Save water, bath with a friend

I love our bath. It is a real saviour and time eater during holiday times. It's the place where Orla & Hamish can actually get on and not argue for 10 minutes allowing me to wash the dishes or unpack a few boxes without having to involve me in everything they do.

Orla and Hamish have had lovely long, decadent daytime baths all this week. When all else has failed, when all the craft projects have been done, when I can take no more of the bickering and whining about who's not being nice to whom, "How about a nice, deep bath?" restores calm.

Grumpy children become the best of friends again once they both have bubbly beards. And I have just about unpacked all the boxes and watched a fair amount of catch-up on iPlayer while they've been in there. Bonus!

So while I barely ever have a bath, much preferring showers, I have realised in this past week I am a total bath convert. There are some things about this house which I totally love. Maybe I am coming round to life in Blighty.... slowly.

This is not Amsterdam.

I'm not sure where we've been over the past week or so, but it's not been Amsterdam. Or Copenhagen. Or Vienna.

We've been talking about taking a weekend trip for a few weekends now. I really, really want to go to Copenhagen. On Google maps it looks so close, and yet it's still so far. If we were child-free it wouldn't be an issue: a 6 hour drive wouldn't be a problem, heck, if we didn't have kids we'd probably fly. But with kids, we always have to weigh up is it worth it for all that moaning and having to listen to "Are we nearly there now?" 400,000 times.

So Copenhagen is out for the moment. Vienna is much the same distance. Then the past couple of weekends we thought "Yeah, let's go to Amsterdam!", it's closer. Except, Stevie's been before and doesn't really feel *fussed* about going again, but as I wanted to go, then fine, we'd go.

Except we didn't. This happened the weekend before last, though admittedly he was shattered after a week working away, and then this weekend we were absolutely, totally going to go but at the last minute Stevie decided it wasn't really a great place to take the kids.

So we went north. To Warnemünde, on the coast. We've been there before, two years ago, and this time the weather was perfect. We  spent the day on the beach, had some lovely fish for dinner in one of the restaurants looking over the harbour, and planned on staying over and booking into a hotel, until Hamish got diarrhoea, and said he just wanted to go home. Thank god it wasn't a 6 hour drive.

The American School Bus

Everything I love about Berlin can be summed up with a place like this.

We walked past here at the weekend on our way to the Natural History Museum. It's just on the corner of Torstrasse & Friedrichstrasse. Right in the middle of the city on a busy corner, an empty lot fenced off from the busy Thursday afternoon traffic. To me this typifies Berlin. They've filled it with sand, planted some sunflowers, put in some some nice garden furniture, and finished it off with an American school bus selling hotdogs and frozen yoghurt with a million toppings. Add in some good friends, and you have another great Berlin afternoon.

A tail of two cities

O & H in front of Friedrichsfelde Palace with the very docile pelicans(?)  

 Berlin, having at one time been split in two by a great big wall, had a great number of duplicates once the wall came down. A lot of systems and services were combined into one, but many other things well, just remained as they were. And as such Berlin must be one of the only places to have two zoos. Actually, I can't find any others through Google. Given the proximity of Zoo Berlin at Zoologischer Garten to where we live, that's the one we tend to visit. We have heard lots of good things about the other zoo, the zoo in the east at Friedrichsfelde, but have just never bothered to go there. Until yesterday, that is. It is known as Tierpark Berlin, not to be confused with Tiergarten which is the big park near us which contains no animals at all, apart from little wild ones.

Flamingos

So what's the Tierpark got that *our* Zoo doesn't? Well, for starters it's got a lot of land. Most people who I've met who've mentioned it have said that they like the fact that there's more room for the animals to roam. And it's true. In a lot of cases the enclosures are big; the rhinos for example have probably about 8 times the amount of space than their friends in the west. But I also thought that a lot of the enclosures were incredibly small, far smaller than what I was used to seeing. The porcupines (below) seemed to have a very small enclosure though they had an entrance to a little cave and I have no idea how big that might have been inside. The inside area of the big cats enclosure also had some really small post-war tiled enclosures - ones that I think I would have been unhappy seeing animals being kept in. On the upside, the place was swarming with builders so maybe they're going to do something about that. 

