Feb 9th. A weekend in Berlin

 The weekend was so busy that I have a hard time remembering what we did during the week. Then again, what an I saying, we did have a couple of major breakthroughs... Isabella learned to read in Russian..

She did know letters and could stumble through a set of syllables but never before she had mastered the magic of holding them in her memory long enough to unravel the full word unless it was a really short word and then it was more of an exercise in memorization. Finally something clicked on Wednesday and she is able to read long words like "TAPAKAH" and "TELEFON." It is really cool and she really is enjoying it and trying to read any other words she can get her hands on. Georgia, on the other hand, not to be passed over, did a few remarkably well images of animals. I tried to learn to draw and know how difficult it is to get proportions right, and she seems to be able to do it quite easily.
So back to the weekend. On Friday we took a short flight to Berlin. As we waited in the airport bar we watched the opening ceremonies of 2014 Olympics. Very impressive show. Especially the ballet part.

The world being small as usual, on the plane we were seated next to a Russian guy from Vilnius who now lives in the UK for quite a long time. He told us interesting stories about buying houses in the UK. In his last house, the descendants of a noble family who owned the land still retained the hereditary right to mine coal in his basement and keep the proceeds.. and the farmer who bought the land from the nobles retained the hereditary right to run cattle through his land before selling it to developers. We are having it easy in the US :)

We spent the weekend wondering what part of Berlin we are in: formerly belonging to the West or to the East Germany. It was substantially damaged in WWII and complete reconstruction of a former Nazi capital was probably not on top of anyone's agenda. So the city is filled with ultra wide boulevards, with soulless concrete buildings and more than a few of lovely Soviet type block constructions looking like a carbon copy of the other such buildings in the former Soviet block.

The buildings that survived the war look like left over yellow teeth in the smile of a senior with a few too many falsies. That being said the city is full of life.. and center (center?) around the museum island looks like it is going through the major reconstruction with many buildings torn down and cranes working around the clock... at this pace they may finish their work sooner than the cobblestones at the Kingston marketplace... or a bit of facelift along the 20 meter portion of the boardwalk near the bridge. Having first visited Kingston last April (2013) we can attest that construction has at least continued since then.

Back to Berlin, the entire area around the museum island is covered in multi-colored pipes. When we returned home we read up on it and apparently they are there whenever the new construction is being done because Berlin is built on the marshlands and so the ground water constantly have to be pumped out until the new foundation is in place. Now it is a problem for some of the older buildings whose foundations are starting to lose integrity. For those considering going, many historical buildings are already restored, the museums are amazing, and there is rich (and at times awful) history that that provides context to many things in our world today.

Not Nefertiti

But anyway, having settled in the always welcoming Novotel complete with stuffed animals for kids just like the last time, we headed out on Saturday morning in search of the freshly baked pastry... We found many of them at the nearby train station. Let the un-Hungry games begin. Thereafter kids and I headed for the Museum Island while Dan took a cab to go on his business.. We started out by looking at the Greek collection at Altes museum, and then moved on to look at Nefertiti over at Neues museum. Nefertiti was really amazing.. awe-inspiring. Hard to believe that an artifact like this is 3300 years old. You cannot take pictures but there is a bronze copy that blind and other people can feel. Very nice of the museum to provide such an experience.

We wandered through the Roman gallery marveling the differences with Greek sculpture and stopped at the museum coffee shop to complement the cultural fulfillment with some excellent apple strudel. It was very different from the style used at home. The German version featured very thin slices of apple between the many layers of dough, and some heavy cream and caramel custard to balance things out.

Refreshed, we continued out tour at Pergamon Museum. Kids really enjoy stories about Gilgamesh and so welcomed the chance to see more images.

Zombies!

Pergamon went for the kill by reproducing the life sized walls of Uruk complete with beautiful 3-D glazed tiles. It was interesting to read in the link above that Russia has relieved Germany of some of the artifacts in the collection after the war to prevent looting and to help preserve them. Despite the treaty of 2003 Russia is not in sweat to return them. Arguably they don't belong in Germany either.. but then again it is easier to go to Germany to take a look at them than to go to Russia. The other lovely artifact we enjoyed was the Pergamon Altar. It looked like an ancient depiction of the very first Zombie attack.

By lunch we met up with Dan and took a stroll through some modern art by visiting a street market along the museum island. Lots of beautiful works by Georgian painters and some local artists. We continued our walk and saw Brandenburg gates.. rather unimpressive, but the colorful demonstration against the Japanese killing of dolphins made for an interesting experience. We saw Reichstag, the seat of Nazi Germany and presently the seat of Parliament, walked past the Gypsy genocide memorial, over to the Jewish memorial. Our plan was not to cover any of the Holocaust topics during the trip because the kids are too young for the subject matter. Even though Georgia covered WWII in school, she did not know who Nazis or Fascists were.

