Why I Love Berlin – Part 2

Today, for the first time since last October, we have had beautiful t-shirt weather here in Berlin. Luckily, hubby had a relatively short work day (he was back home by 2:30 pm) and we went out and took advantage of the opportunity to enjoy another aspect that I love so much about Berlin – namely, how green it is.

Berlin is the largest and most densely populated metropolis in Germany, although you would not think it at first glance. Unlike the concrete jungles familiar to North Americans, Berlin is an urban woodland blessed with an abundance of parks and forests, as well as having most residential and major streets lined with trees. I do not need to venture far from my front door to enjoy mother nature – and I live right in the city centre!

I will never understand the North American obsession with replacing trees in the city with concrete. It is quite sad, actually.

Inside the Sony Centre at Potsdamer Platz - a square built upon a former dead-man's-land. A perfect example of the German habit of incorporating nature as much as possible in new urban developments.

Unter den Linden - "under the linden trees" in English - is a grand boulevard in the city's core.

Inside Kranzler Eck, another example of the incorporation of nature in modern urban development. In the centre-left of the photo is a birdcage filled with exotic, colourful species.

Laughs of the week

The only late-night shows I (loosely) follow are The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. After seeing these two clips, however, I might just add Jimmy Kimmel Live to the list. The first clip is Portia De Rossi's Prop 8 PSA, and the second clip, well, made me laugh until I cried and my stomach hurt. Enjoy!

Why I Love Berlin - Part 1

The past few days have had their toll on me. Gastroenteritis paid our home a visit just as hubby’s two week break ended. Our laundry loads doubled and we lived off of electrolyte solutions and crackers as the kids and I quarantined ourselves from the outside world and waited for our guest to leave.

Today, with the smell of fresh laundry and orange-poppyseed cake wafting through our home and the satisfaction that there were no remaining traces of the stomach bug having visited us, I took the kids to Tiergarten for an afternoon stroll. (Tiergarten is to Berlin what Central Park is to New York City.) It was our first time outside for half a week and the kids were thrilled. So was I.

I mentioned earlier that my love of Berlin warranted a blog post of its own. I was wrong.

There is so much that I adore that a single blog post would be misrepresentative. Funnily enough, however, I can categorise most of what I love about Berlin in one word: choice. This post is centered on the choices I had today, literally, just outside my doorstep – public transport.

Berlin has an intricately dense web of buses, streetcars, U-Bahn lines (subways) and S-Bahn lines (light rail). I can get almost anywhere in the city within an hour, the few exceptions being the most desolate and obscure corners of Berlin that I would visit once a year, if at all. Just outside my doorstep, I have the choice between an U-Bahn line and two bus lines (four if you count the overnight routes). Within a two-minute walk from my doorstep I have an additional U-Bahn line and four more bus lines at my disposal. Within a fifteen-minute walk from my doorstep I have access to yet another subway line, at least five more bus lines, three S-Bahn lines and a number of Regional Express lines which take me outside of the city for a tiny surcharge.

Many people are hesitant to depend on public transport for their daily commute. I can confidently say, from six years experience, that the BVG (Berliner Verkehrs-AG, responsible for buses, streetcars, and the U-Bahn) and DB (Deutsche Bahn, responsible for the S-Bahn) are extremely reliable. An advantage to having two different companies running the different methods of transport is that the city rarely has a complete shutdown. When busses, streetcars and the U-Bahn ceased to operate due to striking workers last spring, the S-Bahn, run by DB, continued to operate and even increased their service to pick up the slack.

I have no need for a car. The opportunity cost is much too high to justify my owning one. Between the monthly car loan payment, gas, and insurance, my wallet would be around 550 EUR lighter every month – more than FIVE TIMES what hubby and I spend monthly on public transportation.

As odd as it may sound, I find travelling in the city with my kids on public transport easier than in the car. I never have to struggle getting impatient kids/babies buckled in or repeatedly fold and unfold my stroller. Hubby and I can freely interact with our children without having to concentrate on the traffic. Our oldest son is completely infatuated with anything train-like, so rides on the U-Bahn, S-Bahn, and streetcar are always a welcome novelty to him.