Porcupines

They also seem to have a LOT of animals. Far more giraffes, rhinos, tigers, and elephants than Berlin Zoo. In fact, the Tierpark is quite well known for it's elephant breeding program, and they have both African and Indian elephants. They also have a lot of different animals to the other zoo. I read before we went that they have red pandas, which I really wanted to see, but which we missed. Another thing they do have is a train. Well one of those ones on wheels that is driven around the park by a slightly sullen driver/narrator. We were *lucky* enough to walk through the front gate and meet it just before it was due to set off. It was actually a very good way to get a quick tour of the place, get your bearings, and work out what you wanted to go back and see in more detail. Unfortunately, what the kids wanted to see was the Spielplatz (below), and as a result wanted off the train after 5 minutes, which I point-blank refused to do, making them stay on it for the entire round trip as punishment for making me fork out for it in the first place. 

Spielplatz

The Spielplatz is very good, but not a patch on the one in Berlin Zoo (I feel awkward calling it Zoo Berlin). It has the added bonus of a water-play area, which in most instances is great, but I didn't have a change of clothes with me for the kids and it wasn't warm enough for their clothes to dry off on their own.

Tigers with east German accents

What the Tiergarten lacks is some pretty architecture. I love the architecture in Berlin Zoo, especially the amazing enclosures for the giraffes and the zebras. The architecture in the Tierpark is just a little bit too 'concrete block' for my liking, well, that is apart from the rather beautiful pink Friedrichsfelde Palace which sits in the grounds of the zoo in amongst some lovely gardens and ponds and a little canal with pretty locks. In fact they have made a lot of the walkways between enclosures with pretty planting and big patches of lilies and so on, but another thing I wasn't too keen on was the huge amount of stinging nettles there were everywhere. A bit odd considering the number of kids rocketing around.

East German zebras are slightly browner than West German ones. They also go to school in portacabins.

Sadly, we never made it round all the animals as Hamish started getting too tired to walk everywhere, but it does seem like a great zoo. At least if we go back we know we still have a lot to see on a second visit. But I have to admit, my heart still belongs to our own zoo, Berlin Zoo, or 'Zoo Berlin' as it likes to be known.

The monochrome delights of Plattenbau architecture, rocks, and elephants. Where's Elmer when you need him?

P.S. If you have a Jahreskarte (Annual Pass) for either zoo or the aquarium you get a 50% discount on entry to any of the other two. Just remember to take it with you!

Links:

1000 steps round... Berlin Zoo - lots of photos of the lovely architecture.

Zoo Berlin - official site of Zoo Berlin/Berlin Zoo

Tierpark Berlin - official site of Tierpark Berlin

Friedrichsfelde Palace - Visit Berlin gives the low-down on what's inside.

The Chocolate Afternoon

How did I manage to leave Fassbender & Rausch without entering a sugar-enduced coma?

This afternoon I took the kids on a small chocolate tour of Berlin. Very small. We only covered the Gendarmenmarkt area of Berlin, the bit where you have the Französische Dom and Deutsches Dom - it's just behind Friedrichstrasse. I have been waiting to take the pair of them to the Ritter Sport shop for ages, but I keep forgetting to do it. In fact if I am honest, I've been hoping that we could stay in Berlin for another 3 years purely based on the Ritter Sport place off Friedrichstrasse. And the reason is because you have to be a minimum of 7 years old to have a shot of wearing a little Ritter Sport white lab coat and getting to go down to the basement to design your own chocolate. Alternatively, I'd be happy if any of you could find a machine that would take 30 years off my age and to hell with the kids; I'll take a day off school and go myself. 

The Ritter Sport shop, buzzing with like minded souls.

So, anyway, this was our first time there and it's a chocolate lovers dream. Seriously. You walk in and there's a huge queue of people waiting at a counter to request a member of Ritter Sport staff to pour melted chocolate into a mould for them and then sprinkle 1 of about 40 toppings on it. It then gets stuck in a fridge for a bit and then popped out of the mould, packaged and sold to you. Yum.

Behind this area is the shop where you can buy a huge range of Ritter Sport chocolate. They have teeny ones, normal sized packs, and huge carrier bags of the stuff. Actually I was very tempted to buy a carrier bag of it - it was only 13 Euros something, which seemed like a total bargain. But I restrained myself, cause I know I would have wanted to eat it all in one night.