At first we did not know that we were at the Jewish memorial. We saw a huge square filled with rectangular concrete blocks in parallel rows. They have different heights and at some point when you get too deep in you can get "lost" in this strange forest. Other tourists were playing "hide and "see" and we followed their example trying not to lose the kids. Only when we came out and read the plaque we learned what this place is. The confusion was there by design. It is a kind of cemetery for adult games. Strange..

What's interesting about Germany, is that following the war West Germans had had very introspective way of teaching the next generations about what happened to help prevent Holocaust from happening there in the future. Germany takes this subject very seriously. Following the unification of Germany, that practice was made mandatory in East Germany as well. Berlin is a capital of graffiti, compared to all the other cities we've seen. Yet, we could not see any anti-Semitic writings or Nazi symbols on the walls anywhere. We are not sure whether it is an indication of the current general consciousness of Germans or someone is constantly on the lookout for these and they get removed right away or both. Certainly, not a rare subject for street expression in Warsaw or Paris. But in a light on this bit, could just be a matter of time in Germany as well.

We continued our walk and finished our tourist activities for the day at the Potsdamer Platz. We wanted to walk to the Berlin wall but the day was drawing to its close and we decided to seek the physical replenishment again.

We were not sure we could find a place as good as Hoboken Beergarden easily so opted for Austrian for dinner instead. Jolesch was delightful. We walked nearly 4km to get there.. Berlin is the first ever city we saw that requires taxi drivers to supply car seats and boosters for kids.

Makes every sense considering that taxi should not be less safe for kids than a personal car. But that also means that you cannot necessarily count on hailing a car on the streat that actually has these on board. And public transport required 3 transfers to get there. So the poor kids walked some more to get their dinner. The walk though some new interesting streets was actually pleasant. Fortunately they let us in into the restaurant too. Apparently it is a very popular place, we got lucky. Schnitzel with a barrel of beer followed by a Sachertorte! How many way are there to describe perfection! We did try a few other things and they were excellent as well :)

We started our day on Monday with a different arrangement of  pastries in a desperate attempt to ensure full coverage, and then walked some more until our late afternoon flight. First we saw Mauerpark fleamarket - a different view into how locals spend their time off and also a great perspective into of the past history of the town. Interesting and inspirational. Georgia wanted to draw some of the things we saw right away.

Next we walked over to the last remaining portion of the Berlin wall. Thought provoking. It is our third wall in the last year: Belfast Wall that separated Catholics and Protestants, Ireland and Ireland UK was first one..  Hadrian wall that separated the civilized Roman-controlled world from the barbarians in the North was next. And now this third wall that separated Communism from Socialism. Initially they serve some purpose but ultimately all of them get destroyed to be re-erected elsewhere, but it is sad though to think that humans really have not progressed much from Hadrian times and beyond. Characteristically, the Soviet side was a lot more creative.

We did our final walk through town and got our ride back to the airport. Nice weekend. Have to get some pictures up tomorrow.  

Feb 3. Lost in translation in Kingston

Continuing to cover funny things said by our daughters..

"Georgia is not letting me sleep!!" were the first wails that broke the day. I ran into kids' room. Isabella complained that Georgia is not letting her climb up on the upper deck of the bunk bed to sleep there. Despite the rude awakening Georgia was in good spirits and tried to calm Isabella down by suggesting it would be OK to visit on weekend and she now just wanted to get a little more sleep. "If you ever do that to me again," said Isabella, "I will not love you for two more days to come."

Went to Isabella's school for the parent teacher conference in the afternoon today. The review was slightly better than Georgia got around the same age: "Isabella is very nice and social, can count, can draw some letters, but her vocabulary is so limited. Sometimes it looks like she is trying to tell and joke and laughs but we cannot figure out what the funny part was." It is sad that they cannot see what great kid she is and what awesome sense of humor she has. At least no developmental challenges reported so it is as good as it ever got.

As we did our evening stroll through town, we saw the mannequins in Benthal's mall dressed in their finest undies with the signs welcoming the Valentine's day.

Sometimes the ability to read is not that handy... "Why are they all undressed for the Valentine's day?" asked Georgia. Dan signaled it was my turn. "I guess they are trying to show off their healthy bodies they obtained through exercise and diet." A bit lame, isn't it? I'll need to come up with something better than that if the trend continues in town.

Isabella was talking non-stop during our walk. She is going through the phase of "having to provide for the family" by finding coins on the street and giving them to us so she was describing how it is a bit difficult to look in the dark but she will try again tomorrow. 

Feb 2. The last post continued... onto cultural & other exploits in London & Cotwolds

Here is portion of the post that covers events in the last week without any direct references to food except for the most peculiar bit all the way at the end. I think both parts are quite intense but should you choose to change your mind and read about the food still, here it is again.

