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Showing posts from September, 2006

Of Beggars, Robbers, and Strollers

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The Monument to the Murdered Jews in Europe. I can't really explain this, and the picture shows only one part of it, but it is pretty amazing. Both the students and the kids loved it for different reasons (the students, for the symbolism and the kids because they could run through it and get lost). If you're ever here, you need to see it just to understand how hard it is to explain. We also saw the spot where Hitler's bunker was, which is now marked by a sign -- it is an example of another way of dealing with Third Reich history, and that is the book that we're all reading called Ghosts of Berlin. Reichstag (where the German legislative body meets). Once I understood the history, I didn't think that Christos was so crazy for wrapping it. It was a good PR stunt for a building that needed attention. Now it's nice and new and has a wonderful dome on top that you can run up and down on. See? This is where we ran up and down. One of Will's favorite sites. On S

Our Berlin Digs

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Lietzensee and some surrounding buildings, though not ours. The living room. I haven't decided if this floor or the wide plank is creakier. The slow and willful washer/dryer. Though I must concede that it is the first European dryer that I've had, and it still has my favorite 'cookwash' setting that nearly boils our whites. The balcony, view, and a glimpse of the great double windows and doors. We are staying in an apartment building overlooking Lietzensee, a small green pond shaped like the number eight, in Charlottenburg, which is a part of the city by Charlottenburg palace. Rob served in Charlottenburg while here on his mission, and he used to come through the parks around the lake almost daily. He said he always loved this part of Berlin and would never have believed it if you'd told him then that he would come back and live overlooking the lake. One of the men that he taught was contacted in this park and was most recently in the Bishopbric here. So it has

Because I Can't Blog

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I intended to post these pictures in my last post, but I forgot that I can't just type away. I have to load the pictures first. Ah well, I'm learning. And I see that some of you are learning too. Thanks for the comments! It is fun to get on and hear from friends and family about our wacky exploits. The McFarlands at the Nuremburg castle (and MA wearing her not-so-wrinkly shirt. YAY!). Maddie matchets the geraniums (gerania?) at the Nuremburg fortress. Playing Playmobil on the stairs by the castle. Then we stopped for the typical Nuremburger wursts which were smaller than your thumb and came three to a bun. This was Will, taking a break from walking by having a seat in Sebastian's stroller.

Winners and Losers

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Now that we have had a week to recover after our big treck across German-speaking Europe, I thought I would write down some of the things that did and didn't work for us. Here, in no particular order, are the winners and losers of the trip: Winners 1. Pottery Barn Kids suitcases. They were the right size, the kids could roll them, and their inline skate wheels were nice and quiet on cobblestones. Thanks to Karen for buying those in January! 2. Eddie Bauer wrinkle resistant shirts. I rolled them up in the suitcase, shook them out, and wore them constantly. Students kept asking me how I always looked pressed, which was nothing short of amazing. They were not always clean, but they always looked ironed! 3. Travel bibs. Katie and I can attest that these came in handy a lot. Even if your kids were climbing up the walls, if you had a sippy cup and a disposable bib, it looked like you knew what you were doing. 4. Tide travel bottle for 4 loads. This worked better on our trip than sink pac

A Fiaker Ride in Salzburg

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So I'm killing time until we have a way to upload our pictures since Bonn. We have been taking them, but they are not PC compatible yet. In the meantime, I thought I'd put these up, which I have wanted to do since September 1st when we took them. I'll see what other treasures I've missed in the mad dash to the internet with my flash drive in hand. Will could not have been more excited to ride up front. This also shows Stefan, our driver, and he looks like some American actor, but I don't know who. Does anyone know? I would have guessed that he was an American actor, going incognito in Salzburg, but I saw his teeth, and that particular dentition does not make it onto screens in America, large or small. Nonetheless, he gave us a nice tour of downtown Salzburg and made the kids happier for 20 minutes than they'd been most of the day. Maddie Lou got to ride up front first. She was the one who campaigned the hardest to ride the horses. She is a horselover of boun

Stake Conference, FHE & Isaaks

So we arrived on Friday and haven't done many touristy things since. We went out wandering with the Isaaks on Saturday night and took them to the Brandenburg Gate (which once again, looks completely different than the last time we came -- they keep switching things around; that's why they say that the mortar never dries in Berlin). The American Embassy is going in just to the south of it, after much prancing and lots of taxpayer dollars, and they are putting in an U-bahn line too, so there was plenty of construction. Still the gate looks good after an 80 M Euro renovation which allegedly even gave it an anti-terrorism coating (I thought that was the two inch plexiglass windows down at the KFC by Grand Lake in Oakland). After that, we wandered over to the Reichstag as it was getting dark. Tania Rands had told us about the secret stroller entrance which got us out of lugging the strollers up the steps and out of the long lines. Once again, the security people were fast, effi