I have said it before and I will say it again – if you live in this city, own a car, and use said car daily, you are either lazy or crazy, or both. Berlin is a city in which you can live car-free. Sadly, I cannot say the same about the city of Mississauga, where I grew up.

Say what?

Take a quick glance through FP's latest list, The World's Most Unexpected Crime Waves, and you run across the usual culprits: white-collar fraudsters, marginalised youths, disenchanted elderly, drug gangs...

Hold on a second there - did you just read senior citizens along with drug gangs in a list of crime waves? Yes you did. One in seven crimes in Japan has been committed by the over-60 crowd last year, the most common offenses being pickpocketing and robbery (a man robbed a grocery store in Nagoya and escaped with the aid of his walking cane). There has been a significant increase in assaults commited by the elderly as well. The problem is so bad that the government is spending 8.3 billion yen to build special senior wards - complete with walkers and support rails.

As FP rightly said, it is difficult not to laugh at the visual of a man, who can barely walk, threatening a cashier with a knife. Amusement aside, however, this is a serious problem. The reason that so many seniors are turning to crime is because their world has been ruined by a combination of Japan's "stagnant economy and the breakdown of the traditional family structure" (emphasis added by me). In other words, besides their country's economic woes, many seniors enter a life of crime to make ends meet because they do not have enough younger family members to support them.

Oh, how I hope and pray that the pro-lifers do not get the idea to use this to support their opinions. I would not put it past them. Remember the Krispy Kreme Abortion Doughnuts and Elisabeth Hasselbeck using Ashley Judd's PSA against aerial wolf hunting as a segue to pro-life ramble (you can watch that craziness below)?

The View: Elisabeth Hasselbeck On Wolf Killings
by TheDlisted

Mariecel's silence, explained.

Of the blogs that I follow, many have had recent posts either of an apologetic nature, or simply to ascertain that the blog is not completely abandoned. This is one of those posts.

I was going to name this post “I’m back” but decided against it because, in truth, I never really left. I have not gone on vacation, or have had a prolonged absence from home that would have made it impossible for me to sit in front of the computer and type. So what has come between my blog and me?

As I already mentioned here, I have been reading books again. A lot. Which is, in itself, not helpful because a) the only time I have to read is after I put the kids to bed, b) I usually have a very hard time putting a book down until I have finished the chapter/book, and c) I have become a very slow reader. For the past couple of months I have been living off an average of 3-4 hours sleep each night.

To fight off the yawns, I spend as much of my time with the kids as I can outdoors. Nothing wakes you up more than a nice breath of cold, fresh air, which leads me to one of the reasons I love the city of Berlin so much: There is always something to do here, with or without kids. The city enjoys not only an abundance of beautiful parks and forests but also of museums, theatres, and other culturally stimulating venues for when it becomes too unpleasant to stay outdoors. But I digress. My love of Berlin warrants a post of its own.

What keeps me from posting is not a lack of something to say but a frustration with, and sadness because of, the likes of Jonathan Krohn, the Vatican, and the current recession, to name a select few. By the time I finish reading the news I am so worked up that any post I start to compose in my head just ends up an almost incoherent rant of all the things going wrong in the world today, which results in a frustration at my frustration at whatever set me off that day and, ultimately, the discarding of my post. Wow – it is frustrating even just reading that sentence!

Luckily the plethora of updates on the horrid shooting in Winnenden was interrupted by a short report on CNN about the “feud” between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer/NBC. I am grateful to have seen this report, as it granted me access to a good dose of humour to counter the sadness I feel for those affected by the shooting. People such as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have a wonderful way of bringing controversial points of view to light, and encouraging the discussion thereof. In case you have not seen it, here is the segment that ignited the quarrel (Stewart's latest clip is embedded in the article linked to above):

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

All in all I wish to let you, my reader, know that I have learnt my lesson – namely, to search out humour when my mind is abuzz with frustration – and that I am still here. I hope to see you here again soon =)

The Magical Meme

I have not written on this blog for a while, and it was not for a lack of things to write about. Perhaps it is the normal winter slump, the nasty cold that I have, or my Fernweh that is keeping me away from the keyboard.