No chocolate is too big for us.

Instead I let the kids choose a block each from a massive wall of chocolate. Each bar is only around 85 cents, so that seemed pretty good value to me, and we bought a special '100 years of Ritter Sport' bar for my dad. My mum will be delighted, seeing as he's a diabetic too. Upstairs you can learn all about the process  of making chocolate and visit the cafe. It's a lovely place and I would have been very tempted to stay and try out some of their cakes, but I reckon their cafe is actually dearer than the one on the other stop on our chocolate tour. Because just at the corner of Charlottenstrasse you'll find Fassbender & Rausch.

Fassbender & Rausch in Gendarmenmarkt.

If you want to make your chocolate-loving heart skip a beat, then this is the place to come. It's gorgeous. It's all lovely and dark and chocolatey inside with a distinctly old-fashioned feel - the way a chocolate shop should feel. Darkened glass cabinets with row apon row of stacked chocolate in all the colours of the chocolate rainbow. Turn a corner and there are more dark cabinets filled with just enough gorgeously presented little desserts to make you instantly justify their price as something you deserve. I wish I had visited this place sooner. It's just lovely. And it's the perfect place to send all your touristy friends. Not only can they immerse themselves in the enveloping chocolatey smell that draws you in at the door, but they'll also have the added bonus of seeing all the sights made out of chocolate while they are there, including the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, the Gedachtniskirche, and um... the Titanic. Who cares, there's the possibility that they might bring you back something. It's got to be worth it!

It's so unfair to keep it behind glass.

The staff all speak German and English which makes it even easier to buy chocolate. I decided to ask about the chocolate factory they have in Tempelhof, to see if it was worth going to with the kids. Apparently it is essentially a factory shop (which sounds like it might have good discounts), which has a big window where you can look into the workshop. They said that you can see 'more' in the actual shop, and I guess it probably would be better for kids in the shop. Anyway, I got rewarded for carrying out my conversation in German with a little 'under the counter' piece of chocolate, and the kids each got a bit too. So there's my top tip: take some kids, and ask each member of staff a question in German, and see if you can score some free squares of chocolate off of them.

Bread-making for beginners

What do you do in Berlin with two kids when it's pouring down with rain? Well, as much as you might enjoy lying in bed listening to the rain absolutely pounding off the pavement below, some people will still be begging to be taken to an outdoor pool. Time to suggest something different. Bread-making! Dead easy. 

Bread-making for beginners:

1. Clear your kitchen of all things you hold dear. Except children. (Though for better results, perhaps tell them to get lost too.)

2. Prepare yourself mentally by getting all the bowls, spoons, mixers, jugs, water, etc, etc, ready in advance. This will save you from having a minor meltdown later when you turn to get something, and turn back seconds later to discover half the bread mix on your ceiling.

3. Assign tasks to each child to avoid needless bickering/crying. One can pour the mix into the bowl, one can pour the water. 

4. Give each child a shot of the mixer until you realise that it is struggling due to the fact that it's around 40 years old, and not one of these new-fangled (much desired) food mixers/processors with a bread mixing hook. Give up, and tell them to get stuck in with their hands. 

5. As you watch them delve in, you may find yourself wondering if they did in fact wash their hands beforehand, or whether they just did that thing where they trick you by turning on the bathroom tap for a minute. Banish these thoughts from your mind: in a moment you're going to go right off the idea of ever eating this bread anyway as they scrape bits of mix off numerous surfaces around the kitchen and add it back into the bowl.

6. Once the mixing process is complete, attempt to scrape 75% of the mix off of your children. Become so covered in the process that you forget to care and just dump it back in the bowl and shove it in a pre-warmed oven to rise. 

7. Follow your children through to the bathroom to clean up and discover your lovely Cath Kidston towels now contain 33% more carbs than they did an hour ago while the tap remains untouched. Suck back the tears. It'll wash out.

8. Return to oven 40 minutes later and discover that the heat had been too high and you have kind of already started baking the bread. Remove from bowl and toss onto a baking tray. Turn up the oven and bake for a further hour. 

