091106

7 - 11 September - Berlin

We flew to Berlin. We've gotten pretty good about this flying business. There is a dedicated fleet of buses that goes from Bristol to the airport about every 15 minutes all day. There are several choices of "pick-up" points but with our acquired skill at Bristol buses we find it is easiest to take our little "500" bus to Temple Mead (the train station) and go and come from there. With the newly imposed security regulations we're now required to get to the airport two hours ahead of flights. We think it will be 3 hours for our flight to return home to California - ugh, too much sitting.

We got to the airport by the required time and were politely asked if we had received a call telling us the flight was going to be at least 4 hours late! When you have to be to the airport two hours early to check in and then find out you needed an extra 4 hours - well, we debated whether to go home or not. Decided to stay there as we had already checked our luggage and they gave us food vouchers! So, we found ourselves some comfy chairs after a lunch and waited it out.

We were scheduled to get to Berlin in the early evening and had received detailed instructions on how to get from the airport to Martina and David?s house. The new(er) main Berlin Airport (Schoenefeld) is a fair distance from town and with the kids and all it would have been unfair to expect them to battle traffic to pick us up. Now we were four hours later with no way to negotiate a new plan with Martina. So, I used the "rent a computer w/access to the internet" at the airport to email Martina that we would be late and we figured we could figure our own way - in a strange country - without local language skills - in the middle of the night. We do love adventure!

We arrived in Berlin without incident - late but otherwise no trouble. The first thing we wanted to do was phone Martina and let her know we had arrived. We had no local coins. What shops were open didn't take kindly to making change. So, we bought a bottle of water and then had change for the phone. Found a phone but couldn't make it work. Plus, this phone had a nasty habit of spitting returned coins about half way across the lobby. Finally, out of desperation, we solicited a woman that was just closing the visitor's aid office to help and after a few tries on her part it was determined that the phone didn't work - it was kaput.

The phone right beside it was working and we had no trouble. Martina's phone answered with the answering machine - so, we were on our own. We walked from the terminal to the train station, found the automated ticket machine and bought our tickets into town. There were very few people at the train station and fortunately we could read the schedule and determined the train and platform.

We went to the assigned platform about ten minutes before the scheduled departure and the train was there - not one soul was in sight - just an empty train with its lights on. We found and pushed the door "open" button; entered and found a seat. For the next ten minutes we saw nobody and then the train began to move. The next question was were we going in the right direction. I had printed out a list of the intermediate stops from the Internet and we were very relieved when the train's first stop confirmed that we were going in the right direction. It was a good thing too, because it was pitch black outside the train. We couldn't tell if we were above or below ground.

After a half hour or maybe forty minutes we got off at the train station Martina had suggested and then had to transfer to a city bus. I had expected that we would be in a suburban neighborhood, but we appeared to be somewhere in the city center. The bus Martina had suggested stopped running at midnight, but there was a whole complex of buses just outside the train station. We picked a bus with an "N' designator and a similar number and asked and pointed to a written copy of our destination. The driver confirmed that he went there and when asked about the fare he told us that all we needed was the used train ticket. A half an hour zigzagging through city streets that gradually became more suburban brought us to Martina's street and then a short walk to her house.

Martina and David left the porch light on and a note on the door instructing us that they had gone to bed and to ring the doorbell. The bell brought a very drowsy Martina who showed us our bedroom and the bathroom and then she crawled back into bed with a promise that we'd talk in the morning.

Upon waking my first impression of Berlin was trees. Our bedroom window looked out on a forest so dense that it was almost impossible to see any neighboring houses. The bathroom window looked out the front of the house and it too was a vista of trees.

Martina and David's house is what the English call a terraced house - a relatively small footprint but many stories - sorta split leveled at least five and later we found a basement - so at least six layers. Everything centered around the staircase.

The house is but a stage for the family and what a family. Martina and David have four children: Michael, age 7; Charlotte, age 5; Henning, age 3 and Bernhard, age 1 (15 Sept). Each of the children competes for center stage and each has special skills and abilities: Bernhard is the baby and he is everybody's baby. Each of the other children takes over his care whenever there is a need or an opportunity. They volunteer without being requested other than Bernhard's need or sometimes-vocal requests. Henning has learned to live in his world and meet his own needs. He has the loudest voice of the kids and will use it to get his way. Henning has reached the age where he actively seeks to do things himself. The picture shows the outfit he used to go to preschool that day - yes, those are his pajama bottoms and he did wear them to school.

