Trip to Indiana

The boys have two weeks off for spring break so we took the opportunity to fly to Indiana to see some relatives, but mostly my grandparents. My grandpa is 88, recovering from surgery and also dealing with Parkinson's. My mom's side is from Indiana and a bunch of family still lives there. The last time we were there was in 2013 when Jonah was Doren's age. I knew the trip would be worth it but for months I was dreading the travel part.
The first leg of the trip was to Stockholm (such a great airport!) then on to Chicago. For those who don't know, Doren was recently diagnosed with a yet unnamed inflammatory bowel disease which causes him to poop a lot and often. As fun as this is at home, it was even more fun while traveling! He blew through an entire outfit before we even boarded the first flight. Its a good thing I brought several plastic bags and changes of clothes!

Doren being all calm and sweet on the short trip to Stockholm.

Racing cars during the layover. Can I live at the Stockholm airport please??

Here's how the nine-ish hour long trip to Chicago went...The five of us are in the four middle seats because Doren isn't yet two and can still be a lap child. (Not fun but we saved a lot of money.) Dinner is served! Tray tables come down. Doren has massive blowout. Doren needs change of clothes. Me can't reach necessary items because of tray tables. Jonah needs help buttering bread. Tobin can't find fork. All of these commands are being yelled because they're watching a movie with headphones. Doren is screaming. Drinks now being served and boys yelling what they want. Me about to start yelling, too. Marc squeezes out. I squeeze out. We all squeeze into the lavatory to peel poop-besmirched clothing off a writhing, screaming Doren on that hard table above the toilet. Doren is making every effort to prevent us from helping him. Ahh, I'm going to miss these precious moments so much when they're older! (eye roll) Doren clean. Me soiled. Squeeze back into seats so Doren can grab everything off tray table and ruin dinner. Trays removed. And begin Part 2 of Doren screaming while trying in vain to make him sleep. Only seven and a half hours left!

Once in Chicago, we met my parents at a hotel to stay the night. They met us there to spend time with us since its so much closer than Germany and drive us to Indiana so we could save a lot of money by flying into a bigger airport. I had a splitting headache for the last five hours of the flight and still had it after we landed and was so deliriously tired from barely sleeping at all. Its really hard to get some shut-eye when you have to hold up a toddler who may or may not be slapping you. So my parents were a big help with the boys and the next morning I felt more human.

That morning we said goodbye to Marc who went on to Portland to see his parents and some friends and the rest of us began the four hour drive to my grandparent's house in Indiana.

But first things first. Super excited to get my TJs fix! They can mop the floors with my tears. And probably pay the rent from my purchase.

Oh yeah! We love it too!

Yippee! We made it to Grandma's house! My grandparents live way out in the country surrounded by corn fields. My aunt and uncle live in a house across the yard on about fourteen acres. My uncle has a huge barn and business back there with all sorts of large equipment all of which is thrilling to the boys. There are two big ponds, a tree house, and two huge swings hanging from trees. Its basically a country paradise for three little kids.

The ol' shed where Papa used to keep the mower.

Its strange for me to see how much has changed since I was a kid. I remember watching my Grandpa ride the mower to cut all that grass. He used to let my sister and I drive it while he walked along. There used to be a big garden out back with cucumbers, green beans, corn and whatever else they grew. We were always munching on something fresh from the garden. My great-grandparents used to live right next to my grandparents and we would go over there in the morning for breakfast. Those things have changed but they are wonderful memories. Some things haven't changed like the coziness of being in that house and the way it smells and the way the garage smells and how fun it is to walk across the grass to my aunt and uncle's to go swimming or watch a movie. And I know how lucky I am to still have two of my grandparents.

Here's half of the reason we came! My grandpa is in a nursing home now getting physical therapy but will hopefully go home soon.

And here's the other half!

#tbt Me, my mom, sis and the Grands on a ferry to Catalina Island circa 1988. Sweet shades, Mom.

One evening after dinner we heard a rumbling. Was that thunder? Doren's bowels? Nope. Just my uncle rolling across the yard in a Bobcat to take the boys for a ride on the back forty.

