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Showing posts from July, 2011

East Side Gallery Redux

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Joss and I tagged along when Rob took the students to the Frankfurter Tor, the Oberbaumbrucke and the East Side Gallery. It looks so much better than it did when we came in 2006. The restored pieces look great. I marvel what twenty years can do. This was in the death strip pre-1989 and now it's covered with tour busses and happy camera-toting types making superhero poses and even a hurdy gurdy man. Joss, as ever, wanted to leave his mark. A handprint that says "Joss was here" Rob pointed out that the East Side Gallery was conceived to protest the very wall it's painted on. And that by painting on it, they ended up preserving the very thing they were protesting.

Wannsee Boat Ride

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After church we made our way down to one of Rob's favorite lakes. We took a picnic and caught a boat through beautiful country. It was naptime. It wasn't really a popular trip with some of the kids. They missed out on some great sights. Gorgeous lake houses from Wannsee figure in Goodbye Lenin and The Edukator s. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink!

Gardens of the World on the Backside of the Moon

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I had seen pictures of the Gardens of the World on advertisements by the BVG (the transportation department in Berlin). Once we came out here on Saturday I realized that is because you have to take a lot of transportation in order to get there! S-bahn lines were down, so we took the S-bahn to the U-bahn to the back of beyond where we caught a bus to JVD (which means 'way, way out there'). First, we made our way through the irrgarten. It was not so easy! I was completely turned around by the time I found the middle, and that's only half done. Next we went to the Chinese garden. I was hungry and there was a pagoda, so we sat and ate our lunch there. People eventually began to act like themselves again. The chinese garden was really beautiful. All designed by landscape designers from Bejing, which is a sister city of Berlin complete with lake and tea house. They even imported Chinese rocks. Then off to the Italian garden with a renaissance theme. Joss never did fall asleep, w

A Potsdamer Lego Shopping Potterful Day

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Friday was Maddie's birthday. We were totting up the number of times she's celebrated abroad, with only her family and oddments and randomness to celebrate, and this is birthday #5. We gave her a couple of options for activities, and she chose to send the boys to the Lego Discovery Center on Potsdamer Platz. In the final analysis, that meant that Rob took one for the team. The place was overcrowded on a rainy day with too many kids and not enough supervising adults. He had to climb into the play area more than once to stop 11- and 12-year-olds who were using the little kids for target practice in the ball zone. He says that had Dante been there, the Lego Discovery Center would have its own circle in The Inferno . But they all liked the Lego Berlin. Here is the Berliner Dom which we visited with Curtis and Tomas. The Reichstag (the teeny tiny "For The German People" is pretty amazing). The Quadriga on top of the Brandenburg Gate. And the Berlin Wall. You can push a but