August 4th, Munich

Today was less wonderful than yesterday but still very nice. I was working in the morning and at some point Dan and kids got tired of waiting for me and went out exploring. They ran around the center of town, explored some pleasant neighborhoods around Hans-Sachs Strasse and met up with Romiks who had been around since the earlier part of the day. 

We had lunch at the Victualenmarkt and considered our options. They’ve covered the center of town as well and also posh but boring Maximilian Strasse - the Fifth avenue. So in terms of the recommended highlights we were down to the museums and the English garden park. 

We felt we paid our dues in Dresden and so decided on the park. We were also hoping to get some cool air - it must have been 100 and super humid. 

We got some fruit at the gorgeous market - every counter, whether overflowing with chanterelles or displaying wooden boxes filled with the giant figs, fresh dates, wild blueberries and strawberries were picture perfect. 

The park was generally a disappointment. There must have been thousands of city residents there. Cyclers were raising clouds of dust on the dirt paths. The paths themselves curiously ran through the exposed areas, despite plentitude of mature trees around. 

It is likely to be larger than the Central park but amenities are few. We’ve only passed one bathroom. Playgrounds were small and we  only saw two. A large pond was dirty and filled with duck feathers. 

The main attraction were modified canals used by people for surfing, slow and fast rivering. The other curiosity was that most of the people in the park, and there must have been thousands were between 17 and 23, in great shape, and Caucasian. It was like the glory of nation. 

We marveled that coming upon meadow upon meadow filled with slim, tall, muscular bodies engaged in various sports. We don’t know why German youths prefer the park over other Germans but it certainly provided more context to the incredible diversity in a middle of town. 

We took another beer break and utterly exhausted and jellied out dragged ourselves back into town stopping at any place on the way that had the a/c. 

Finally the heat started to decrease and we’ve ended the day at a marvelous Lotus Thai back in our favorite part of town on Hans-Sachs.

August 3rd, the Romantic Road

Awesome wonderful day today, as we drove along the Romantic Road in Bavaria, seeing the picturesque alpine villages with white washed or pastel houses covered in artistic drawings, fairytale castles, and fantastic mountains. Basically every cliche term you would want to use and every one would apply perfectly. 

It looks like every owner of every village here is waiting for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be featured on the postcard. And so they fix their window curtains just so, touch up the paint outside so it looks like it was freshly painted, and make sure that only identical firewood logs are allowed to grace perfectly ordered “piles” outside. 

After the nondescript breakfast at a crowded eating space we rushed out of the noisy dusty Munich at 7am and 15 minutes later arrived to our destination. 

Just kidding! Dan typed in the name of the street but not the name of town. So we ended up pretty much where we started. 

New start and in about 2 hours we arrived to Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles (I think I can win a Spelling Bee with that).

Built for the similar reason as Sintra, these were designed to be “Romantic” and picture-worthythe outside. We had a tour of the second one. I marveled at the tasteless decor and yak-inspiring wall murals that looked like the illustrations of the children’s book and covered all three stories. True, Max II and his eccentric son Ludvig II were not the richest of kings but take some inspiration from the other royals they did not. Kids liked clear simple explanations though. But adults could not take a second portion of Romantic kitch and did a marathon run to the other castle on another hill, took pictures, and skipped out on our tour there.

During our morning ride we realized that the awesome mountain that Verochka was raving about was only a short ride away at Garmisch-Partenkirchen. We drove there and accidentally shot over to Austria on the way as cheerfully alerted by our cell phones. Regardless we drove to the closest cable car station and in minutes we were airborne, stopping the ascent at 2600m. 

The views were awesome. A part of the mountain was clouded over but other surely offered views into Austria, Germany, Italy, and Schwitcherland. We could not tell for sure about the other two. We walked over to the German side of the mountain and took another cable car down to glacier. There kids and adults had fun sliding down to the glacier on the sleds. Did I say awesome? :) 

We were wearing our summer clothes, and Polinka and Isabella sandals but we were comfortable after the scorching heat of the last few days. It was impressive to see the real climbers who scaled the mountain on their feet and were wearing specialized gear. We got a few beers to further add to the experience.

The next step was Mittenwald 20km away. Loved it, loved it, loved it. Impossible cuteness. What I said before about the picture perfect - applied to every house in town. Our dinner at the local biergarten was also nothing to complain about. Relaxed crowd that included some scenic looking Bavarian grandpas clad in lederhosen and Tyrollean hats added to the feel of the place. Kids got an added bonus because the place had the trampoline. 