Not everyone has a great-uncle with a fleet of construction trucks parked at his house!

And a few minutes later Cousin comes along for more rides!

At a fun (and free) play area in downtown Columbus.

Great-grand Uncle Bobby, my grandpa's brother, showed the boys all his tricks like how to pull off your finger.

Doren had a blast tossing the ball with Uncle Bob.

Huggies from sweet cousin Jackson.

Another evening we were playing Bingo with the cousins. My dad had been gone for several hours "running errands". I kept asking my mom what on earth he was doing for so long. It turns out he went to the airport to fetch my sister! She walked in and since it was a familiar face I was like, "Oh, there's Lisa...Oh! There's Lisa! What is she doing here?!" Anyway, it was a really nice surprise and she stayed for three days. Somehow I don't have any pictures with her. Oops. Good to see you, Sis!

You never know when someone is going to pull up in a backhoe, excavator or semi. Be ready.

Eeeeeeek!

Back it up!
I have a whole new respect for truck drivers! I was worn out just from riding in the thing for a few blocks. For heaven's sake, give semis lots and lots of space!

So much land to roam

Sweet Nonny 

Getting cozy with great-uncle to watch Toy Story 2.

Caption??

Playing "pick up sticks" sounded great until they realized it was a chore. That Granny is so clever!

Farm' boy

Since we would be flying out on Easter Sunday, my mom pulled off a terrific egg hunt a few days prior. The boys had no clue and it was great.

New straw hats for Easter baskets

All I care about is this giant egg.

The lovings

Before we came, there was talk of taking the boys fishing in the pond behind the house. The poor kids have never been fishing before and were so excited! Fortunately, my two younger cousins are basically experts in fishing (and many other things) so they were excellent teachers.

#tbt Me, the sis, and my once little, now large men, cousins. 

Preparing the "rigs". That's fishing poles for you lay people.

He just dug these up out of the ground and then split them in two with his bare hands!
Nope.

Teaching the ways

Toby being funny with his pulled up pants and no-hands fishing

I can hardly stand the cuteness!

The patience of a saint.

It was so fun and relaxing watching all the big and little boys fishing. The only bummer was that Toby is the only one who didn't catch anything. He was really upset about it. And its not like we're going fishing again anytime soon. Marc and I like tent camping and all but that's the extent of our nature skills. I'm not a completely helpless sissy but this 80% city-girl would have to be pretty desperate to touch a worm on purpose. Nghaaah!

The Grande Matriarch bathed in light on her throne

We had a mini family reunion party at the nursing home with my Grandpa and more relatives. I wish I had more pictures!

The funnest swing ever

Six days of fun, chatting, eating, open spaces and meaningful family time flew by. I'm so glad the boys got to see these loved ones again as they grow up. This plot of land holds so many memories for me and I loved being there again.

We said our goodbyes and left my grandparent's house for the four hour drive back to Chicago O'Hare. Along the way I start feeling flu like symptoms like chills and body aches. Great. My dad had to drop us off extra early so he could catch his earlier flight from Midway. Now I have the three boys and all the luggage which I can't even check for another two hours because they don't accept bags earlier than four hours before a flight. Of course the huge play area that I researched is in a different terminal that our tickets won't allow us to go to, plus we still have all the luggage. So all we can do is sit for another two hours and try to keep Doren from escaping onto a conveyor belt. Marc finally rejoins us from Portland, we check the luggage and now I really feel like I have the flu and we still have three hours to kill before our flight!

Doren doing his thing. Not sure what the guy in back is doing. Either a pre-flight prayer or getting into a headstand.

We board our flight and there is an empty row behind us. Finally something good on a plane! The kind people of SAS took mercy on us and suggested we grab those seats. It was such a relief because the big boys got two seats each to spread out and sleep. I had an extra seat, too, but if I put Doren down he wakes up, so that was awesome.

