Tropical Islands and Dresden

Chris, Logan, Connor and I had a mini-vacation to Tropical Islands and Dresden from August 5th to the 10th.

Our pictures are located here http://www.macgowan.com/PhotoIndex.php. Check them out.

TROPICAL ISLANDS
Tropical Islands is an indoor water park/tropical forest/spa. You can read more about them at their web site http://www.tropical-islands.de/en/visitors.html.

Logan and Connor had a blast here. There are several pools including a beach, water slides, and restaurants. They have a fun kid park with go-carts and mini-golf (18 holes).

We didn't get a chance to explore the tropical forest or the spa/sauna. Maybe next time.

Chris and I thought to really experience Tropical Islands in all it's glory would be to stay one or two nights inside the bio-sphere. They have tents or huts to rent.

We stayed in a nearby hotel that was about a 15 minute drive.

Tropical Islands is about 45 minutes to an hour away from Berlin. We had rented a car and the drive went quickly.

AUTOBAHN
I DROVE ON THE AUTOBAHN for the 1st time and let me tell you folks, people DRIVE REALLY REALLY FAST. I stayed to the right most of the time and let everyone fly by me. Eeek! I must say though it was FUN! My top speed was 250 kph which is about 155 mph. More EEEK!

DRESDEN
On Friday, August 8th we headed for Dresden. What a great city. It's about a 2 hour drive from Tropical Islands maybe a little less.

We stayed at the Westin Hotel right on the Elbe river. We had a wonderful view of the old city. There is so much history here. Dresden was completely bombed by the allied forces in WWII. Many of the historic buildings and bridges were bombed to their foundations. You can read about it on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden.

Again we have lots of pics on Chris' web site at http://www.macgowan.com/PhotoIndex.php.

Chris, Logan and I (we took shifts hanging out with Connor) took a bus tour which was very good. There was so much to see and we just couldn't get to it all in only a couple of days. We hope we can go back maybe next summer.

Body Worlds

Last Friday Logan and I went to see the "Body Worlds" exhibit.

All I have to say is WOW!

If you haven't seen it it's pretty amazing.

Check out http://www.bodyworlds.com/.

The big "to-do" at this show is the plasticized couple posed in the "sex" position. It was at the end of the exhibit and to be honest was no big deal. In fact, I had forgotten all about it until I was in the "special" room where it was being exhibited.

Logan was a little freaked out by it all (except the animals) so he didn't look around too much and just focused on the animals being displayed. He would then sit down at the end of each section/room.

The exhibit was about the human life cycle from birth to death. Each life cycle had it's own section and in each section there were topics on the various parts of the body like the heart, lungs, kidneys, nervous system, etc.

What I thought was cool was the transparent slices of a giraffe. It was life size. Logan thought it was neat too.

The other thing that was cool was the 4 reindeer and Santa plastinates. Just amazing. Logan thought this was creepy. He just gave a quick look and moved on to the next section.

I would have stayed longer but Logan was ready to leave.

I'm glad I got to see the exhibit and would highly recommend it to those of you who haven't been yet.

If you've seen this show already let me know what you thought.

The Hurt Locker Review

Hi folks. Just went to see THE HURT LOCKER. Check out http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0887912/ and http://thehurtlocker-movie.com/. Pretty darn great movie. Here is a review from my friends at Screen Rant http://screenrant.com/the-hurt-locker-reviews-pauly-17207/. I would give it a 4.5 too. PLEASE GO SEE IT!!!!

It's one of those movies that makes you think about a lot of things. As I was walking out of the theater at the Sony Center here in Berlin I was thinking WOW this place was bombed out too. Twenty years ago before the wall fell it looked the same as it did after WWII. Pretty crazy if you think about it. Now there are lots of pretty things and happy people around. Will Iraq be like this in 20 years? One has to think........

GO SEE THIS MOVIE and tell me what you think. I'll be looking for comments on this blog!

Connor's Officially 2 Years Old

So today is the day. August 3rd, 2009 and my little boy is 2 years old. Wow!!! That went fast. It's currently 10:30 a.m. here in Berlin and 2 years ago I was laying in the operating room looking at my newest edition. He was so little. Now what a big boy. Walking, talking, learning all kinds of new and cool things.

We are enjoying Crepes for breakfast. It's a rainy day so not sure what we'll do to celebrate.

On Saturday, August 1st we took two of his friends; Emilia and Lea (and her sister Sarah) to the Berlin Zoo. We've got pics and will post soon. Emilia's Mom and Dad; Annerose and Oliver came with us as well as Lea and Sarah's Mom Olivia. Logan was at hand to help supervise the kiddies. Yeah right :-) Emilia and Lea are from Connor's Montessori class. Our dear friend Jia Hu joined in on the fun.

It was the 165th year celebration of the Berlin Zoo. It's amazing that the zoo has been around that long. Pretty cool. We saw lots of animals, had a little lunch, ate chocolate cake, opened gifts (Connor got 4 trucks, a book, and bath and sand toys--Jia even bought a Lego Star Wars set for Logan--how nice), and played at the zoo park (huge and very cool). We got there around 9 a.m. and left the zoo around 2ish. We were all very tired when we got home. Naps for everyone :-)

We had a very nice celebration and I think everyone had a good time.

Well my banana chocolate crepe is getting cold so I'm going to sign off.

Happy Birthday Connor. Hope your 2nd year of life is filled with wondrous and amazing adventures. May God shine his light upon you!!

Tom Out the Window

Well a week ago my little kitty Tom fell out our 1st floor window. Poor guy. He was okay just a little shaken. Chris took him to the emergency vet clinic at the Frei Universitat and they gave him the A-OK. A week later no problems. Thank GOD!!! I was really worried. I'm sure it's because we are only 1 floor up and that he went tail/butt first and landed in a bunch of weeds and bushes. It cushioned the fall. I haven't let him out on the window ledge again since but I suppose I should. I think I need more than a week to recuperate. :-)