Dan is trying to convince me to get a Bavarian woman outfit. These don’t require too much convincing but I’ll be down if Dan is for the matching man outfit :) 

We’ve made a few more stops at a scenic spots on the way to Bad Tolz, our final stop on a way to Munich. Bad, as the name should have suggested - OK to skip. Kidding about Bad - it means Bath. The place started to flourish when they discovered iodide springs there. But when we got into the town it looked provincial and well on its way toward decline. So we kept going as the dusk set on.

August 2nd, Nurenberg and a little of Munich

We woke up at 6am and did a quick run of the city, free of the tourists and residents. It was cool and pleasant and we took lots of pictures. Then we joined the rest of our group for the second breakfast

Romik, and all the kids joined Verochka’s group and Kevin, the tour guide for the tour of Nurenberg trials. Dan and I decided to skip on that part and continue roaming through the old town. We’ve criss-crossed it on many directions stopping by for the occasional drink or shnekem. Gingerbread cookies are a must. They are better than anywhere we’ve tried them before due to the richness of spices that go inside. The best place was Wirklein on the market plaza, we were thorough.

As we sat wrapping up our pre-lunch meal of potato pancakes, horseradish, and smoke salmon with beer the rest of the gang gave us a holler and we met back at the market square to continue our lunch with them. Georgia will comment further on their trip.

After that Kevin showed us around town a bit more. The additional context was welcome. He showed some anti-semitic sculptire on the St. Seobald church - Jews sucking on the pig. Took us to zoo-keeper’s gate and told a story about how one of city’s residents and some of his downtown neighbors discovered how the water pressure works in a context of the private house bathrooms. He also told us that the marketsquare used to be the old Jewish part of town in the middle ages. It was on the swamp and undesirable with the houses built on stilts but after the city wall was built it ended up being in the most desirable part of town. So, the usual story, there was the pogrom - residents were killed, their houses set on fire to burn the evidence of the deeds, the sinagogue razed and the early version of the present day Our Lady of Town church was built. The swamp at the center square was drained but the area stayed open and used as a market place through ages.

Later in the day we’ve transfered to Munich. A different scene altogether. Loud, dusty, bustling. We dropped off our stuff and proceeded to the center of town. The old city hall is magnificent - the one in Brussels has nothing on it. We started to hear a lot more German but also langugages from all around the world. Beauties with expressive eyes and heads covered in Muslim gear added to the color of town.

We stopped at the cavernous HB brewery and finished the day with more beer, sausages, and other meats. And, in the words of famous Georgia, that’s how August 3rd went down in history.

August 1st, Gorlitz and Nurenberg

After a plentiful breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express we headed back Northeast to Gorlitz. It clearly had seen its glory during the centuries past bit now it is a sleepy suburban town with marvelous cellars, cute old town, and occasional highlight in the movies, most notably recently “Inglorious Bastards.” Another claim to fame is the after the WWII Poland took the opportunoty to claim the land   on the other side of the river.

I’d argue that the lovely views across river is still the short end of the stick. Novichenok’s added another country to their itinerary and we headed back to continue exploring the sleepy streets. Finally, having stocked up for the road we took off to Nurenburg.

After a non-eventful 4.5 hour ride - can’t really take top much advantage of the absense of the speed limits on our monster truck - and having made a serious dent on our supplies of Lithianian salami and the rest of the food, we arrived to a virtually identical copy of our hotel a night prior but in Nurenberg.

We ran out and started exploring. What a lovely lovely town. Sprawling on two sides of the river, with bridges of all kinds, surrounded by the scenic medieval town walls, it was a fiest for Romantic senses. We kept getting lost and finding more interesting nooks. We ended the day at a restaurant outside the Imperial castle, together with Polinka’s sister Verochka, accompanied by her family and their friends’ family, bringing the overall size of our group to 8 adults and 8 children, all girls. Very relaxing and nice.

In relaxed spirits we followed the medieval wall back to the hotel and accidentally ran onto the town’s red light district. The girls sat in the windows of the buildings facing the wall. Made for an interesting discussion on the way back. This must have been a fixture of town on and off for several hundreds of years.  

July 31st, Dresden

The ladies all had breakfast at the hotel while Romik and Danik went to get our mini-bus. With the girls getting bigger every year we no longer can fit into a 7 seater and had to get a 9-seater this year. They could not park this monster downstairs so we all walked next block with our stuff.

