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.

 

Winter weekend in the Ore Mountains

We headed off this weekend to the small mountains just north of the Czech border, south of Dresden, about 2.5 hours south of Berlin.  As this was a last minute trip, I struggled to find accommodation and eventually just settled with the youth hostel, which was the only place I found us a room, with the toilets down the hall.

On Saturday, the sun came out for the first time in weeks, so we enjoyed a lovely drive south and ended up in the part of Germany known for wooden toys and Christmas decorations, like nutcrackers and Christmas pyramids.

We went sledding on a big hill in Geising, warmed up in a cafe with hot chocolate (the girls' current favorite drink) and decided we could squeeze in a little ice skate before dinner at the Ratskeller.

After a cozy night in bunkbeds and a delicious German Youth hostel breakfast, we were off to take Lizzy to her first ski lesson ever.  They fitted her with skis, boots and a helmet in a little trailer and then sent her off to warm up with a soccer ball.
They started in their boots and did exercises jumping through hulahoops, running between cones and learning how to put on their skis and stop.  While Lizzy was busy falling and getting up, Jim skied, and Mommy and Katherine walked (sledded) around the town and drank hot chocolate.

At the end of the two hours (with a break for tea, gummy bears and cookies), Lizzy was able to do this:

Christmas...To be completed later! Stay tuned

Umbrellas for Christmas...what fun?

Christmas day skating with Mummy and Daddy's new skates. Katherine had hot chocolate on the sidelines with Granny and Grandad.

The next day we got dressed up in our new clothes, backpacks, baby carriers, etc. and marched to a fancy hotel looking fabulous.

On boxing day Santa visited the playroom at the hotel while Mummy, Daddy, Granny and Grandad had Boxing Day Lunch. He read the kids a story then gave them wrapped gifts.

Halloween night

As I am home with a sick little one, I will update the blog per friend and family requests.  Even though Halloween was officially more than 2 months ago, we are still eating Halloween candy and I just got a great family photo that I had to share.  The girls went trick-or-treating in Berlin on the street where most of the Embassy people live.  Houses were decorated, safety monitored by Berlin Polizei, and much fun was had by Daddies inside drinking Bayern Beer and Mommies chatting behind excited children begging for candy.