There is something special about this facebook meme that is getting people to reveal random facts about themselves; even people who normally do not take part in this tagging game. It is that special something that finally got me out of my slump. I won't bother tagging anyone, as most of you have done this already! (Don't let that stop you if you have not done this yet, though!) Here goes:

1. I love cooking with offals. Unfortunately, what offal I cook and when I cook it depends on hubby. He enjoys liver and oxtail, so I can cook those whenever I wish to. I save recipes with tripe (“Eck! Even my mother’s dog refused to eat that!”), and my favourite, chicken heart and gizzard adobo, for when he is away or when I am especially annoyed with him.
2. Since high school, I have justified impulse purchases of sale items by means of the number of chocolate bars I could have purchased with the money I saved. (“Look! I bought this shirt for 20 bucks less than the original price – that’s 40 chocolate bars at the dollar store!”) The only time I do not feel the need to do this is when I purchase books. Books are always worth the expenditure.
3. When I start humming loudly for no obvious reason, it is often a sign that I just relived an embarrassing memory. Hubby knows this and exploits it to no end, and I love him for it =)
4. I do not own a driver’s license, and plan to get one only when it is absolutely necessary.
5. Scotland Yard is my favourite board game, followed closely by chess (even though I am horrible at it).
6. The only movie I have seen where the dubbed German is better than the original English is “Ice Age”. Otto Waalkes outshone John Leguizamo as the voice of Sid.
7. I can roll my Rs using the front end of my tongue, but not the back end. Hubby tried to teach me numerous times but I usually just end up coughing.
8. I am a city-gal through and through. The only way I will voluntarily move back to suburbia is if it is extremely well connected to the city. My own car would not hurt either.
9. I do not have a middle name. I kind of wish I did. In Germany, middle names do not exist – they are counted as another first name that you are free to use when you like.
10. I love the cut-and-paste nature of the German vocabulary.
11. I think Tyler Connolly has a sinfully sexy singing voice.
12. I think Colin Firth is sinfully sexy. Period.
13. I am the black sheep on my side of the family. On hubby’s side I am the foreigner, which always makes for interesting get-togethers =)
14. My favourite beer is Erdinger’s non-alcoholic Weißbier. Very yummy and safe for pregnant and breastfeeding women to drink. It gives you a nice boost of vitamin B and folic acid.
15. During my last pregnancy, all I wanted to watch were violent and gory movies. Dramas and rom-coms bored me.
16. I do not understand how someone can be politically apathetic, even though I used to be exactly that.
17. I received a pot of orchids (my favourite flower and VERY difficult to maintain) for my birthday two years ago. It seems to have awakened the plant-whisperer in me as it is still alive and blooming. I am proud.
18. When I can, I purchase from the bakery and butcher downstairs. I love that community-feeling you get, the kind you can’t get from the large, generic grocery stores.
19. I never knew that homosexuality was taboo until I was about nine years old and my mother shushed me for mentioning that my aunt is lesbian.
20. I don’t care if my children end up being homosexual, as long as they give me grandchildren!
21. Sometimes I wake up with a very deep voice, especially when I am sick. I like to scare hubby with it, and make him think that he just spent the night with another man.
22. My favourite household chores are the ones I was never forced to do when I was a child – scrubbing the washroom clean and the laundry. I tend to drag my feet when cleaning bedrooms.
23. My singing ability makes William Hung’s voice sound like that of Luciano Pavarotti.
24. I like to sing. A LOT. I feel sorry for my family.
25. I have a Filipino accent that creeps in when I talk with my mother, or when I am flustered. Hubby finds it charming. It embarrasses me.