See paragraph above for how the nine-ish hour long flight back to Stockholm went.
Right about now (again, bleary-eyed and in the lavatory wiping poop off Doren's neck) is when I start fiercely loathing all the solo travelers in business class. (Sob) I hope your champagne is flat!! I hope your chair-bed thingy malfunctions and doesn't recline all the way!

Me not really sleeping. Good times

Now that we've dealt with copious amounts of fecal matter...what family adventure wouldn't be complete without a little vomit, hmm? Upon landing in Stockholm, my poor motion-sickness-prone eldest lost his lunch walking out of the plane. I frantically searched for anything to catch it and all I could get was a pillow, which didn't quite cut it. But the sweet SAS flight attendants assured us it was no problem and it happens on every flight. Ugh. I'm so, so sorry...

FINALLY on the last leg of the trip one of the many play areas is actually available to us. 

A two-hour flight later and at last we've landed in Germany and can get home to our own beds! But what family adventure would be complete without also losing something? We got the luggage but the two car seats never showed up. It's a hassle to lose your bag, but at least you can go home and make do. When you lose the car seats you can't even get home! So we spent another jolly hour+ hanging out in Baggage Claim filing a report and by this point we're all hungry, stinky, tired and with an inch of scuzz on our teeth. Fortunately, they found some seats we could borrow (and they delivered our two yesterday). We still had to wait for the shuttle to take us to our car and then it was another hour of driving to get home.

Finally in our own car and totally zonked

There's the whole epic saga. I guess I'm staying in Germany for good because I'm never flying internationally with three kids again.
I say that every year and every year we end up taking an international trip. BUT every time its worth the poop, sweat, tears and vomit to see beloved friends and family. You were worth it!
I love you all! Hugs and kisses!

German Dinner

Right? This is exactly how I feel sometimes. Didn't I just cook dinner yesterday?? While I love to cook for my family sometimes it's overwhelming, especially when I want to keep it interesting. Sure, I could make spaghetti four times a week (which they would probably like) but I prefer not to do that. I get it if both parents are working but since I'm home anyway I figure I can at least take the time to be more creative. But still, when Monday rolls around I'm thinking, "I have to plan another week of meals again already??" MEALS, MEALS, MEALS!! They just keep eating!

I have maybe twenty go-to dinners that I make and try to rotate in something new when I find it. I'm always on the hunt for another recipe that fulfills my requirements:
-at least 50% healthy. Some dinners are 100% healthy, such as Amy's Famous Kale-Bulgar-Walnut Surprise, which balances out the corn quiche with two sticks of butter and a gallon of heavy cream we have the next evening.
-unless it looks really tasty and worth the effort, it can't have more than ten ingredients and less is even better. More than ten and my eyes start to cross.
-if it calls for 1/4 teaspoon of a really unconventional ingredient like black vinegar I'm like, "NEXT!" I don't need to be storing a huge bottle of some random vinegar in my Euro-size kitchen.
-not too many preparation steps because ain't no mama got time for that

So, I do ok (and the family gets fed every night) but I still get sick of what I make sometimes and feel like I have culinary artist's block. And sometimes I'm just plain tired of making the effort every single damn day. So when I find myself with another adult, usually another mom, I always weave into the conversation a question about what they have for dinner to try and get some ideas.

One day our German neighbor with the four-year old came over and I asked if she or her husband typically did the cooking. She said neither. They only cooked on the weekends and during the week they just ate bread with meat and cheese for dinner.

Huh! Interesting.

Then I asked an American friend (married to a German man and has lived here for fifteen years) and she said the same thing. She explained that most Germans want a hot lunch and a cold dinner. When they were first married she was cooking all these dinners for her husband and one day he had to confess to her, "Baby, I appreciate all this cooking but I just gotta have bread and meat for dinner! Just give me bread!" So she cooks a lunch for herself and their daughters and then gives the leftovers to her husband for his hot lunch the next day.

I realized that this idea of having a hot or cold lunch or dinner has never occurred to me. I've never thought about desiring something hot or cold at a particular time of day. Season maybe, but time of day doesn't matter to me. I just like to eat. But for Germans, and probably lots of other cultures, it is a big deal. I've also heard that in some parts of Germany it's the opposite: a cold lunch and hot dinner.

