Wednesday was the first day since Marty was gone that things went normally in the morning.  Both kids and I biked to school.  They were in good spirits and even agreed to pose for a picture.
Simone and I decided to go to KaDeWe, one of the biggest department stores in the world.  They really go all out at Christmas and it feels like you are walking back in time.
We aimlessly looked through a few of the levels but spent most of our time on the food level.  Which really is quite impressive with all different kinds of imports from all over the world in their grocery type area.  Large boxes of Cherrios are 15 euro!!  Regular, small cans of Campbells cream of mushroom soup is 5 Euro.  We tasted and tested.  She bought some coffee and some fancy danish licorice.  They also have chocolate bars and chocolate counters and hot, homemade meals.  It is really quite amazing.
After time here we were hungry for lunch and thankfully I had time for it today.  We went to one of the place Marty and I discovered back in September but have not been back since.  Mezem is really pretty amazing.  Yum.

Turkish Market and School Concert

On Tuesday Josie said she felt good to go to school.  Phew!! We got ready and then just before it was time to leave she says she feels sick again.  I tell her to stay home for now and hopefully she can go to school just a bit late. Benjamin and I bike to school, just the two of us, again.  He gets there in a good mood and with plenty of time.
When I get back home she is starting to panic because she's not sure how she feels but she REALLY doesn't want to miss school nor her concert.  And I REALLY don't want to sit home for another day while one of my friends is visiting from far away and only has a limited time here.    We talk it over. And over and over.  We finally come up with her

going to school at 9:30 and then I plan to meet Simone at the Sbahn after dropping  her off.  Even though she was very whiny and unsure at home she was confident and not at all

needy once at school.  That teenage mentality has definitely kicked in and once she is around her friends there is not much need for me.  I didn't think it at the time but that need to always be "on" always be aware always be confident must be exhausting to a teen and preteen.
Once on the train, we decide to hit the weekly Turkish Market in Nuekolln.  It was pretty nasty weather but the market itself was cool.  It reminded me of the market we walked through in Antalya but this on in Berlin was actually bigger.
Simone suggested we walk around the market and then grab lunch.  As always, I'm ever mindful of the time when I have to get back to school by 2PM to pick up Benjamin.  This still feels tight

but so much better than last year when he got out at 1PM (!?!?!) I knew we likely wouldn't have time to do both but we carelessly walked through the market.  And then by the time we were done and ready for lunch it was time for me to go get Benjamin.

Thankfully, Simone had a long list of things to see so I took off and headed home.
The kids had their big music concert at school that night.  We at to be there an hour before performance for practice!!  So I sat in the audience surrounded by other parents with kids in the show.
Both kids did great.  This was Benjamin's first performance and he was quite proud.

Friends - Old and New

Marty left for the airport very early Monday morning.  Josie was still sick with the stomach bug but Benjamin was up and ready on time for school.  We rode together, just the two of us and we snapped a quick picture to send to Marty who by then was just about to take off from the airport.
Josie stays by herself all the time by herself now but since she was sick I didn't feel right leaving her all alone while I was an hour away downtown.  So I stayed home with Josie and sent Simone on her way solo to discover the tourist sights that I've already seen tons of times.  Thankfully, Simone is a seasoned traveler and had no problem going on her own and navigating transportation and maps.

It was a quiet day at the house as Josie worked on homework literally the entire school day.  I'm not sure where she would have found this time to work on homework had she not been sick and I would have questioned her sickness had I not seen how sick she was the night before and had I not known how much she despises missing school. 

That evening I had planned a small dinner with a few of my favorite friends here.  It was really fun to for my old and new lives to collide in this way with some of the people dearest to me.
We went to bed not knowing if Josie would go to school on Tuesday.  I really hoped so for her sake - she hates missing school and they had their school music concert that night.  She would really hate to miss it.  But for my sake too.  I was disappointed that I wasn't able to meet Simone in Copenhagen due to Marty's trip so I consoled myself by knowing we had 5 full school days that we could play. Well, now one was taken up already by sickness.  I was really hoping a second one wouldn't be too.

Tuefelsberg, Greek Food and Mauer Floh Markt

Sunday we had mostly a kid free day.  Josie went to her friend Ella's along with Maya to make Christmas cookies for the day.  Benjamin had a spy birthday party for his friend, Adrian.
Marty and Simone took a train/walk trip back to Tuefelsberg.  Marty and I tried to visit the inside a month or so ago but didn't know that a couple of days a week they are closed and of course we showed up on one of the closed days.
On the way they stopped by Track 17.  This is a track at a nearby train station that was notorious for being one of the tracks where the German government gathered Jews and then sent them away for deportation to concentration camps - namely those in Warsaw and Aushwitz.  The vast majority were then murdered at the hands of the Germans in those concentration camps. In 1998 the Duetsche Bahn (Germany's railroad company) established a memorial for the Jewish people who were taken from this spot to their untimely and unjust death. There is a steel grate for every trainload of humans who were taken from this platform.  There are endless steel grates.  The heinous act of the Holocaust is remembered time and time again throughout Trevor Noah's book about South Africa and he talks about how one of his friends was named Hitler.  They are part of a dance group together and when Hitler would get out and dance the rest of the group would yell "Go Hitler, Go Hitler, Go Hitler"  Clearly, most Americans and Europeans have never heard this name apart from the dictator of German - Adolf Hitler so people were shocked and appalled that someone would be called Hitler.  Noah says that in South Africa names are a big deal and parents want to name their children the most powerful names they can think of.  Hitler clearly was powerful, albeit for very wrong and horrible reasons but powerful nonetheless.  He says he has friends named Mussolini, Napolean and Bruce Lee because these were powerful names.