Joe the Delusional

Every now and then someone comes along that makes you slap your forehead in complete and utter disbelief. Joe the Plumber is one of those people. This man, after exposing himself as a liar and a tax cheat, has the gall to say “I don’t know if the American public deserves me”. If anyone is suffering from a delusion of grandeur, he is. That is all.

My Rediscovered "Vice" - Books

With the exception of the daily news, I have not watched television since Christmas. My DVD collection has remained undisturbed. I have neglected my blogs, the number of undeleted junkmail in my inbox grew, and my memory card is full of photos that have yet to be transferred to the computer, let alone edited. I have reverted from baking time-consuming, complex cakes and pies to quick and easy muffins and cookies. At fault is my passion for reading, which rekindled once my youngest learnt to sleep the whole night through.

I have always been a bookworm. Whilst other children snuck money from their parents to buy candy and toys at the local convenience store, I snuck money away from my lola (grandmother) to buy books from the book fair. Receiving my first library card at six years of age felt much more liberating than getting my driver’s permit at 18. Even after my mother profusely blamed my sudden need for eyeglasses when I was eleven with my nightly routine of reading for hours with the assistance of a measly 25 watt bedside lamp, I never stopped flipping those pages and devouring the words. Never mind shoes and handbags – the bookstore is the most dangerous threat to my wallet.
NB - This also happens to be a trait shared by hubby and his mother, who alone has over 3000 books and, whilst house-hunting, had to have specialists assess if the structure of the prospective new home was strong enough to support the weight. Throwing away/selling our books is unheard of in our family. In my opinion, owning a book possesses a certain seductive quality that owning, say, a Kate Spade handbag does not.

Oftentimes I found myself with a growing pile of unread books that I picked up on the sale tables of Dussmann and Hugendubel (or Chapters and Indigo if I happened to be in Canada), which resulted in a recurring New Year’s resolution to read them all before buying more. 2008 was the first year that I followed this through, which probably explains the number of books I received from hubby and his mom last Christmas.

Within the next month I had already devoured all four of them, plus one of the books that hubby received from his mom. (It may not seem like that many, but I read much more slowly in German.) On the next available opportunity hubby I packed up the kids and went on my first visit to Dussmann in months, where we made a lovely discovery – a riveting, growing book series that covers very nearly everything from Anarchism to The Meaning of Life to Wittgenstein: Very Short Introductions from Oxford University Press. I fear that I will find it impossible to restrain my purchases until I own the complete series!

Another recent discovery of mine is shelfari.com, a website that combines the social networking of facebook with the concept of the book/reading club. My initial attraction to the website occurred during my search for a library-like widget for this blog. A nice spillover effect from joining this site is that it enables me to be genuinely surprised on my birthday again. By compiling and maintaining an online wishlist, I need never be pestered about my birthday/Easter/Christmas wishes again (I hate dictating to people what I want to receive, which is especially tiresome in a family that refuses to give gift certificates on principle).

CUPE Local 3903 vs. York U and McGuinty

It is no secret that strike action is France’s national sport of choice. It seems that this sport is gaining in popularity. One particular strike that has especially caught my attention is the York University strike in Toronto.

Hubby and I have been following the York University strike since we have first heard of it from our dear friend Melissa. It sparked many memories for hubby, as he lived through an almost identical strike during his last year at York.

I normally try to stay neutral. Hubby is usually found leaning toward the opposing side of unions’ negotiators. Hubby’s recollections in regards to York’s labour relations have made me lean starkly toward CUPE. The recent actions of York, McGuinty, and the police have cemented my position.

Retrospectively, York’s conduct in this conflict has been strategic at its best, and appears as bad faith negotiations at its worst. Their presence at meetings appears to be nothing more than a guise of a supposed intent to negotiate, whilst they waited for McGuinty to step in. It seems they never wanted to collectively move forward, disregarding the cost to enrolled students and academic employees. (Historically, York was always more pugnacious than its GTA competition. With the ascent of Lorna Marsden to the office of the University Presidency, however, these inherent tendencies developed a new quality.)