Burg Eltz on the Mosel River

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This is Burg Eltz which has been owned by the Eltz family for 33 generations. It was formerly occupied by three different branches of the family and the operated like an early condominium association. It was never taken, though there was one long siege, so most everything is intact and the tour was amazing. The countess loves flowers and has huge arrangements put out in every room on the tour. The kids liked wading in the stream below and having ice cream afterward.

Bonnanza

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So this is where we stayed in Bonn -- a palace called the Annaberg which is being held together entirely by moss and cobwebs. As Rob pointed out, it was a really fun place to be unless you were trying to sleep. We had a Bonnfire in the backyard, the kids played, we had two pianos and some great salons at our disposal, and we got to light this amazing chandelier with candles for our cocoa and kuchen evening. Will's favorite part of Bonn was riding this green tractor (you can see that we are getting to beyond pretending that he's getting anything out of this anymore, no?). Katie and I agree that the saddest thing about the Annaberg is that it was a beautiful building which is going to be gone in 50 years or so, having collapsed under the strong Latvian smells and poor upkeep.

Rhine Cruise

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I think I failed to mention earlier that in addition to a lot of senior citizens and a really bad soundtrack (try Lawrence Welk meets "Home on the Range" and I'm not even joking) the boat had a slide and some playthings. Which the kids used a lot. It isn't usually what you think of when you imagine a Rhine Cruise, but it sure made the time fly for the kids.

Travel is Hard

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Here are a few pictures I snapped to show some of the dark side of traveling. It isn't all castles and chocolate, right? It is a lot of dragging and waiting around dirty train stations too.

Nuremburg out of Order

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I knew I was forgetting something in Nuremburg! To get Will to leave our great hotel room, Rob took him on a Nuremburg treasure hunt. He and Sebastian had to find a beautiful fountain (Schonnerbrunnen), a metal boat (sculpture called Ship of Fools) and three kinds of bridges (metal, wood and stone). The boys were very into it. Meanwhile, MA and Katie took Maddie and Liam to the Albrecht Durer house which was great in terms of its size and exhibits for third graders. Both of them were struck by the things used to mix paint, and Maddie decided that paintings are worth a lot of money because you put precious things into them, like lapis lazuli and stuff. Afterward, we all went out to lunch with students at this restaurant over the river, which served us sauerbraten and rotkohl (which will make Curtis and Karen and Liesl happy for us and the rest of you say, so what?). Even Will ended up liking Nuremburg (though the hotel hot tub made it into his top three . . .).

Burg Stahleck in Bacharach on the Rhine

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Here are a few pictures of us in the castle where we spent the night. The gothic ruin is exactly that, and lies down the hill from the castle. The Isaaks are in the dining room which made us a lovely turkey curry for dinner on Sunday night. Will is pointing to our tower and Maddie is in the courtyard and then showing you how she can touch the ceiling by doing a headstand on her bunkbed, which really sealed the experience for her. The faraway shot shows you our tower, and the big building where we had dinner and breakfast, and lets you know how great our students were who climbed up there with all their luggage (including one who did it in her sunday dress and kitten heels).

Frankfurt in Twenty Minutes

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Here is a door for Mom and a bridge that I quite liked (who but Germany would bother to plant geraniums in window boxes on a bridge?). It was one of those places that I thought I'd just have to come back and see again sometime. Better not to do everything this time, right?

The Castle in Nuremburg

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We ran into these performers who were all in costume up on top of the castle in Nuremburg. They were very obliging and took a break from their smokes to pose with our kids and various arms. The only child who didn't get a picture taken with them was Sebastian, and that is because he was terror-stricken by the men in tights. We went back in the morning and got to play in the museum (Will is trying to put the castle together the way it belongs, and it isn't intuitive), go on a tour, and see the Incredibly Deep Well (sounds silly, but it's a great attraction).

On the Weissensee

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In the morning, we had just enough time between checkout and getting into our big ice cream wagon of a van to paddle out on the lake in paddle boats. There is also a picture of Rachel and Sarah Denzer rowing back to shore. It was beautiful and Rob decided to jump in to celebrate. He found it was all recently snowpack when he did.