this city.  I can only assume this helps solidify that it will never happen again.  I always remember the section in
My point is, there are MANY MANY atrocities happening around the world, even to the same magnitude as far as how many died in the holocaust,  in  just Africa alone.  I can name several but the majority of the Western world knows nothing of these.  What if there were memorials for those killed, massacred and tortured throughout African history.  Or these horrible crimes and wars were taught in the average history class.  Awareness really is the beginning to healing and the beginning of change.  So I commend the German government and people as well as the Jewish population for bringing these horrific historical things to light so that we can learn to never do them again.
After visiting Track 17 they walked on to Tuefelsberg and it was, in fact, open.  They went through and climbed up and on and through the artist colony.  This place is SO "Berlin"
I met them in Mitte/Prenzlauer Berg at our favorite Greek restaurant for a late lunch and then Marty had to rush back to pick up Benjamin from his birthday party and Josie was making her way home from her Christmas cookie making party.  Her friend Maya was taking her home in their car.  It was very unfortunate timing, but Benjamin's stomach bug found the way to Josie's stomach when they were nearly home.  Sadly

and very embarrassingly, she threw up in their car.  They were so very kind and said it wasn't a big deal but I know it is.  It is a big deal when your own kid throws up in your car let alone a friend.  Sorry again, Jochen!!
Simone and stayed longer and went by the Mauer Park FlohMarkt.  I have been many times but it is much much smaller in the winter.  We got their near closing time but you could tell that only about half of the normal vendors are there in the winter.

Cottbus Christmas Market

Simone arrived on Friday night.  Yay!!  We have been friends since

our first year at WWU - over 31 years ago.  We roomed together in the dorm for a couple of years and then in a house with a bunch of other good friends.  We've seen a lot of life's ups and downs together and I was so excited for a friend who

is like family to come and visit.
Our original plan was for me to meet her in Copenhagen for this weekend.  She flew in and out of Copenhagen so it would have been a fun weekend getaway before her time with us here in Berlin.

A month or so ago Marty was asked to come back to Seattle for work. We knew this would dramatically cut into Simone's time here but when your work allows you to move to Europe and barely bats an eye when they ask you to come back there really isn't much to

discuss.  Thankfully, Simone was willing to fly into Berlin earlier than planned so that she could have some time with Marty too before he left.

Saturday we decided to head to Cottbus by train.  Last year we stumbled upon this market after a fun-filled day with the Neves at Tropical Island. I have always loved the old market square in Cottbus and to see it all done up for Christmas really is a treat. 

We also stumbled upon a little hometown Christmas market run by a church on our way to show Simone the apartment building that we now own that Marty's dad grew up in.  At the church run Christmas market the kids spun some big wheel of fortune disc and

Benjamin won a nice, long handled umbrella. He ended up playing and dancing with it for the rest of the trip, Gene Kelly style.  Josie just won a small lollipop which she

quickly ate.  We had gluhwein and carried it (I'm sure illegally) onto the enormous ferris wheel. It was breathtaking from up high.  It was also very windy and brutally cold.  

We got home late and we all plopped into bed. 

Sickies

Benjamin came down with the stomach bug on Monday night.  Apparently half the school is out sick with it.  It was a nasty one.  He ended up missing 2 days of school.  We hung out at home,
playing games, watching Christmas movies and him barely able to keep down a popsicle.  My kids rarely get sick enough to warrant staying home for one day let alone 2.  This was probably his second or third time missing school for sickness his whole life. 

First Advent and Potsdam Christmas Market

Benjamin was not happy about
the outing.  Sometimes
motivating them to get out of
the house can be daunting.

Sunday, December 2nd, was the first Advent.  It is interesting here how sometimes it seems like 1974.  So many things they do here and at the kids' school remind us of things Marty and I did as kids.  I remember always having an Advent Calendar with 3 pink and one purple or the other way around, 3 purple and 1 pink.  I can remember but do remember that we lit one each Sunday. They are big into counting the advents here and into the wreath or at least some shape of pine with 4 candles that you light one each Sunday.  My kids love it too.  Benjamin, in particular, because he is a

bit of a pyromaniac.  He LOVES to light them.  He loves to light anything.  Is that just a boy thing?  We ran out of matches and so now he has learned how to use a lighter (oh boy) and gets SO

His attitude changed
once he got this

excited every time we sit down and he gets to light the candle. 
Along with the Advent calendars and other things we have mentioned feel like 1974 - at school each year they put up a Christmas tree right next to a Menorah.  Out for everyone to enjoy.  No one gets permission or up in arms because their religion, tradition, beliefs are not being represented.  People just enjoy the beautiful decorations and take in the warmth that the season brings.


To celebrate the first Sunday of Advent we decided to go the Potsdam Christmas Market.  We had heard great things about it and it is relatively close to us - in the opposite direction to downtown.  After a short train/tram trip we were there.  We wouldn't find out until afterward that this wasn't the one in Potsdam that everyone always raves about.  It was beautiful.  They all are but it wasn't unique in anyway.  Marty said he felt like he was on a treadmill as we passed the same stalls over and over again for the several blocks that his market ran.
We had a nice time nonetheless. The kids got a treat - Benjamin cotton candy and

Josie a quarkballchen (small donut type things with quark making it extra moist)
When we got home Benjamin lit the first candle of our new Advent wreath and the kids both practiced their instruments for their upcoming band concert.

Not really in the
Christmas spirit