Then I asked another German friend what they typically eat and she said, "Oh, you know, some slices of bread with butter and meats and maybe some cheese with some cucumber. You know."

Verrrrry interesting.

So....(drum roll, please) we've instituted "German Dinner" at our house at least once, if not two or three times a week depending on my level of motivation. Oh my gosh, you guys, it's so simple. [I wanted to put in a gif. here of this comedian saying "its so simple" it a heavy New York accent but I just can't remember who said it! It would have been perfect] Seriously, all I do is rummage through the fridge, pull out some sliced cheese, some deli meats, slice up some cucumber and throw a loaf of bread on the table. That's it.

And there's your dinner, kids.

We don't need to put on airs. It's straight out of the packaging for us.

Of course you could "go extry" and actually lay out the fixings on a nice plate. You could do it up with a fancy spreadable cheese, maybe a bowl of grapes, some carrots and hummus, etc. Sometimes I do that with some mixed olives and a shredded carrot salad or something. OR it could be just as simple as the picture above. And you can make adjustments for vegetarian, dairy-free or gluten-free.

There's this stuff at German markets called "fresh cheese" which is similar to cream cheese but not as heavy and thick. Its so good! My personal fave is this...

Fresh cheese, tomato and cucs. Lecker!

Look Mom! It's so simple!

Is this really obvious to everyone else? Why does this feel so revolutionary to me? Why have I never thought of this? Has everyone been doing this for years and I'm late to the boat, as usual? Duh, Amy. Everyone's doing it. It's a bit like the Breakfast for Dinner fad, which I love, but it's just open-faced sandwiches. Its so brilliant and easy. I feel like so many families stress about what's for dinner and who's going to cook and who has time for that with such a busy schedule?? There is no need to meal plan, compile recipes, and make a huge shopping list. There's no need for the 25 Easiest Crockpot Meals. No muss, no fuss, no stress (and barely any dishes to wash!) Yet again, German sense, reason and practicality wins. Thirty seconds. Poof. Dinner.

THE MAIN POINT IS: it's the same dinner every single night. I'm not telling you this for another idea to rotate in to your meal planning. There is no plan! Its like wearing a black shirt and jeans everyday. Its so easy, everyone expects it and one less thing to think about. Plus, even picky eaters can deal with this dinner. Trust me, my son is one of the weirdest, pickiest eaters I've ever known and even he will eat some bread with cheese and a few cucumbers.

But you know what? Now that I'm thinking about this, there is one glitch. The bread. You have to have good bread. You could have the best sandwich fixings in the world, but if the bread is bleh the sandwich is going to be bleh. I'm lucky because I can walk over to the bakery and buy a beautiful loaf of soft, moist fresh bread dense with seeds for a few bucks. Its really the star of the meal. I do not recommend this dinner with your typical American store-bought bread. I don't know how I ever ate that dry sliced sponge. I'm spoiled now and can't ever go back! If/when we move back to the States I will have to steal the recipe and make this bread on my own. So...sorry if you just got all excited and then realized you can't get good bread. I guess you will have to make it. But since I don't have to (yet), I'm thrilled to adopt this easy, ridiculously obvious, mostly healthy, fast dinner.

The German way saves the day!

Jan-Feb Update

Greetings and Happy Way Belated New Year, dear reader. The people have spoken and they want an update. Ahh, my public! I haven't had much to blog about so I needed to wait until we did a bunch of stuff.

We had a good slide into the New Year, as the Germans say. My parents were with us for Christmas again for the third year in a row overseas. By the way, we recently hit our third anniversary of living abroad! It feels longer, like at least eight years. Feeling out of place and elated when I actually manage to communicate is my normal.

So, the folks...We had a very nice Christmas together this year. The boys were on cloud nine having a grandma and grandpa around to play with all day for two weeks. There was no snow, but it ended up being kind of nice to have a warmish Christmas so we could go outside.

Decorating cookies

Christmas morn

Doren got a Cabbage Patch baby

 "Isn't this book hilarious, Papa?!"

