Tschuss Berlin

Logan, Connor, Tom (the kitty) and I are headed back to St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota this summer. We leave on August 3rd which is Connor's 4th birthday.

Chris will stay in Berlin (he's the one with the steady income) until I can find work in the Twin Cities. Let's hope that I find a job quickly :-)

We are all sad to be leaving Berlin. It's such a wonderful city. Most importantly we've made many many wonderful friends. This is going to be difficult. Thank goodness for Skype!

The other day I was headed to St. Hedwig for Church (in Mitte...middle of city). I stopped in the middle of Gendarmenmarkt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gendarmenmarkt) to soak up the scene. WOW! It's just crazy that I live here. I continued on my way to St. Hedwig's and again stopped and looked around Bebelplatz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebelplatz). I try to imagine what it was like here before the war, during and after. Just amazing!

Even after 3 years I'm still in awe of this city. The culture, the people, the architecture, and the history. I'm going to miss it.

Now that I'm leaving I have been taking the time to stop, look around and take it in. I always praise God for his graces and gifts. Truly it's been a gift to live in such a wondrous place.

We've been trying to do a few things around town that we've put off for one reason or another over the past few years. We made it to the beach one Sunday afternoon but didn't stay long. It was a scouting trip but we had wished we had worn/brought our swimsuits. Boo! Check out the website at http://www.strandbadwannsee.de/Strandbad.htm ... if you click on Geschichtliches via the navigation to the left you'll see pictures of the beach over the years. Pretty cool. We really liked this beach a lot and plan to go back before we leave Berlin. Maybe even this weekend. Yippee!

We'd also like to go to the Friedrichstadt Palast (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrichstadt_Palast). We've never been and every time we come to Berlin we always say we'll go and never do. Here we are again on our way back to MN and still haven't made it to the show. BLAH! Not sure if we'll have time to go or the funds, but Logan and I might try to get tickets to a matinee.

I did manage to make it to the Pergamon Museum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pergamon_Museum). It's pretty impressive. I've also been to a number of other galleries and museums with Logan and his class from school over the past few years. I'm grateful for being able to go to so many.

I usually use my bike for transportation. I whiz by everyone and everything on my way to my destination, but lately I've been trying to get out more often to just have a look around. Chris, the kids and I often take long rides on the weekends to new places in Berlin that we haven't been. We've found lots of interesting and fun neighborhoods, parks, restaurants, cafes, etc. FYI: Berlin is one of the more bike friendly cities in Europe. There are tons of bike trails and paths all over the city. It's really awesome. I love riding my bike and the freedom that comes with it.

We also made it to Grunewald (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunewald) a couple of times. Not sure if I mentioned this story before, but the last time we were there we packed a lunch. We found a nice bench to sit on with the kids and took out our sandwiches, chips, grapes, drinks, etc. We watched as people and their dogs walked past on the trail and said hello. One dog got past our defenses and ate up Logan's sandwich along with Connor's. He also got a few grapes and managed to lick the others. Yuck! Connor was crying, Logan laughing (he didn't want to eat his sandwich anyway...ha ha), me screaming and Chris yelling. The owners of the dog didn't do anything and then their second dog came in for lunch too. More yelling, screaming, crying and laughing. Logan thought the whole thing was hilarious. Poor Connor was so upset that a dog at his sandwich. Chris and I laughed too. What fun. I threw out the rest of the grapes later. More yuck! After our botched picnic we continued to ride into the woods. It was so lovely. We all slept good that night :-)

Boy, I could go on and on, but I've got to pick up Connor from kita (nursery school) soon. Connor slept over night last night with all his friends and teachers from kita. We didn't get a call so it must have been all OK! Hopefully Viola and Carmen (this teachers) survived. I'll find out soon. What fun! ha ha

More later.