9. Remove from oven and delight in the absolute lack of fresh-baked-bread smell. (How can that be?). Cut into massive (still slightly doughy) chunks and make your partner eat it as punishment for going off and enjoying himself at football. Feel happy that your kids feel utterly proud of their achievements in the kitchen, and enjoy your sandwich (sneakily made with bread from the bakery)

When I was young I used to do a lot of baking with my parents. I really enjoyed the process of bringing different ingredients together and making something that to my eyes looked pretty amazing. Around the age of 7 or 8 I got into making bread. We had a great cupboard that got loads of heat from the central heating boiler which was perfect for leaving your bread to rise. Bread-making doesn't need to be a faffy process involving yeast. I started off using bread mixes I got at the supermarket, and always felt really pleased with the results I got. Nowadays the range of bread mixes is far greater than when I was a kid, so you can find something to suit most kids taste. We've also had some really great results with some sun-dried tomato bread. Despite my slightly negative slant, I actually really enjoy baking with the kids. It's good fun for all of us and they really do feel chuffed with what they produce. They also tend to eat what they make, which makes me happy, as they don't eat so much bread otherwise. Same goes if I get them involved in making dinner - they are always keener to eat it, especially if they get to try little tastes of it during the cooking process.

(You can see more of the things we've been up to in the summer holidays here on the page 'Something... to do in the summer holidays')

A date with Hugo

I could be a dog-napper you know. I wouldn't put it past me. I've been broody for a little daschund (or Mummy dog, as they are known in this house) since before we came to Germany. And today we had a date with Hugo. He's lovely. So gentle, patient, happy to be patted, willing to let children squabble over who gets to 'walk' him. I could happily have taken him home. I'm pretty sure I could have got round Stevie by saying he's much better behaved than our 2 children, *and* he'll eat all the crumbs under the dining room table, *and* all the bits of snack bar, old toast, half digestives, etc, etc that can be found on the edge of the bathroom sink, or under cushions. I might need to help him up to the edge of the bathroom sink, but I wouldn't mind. Honest.

I'd never met Hugo before today, and rather funnily, I'd never met his 'mummy' or her little boy either. But in the strange expat world I inhabit, Hugo's mum (as I shall call her for ease) & I have about a dozen mutual friends on Facebook, and would often communicate with each other through commenting on other people's posts, and as we got on pretty well, we ended up becoming Facebook friends, and then today we finally met face-to-face. I was slightly worried that it would feel like a first date; I had a lot of questions for her: not quite "What's your favourite colour?", but as we don't have a shared history there was a lot I didn't know about her, and how she came to be here. But it was lovely. We all had a great time, the kids loved her little boy, and we had a rare opportunity for dog-patting.

After lunch we headed back home, and it just happened that we went down a staircase at Zoo station that we don't normally use. At the bottom we found a big glass case with loads of tracks and little people & buildings, & trains that you can control if you stick a Euro in the slot. It was a lot like Loxx Miniatur Welten in Alex. It looked kind of cool, especially as there are about 4 trains you can control and change direction and slow down and speed up, but the enthusiasm of my two wore thin pretty quickly. They found another machine that took money that they'd like to control. Oh well, I try...

Berlin's Tiergarten

Berlin is great for it's outdoor green spaces. It needs to be: being a city of apartment dwellers, we all need a little bit of garden somewhere, a place to stretch our legs, a place to grill, a place to indulge our FKK tendencies in the city centre, ha, ha! Berlin's Tiergarten is pretty much my local park. I don't use it anywhere near as much as I should. And frankly I don't know why. 

I decided to take the kids there today for a picnic and a run around and a play in the Spielplatz we often see from the bus on the way to Legoland. Today was perfect. The weather has warmed up nicely to where it should be at this time of year, and according to the BBC we are going to be experiencing 31 degrees all week. Hamish couldn't get to sleep last night until 9:30pm, so I knew anything too strenuous would be a killer for him and I couldn't face being too far from home with him whining. 

We walked all the way there and it was just about time for lunch when we arrived so we had our picnic which was far less relaxing than I had envisaged. I dream of lying back on the picnic blanket with my book, while the kids play nicely around me. I'm deluded. I took my book, but I only managed to read a page and a half, and I couldn't lie down, because Hamish found that big stick in the top photo, and he was swinging it around like a ninja supposedly "sorting the mole hills", but there was a very real danger either myself or Orla would end up unconscious unless we kept our eye on the ball. 