On Tuesday when I drove to work my good luck driving charm had stopped working and I hit the car on the street of the English Inquisition - some 1/2 mile from work.

This is a special street where local authorities put together a number of measures to challenge your driving charm.
The street is 1.5 lane wide for 2 directional traffic. Cars can park on the sides 2-3 at a time in an alternating pattern. To get through you drive up to the parked cars, wait behind them for the incoming traffic to pass. Then drive up to the next set of parked cars and hide behind them until the open next window.

In addition, there is a version of a Spanish boot: two metal rods just wide enough for your tires to squeeze through - if you drive precisely between them. I was so happy I got through without puncturing my tires that I did not swing far enough to the right when passing a large parked service vehicle and brushed against it with the left side of the car. Oh well. I'll get a replacement from the insurance company in 2 weeks.. The famous customer service..

Girls are trying to arrange playdates with boys in their classes.. Maybe next week Isabella will have hers. Georgia asked Isabella what they boy she wants to see likes. Isabella did not so much as bat a lash when she said "Me." So funny!

We found a new Russian cartoon: The Mystery of Suharava Tower (probably incorrect translation). It seems like a Russian derivative work of French Dragon hunters and some Asian cartoons. It is pretty nice. We are looking forward to more series. Hope it will get translated - it can impress the international audience.

We worked our way toward visiting the National Gallery on Saturday by reading a few books about famous painters and paintings. Since Georgia is also learning about Aztecs in school we decided to start the day by going back to the British museum to take a look at Aztec room #27.

It is small exhibit but awesome. Wall panels covering the subject of bloodletting, to feed the great serpent and facilitate communications with ancestors, by passing the rope with thorns through the tongue or using a perforator on some other body parts were particularly dramatic.

As we walked to the National Gallery after lunch @ Dishoom, we passed the little China. There were Chinese New Year celebrations in the area. Restaurant owners hanged up bunches of lettuce with a little red envelope outside their doors. Then a dragon came with some drummers and did the dance prior to "consuming" the offering. We've never seen anything like it, really loved it. Crowds followed the dragon around.

The National Gallery was impressive. We did a handful of rooms in depth. Mostly 14-15 century Europe. The museum is far to big :)

We tried to squeeze in the Courtauld gallery to cover some impressionists but were arted out. We will have to come back to both of them.


On Sunday we went to Cotwolds - a pretty area to the west of Oxford. It does not have the same rugged and intense landscape as the Peak Region we saw a few weeks earlier. Plus thick bushes and trees growing by the sides of many roads obscure the views. But it looked very special too due to amazing yellow color stone they use for their buildings. Lit by the sun, those stone villages looked like they were gleaming gold.



Did anyone try?

We did the circle around the Stow-on-the-Wald >> Moreton on Marsh >> Broadway >> Stanton >> Stanway >> Lower and Upper Slaughter.. with some abbey and castle ruins in the middle. Slaughter is a derivation of the old English word that means "mud." They still have plenty of that around, especially helped by recent rains.

Say "Yes" to the British faggots! Sadly we had reached our saturation point earlier last week. When we saw this sign we just took a picture and kept going without stopping to read the ingredients and learn more about this delicious dish. Maybe we will get another chance to try in on our other trips.



Feb 2. Keeping all the senses busy @ art galleries, museums, Cotwolds, and over a half a dozen restaurants

I am doing 2 posts to cover the experiences last week. This one is covering the tasting side of things and the one that was posted after this one actually talks about what we did and saw.

OK so here it goes. If you like food porn (and pictures), read on. Otherwise, skip to the next post. There are no pictures of food or us eating here. Had to draw the line somewhere. Most of the pictures are taken in Cotwolds,with the exception of the one with the dragon - that one was done in Chinatown in London. Here we go...

Kids are missing home and wanted to taste their NJ grandmother's curd cheese pancakes. So I went it trying to reproduce the exact flavor. Every morning I tried a different combination of farmer cheese, sugar, eggs and flour. They ate all of it every time but it never hit the mark. So finally, on Friday night Dan's mom shared the magical formula: 250g of farmer cheese + 1 egg + 2 tablespoons of sugar + 2 tablespoons of flour & vanilla. Then you have to drop a tablespoon of the mixture onto a plate with flour and then shape it into disk and fry on a warm frying pan. That's it. Perfection achieved. We still have to go back home in a couple of weeks :)

On Tuesday one of my colleagues introduced me to the British gold: Marmite. It a dark brown salty spread is made from the processed yeast. They say you either love it or hate it. I say it comes in handy when you don't have enough salt on your egg salad sandwich. Interesting taste that lingers in your mouth. My other colleague suggested to try it in the combination with peanut butter or cheese.  Will do.
On Wednesday we went to Rooster Piri Piri that opened up near the train station. They still have to train the staff to hand out utensils with food. And they can't do a real American chicken wings but the owner was really sweet - he came over and tried to get Isabella to try various things. He said he was a picky eater too but his mom always tried to make special things to get him to eat. He ultimately brought ice-cream for both girls.

