Berlin

Berlin is a really fun city - there is so much to do and see. The atmosphere is really nice too. It is very much spread out (instead of up) - no real skyscrapers at all.  I was happy for the kids to go back to visit too because frankly (and sadly), they really don't remember much about the first visits (they were still quite young).

The famous "Television Tower" in Alexanderplatz

Berlin is famous for....

...its pedestrain lights (they are little men with hats)

and for their Bears all around the city

Wait a minute - this is more Bavarian (Bryan felt right at home :-))

And of course "Checkpoint Charlie" (the old crossing point between East and West Berlin)

it's always quite a tourist attraction :-)

We loved the old cars - this one was trying to get a jump start :-)

And this one summed up the feeling of the visit...

Can you guess what this is?

One of the only remaining original pieces to the Wall

I think I have this same photo from when we visited 7 years ago...

Visitors taking it all in...

and more vistors ;-)

Mia and I in front of the Canadian Embassy (the kids are in the process of applying for dual citizenship)

The cute little "Ampelmann" A street light is called an "Ampel" - hence the name "Ampelmann"

Here (off in the distance) is the "Reichstag" - the German equivilent of Parliament (or our Capital Building)

The Jewish Memorial

A maze with stones of varying heights and varying levels of ground as well.

Here is the American Embassy (notice the "Statue of Liberty" is really a Berlin Bear in disguise :-)

The back side of the Brandenburg Gate getting ready for New Years Eve (or "Sylvester" as the Germans call it)

A closer photo of the Reichstag

Brandenburg Gate (Where Kennedy and Reagan gave their famous speeches)

Once again (so funny) We asked someone to take our picture, but they forgot to include the famous Brandenburg gate in the background - exactly how does that happen?

Bustling...

This was hillarious - someone posted a sign on a door that warned people that there is an "Old Man" upstairs that spits from the Balcony

Another thing that Berlin is famous for is their 2 euro photo booths scattered all around the city. We tried to all get in (not so successfully :-) We had fun trying though!

Tropical Islands Berlin

One of our "family" Christmas gifts this year was tickets to "Tropical Islands" in Berlin. It is supposed to be the largest indoor water park in the world and built inside an old Air Hangar that housed German Zeppelins. It sits in the middle of nowhere (40 minutes outside of Berlin) in the old East Germany. In recent years, it was turned into an indoor tropical paradise with pools, waterslides, tents and bungalows to sleep in, a spa, and even a real rainforest.  It was really a neat experience. We had Frank (our bunny) with us as we traveled, so we didn't sleep inside the park (just spent the day there), but it is open 24 hours a day and literally you feel like you are in the tropics and not in the dreary Winter of Germany.

literally, nothing is around .. just a huge old Zeppelin Hangar! Almost looks deserted...

The other 3 wouldn't pose for my picture - Mia is a great sport though :-)

We found some lounge chairs, just before the place totally filled up (it accomodates 6,000 people!!!!)

Notice the Hot air balloon in the distance (it was so big that they had 2 of them going at a time!)

We laugh at the Germans! Whenever you travel in Europe and there are towels on the lounge chairs, you know that there are Germans around. They are known for claiming their space first thing in the morning (even before the sun comes up :-)) It can be quite irritating, but certainly practical if you are lucky enough to claim a spot :-)

The blue slide is the tallest one in Germany - Bryan, Bailey, and Camden loved it)

It really did feel like you were somewhere in the tropics....

it got quite crowded though...

Another shot of the 2 hot air balloons (it kept me entertained)  - I am not a huge fan of hanging out in the water, but Bryan and the kids love it!!!

The yellow one was more Mia's speed!

And these were the tents you could rent to sleep there...

and adorable little Bungalows... Each with various and distict character....

My kids are much to big for this, but it would have been quite fun a few years ago...

Another little hotel room... Love the colors!!!

And a fishi pond in the rain forest...

definitely a neat experience!

Former East Germany

In Bamberg, we only lived about 45 minutes from the former border of East and West Germany. It is very interesting to see the differences (even today) in architecture and landscape. Most of our traveling during Christmas took place on the former East German side (we even rented a house that was in the former East). Last Christmas, as we traveled in France and Belgium, we went to an American cemetary of WW2 soldiers. Traveling this year, in the former East, we came across a Soviet Cemetary of WW2 soldiers.  So different, yet so similar! It is always amazing to me to experience so much history here!!!

a little dull looking...

funny to see so much character on a just a plain road (no special tourist attraction, just cool architecture)

and a little more..

more dull....

and as we were driving, we came across this...

after getting 2 horn honks for quickly swerving off to the side of the road to check out what it was (yes 2!), we discovered that the signs in Russian didn't help too much :-). The dates provided the clue though and it was obviously a cemetary for WW2 soldiers. 

With my little German, I could read that this was in reference to freedom of their homeland.

the Hammer and Sickel...

again, the dates were the clue... So interesting!

Wittenberg, Germany (Home to Martin Luther)

We live in such a Catholic area (Bavaria), that it is easy to forget that the beginnings of the Protestant Religion were formed right here in Germany too. When we homeschooled (seems like a lifetime ago), we studied about Martin Luther and the Reformation. Martin Luther lived in Wittenberg and taught at the University there (yes - just a mere 498 years ago). After being a Catholic Monk prior to this time, and then during his days as a Proffesor in Wittenberg, he had much time to ponder the teachings and beliefs of the Catholic Church and posted his questions on the Church door. His "Ninety Five Theses" (the list of 95 questions that he had), became a huge distraction for the Church and in turn set the tone for the divide of the church. We stopped in Wittenberg on our way up to Berlin and walked around a bit. It is a beautiful old city, with lots of character. You could almost envision Martin Luther roaming the streets as a citizen there. Very interesting. It was one of the days for us that everything was closed, but there were still many people walking around and relishing in the history (and of course window shopping too :-))

(Totally nothing to do with this post, but it is always so amazing to see all of the Windmills on the Autobahn :-))

Here is one of the signs for the hiking pilgrimage....