Dresden is marvelous.  Allies leveled this town and 20km on the perimeter so it is hard to believe that this magnificent age-darkened architecture once lay in ruins. Every last fat-bottomed cherub looked to be centuries old. That said this was a the territory of DDR after the war so plenty of cardboard box  buildings reminiscent of the cookie-cutter architecture of the Soviet block filled every other area of the formerly Saxon candy-land.

We’ve started at the Old Master’s gallery of the sprawling Zwinger complex. Owing likely to the same art-books we were raised on we could practically recognize most of the paintings - Tizian’s Venus, Michelangelo’s iconic Sistine Madonna and others. And so could likely almost exclusively Russian crowd of other visitors. All in all there was also an Asian group, aforementioned Russians, a handful (literally) of tourists and us. Hard to believe we could see all with so little distractions.

We had lunch at Alex, punctuated by what we later read about was purely German service - “you will die tomorrow” quality of the bedside manner. No offence there. Just cultiral directness. Non-German (visually) staff usually  appears to be much warner. That said, the weather was warm enough to continue our exploration and so we went back to Zwinger, then the opera house, then the churches, and finally to the balcony of Europe - extra-wide boardwalk overlooking another portion of town across the semi-dry river bed. What a wonderful town to have to ourselves.

We stopped by on a way to cool at a street fountain that looked like a portal with a water curtain. Very welcome at a 96 degree heat. Kids were running in an out; they were completely soaked and extatic. Occasional passerbys and cyclers ran through thw portal too. Then it all stopped at 3:30, due to some unknown rule that prevents fun beyond this point. We picked up and continued our walk.

We stopped for an afternoon beer at Edelweiss. Apparently there is a bottled beer shortage in Germany due to the heat and increased consumption. We’ve congratulated ourselves with sticking  with the tap and so not exacervating the problem.

The black denim lederhosen waiter was awesomenly direct too - though in a very funny way - “going swimming here is f&cking dangerous,” and “we are expecting a f*cking huge crowd tonight.” We decided that we need more and came back for dinner. As our waiter would say “f+cking awesome.”

In the evening we did a pleasant walk through the giant mall outside our hotel and retired to our rooms  for the next day of adventures. 

June 30th, Berlin, day 3

We met up with Helmut after breakfast and he drove us to Sachsenhausen concentration camp for a tour. Built predominantly as a model camp for political and war prisoners. Its atrocities were reserved on equal share for the Jews, POWs, or post-war Nazies and Germans. Particularly heart breaking were the ovens and pathology lab where the bodies of the victims of the medical expirementaion were laid upon white tiled tables and then dumped into voluminous cellar for the pick-up.

Helmut presented an interesting and conflicting picture - a son of a German child soldier who served time in Siberia, a brother-in-law of a Ukrainian POW, and a son-in-law of escaped SS soldier condemned to death penalty for mass murders in France. He is a trained geographer but gives these tours and drives the cab to make living.

When he was growing up in post-war Germany, his teachers were the same ones who taught Hitler youth. That was simply the generation of people who lived through the period. Over time, when Germans came to terms with what happened and smartly scoped down what had happened as something that was done by Nazis and Fascists rather than Germans it became easier to describe the past in those terms. In reality, with the entire population subjected to propaganda and fear tactics, few escaped the fate of being both Germans and Nazis.

In the same way as Russians were complicit in the  atrocities under Stalin. In the same way we are all complicit in the atrocities under Trump and Sessions that break up families who had, like all of us had, come to us with their last hope seeking the shelter. In that sense, the 14 year old conscipted to fight in the war and the person who had been offered position in SS forces is in position to either die or comply. The option to do something different gets harder to take.

I wonder what goes through the mind of people like Helmut who make themselves into the Faustian guides watching the sadness, anger, and fear of their charges. As Polinka rightfully commented, unless they directly belong to the group that had this shared experience, they can emphasize with but not truly understand it. In the same way we emphasize with but can never truly understand what it’s like to be black in the US. They, not us (not yet anyway, a Jew in me says) wake up every day with their history, and not knowing whether this is the day they will become the victim of police brutality.

In any case Helmut looked surprised but obliged when we asked to be dropped off sowhere fun with good food after our tour. He left us near the lovely neighborhood in West Berlin, whereby we’ve dedicated ourselves to stopping at and sampling at every one of his suggested options. The final stop was the best currywurst in town not too far from Pension Fischer where we lived. We spent over an hour looking for the place, and saw a few interesting options at the heart of gay neighborhood, but ultimately gave up and had our final beers of the day in a non-exciting steakhouse, which nonetheless had the same fast efficient and courterous service as every other restaurant we’ve eaten yet so far.