We did not miss our favorite weekly haunts at the market Asian restaurant & GTK burger down the street. Those are always good. The staff know us and it feels very welcoming.

Had some coffee and deserts at Kahve Dunyiasi in London during our meeting with Leo. The layout of sweets is incredible: dozens of kinds of chocolates and cakes.. they even serve coffee with the chocolate spoon. But for some reason, (maybe your expectations go way up because of all the splendor) the taste was kind of average. Meh. It does not feel like it was worth the addition to the bottom line..

The real treat was over the weekend. On Saturday we were in London again. We were making our way toward Covent garden. And saw a large crowd trying to squeeze into a coffee shop called Monmouth coffee. We took our place in the line as well. When our turn came we asked what is the best thing they offer. The lady behind the counter said "coffee." It did not feel believable considering the splendor of baked goods that surrounded here. So we agreed to coffee but got a selection of pastries to go with it. And yes, both she and I were all right.

But there was still a matter of lunch.. So on we went and found Dishoom. It is an institution. The best modern Indian we ever tried. Seriously, not to be missed. We all surprised ourselves with how much we can consume. I smile when I think back to those special moments :)

Finally on Sunday, during our visit to Cotwolds, we paid homage to the popular local tea room called Huffkins. The famous scones did not taste all that different but the large homemade larde cakes (yep, they are actually called that) were incredible. We got one, with a few other things, went around the block and came back to get two more. After that we went all out and tried the local cheese called Kingham Gold. It was described as a local variety of cheddar but it was more of a mix between Pecorino and un-ripened brie. Even in that format it was perfect.

Deep dieting is due.. Let's move on to the other senses..

Jan 26. No entry in Oxford and the life of sheets

The week flew by. Nothing too memorable as we focused on keeping our daily routines and making up for unbridled gluttony over the weekend. Now most of the cherry trees are in bloom and we got some daffodils at the market. Almost forgot. Kingston university was having another round of graduations throughout the week. Happy grads with parents were everywhere. On Thursday we went to Nastya downstairs. Had a good time, kids too.

On Saturday we went to Oxford. We last visited it in September with my parents. Compared to Cambridge it seems stuffier and closed in. There are some pretty streets but most of the interesting things are behind the walls of colleges. Most are closed for access, others require fee for a walk around the quads. We followed behind a student and snuck onto the New College campus. The short walk around the cloister and the wall surrounding the campus was nice, but it still felt we are missing on some other, more important secret. Other places were the same: Radcliffe Camera "For Registered Readers Only," Bodlean Library: "Little Kids Not Allowed." The last one is just bewildering.

What we really loved was the visit to Ashmolean museum. Its collection is second only to the British museum. We started at our favorite Egypt/Greece section.. and then covered some European bronzes, Coates Bestiary and other things. The museum is smaller and better designed for children with lots of interesting interactive exhibits, but artifacts are none less impressive for it.

We also found a two pound book store and spent some quality time in it. Seriously every book just 2 pounds. And there were new adult and children's books. We need to find more of these locally!

When we returned home we had dinner at the Vietnamese Kostik found earlier in the fall. Dan called him to check on what we should get. Globalization is great!

I thought that kids were ripe for watching the Mummy and occasion had called for it. But it is a pretty scary movie and kids decided that they've had enough half way into it. Good choice. We finished it off at night and it does have some scary moments.

On Sunday we went Ice-skating to Guildford Leisure Center. Alas we missed ice-skating right in our backyard - there was a rink in front of Hampton Court Palace since November, and they just took it down a few weeks ago. Based on the quantity of ice skating rinks around Olympic champions in this sport are probably hard to come by in this country.

I don't know why more of such centers are not built, just like our local one that only has a pool, this one was teeming with people. Fortunately most people were there to go to the pool. However once we got on the ice more and more people had shown up until it became a slow-moving mass consisting predominantly of toddlers and their parents. Georgia was very happy though. She was asking to go ice-skating for a long time. Isabella was not very comfortable but she did good considering it was her first time on ice. At one point she got so comfortable that I let her go on her own, she promptly fell, got hold of my hand and on we went.

Back home we did our weekly shopping and then kids caught up on their homeworks.. and we relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. We are going to get a lot of visitors in the spring. Hurray!!

Isabella had a few nightly accidents recently; I got her a set of bed pads to make clean up easer. As WebMD and a few other sources has suggested we explained that this stuff happens, not a big deal, and if it happens again, just call us and we will replace the pad... So what does she do right after we say good night and leave... yep. parent alarm does work :)