Here is the famous Schlosskirche (or as it is known in English, "All Saints Church", where Martin Luther posted his Thesis

The University city is still known as "Luther Stadt" or Luther City in English

Thought this was funny... We asked an older couple if they could take a photo of us in front of the famous door. They took a photo, but forgot to include the door in the background :-) Plus Camden's eyes were closed anyway :-(

Ok - here is the second photo (taken by another man). You can see the door in the background - much better :-). Again, you could almost envision Luther hammering his Theses way back in the day :-). Speaking of long ago. The reason the construction fence is there, is because they are slowly getting ready for the 500 year anniversary celebration in 2017.  

Wittenberg is a beautiful University City. The church that you see in this photo was not the church that he posted his Theses on, but one right down the street from it, where he got married.

A little window shopping, and if I'm not mistaken, each of the kids on their phones - arg!!!!  They did like it there though, so I guess I can't complain too much :-)

A little courtyard - I love the coziness of a German Christmas! These stars were everywhere up in Northern Germany. We have a few in Bavaria, but they were definitely a popular item up North!

I made them take a Selfie (you can see the excitement in Camden's face :-))

More Stars - at night they were all lit up!

There was a beautiful Park, with trees donated by Churches all over the world. It was fun to read the name plates - many were sponsored by Churches in the U.S.

Wittenberg! It is funny - as we always seem to be in a car for hours on end, Bryan and I love to "solve the worlds problems" through discussion. We joked that maybe we should create a Theses of our own to post all of our questions that we have with regard to things that don't make sense to us! I wonder if we could change the world like Martin Luther did? Something tells me, it wouldn't do much good in this day and age ;-) 

  

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and that 2016 brings much happiness! We had a really nice Christmas and New Years Eve. Bryan took the entire week off (which he has never done before) and we did a little bit of traveling, a little bit of visiting, a little bit of celebrating, and a little bit of relaxing - it was a truly enjoyable "vacation". We survived 5 1/2 days of everything being closed (it really wasn't that hard, but such a funny thing) - by the way - we still have one more day to go when all will be closed (that of the 3 Kings on January 6). We spent Christmas day at home and then traveled up to Berlin, over to Poland, and then back to Bamberg for New Years. We are back home now and not really looking forward to getting back into the normal schedule - oh how I love vacation!!! We finally have about 3 inches of fresh snow on the ground though and one last day of vacation - so we'll try to make the best of it ;-)

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Random Things...

Just some random things as we prepare for the big day!

*It stinks to have kids on 2 different school calendars - poor Mia is still going strong, but will finally be on vacation on Thursday!

*Speaking of Schools...I learned something new last week! I have always been a bit worried (in the back of my mind) as to how much English Grammar Mia might be missing as she goes to a German School. I don't think I have much to worry about though. She is in good hands! She came home with an English test last week that actually taught me something new (yes - I am the one that is sadly qualified to teach Middle Grades Language Arts and I did not know this - embarassingly enough!!!. The sentence went something like this... My _______ (Onkel) Joe is my favorite Uncle. She had to fill in the blank with the word "Uncle" (super easy of course). She got it wrong though because she wrote it with an uppercase "U". I immediatley got on the defensive thinking that the teacher was of course wrong. Uncle Joe is a specific Uncle, so of course it should be capitalized. I looked it up though and sure enough - I was wrong. Because Unlce is preceded by a pronoun, it should be lower case. I have asked many of my English speaking counterparts what they think it should be and almost 100% unanimously, they agreed with my rational (that it should be capitalized). My German friends on the other hand, knew the correct answer. Wow - I think she might be just fine :-)

*We must quickly stock up on bread and milk (and anything else we might need to survive ;-)) - as this year falls in such a way that ALL STORES will close up on Thursday and not open again until Monday . I am used to it now - but thinking back - can you even imagine this happening in America?

*Speaking of having 4 days of everything closed.... Almost all of our friends here take 2 weeks off for Christmas (Christmas ends on Jan. 6 when the 3 Kings come - hence the 12 days of Christmas). Anyway...Can you imagine having so much vacation time, that you can just use 2 weeks of it at Christmas to be home with family! With 6 or 7 weeks of vacation a year, to spend 2 of them at Christmas is such a gift!!!

* Funny smiles - You can't necessarily tell it, but Camden and Bailey have braces on their bottom teeth. 4 more months to go - yeah!!! (I told you this was random)

*Because Bailey and Camden are off, Bailey came with me to watch some of Mia's Tennis practice. Mia was so proud to have her there and Bailey was impressed with her sisters' tennis skills. It filled my heart to see!

*We went to Bamberg last weekend (hence the photo above :-)). We celebrated the 4th Advent with our "Bamberger" Friends. It was a weekend filled with visiting and it was so nice to catch up with everyone! We even got to see our upstairs neighbor (who we adore). He is in a nursing home now, but is doing well. What a gift it was for us to visit with him.

*The Germans celebrate Christmas on Thursday. The tradition is that families go to church in the evening, and when arrive home, the "Christkind" (Christ Child - A.K.A. Jesus) brings the tree and gifts. It was so funny for Mia's friends to come over and see our stockings hung :-)

*Our cookies are made, packages and cards were sent long ago, presents are wrapped - we are ready for Christmas (I can't ever remember being this ahead of the game). I think after 20 years of Christmas', I have things finally nailed down to a science. I am not sure if that is a good thing or if it is ridiculously neurotic!!??? In any case - So looking forward to Friday!!! :-)