McGuinty’s conduct has been counter-productive and seems to be driven by blatant populism instead of good policy sense. In my opinion, by introducing the back-to-work legislation he more than merely pushed on boundaries. He has obliterated them with implications that have set worrisome precedence.

BTW-legislation brands a workforce as an essential. However, it appears that what constitutes an essential service is virtually un-scrutinized by the public. As it stands, any striking workforce can suddenly become an ‘essential’ service if they annoy a large enough number of people.

Unlike elementary- and high school, attendance at a university is not required by law. The university has a set of paying customers (the student body) who can freely decide to take their business elsewhere if they find the labour relations eradicate the opportunity cost of not attending an alternate choice. Despite its grave impact on the quality of education (less bang for buck), I see no reason for the government take legislative action in this conflict.

The police’s conduct as ‘keeper of the peace’ during a recent street demonstration of striking CUPE members has been mind boggling. (Not to be misunderstood, I am in favour of the use of tasers and similar non-lethal tools when a situation dangerously spirals out of control.) I believe the police, in their handling of the striking individuals, did not maintain impartiality and acted on public displays of pre-supposed, private opinions. I can easily imagine that there were some disorganized attempts to antagonize traffic flow for the purpose to making a bigger impact but that does not justify open threats to use tasers and excessive police force against people exercising a constitutional right. I doubt that anyone in that crowd fit the profile of a potential violent trouble maker and that the described police action was warranted.

In short; the “negotiators” at York have been stubborn, antagonizing, stonewalling arses. The police have been bullies and thugs. McGuinty and his back-to-work legislation have blown the ideal of collective bargaining back to the stone age. My sympathies go out to the TAs, GAs and contracted faculty at York University. All this seems extraordinarily un-Canadian.

The Right to Privacy and the Right to Smoke

I feel as if I am in a bit of a moral pickle. Or, to be more precise, lawmakers in Ontario (and Nova Scotia) should feel as if they are walking a fine line. In these two provinces, it is illegal to smoke in your car whilst carrying passengers 16 years of age and under.

Please do not misunderstand me. I am a non-smoker, vigilant in my efforts to minimise the amount of smoke that my children are exposed to. I have gotten into shouting matches with people who have the audacity to blow smoke into my children’s faces in designated non-smoking areas. The few members of my family who still smoke know better than to do so whilst in the company of my children.

Where I feel uncertain is in this new law’s über-intrusive nature. In essence, this law prohibits you from partaking in what is otherwise considered an acceptable act whilst in the confines of your personal, privately-owned space.

Now that this law has passed, why not take it a step further? Why not fine the pregnant woman who failed, or even worse, refuses to quit smoking? Why not ban smoking in the company of children altogether? It does not matter whether you are in a small space, such as a car, where the concentration of cigarette smoke is higher, or your living room, where such concentrations are not as strong. Either way, you are exposing your child to toxins.

Furthermore, what of the people who smoke regularly at home, in the presence of their (grand-) children? They are doing much more harm to the children than the cigarette-smoking taxi drivers who are likely to never see the children again.

My question, however, is how much privacy can be surrendered in the interest of a greater good. Where does it stop? And who is making sure that it stops?

Obama turned me into an emotional chameleon

When Wolf Blitzer announced over the beautiful performance of Air and Simple Gifts that it was already past noon and Barack Obama officially became the 44th President of the United States, I sighed. It was a sigh of relief, hope, and happiness. Being the sap that I am, I also shed a couple of tears.

When President Obama stumbled on the oath, I laughed. I have no doubt that there are those ridiculing him on it, but I took it as an unintended gentle reminder that he is human, just like the rest of us. I found it quite endearing.

As President Obama gave his inaugural address, I was entranced. It was very well written and equally well delivered. I only spoke once during the speech. After Obama said "...we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist", I breathed the word wow. I think that is my favourite phrase from the speech. It is so picturesque.