"Yeah, its a riot."

At a traditional German restaurant.

Muther and one of her famous Fairy Gardens made from stuff they found outside. She actually sewed the door out of pine needles!

Their first set of matching shirts from Grandma Carol

Wondering how the boys are doing in German school? Jonah's teachers tell me he understands a lot and even says certain things in German but honestly, all they really say at his school is "let's wash our hands" , "let's put on our coats" , etc. so I think he hears the same stuff everyday. He doesn't complain at all which is pretty amazing considering we're talking about Jonah. They make cute little projects with beads and string and everyday there is something different like a puppet show or an adventure walk. One thing I find funny is sometimes Marc will switch the words in a book to German and Jonah gets so mad and yells, "Stop speaking Johrman!" yet he goes around singing songs he learns at school all day long!

I'm happy to say that Tobin is doing great at school. He has coped amazingly well with first grade in German. I moved to a new school in the middle of second grade and I thought that was rough. I can't imagine how difficult it is to switch languages on top of that. He has his rough days, mostly just Mondays, but I truly did not expect it to go as well as it has. He couldn't speak a single word five months ago and now he can speak, recognize written words, do math and write in German. He's not fluent yet by any means, but he's taught me phrases I didn't know and I took German for three years! Both boys have the accent down and can say the difficult /r/ and umlaut letters. Its an amazing transformation to witness. The dream is coming true!

One of the things I love about both of their schools is that both have kitchens with ladies cooking real food from scratch. The smell is heavenly when I pick Jonah up. Oh, how I would love to dine with the preschoolers! Has anyone ever said that before?! Unfortunately, he can't eat lunch there because he's not full-time, but Toby is required to eat the lunch at his school (fine by me!) Everyday I ask him what he had and it always sounds healthy and amazing.

I can see a change, too, in Toby's development. For the first couple months of school he wanted me to walk him all the way to the building door. Then in November he asked me to stop at the corner of the school yard. Now I have to say goodbye at the very edge of the property where most kids get dropped off (but he still wants a kiss goodbye). Its really cute to see how he's growing up.

His face is going to change so much when the big front teeth come in.

At a local crazy kid place.

I've been trying my darndest to make some friends and it's getting a little better. No besties yet, but maybe someday. This Mom Dating thing is so hard because someone's kid is always sick - mine or theirs and always the morning of the day we're supposed to meet. I tried five times to get together with four different women and each time something prevented it. You wouldn't think it would be so difficult for two stay-home moms to get together, but it is. But I have met some really nice gals (American and German) so I'm feeling less lonely and isolated. Yay!

Marc has been taking a night class in German and we both keep up with a learning app. Sometimes I feel pretty good about it, especially when I'm able to speak with someone who doesn't speak any English (even though I know I'm butchering the language). I get a confidence boost and I think maybe, just maybe, I can learn this thing. And then other times, when someone is flapping their lips and I don't understand a single word, I realize just how much I don't know and feel like there is no way I can conquer this beastly language! Someone please tell me WHYYY there needs to be three definite articles?! THE! Just THE! It could be so simple!

Why is a baby neuter? I don't know and I don't care!

And this is the least of my troubles. The sentence structure, a gazillion expressions, four cases, and the Pfalzisch dialect on top of everything. It feels like an impossible feat, but we're trying. I know English has it's difficulties but there is even a phrase in German that translates to "You can speak German, you can speak a difficult language." The thing that keeps me going is I love the way it sounds and I want to be able to sound like that and have a normal conversation.


Last weekend we took advantage of the one sunny day forecasted between a bunch of rainy days to check out Bad Dürkheim, a town about 30 minutes from us. It's a mineral spring town right in the middle of the wine country. Wine and mineral baths? Hmm, OK! Next time we'll bring our bathing suits and hit up one of the indoor pools. I had no idea there was such a wonderful, beautiful town and so close.

The entire front of the house is tile. It was really pretty.

This structure stretches along for several hundred feet. Water is trickling down the dark brown part which are tightly packed sticks. It's something to do with filtering the spring water.

