Pergamon Museum

We headed out early on Saturday morning while Mummy had gone to do her German exam. It was cold and snowy but Lizzy had requested a ride on a tram and daddy wanted to revisit the Pergamon museum.

 Lizzy was intrepid and bold in her snowsuit with a dolly in her backpack.

Public transport went fine thanks to pretzel shops in train stations. The Pergamon Museum has closed its main entrance for construction and so we had to walk around the Neues Museum to get in. It took about 90 minutes to get in but the Pergamon was unphased by our extensive snowsuit, backpack and toilet session before entering the exhibits. 

 

 The girls passed through the Pergamon Altar room so quick I didn't get a picture. Through an archway we entered a Roman market square with a beautiful mosaic floor that caught their interest for a few minutes.

 This picture is returning through the Babylonian archway on our way our of the museum. 40 minutes is enough for these two in the Pergamon. Lizzy did take a snap of the mosaic, which illustrates that these museums really aren't set up for people lesn than 1 meter tall.

The public transport and museum went really well. The journey home would have been worth a taxi fare with hindsight. Also, I must remember that York Strasse station is a wonderful place to change lines only if you fancy stairways and half a mile walking on the street between platforms.

Next time I'll drive. Parking was only 2 EUR per hour and free on Sundays.

Pacific Rim

At the ethnological museum we made a quick trip through Europe to the "Junior museum", which turned out to be just 3 rooms, all about rice. Back through Europe to Africa then Southeast Asia and then descended a staircase to The South Seas and Australia. This hall was great, with reconstructed wooden houses and a Tongan catamaran. There were just about the only things in the museum that are allowed to be touched, but it was worth the wait. We quickly exited through North America.

Shoes off for scampering around inside this wooden house

 1/3 scale Tongan catamaran (seems pretty big to me)

This boat has a fire place

This is where the fish go.

Skating video

This is a short video from the end of Lizzy's show.

Ice Skating Competition

Lizzy's skating club had its annual competition today. She wore a fancy skating dress loaned by another teammate and dazzled the very biased huddle of fans at Berlin's newest ice stadium. From getting up this morning until after going to bed tonight she has been excited about the competition. She loved it. Its usually hard to photograph Lizzy with a heartfelt smile since it doesn't linger on her face. During the 5 minutes of showtime Lizzy was beaming. And when she got her gold medal (as she had anticipated) she was, if possible, even happier.

Before (first time skating in the dress and tights)

During the competition (isn't this great?) 

I am an ice princess

Scooping up a teddy tossed onto the ice after her performance (a smile for the adoring fans)

 I couldn't get both girls smiling at the same time. But here you see as soon as they were released from the podium they had to look down and check out their medals and certificates.

Red carpet time...

Check out our gold medals.