At the end, I gave into the tide of emotion and cried. In the time frame of about half an hour, my children curiously watched their mother sigh, gently cry, laugh, watch the television zombie-like, returned to life to breathe a single word, turn back into a zombie and, finally, cry once again. They must think I am crazy!

How about you? How did you feel during the swearing-in and the address? Did it turn you into an emotional chameleon?

A bittersweet day...

...Not because Bush is leaving office, though. That's the sweet part of the day. The only thing bringing my mood down today is the burial of my mother-in-law's dog, Bijou. Even though she was not our dog, we all still loved her as a part of our family. As much as this hurts us, today is not the day to blog on the loss.

Like much of the rest of the world, my home is filled with the voices of reporters covering Obama's inauguration: depending on where I am, CNN on television, and NPR on the radio. My poor toddlers are confused as to why they are denied their daily time playing on Kids' CBC (confused, but not upset - they happily went to their rooms to play with their legos). I am as excited today as I was when Angela Merkel was sworn in as the first female German Chancellor. Now, if you would kindly excuse me, I have got to get the rest of my chores and errands accomplished in time to witness history in the making!

English-English: Hash, Gash, and Stone

As every Bridget Jones fan (such as me) would attest, North American-English differs quite a bit from English-English. You know; washroom vs. loo, trunk vs. boot, and so on. Knowing this, I was still mollified by the sheer diversity when I moved to Germany, where the English of choice is of the British variety.

I received my awakening shortly after the move, when I needed to leave a message on hubby’s cell/mobile phone. I got the usual spiel: “You have just reached the O2 voice mailbox of (…) After the tone, record your message. To end, press hash, or hang up.”

What hubby would later hear is my short message, followed by some cursing whilst I pressed several random buttons. The problem was that I did not know what the hash key was. Was I supposed to look for a button on the telephone with a hemp plant on it? Or perhaps a button with a hash brown on it? Turns out that what I knew as the pound key is called the hash key by the Brits. Am I the only person in world that calls it the number sign key?
NB – I realise that the pound key would have been the logical choice. My mind, however, was at the time fried from the information overload familiar to amateur expats everywhere.

My next lesson on English-English came from hubby, who told me you do not call garbage garbage in the UK. You call it gash. Is that not a large, bleeding, cut wound? Not in the UK!

Then there is the measurement of weight in stone. Do bathroom scales in the UK tell weight loss in brimstone or granite? I was always tickled by this. We are living in the digital age, yet the Brits give the impression that they still hang out with Fred Flintstone. In fact, I purposely did not learn how that system works, so as to not lose the image of Wilma standing on a digital scale...
Fred: Honey you look great!
Wilma: Thanks, but I didn’t lose 4 stone like I hoped… I only lost 2 stone and 2 pebbles…

My Family

Whilst browsing my cousin's baby blog, I ran into this cute family sticker widget. Allow me to introduce the stick people version of my family to you =)

Puppy Love

In Langenhagen, Mika and Anna-Lena are in love. Following the overwhelming emotion pouring out of their hearts, they decided to elope. What better way to celebrate your love is there than to get away from the record low temps in Germany and tie the knot in Africa? Along with Anna-Lena’s sister (the planned witness to their wedding) they packed their bags for time under the sun and started to make their way to the airport.

Oh, and the betrothed are five and six years old. The witness is seven years old.

Aw. If this is not puppy love, I do not know what is.

As always, there are those grumpy sourpusses who claim that the parents of these children are irresponsible. After all, how could they let their children get out so easily during the night?

I think those sourpusses have not been loved enough. In this instance, I think it is safe to say that the children live in a very loving household; unlike this four year old that shot his babysitter for stepping on his foot. Children often reflect their parents’ attitudes and habits. Having said that, hubby and I should probably spend more time explaining that we hug and kiss a lot because we love each other, and that we do not do that with random strangers. Here is my little Romeo in action:


I cannot speak for those sourpusses, however I would much rather have my children piece together a somewhat cohesive plan to elope than violently attack their babysitter.