July 29th, Berlin day 2

Our adventures in Germany continue. In the morning we set off to visit Reichstag through Tiergarten park. It was still cool in the morning and made for a pleasant and relaxing walk.

The start of Reichstag visit was run through series of well-run passages for crowd control remiscent of cattle herding. Once we got up to the dome we were free to roam. The views are gorgeous, photos don't do it justice. The upper portion of the building and the glass dome with the serpentine walkways to the top  appear to be growing right out of the old classical foundations complete with the royal crowns and lyons. Indoubtedly intentional and lovely.

Next we did the round of Branderburg gate, museum island including Neue museum with the spectacular bust of Nefertititi, and finished our planned daily activities at the Alexanderplatz. Enjoyed the street show of the mad inventor with animatronic pan-handling horse and fire-breathing dragon.

We walked to the lovely artistic haven of Auguststrasse and stopped by the Neue sinagogue.

Fascinating and sad story. Gorgeous huge sinagogue built with the assumption that Jews were equal to others - ostentatious Neo-Moorish architectire with luxurious vestibule that opened right onto the street as opposed to be hidden somewhere in a courtyard. With its three storied galleries and frescos at its heyday it was big enough to fot 3.6k attendees. At this point the facade and the dome all that’s around with a small but excellent museum built to tell its story.

One narrative that struck a new chord was that when Germans came to power and started to solve the Jewish problem one thing they did first was deporting the Polish Jews that came around the the WWI and had lived and worked there for several decades. In a manner reminiscent to ‘Catch and release’ males were taken over the Polish border and released in hopes that the wifes and children will follow. General indifference of the German Jewish communities, German population as a whole, and the rest of the world emboldened the Nazis to keep going, in a manner of boiling a frog. Are we there yet?

Fast forward to today... with the armed cops outside the sinagogue doors are a sad reminder that it is never over.

Sad and morose, we sought comfort in a quaint Tadjik teahouse in a courtyard next door. There seated on the pillows and carpets on the floor we were entertained with a variety of interesting teas (Pushkin is black tea with vodka, Sex sect, the old Tadjik favorite, is iced Ceylon with sugar and Prosecco) and Russian food served a lovely Tadjik girl who spoke German, Russian, and English, and presumably Tadjik.

Incidentally the languge of choice is Russian here. We hear it in the restaurants, museums, and playgrounds. Most of the service personnel are Russian, Turkish, or Polish :) Then again Berlin is one of the most international towns in the world.

We walked back to the hotel stopping by at decidedly not-child proof playground in the park that had some tree course features without the safety harnesses. With Georgia’s support by my side I’ve survived my tree walk. 

July 28th, Berlin

Taking over from Georgia... hoping to do as good of a job :)

Polinka, Romik, Maya, Isabella, and I finally arrived to Berlin at around 1:30pm having been delayed at Newark for 6 hours due to the thunderstorms that also knocked out the power at Terminal C. Tegel airport section where the bus dropped us off, with the crowds of people sitting in the floor, no a/c and the overall layout reminded us of an airport in one of the Caribbean destinations

Danik, Georgia, and Isabela met us near our hotel. Our hotel was en route of the gay pride parade so as soon as we arrived we were greeted with the pulsing sounds of techno outside our windows (and off course Dan with the kids.

The party was awesome. Float after float passed by filled with singing and dancing crowds. Very energizing. The kids also got their first views of grown up anatomy of both genders. As we learned later in the day nudity is viewed as something natural, in contrast to the US, and no one freaks out (yet) at the sight of a naked bum, or breasts, or more.

We dropped off our stuff and Danik led us to the gorgeous (even he said so) little mall overlooking the zoo, the Bikinihaus. Sweet modern wooden architecture inside with distractions for kids not to count the primate exhibit outside was a perfect accompanement for the foodcourt filled with cute little nooks serving food from all over the world. A perfect way to start our explorations together.

We took U to see the Berlin Wall murals. It was somehow less impressive than last time, partly because there were some later works, and partly because political murals are best understood in the context. And at this point we have too little of it left.

Walked to Checkpoint Charlie and stopped at the beach to dunk kids onto the sand and for us to have a drink.

Next stop was the DDR museum by the Museum Mile. Lots of Soviet era exhibits which were better than the stuff we grew up with and for that reason more depressive. They did appear to seek solace in sexual liberation and museum covers the subject at length and from the different angles. Kids had lots of fun driving the Trabant - they had one at the museum with the road projection onto the dashboard.