Find the Toby

Of course we ended up at a playground. There was pipe organ music coming from the church so I went in to listen to it booming. And this is all set against a lovely view of the hills. Sighhhh 

The next day, a rainy one, we checked out a science museum called Dynamikum. It was full of really well done, hands-on sciency stuff for people of all ages.

The best part, obvs.

Trying their hardest to lift us up. SCIENCE!

SCIENCE?!

If you pedal fast the bottom fills up with air and they can push it around. SCIENCE!

This past Monday was a holiday from school for Rosenmontag and Tuesday was Fasching...or Carnival or Mardi Gras. It's a really big deal here and the main day for kids to dress up (way more than Halloween).

His Army man costume was a big hit.

Aaaaaand this is what I'm dealing with every day. It reminds me of something Buzz Lightyear said. "He has the destructive capacity to annihilate an entire planet!" Or house in this case.

Did I do that?

This child embodies all your typical toddler features that his brothers never did, so its kind of new for me. For example, maybe I'm cutting up grapes for him. I turn around to see him standing on the kitchen table licking the salt shaker, so I get him down and lay all the chairs down (pictured). While I'm doing this he has pulled the knife off the counter top that I left too close to the edge when I went to get him off the table, so I lunge to grab that out of his hand 'fore he stabs himself. When that is taken care of I turn around to find him sprinkling milk from his sippy cup all over the pile of books he deshelved five minutes ago, so I grab the roll of paper towels to clean that up. Since I'm down here I might as well sweep up the mountain of crumbs he left from breakfast. As I'm sweeping I see him coloring his face and the walls with a stray marker he found under the couch so I run over to take that from him only to see that he's now dancing in the neat pile of crumbs I just swept and was about to throw out. So I brush off his feet and continue sweeping before it gets worse but now he's pushing the temperature buttons on the freezer. I let that one go. I finish the sweeping and look to see that he has unraveled about fifteen feet of the paper towel I left on the floor. There is still marker on the wall, crumbs on the floor, milk on the books and the freezer is starting to defrost but he's screaming and throwing a tantrum for the grapes I never finished cutting. And he just filled up his diaper so bad that he needs a whole new outfit. Again, with the face...

Why, Doren? Why?!

I can't keep up because I don't have eight arms and three sets of eyes. Sorry! This is why it takes me a full month to write a single blog post let alone anything more important I would like to accomplish.

You have no idea what I'm capable of and I'm just getting started.

I leave you with my favorite latest find - sugar beet syrup. They grow all over the place here which makes this is a local vegetable. I put this vegetable on cereal, oatmeal, yogurt, and toast. I would send you some but there is that no liquids rule.

IT'S A VEGETABLE!!!

Berlin Trip

Last weekend we boarded a train for Berlin. It just screams, "Visit me in Autumn!", doesn't it? My favorite time of year! I was in Berlin for only one day about fifteen years ago and we've been anxious to get to Germany's big city since we moved here. We like/love cities, but Marc's last two jobs have taken us to small towns, so we need our occasional city-fix! Unfortunately, our trip got off to kind of a rocky start. We loaded the boys, our bag and big stroller onto the train and settled into our seats. Ah! How delightful! Aren't we clever! But when the ticket guy came around he told us we were in the wrong place and our actual seats were ten cars back. Oopsies. Rule #1 in Germany: Follow the rules and do not make mistakes. Because next, I had the lovely task (while carrying sleeping Doren in the Ergo) of pushing our huge jogging stroller through the narrow aisles of ten long train cars saying my best "excuse-me-pardon-me's" in German every two steps because someone's leg or bag was sticking out just a tad and I needed all the room I could get to fit that thing down the aisle. Let me tell you that inconveniencing ten train cars full of Berlin-bound Germans made me feel like a wad of gum under their shoes. I could feel their scorn burning a hole in my forehead! "WE followed the rules and are comfortable in our seats, reading our papers and sipping our tea and giggling about how clever we are! Who is this disheveled, obviously foreign mother, schlepping a baby and gigantic child-wagon through the aisle forcing me to shift my knee three milimeters to the left?! What an imbecile!"

