Bella, Gabe and Josiah

A few weeks ago, Orbitz called me to tell me that AirBerlin, who was our airline from Berlin to Frankfurt, was bankrupt. They rebooked us on a Luftanza flight, and all was well. On Sunday, I got an email from them saying that I needed to call Condor, our flight from Frankfurt to Seattle, to confirm our ticket. I did and they assured me that flights were fine. Spoiler alert: they were not. Yesterday morning, the weather in Berlin was nasty. The wind was howling and it was kindof scary to lay in bed and listen to it from a very old, rickety building... We got to the Berlin airport and went to check into our flight. However, apparently we did not have a ticket. The ticket number that we had was only for Frankfurt to Seattle, but not Berlin to Frankfurt. I called Orbitz and they gave me the original ticket number, telling me that it included both flights. Luftanza said no. Meanwhile, the entire plane has now boarded. We ended up having to buy new tickets and the only seats they had availab

Our last day in Berlin was fairly uneventful. We decided that it was best to have a lowkey day before we flew home and in retrospect, that was a great plan... We started out the day at the East Wall Gallery, a section of the wall that has been left up and been covered in murals. Unfortunately, it was wet, windy and cold, so we did not spend much time wandering around. Seriously, the wind was bad. Apparently I should have packed more clothes... Our hotel was right next to a Thai Massage place and we'd walked by it all week. Since it was cold, we decided to take advantage of it... Our next stop was the Kaiser Wilhelm Church, the church that was destroyed in WWII and then rebuilt in a modern fashion. It was fascinating to walk through. They'd talked about tearing it down entirely, but I'm glad that they left it up as a memorial to everything that happened. The modern rebuilt part looks nothing like an old church: From there we got dinner and wandered a bit, before heading back

Today we went to Wittenberg. This is why we came all the way to Germany this week. 500 years ago on Tuesday (we missed it by a couple of days due to some scheduling conflicts with our babysitters), Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. This event sparked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation and changed the course of history. I happen to be married to a big reformed theology nerd. Over the summer, I hatched a plane to surprise him for his birthday with tickets to Germany, to see Wittenberg in person on the anniversary of the 95 Theses. It was pretty complicated as I had to get out of jury duty by writing a letter to a judge, I had to talk to his boss and get him out of work, plus I had to coordinate childcare and Gabe is not very big. But this was a once-in-500-years sort of event, so I had to try. Pat was shocked and completely thrilled. I'm not sure that I'll be able to top this birthday next year... Fast forward to now, and this

We needed a lazy day this morning, so that's what we did. By the time that found breakfast at a tiny French cafe it was nearly 11:30. Oops... We decided to stick our heads in the Marionkirche. It was a lovely little church and we discovered that they were having a free organ concert at 1:30. Sweet! I'd been wanting to go to some sort of music concert in one of the churches, it just hadn't worked out yet, so here was our shot! Unfortunately, this wasn't so much of a music concert as an explanation of how the organ worked. In German. We heard one song and after waiting for at least 10 minutes for her to start playing, she was still explaining things, so we ducked out. Our next stop was the Berlin Dome. It was amazing! Pictures can't do it justice. After wandering a bit, I climbed the stairs to get to the top of the Dome and got an amazing view of the city. From there, we spent some time wandering through the Tiergarten, a huge garden in the middle of the city. The sec

We went to Poland for the day. It was close and neither of us had been to Poland, so we figured that we might as well. It was a good day to leave Berlin for a bit too. It's been gray the entire time we've been here, but yesterday it was raining too. Gray, dreary and raining? It's time to get out of town for the day. We went to Sczcecin, since it was just a two hour train ride away. We met a guy on the train who thought we were crazy to pick there, since it's a port town and not particularly touristy, but when you only have a week in Europe, you don't have too many options. We assured him that we wouldn't consider it to be "the best of Poland." I actually really liked it. We got pierogies at an adorable little restaurant, then we saw the Prussian castle and some churches.  One of my favorite things to do in Europe is to wander old churches. I don't care what denomination it is. If it's old and a church, I want to see it.    Sczcecin, which was u

I forgot to say the most momentous thing that happened on Monday! I have been on subways all over the world. I have never been asked to show my ticket. I always have it, but they never ask. That changed yesterday. They did a ticket check and apparently it fell out of my pocket at some point during the day, because I could not find my ticket for anything. I ended up having to pay a 60 Euro fine. That was not fun... Yesterday we wandered Berlin by ourselves. We started out walking through the Gate to get to the Reichstag. Then we went to the Holocaust Memorial. We spent a lot of time there since both Pat and I are read-ever-word-in-the-museum sort of people. When the subject matter is really intense, it makes for a very emotionally draining experience. From there, we went to lunch at the Sony Center. We walked over to the site of Hitler's Bunker, where he killed himself at the end of the war. I thought we'd be able to see the actual bunker, but no. Apparently it was destroyed, so

The first day of jet lag is rough. We were up at 5 ready for the day, after not sleeping real well in the first place. You'd think that after not sleeping for 24 hours straight your body would just do it, but that is not how jet lag works... Once we decided that we had enough energy to function, we took a bike tour around the city. We saw the remnants of the wall, one of the original guard towers, the Reichstag, and the Brandenberg Gate, as well as all sorts of random buildings and memorials. It was a really great tour. Unfortunately, I was freezing. There was a Scottish girl on our tour that was also freezing, so at least I wasn't alone on that one... Apparently I should have packed warmer clothes because it made for a long bike trip. But other than the temperature, it was great! After the tour ended, we got some kebab for lunch and attempted to warm up. Then we went to the Spy Museum. Unfortunately, by this time, I'd used up all of my jet lag deprived energy, so I was pre

We made it to Berlin! We left at 5 Saturday morning and didn't get to Berlin until 4 Sunday afternoon, which made for a really long day of travel, but that's just the way it goes... We did have drama getting over here. On our flight from Seattle to Munich, we met the rudest person It've ever met on a flight. Seriously, I've been on a lot of flights in my life, but she was the worst. She was in the seat right behind me. I got kicked in the back and punched in the head. At one point, she stuck her foot on the armrest between Pat so far that her ankle was resting against Pat's side and we had to move our arms off the armrest. Then she put her other foot on the other armrest and her ankle was touching my other side. It was bad. It was behavior I'd expect from a little kid, not a little old lady. We got to Munich with one hour until out next flight...only to discover that our flight had been cancelled. That meant that they wanted us to go through customs to go get re