It started to rain and we ran to the mini food court around the corner. Had a very relaxing German meal under the watchful eye of a Russian waiter. Grabbed U back and called it a day. Vacations are awesome!

Day 25 - July 22, 2018; Goodbye Wilna!

Today, it was time to leave Vilnius. I woke up early and packed(stuffed) all of our clothes into my backpack. Then, Dad and I took a stroll around the city for the last time. Sadly, almost everything was closed due to the fact that it was a Sunday and not even nine o’clock. We got back to the apartment, finding Isabella upset at leaving her alone with Grandma and Grandpa. We got pastries for breakfast, took even more for the road trip, and left. I got a pastry with cottage cheese, but Isabella got a pastry with sausage inside. Then, Grandma stopped us at a hat vendor. She got everyone hats, including Sasha and Vika. We went back to the apartment, where a woman was waiting for us to give her the keys to her apartment. 

 We drove to the nearest Maxima XXX, the biggest one, to get supplies for the trip and Irish Cream for Grandma Lilia. Soon enough, we left the Maxima and drove to Grandma Lilia’s house. Grandma was really sad to see us go, but alas, we had to leave. We drove out of the city and carried on for the next hour until we came to a forest. We got out and went looking for mushrooms. Instead, we found wild blueberries and started to pick them and stuff our mouths with them. I felt something crawling on me so I looked down, and there was a tick on me! We left pretty early after that. 

In two hours, we came to Augustus. We ate lunch in a restaurant called The Albatross. While the food is being prepared we left to go look around the city. Grandma and Grandpa also left so when we came back the servers were standing with our food at our table, scratching their heads looking at our table, not knowing where we had gone. It was very funny. After that whole debacle, we had ice cream. Isabella wanted a different kind of ice, but when they gave her the ice cream, it looked like neon chemicals had barfed on it. Isabella tried it and said, "Ew, I’d rather have something else." Well, that took a lot of time. Finally, finally, we left and took an uneventful trip, consisting of at least three hours and a lot of stress. Then, we finally came to our apartment! Whoo! And that’s how this day went down in history. July 21, 2018.

Day 24 - July 21, 2018; Oleg’s Дача

Today we went to Oleg’s summer home. In the morning, Dad, Isabella and I went our favorite pastry place and got everyone breakfast. Then, we went to Crustum, and got six cottage cheese pastries for everyone at the дача. We also got donuts for Grandma Lilia. Then, Grandpa ordered an uber to take him Grandma, Isabella and of course, myself to Grandma Lilia’s house. We got Grandma Lilia and drove to the woods. On the way, we told stories, listened to the really horrible starting sound our car had and watched the city stream on by. 

When we finally came to Oleg’s house, we saw Oleg throwing crab apples a d birds which were eating his cherries. We had a basket with us, which was almost immediately filled with his black currant berries, apples, cucumbers, raspberries, and cherries. Isabella and I went into the bathroom and changed into our swimsuits. Then, we went swimming. We walked with Grandma, Grandpa and Oleg to the lake, stopping for wild raspberries and wild blueberries. We played in the water. Soon, though, it was time for lunch.

We left the lake, though Oleg promised to take us fishing after lunch. For lunch, Oleg had made a weird soup. The main component of the soup was Kvas. It was bette than delicious. In addition, his wife Lena gave me a recipe for her really great white bean fry. Mmmm. It makes me drool just by thinking about it. Grandma Lilia especially liked the zucchini patties Lena made. After lunch, we busied ourselves with catching crickets to use as bait when we went fishing. The forty-five minutes went by like this, (I’m supposed to snap here). 

When the forty-five minutes were up, we went to the lake again. Isabella caught her first fish, but we let it go because it was tiny. When I caught the next fish, the hook got lodged in between the gills. When we tried to take it out, the fish swallowed it in even more. We had to take it with us, because it would have died anyway. After that, I caught two more fish, while Isabella caught one. We went back to the house, and then, we left shortly after. 

Of course, Isabella had to forget her bathing suit, but we didn’t know about that until we were already in Warsaw. Anyway, we drove to our apartment, where Dad was waiting for us. He took Grandma Lilia home, because in the morning, Grandpa had accidentally driven by a car and left a tiny dent. It was no big deal, but Grandpa was worried and didn’t want to go back there. I went with Dad and told him about our whole day. Then, we drove back to the apartment, left the car there and went for a stroll around the city. Eventually, Grandma took Grandpa to a restaurant and we ate dinner there. After that, we had desert in Crustum. And that’s how this day went down in history, July 21, 2018.