Believe me, that is what they were thinking.*

The ride was pleasant enough, youngest child considered, but then in all the kerfuffle of getting off the train, I lost Doren's adorable navy blue pea coat that his brothers also wore. [lips trembling] So we found a second-hand store and nine Euros later I walked out with this puffball.

UH! He's so adorable! And he's 100% walking now, but sort of stumbles around like he's had a few too many.

Now he's flirting with me. 

Now he's spotted something more fun than me. Bye.

We stayed in an airbnb apartment in a really cool part of town. Tons of ethnic restaurants, boutiques, modern houseware stores, expensive stuff that I would never buy but like to look at, etc. Definitely my kind of place. It reminded us a lot of Portland, only on a much bigger scale and with ninety-nine percent less homeless people. My friend, E, asked me if we went to various must-see sites around the city. [PeeWee Herman laugh for two straight minutes] Um, no. No we did not. Do you think we can do any of those things when around every corner there is yet another incredible playground?! Basically, we go to a city with a list of all sorts of places we'd like to see but what ends up happening is us sitting on the edge of sandboxes while the boys burn energy at fifteen different playgrounds. But I do have to say the playgrounds are really amazing. My other friend, S, commented on how nice it is that they're all made of wood rather than metal or plastic. They do sort of look like they just grew out of the ground. I didn't take pictures of the really natural-looking ones, but here's some anyway.

Ok, there is some metal. I wouldn't want to slide down a wooden plank!

This was on a hill above one of the playgrounds. Gorgeous!

I'm pretty sure there is a Kindergarten on the first floor of this!

 I enjoyed many deep breaths of crispy Fall air.

Here's Doren sharing the swing with a little Spanish señorita. It was fun until it wasn't.

Ahh, this. Can you see me in there? Its some sort of play structure but it looks exactly like a hammock and it was the best part of any of the playgrounds. 

The natives were all out in their Fall finest. A lot of tweed and leather. And a lot of beards. Is this happening everywhere or just in Europe? We noticed this is Copenhagen, too. So many men with huge beards and man buns. Even the kids were so hip and fashionable in their little outfits. Not MY kids, obviously...other kids..

We did broaden our site-seeing on one of the days and went to a few iconic Berlin sites. Ahem...on the way there, we rushed to the metro station and without thinking jumped onto our train because it pulled in just as we arrived. We didn't even think about tickets because there was no turn style thingy or gate. Naturally, naturally, a ticket agent climbed aboard at the very next stop asking to see everyone's ticket. Oopsiedoodles. Here we go again. So they escorted us off at the next stop and wrote our tickets and fine. One of the agents made some comment about only the adults being fined and not the children because adults should know better. Ouch. Obviously we deserved this but I swear we're not rookies! We're just having a bad streak!

Brandenburg Gate 

Reichstag

Same place but looks different in this light

Doren was really into the street scene.

I don't even know what this is but its famous. 

Some other pretty place. We had to stop because the boys wanted to run on the lawn.

In our cozy rental

Berlin is such a beautiful city with so much diversity that makes it really dynamic and fascinating. I heard many different languages being spoken as we walked around and I realized I haven't experienced that in a very long time since there wasn't much diversity in Korea. And since we live in a small town, there aren't many options for eating anything other than German food or really bad, salty Thai. We ended up going to this Vietnamese place twice because it was so, so good, cheap and fast. You can get anything! That's what's so great about cities!

And finally, my art piece...

JFK once gave a speech in Berlin and said, "Ich bin ein Berliner." He meant to say that he was like them...a Berliner, but what he actually said was, "I am a jelly donut!" So here's me eating a Berliner in Berlin and being ironic or artistic or something.

Bis später, alligator!

*But no, Germans are extremely nice. I'm amazed on a daily basis at how nice everyone is. But, seriously just follow the rules, ok? You can do that, right? How hard is it, McFly? EARTH TO McFLY! Just follow the rules! Just. Follow. The. Rules.