Happy New Year!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

I hope you all forgive me for my extreme tardiness. As you may gather from my previous post, our then-current circumstance promised a chaotic Christmas. And chaotic it was.

It all started on the 23rd. Shortly before lunch, hubby’s cell phone rang. He was needed in the UK and had only an hour and a half to make it to the airport. It was not certain if he would be able to fly home in time for Christmas.


I have prepared for birthdays and Christmases without hubby before. I thought I could handle it. I did not expect that our littlest one would slow me down so much. By mid-afternoon, I had no other choice. With a heavy heart, I called my mother-in-law for help. After a little bit of phone-tag, it was decided that we would celebrate Christmas at hubby’s aunt’s home. All I had to do was show up with our Santa Claus costume. That evening, I snuggled on our couch with a bag of pfeffernüsse and a steaming pot of Christmas tea and watched Love Actually. It was my calmest December 23rd in years.

On the morning of the 24th, I still had not found our Santa outfit. (Our attic remains an enigma to me. I may have packed the boxes, but hubby is the one who arranges the attic. I do not consider myself claustrophobic, but I cannot stand the small, dark, damp and dusty space.)

Around lunchtime, things started to look up. Hubby called to say that he was already waiting on the airplane. His flight would be 80 minutes delayed, but he would make it in time for Christmas and that was what mattered. Hubby’s aunt solved my Santa dilemma – she had an oversized red bathrobe. I just needed to stop by the drugstore to buy some cotton wool for Santa’s beard.

Then arose the battle of the sisters. About 30 minutes after my conversation with hubby’s aunt, my mother-in-law called saying that she was also just called by her sister and their conversation developed into a shouting match. Hence, she was now asking me to cancel Christmas Eve at her sister’s and hosting them myself. This was followed by a lot of he-said-she-said (or, rather, she-said-she-said). Eventually, all communication was done through me, as the sisters no longer wanted to speak with each other.

What Santa left outside our front door.

End result? I hosted Christmas Eve anyway. Hubby made it home on time. My mother-in-law contributed to dinner, as I had done no preparations. Santa did not make his traditional personal appearance, but rather knocked on the door and left the big sack of presents outside our front door. Our four- and five-year-old kids were confused by Santa’s quick getaway, but were satisfied with the explanation that Santa was especially busy this year and couldn’t stop by for long.

Dinner at my mother-in-law's on First Christmas Day.

Because my mother-in-law came, hubby’s aunt refused to come. She also skipped on First Christmas Day hosted by my mother-in-law who, in turn, skipped on Second Christmas Day at hubby’s aunt’s home. Oy vey.

Dinner at hubby's aunt's home on Second Christmas Day.

Thank goodness that our visits with my father-in-law’s side of the family on the 27th and 28th went smoothly. Spending time with our adorable niece makes me miss having a large family, and wish that she did not live so far from us.

Another victim to hubby’s sudden departure on the 23rd was our night at the opera on the 27th. We cancelled because we were not sure if he would make it back on time. Instead of The Magic Flute, at the end of this month we are going to see The Bat (I realise that it is not an opera but an operetta, but I’ll still count it as my first opera.) Hubby has warned me that it is a modern interpretation which he generally does not find enjoyable (apparently modern interpretations do not have the same general appeal that classical staging does), but for a night away from our army of children, we are open to anything.

We spent New Year’s Eve at our friends’ house, who themselves have a son who is four years old and a daughter who is two. It was an evening of firsts for me. This was the first time we truly celebrated New Year’s Eve in four years. They live outside of the city, so it was also the first (somewhat-) quiet New Year’s Eve in four years. I had my first raclette dinner ever, which I learnt is a popular New Year’s Eve dinner choice in Germany.

My first raclette dinner - yum!

The next morning I woke up to a blanket of snow! It was very thin, but a blanket nonetheless. The kids kept fighting over the shovel and broom.


What a wonderful start to the new year. I cannot wait to see what 2009 brings. My kids are already begging for our traditional January trip to the aquarium with Oma.

Now that I am all caught up, how about you? How were your holidays?