The two older kids are a matched pair - classic sibling rivals. Michael is fastidious - thinks though each move and moves carefully. Michael is a saver and hoarder. Charlotte is a free spirit. She is petit, amazingly agile, and talented. She can learn most things the first time she tries them and tends to ignore those things she can't immediately master. Anything that Michael can do, Charlotte will try and usually succeed at. Michael tries to physically dominate her but can't and she can out think him. She adores him and he vacillates but would be lost without her.

In addition to the above named household, there is a au pair, a student from Korea who helps out with the children and the house.

Our first morning, Friday, was weekday for the family. The kids went off to school, David went off to work and Martina worked from home. Martina's workload was pretty heavy, so she suggested that we might visit the museum, "The Story of Berlin." We hopped on the bus and headed downtown to the museum.

"The Story of Berlin," http://www.story-of-berlin.de, was a fantastic exhibit, which included a guided tour to an atom bomb bunker. The bomb shelter is boring but my favorite was the cars. The green car is a Trabant. The Trabant was an East German built, two-stroke, fiberglass body, "people's car." This car was favored by the East Germans because it was the only car they were allowed to buy. When the wall fell, the cars disappeared.

After the museum, we had pizza for lunch and then took the bus back to Martina and David's. We had a little time to visit with Martina and then the entourage came home. The noise level went from library quiet to rock concert loud. A good time for a nap while the kids got settled.

When we had arranged our visit, we had asked Martina for ideas on appropriate gifts for the kids. It was suggested that Nancy would love to knit each of the kids something. There were several suggestions - most rejected and then as a joke I suggested that Nancy could knit each child a snake. This idea caught fire and for the last several weeks Nancy and her knitting friends have been designing and knitting snakes. Once the kids' snakes were finished it was suggested that David should also have a snake, a "Daddy" snake.

After dinner, the gifts were brought out and distributed. The snakes were immediately adopted and the kids came up with inventive ways to use them. Charlotte's snake became a fashion accessory - necklace, belt, etc. Henning's became a club, a whip and was tied with others to make a rope

The purpose and focus of this trip was to see and be with Martina, David and family. A certain amount of sightseeing is inevitable. Our greatest sightseeing experience was the city itself. Berlin is a beautiful city full of trees and wide boulevards. We may have been overly impressed with the width of the streets because Bristol is a city of narrow streets.

The street in front of Martina and David's home is very wide with a planting of trees and shrubs at both sidewalks and down the median center. Many of the streets in the neighborhood are similarly laid out giving the feel of a forest. The diversity of the trees is notable but most are broadleaved. The main street (or one of them) is shown in the pictures bel

Saturday we had a picnic outing to Potsdam, We piled all eight of us into the family car, quite a feat, headed to the "New Palace" (German: Neues Palais). The building was built in 1763 under Frederick the Great, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Palace_(Potsdam). It is considered to be the last great Prussian baroque palace. Most of the furnishings had been looted during the Solviet occupation, but even empty it was quite impressive.

After visiting the palace, we had our picnic in the gardens. We returned to homebase for a relaxing afternoon and David prepared a delicious lasagne made with the meat from a wild boar he had hunted.

Sunday, after the family had gone to church, we headed for a local petting zoo. Martina is a little squemish about putting her hand near the mouths of animals and so it was good to have Nancy teach the children how to feed the goats and donkeys.

After the petting zoo we headed off to indulge one of Nancy's great passions. Martina remembered that Nancy loves chocolate and had to take her to the ultimate in chocolate shops, Rausch Schokolade, www.rausch-schokolade.com.

After the chocolate, we wandered around the heart of Berlin, admiring the sights, ending at the Brandenburg Gate. The building under construction to the left of the gate will be the new American Embassy. The conflict is that America wants the prestige of being next to the Gate, but with the world the way it is - they need security. The Germans don't want their historic landmark spoiled by an American fortress and so the compromises continue. It will be interesting to see what comes out of it.

Monday we woke to observe the family's weekday routine and say good-bye. They all went off to work and school and, now that we have proven our ability to find our way around strange cities (or at least Berlin), we headed for the airport and our return to Bristol.

One thought struck me as we flew home. We grew up watching movie scenes from the Second World War and are familiar with lots of the bombing raids by both the Axis and the Allies. The flight time from Berlin to Bristol in a B29 or a commercial jet is an easy one and one-half hours. The movies always make it seem like hours and hours.

The trip home to Bristol was uneventful and might I say, routine. We had a great visit with Martina and her family, exactly what we wanted to do. We look forward to seeing them in California sometime in the future.