March 12th. The evil gnome

We were having breakfast this morning when someone knocked on our door. There was a tortured looking woman outside. "Your kids scream really loudly when they walk to the elevator in the morning," she said. "I can't sleep." Not something one expects to hear at 7:30 in the morning. Dan just nodded and closed the door. Then we thought: we get out of the apartment at 8:25am; how much longer can one be expecting to sleep on a weekday. Even if the kids were loud, which I doubt. None of us had ever seen this woman before, or, for anything, had seen any people on our floor at best 10 times total in our 8 months here. So we will treat this one as an apparition. I suspect she may haunt again, but it is better to be prepared.  

March 11th. Shakespeare, check!

I am desperately behind in my posts. I'll put up a few right now and try to backdate.. Not even thinking about photos at this point. We are extremely busy as we are going through our final months here and are trying to also continue our coverage of architectural and cultural wonders.

Dan's aunt Inga and grandma Alicia are visiting. Today Inga went to London  to explore V&A museum and Harrods. In the evening the three of us went to Rose Theater to see a Midsummer Night's Dream. It was an interesting production, kind of punk men-only style. Once again it was hard to believe that we are actually in the UK and watching a Shakespeare play. I really liked staging and acting but had to harken back to my high school days to understand at best a quarter. To get through the extensive text the actors were going at a mad pace. So we've lasted through only one act.

The pattern emerges that plays are done spectacularly well. Most of them are a treat. We really loves the play kids and I saw last week: Tom's Midnight Garden. Beautiful angle on the much covered subject of ignored and mistreated children. What was really cool was that most actors played one or more musical instruments. I was moved to tears in the end when the story comes together thanks to the amazing acting by Helen Ryan. Dan & I saw her coming from the train station the next day and came over to say hi.

Speaking of repressed children ;) on Friday it was Georgia's 8th birthday. Just re-read this - haha - she is definitely not a repressed child, but read on to find out more. We brought Sakotis case from Lithuanian food store Papa Karlo to her school and then invited about half of her class to the Sweet Revenge cupcake decoration class. So a few things struck me about that celebration. Every single person we invited showed up. This is kind of amazing with all the different extracurricular activities kids have going on these days. I wonder if parents had to make any special accommodations to make it possible.

Georgia has autistic kid in her class. He came too with his nanny. It was very nice to see how kind and attentive the kids are to him. So OK, back to me story... What struck me was how wild and loud kids were. It is as if someone told them to shut up all day long, and then fed them some sugar and said OK, OK, you can speak now. And speak they did. To the point that instructor, a young girl obsessing about her weight.. I guess providing cupcake decoration instructions could bring that thought to your mind... screamed really loudly at them to shut up. I was upset about that - completely inappropriate & unprofessional on so many levels. Fortunately the kids did not appear to have noticed. Anyway, Dan and I, and Isaac's nanny Marta, and Rosie had a few entertaining and loud hours with 16 kids (Isabella bailed right after pizza).

Despite how it sounds, it was actually fun. Most parents came back about 15 minutes prior to the pick up time. They stood pressing their faces against the glass like some Dickensonian orphans, watching the madness within, and not braving coming in. Against the common sense we decided to plan a major playdate soon.

OK, onto the weekend of March 8-9th.

March 8-9th. Portobello Market & Birmingham

Had a fun weekend with Inga and Alicia. Though Alicia spent most of it recovering from her flight here at home. On Saturday we went to London to orient Inga with our top spots such as Monmouth coffee shop and cover a new point - Portobello Market. We really liked it - it is a less commercial and has more character than Camden market. We took hours to cover maybe 10 city blocks with all the interesting and tasty detours along the way.

Reconnected again with Ekaterinburg relatives via Skype. It is interesting to discuss events in Ukraine with the aggressor country :)

On Sunday Dan had some business to attend to in Birmingham. We joined in - it is the second largest city in the UK, so we had hopes of seeing a mini London despite the warnings in the tour guide about the "urban planning nightmare."

Our first stop was the National Motorcycle Museum in the outskirts. Excellent museum. Not the type of place one expects to end up after a few hours of driving but Dan's hobby certainly brings us to the most interesting places.

We really loved it. The museum does a great job providing a scavenger hunt for kids to keep them engaged through all the 850 exhibits. It was amazing how many transformations the design of the bike has undergone - starting from an extension of the heavy bicycle with the chain and a small motor over 100 years ago on to the rocket ship looking ones that could clock over 200 miles per hour. We also noticed that all the bikes were shined to the perfection, with hardly a speck of dust on them. It takes a lot of effort and loving to keep them in this condition.

Next we wanted to experience some of the Indian Balti food Birmingham is famous for. Unfortunately both spots we tried were not open. As we were driving toward Birmingham town center we passed through Another English Inquisition street and Dan hit our courtesy car, in much similar way as I did previously - against a large parked truck. That and no lunch certainly dumpened our spirits.

We parked in the center and walked through semi-dead streets looking for some nourishment. We finally found a Bodega and settled there. A few drinks and food cheered us up but then Georgia saw the Kiwi video and got very upset. We did not think she would take it that close to heart but watching our reaction about the car and being a bit hungry must have had some effect too. We knew that we are watching a turning moment in Georgia's life. It will need time to get digested fully but it is unlikely that there would not be any impact. I'll have to talk to her about it later.



We continued our walk before deciding to check out the jewelry quarter - Birmingham used to be famous for it. Like everything else it was dead too, except one store run by Russians. Fortunately we accidentally stumbled into Ink Pen Museum, a former Inc Pen factory, and an absolutely awesome incredible museum of the dying art lovingly run by the dedicated volunteers. We all loved it. Kids went through the circuit of creating the tips for the pen. Cherished their new "goody bags." This and the motorcycle museum made the trip worth our while.

On Monday Inga and Alicia went to London to take the Big bus drive around town. We are glad Alicia got a good overview of the town.

March 6th. Back in our tropical paradise

We are back from our trip back home to go on vacation with friends, the flood has dried up and we are enjoying amazing spring. Everything is blooming! Birds are preening. Need to get out to Kew gardens.

Here is a local yogurt called "Fool." Apparently this is an actual archaic term for a custard dish with fruits in it. Could have fooled me! Never going to hear me say yogurt again, fool! :) Got a load of them, started eating and then noticed that they are loaded in whip cream so at the end of the day, I have been fooled.

These cause mental

confusion somehow

connected to Woody Allen

The first restaurant that was a part of nearly year long construction is now open: Cote. Construction still continues further along. There are also 2 new burger houses in town. 5-Guys are becoming popular and starting to appear everywhere. Need to refocus on our eating practices but will probably need to starve for a month first to recover from the damage on the cruise.



Local intelligencia having

a morning drink

We drove to Sainsbury to refill our fridge, parked, walked over and only then it is closed for some updates. I guess it is too much to ask to put a sign out before the parking lot entrance. There is also no sign on the supermarket itself. We asked the construction crews - and now one knows. I guess, it's a secret.

Speaking of driving, the car is still in the shop and we went for a round of calls/email/calls again to get a courtesy vehicle provided. We did warn them that we need one prior to going on vacation. But when it came to the promised delivery time, there was the usual "sick person," followed by "no cars in stock at the moment" followed by "did you mean the Kingston location?" In the end we got it so it's a good thing.

February 14 - March 3rd. Back in US to go Florida and Bahamas on a Norwegian cruise

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.