We were just starting to walk towards the Spielplatz which lies about half way along Tiergarten Strasse, when a taxi bike came along behind us and then stopped and asked if we fancied a free lift as he was going our way anyway. Seriously, there is nothing nicer than being done a good turn, is there? We loved it! We've never been in one before, but it was so nice to try even though it was only for 5 minutes. It certainly perked up our day and the kids are desperate to tell their dad their thrilling news!

The playground is pretty good. If we had a Spielplatz star rating system it would score highly for the hand operated sand digger which we've not seen in any other playground. Hamish was in his element. The kids managed to dig a trench from the end of the water pump (which can be seen in the background) ending in a pool near the digger. Can't beat a bit of engineering fun, can you?

If you want a bit more history about the Tiergarten, take a look at AndBerlin's recent post:

The Tiergarten

The British are coming!

I'm broken. Honestly, I'm knackered. And it's not like we've done anything amazing today. I took the kids to Steglitz for a decidedly British outing today. We started off by going to Berlin's very first Primark for a nosey. There's been a lot of excitement about the opening of Primark here: all the British expats were excited beyond imagination: it's not like the opening of a Primark in the UK. This was big news. Aside from H&M there really hasn't been any outlet offering cheap clothing in Berlin, and certainly not at Primark prices. I've never been a big fan of Primark to be honest, but even I couldn't have put off a trip much longer! So we went there and bought a few little things and it all felt very familiar.

Free entertainment at Toys R Us. (Hamish's face is enough to tell you I didn't put a coin in!)

After that I took the kids for a look round Toys R Us. As hard as it might be to believe, I managed to get out without buying a single thing. I used the 'list' technique. My sister once told me about this; where everything that they ask for/whine about you just tell them to put it on their list (for Christmas/next birthday/etc, etc) and they seem quite satisfied with that. You'd never believe how well it works.

Sand fun & mini trampolining

The small kids section.

Then we scooted round the back of Toys R Us to the Spielplatz on Bornstrasse which is excellent and has very good sized areas for both small kids and bigger kids all based around a circus theme. We spent a good hour there, before embarking on our next British expedition: by heading along the road to Broken English on Lepsiusstrasse. There are 3 branches of Broken English in Berlin, but Steglitz is probably my favourite. They sell a wide range of British food and drink and cards and teapots and tartan rugs, and will even get you out of a spot of bother when you need a flag for some sort of British-themed dress up event foisted on you at the last minute by the school.

Broken English, Steglitz

I am a regular visitor. I go every couple of months to stock up on Robinson's Apple & Blackcurrant squash. It's the only thing that we haven't been able to 'give up' since we moved here. Of course it's an awful lot more expensive than in the UK but I guess there are enough expats with things they can't live without to keep them in business. Anyway, it's a great wee shop. It's nice just to go in and sigh at the thought of *maybe* buying Ready Brek. Or some Walkers crisps. And obviously there are people here who really like Fray Bentos pies, because there seemed to be quite a selection of those.

Life's essentials.

We made do with 6 bottles of Robinson's, a 2 litre bottle of Irn Bru (for Stevie), and 2 packets of Cadbury's chocolate buttons. I won't tell you how much it cost. Believe me, the cost to my shoulders as I had to carry it all back in a backpack was more. Our final stop was at Hugendubel. I've started frequenting the Steglitz branch a little more since my closest one on Tauentzienstrasse closed. The Steglitz one has a reasonably sized English section, certainly far better than the Hugendubel franchise in the KaDeWe.

Life's even more essentials

Gärten der Welt

Plattenbau architecture along Landsberger Allee

A couple of days ago I found out that the style of box-like, post-war architecture so common in Berlin is known as Plattenbau. And just this minute, I stuck that into Google Translate and discovered that that means 'Prefab'. I shouldn't be surprised. There are mixed views on this style of architecture in Berlin. Some people want to see it knocked down, and certainly there are groups of architects who don't even consider this architecture. But there are others who want at least some of it preserved; that it too has it's place in Berlin's history, and should rightly stand shoulder to shoulder with Berlin's many other styles of architecture. Love it or hate it, the best place to see it in all it's glory is along Landsberger Allee which takes you from Mitte out to Marzahn in the east of the city. You really feel like you are in an entirely different city. It's just block after block. It gives you a feeling of travelling through the old east imagining what life was like in the DDR days before the Wall came down. I particularly liked the Russian supermarket (above) advertising caviar.

We headed out along Landsberger Allee on Saturday, making our way to Gärten der Welt. It's one of the places I have most wanted to visit since we moved to Berlin, having read about it in the guidebooks. The time never seemed quite right though. I had thought that the kids would be bored silly and we'd spend about 20 minutes there before having to leave, but now that they are a bit older they were fine. And it is really lovely. So worth going. It's a big park just behind Landsberger Allee which has numerous 'Gardens of the World', hence the name. 

The big draws seem to be the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean gardens (photos below) and certainly from the number of bridal parties walking around, it seems to be the place to go to get your wedding photos taken. There are a few playgrounds for the kids and an excellent maze which takes ages to get in and out of. I just wish I knew more about plants and flowers because I reckon it would be utterly brilliant if you had a little knowledge on plants from around the world. Anyway, we had a great time, and it was definitely worth visiting.

Orla in the Chinese Garden

Japanese Garden

Korean Garden

Maze

Touching Nemo's cousins

We took a little trip to Berlin Zoo's aquarium yesterday. There are two aquariums in Berlin: one attached to the Zoo, and the Sealife Centre, which is near Museum Island in Mitte. We've been to both a few times, and both have their merits. The Zoo aquarium is much cheaper than the Sealife Centre especially when you lie about your kids ages. I should be paying for Orla now that she's turned 5, but given that the German kids don't believe she's tall enough for her age, I figure we might as well make the most of it. I just have to make sure the kids are out of earshot when I lie about their ages, or they'll land me in it.

Anyway, as a result we get in for 6 Euros as I have a Jahreskarte for the Zoo and thus you get a discount. We have been to the aquarium many times before. We have worked out a set route around the place. Once through the turnstile we make for the coy carp pool. Germans are awfully keen on touching animals and penguins and fish and stuff. Over the course of the past two years I have become less horrified and disgusted by this. I just can't help but think that my two will swish their hands around, pick up some vile bacterial illness, and then suck their fingers clean before I get a chance to antibacterially boil wash them. Because unlike in the UK, you don't find 'hand-sanitising units' right next to the dirty animals. You are expected to just take your dirty animals to the toilets which could be up to a kilometre away.  

Once we've finished with the coy carp we go searching for Nemo. That is all they want to do. Usually we can find him straight away, along with his dad, and his little friends. The aquarium have upped their game though and this time, we couldn't find Nemo. He must be there somewhere, but we gave up on that game as the other thing we like to do is dash round the whole place in as little time as possible, ticking off all our favourites, but barely stopping long enough to even find out what some of the fish are called. After all there's an ice cream vending machine upstairs that's going to require a hell of a lot of begging and whining.

We all like the jellyfish. They keep a bunch of them in a tube shaped tank near the front beside the lift. They light it brilliantly so that they all glow as they pulse around in the water. At the moment this tank is full of teeny tiny ones, and the bigger ones are further along as you walk along towards the ugly fish and the shark in the tanks at the end. The shark is pretty amazing to see. I imagine he's bored out of his brain, but it's great to be up against a full height tank and have him sweep past your face. 

Upstairs, the whining and the moaning starts about the ice cream machine, but we manage to offset this by reminding them that they've got crocodiles to see first. On this floor there is a central atrium bit that is climate controlled. You enter on either side via glass doors and stand and look down from a bridge on the crocodiles and turtles. I saw the above photo in there and was quite relieved that times have changed and the  crocodiles have less opportunity to interact with the visitors nowadays. Perhaps a few German children got a bit too enthusiastic with touching the animals.

There's another floor above where the crocodiles and turtles and snakes are that has all sorts of creepy crawlies and frogs and things. But given the desperation for ice cream and the fact that I have no change for the machine we decide to make a hasty exit and head for Wittenburg Platz to an ice cream cafe. I love the stained glass windows on the landing, and I love the ceramic border featuring fish and crustaceans on the other staircase. They are almost worth a visit on their own.

Fish: Seriously, how long until the schools go back???