speaking of mail...

Yesterday was just blechy! It was cold and wet and grey. While the rain wasn't quite ice, it was very cold and pointy and attacking me when I went out to do errands. One of the errands was checking the mail. And I had mail! Real mail! For no special reason mail! Too big for my mailbox mail! From one of those awesome people I mentioned yesterday! My bestest friend Kathy sent me this:

The book has drawings by Jim Henson (one of my favoritest people ever!) paired with 'inspirational thoughts' written by Jim Lewis, who worked with Jim Henson for lots of years. The book is really beautiful, with cool drawings and lots of color....I love it! And I love Kathy for knowing how much I'd love it!

In other mail news, we voted!! I e-mailed our absentee ballots to the Buncombe County Board of Elections this morning and am sending the original ballots by Express Mail today! I had requested the absentee ballots a little late in the game and had been worried that we wouldn't get them in time to vote: in North Carolina, absentee ballots must be received by 5:00pm on November 3. But we did it! Since they wil take the ballot by e-mail, we technically got them in four days early! I sincerely hope that all of you who are reading this will be voting (or have voted) as well. Of course I'd prefer it if you were voting for the candidate that I would like to see win (hint - it rhymes with Schmobama). But more important, I hope you take advantage of the privilege that voting is. And as much as I support my candidate, I care more to live in a country where we can not only have different opinions, but express our differences. If that doesn't convince you to vote, you should remember that voting gives you the right to bitch later on if your candidate doesn't win and the person who does win screws everything up! In my opinion, if you don't vote, you really don't have the right to bitch. So please, please vote.

bundles of memories...

Being both an organizational and sentimental freak, I decided to tackle the project of organizing cards and correspondence we've received over the years. Yesterday I pulled out the boxes of memories and set to work separating and organizing by intended recipient(s) - stuff sent/given to Jerry, stuff sent/given to me, stuff sent/given to us as a couple and stuff exchanged between Jerry and me. The process was very revealing. Here's what I learned:

My husband, though sweet, doesn't have the keenest sense of memory or attention to detail.

When he gave me this penguin card for our anniversary, I thought it looked familiar and was pretty certain that he had given me this card before. Yesterday's project confirmed that he had indeed given this card to me before. This was also my birthday card this year. It should be noted that the card is neither a birthday card nor an anniversary card. Both cards were filled with very nice words from my husband, so I'm not complaining...I'm just amused :-)

There are lots of people that love or like me! I mean, I knew this already. But it's nice to see the evidence! The stuff given/sent to Hev required two boxes!! How lucky am I to have so many nice people in my life that send me letters and cards? The answer is: very very lucky! It's especially nice to see that, even in our technologically advanced age, there are still people sending things through the mail. As much as I love e-mail, you can't bundle e-mail messages up in pretty ribbons with the same effect!

My parents are the best!! Yes, this is another thing I already knew, but it's nice to be reminded of it and even nicer to let them (and all of you) know it too! The evidence of this begins with this card:

My dad made this card for me when I was just a baby/toddler. I don't even remember him giving it to me, but love that I still have it! There were numerous cards from my parents and there seemed to be a theme to them: no matter what choices I made or how different my path seemed, they always were proud and always respected the individual that is me! As I get older, I become more convinced that having such supportive parents is really the exception, not the norm. I am so thankful for that constant love and support that I receive from them!

Being both a sentimental freak and organizational freak sometimes puts me at odds with myself. The sentimental part of me wants to hold onto everything I've ever received from the people that are important to me. The organizational freak occasionally wants to purge the excess clutter from my life. The organizational freak watches shows like Clean Sweep (so good!) and has learned that things are not often important. Rather it's the memories that you associate with the things that are important. Well, organizational Heather has dominated in the past and the result is that many things have been recycled. And while I do still have the memories, I'm a little disappointed that there are some things that I don't have. Over the years, my Grandma Helen must've sent dozens of cards. When I did the last big purge, it didn't seem that important to save them all. But since then, my grandmother's passed on and I find it a little sad that I only have two cards from her saved. I have the last Christmas card and the last birthday card that she sent. Here's the birthday card:

I don't know if you can really see it, but the Dear Heather is in quotes. It's something funny that she always did. And she always signed with X's. I'm sad that I don't have even one of her Easter or Thanksgiving cards. She would often send me money on those holidays, "to buy a ham (or turkey) sandwich." I don't know how much she thought a sandwich costs, but she always sent me way more than that!

So, my big lesson is that I need to let sentimental Heather get her way. Which isn't all bad for orgnizational Heather. Saving lots of stuff means keeping it all organized. Because that's another lesson from Clean Sweep: if you are going to keep things to help preserve memories, honor the things and the memories by taking good care of them.

the man (or boy) behind the mask

When not in costume as a clone trooper, this handsome young man enjoys spending time in the decorated-for-fall TCBY! We hope he's eaten some of the special fall pumpkin yogurt for us...our favorite!

this is halloween, everybody scream!

Well, Halloween isn't here quite yet. But my nephew Ian is all ready for it:

Auntie Pantz thinks that this Star Wars fan may be the cutest Stormtrooper she's ever seen! (Correction: I've been informed that this is not actually a Stormtrooper costume, but a Clone Trooper costume! This is important because a Clone Trooper is a good guy, like our Ian!)

While it's not Halloween yet, it is my little brother's birthday today! Happy Birthday Ryguy! When I was looking for a card for him, I thought of doing one of my favorite things: buying a card for a 2-year-old and changing all the references from 2 to 22. Yeah, I'm funny like that. It then occurred to me that my brother is 10 years younger than me. And 34 take away 10 is not 22!! In some ways it's easier to believe that my baby sister is 18 and graduating from high school this year than to believe that I have a brother in his mid twenties! Where does the time go?! I can still remember him dancing around on the driveway pretending to be a video game! (Okay, it's possible that he still does that!) In the end I'm glad that I went with a non age-specific card....I would've looked pretty dumb! And I hope that Ryan has a great 24th birthday!!

thankful for a thanksgiving together

Since things in the army are always changing, it is perhaps a little premature to be thankful for a Thanksgiving that is actually spent with my husband. But, we've been told that Jerry's departure date will be December 4, keeping him home with me for our first Thanksgiving together in three years. We're also being led to believe that he may be given a few days off for family time around Thanksgiving to help make up for the long hours and weekends being worked until then. So that's encouraging.

We're coming into the final stretch leading up to deployment. And I have to admit that I'm feeling it. I already see myself putting a little space between the two of us. Not in a negative way or anything. I just find myself more willing than usual to go off by myself and give him alone time to play video games or whatever. I'm usually really demanding of his time so this is somewhat unusual for me :-) I guess I'm accomplishing two things by doing this. I feel he deserves time to do things he enjoys. I mean, he's giving a year of his life to the army and to our country. I figure the least I can do is let him have some time to do the things that he likes and finds relaxing. And I think it also helps me prepare for the separation. In the past, leading up to lengthy separation, we've found ourselves drifting apart in a much more negative way, brought back together once we're apart. And that's always felt pretty bad. Things feel much better between us this time around. Though we're spending more time on our own, the time that's spent together is really good and connected. But no matter how good this part is, I'm sure it's still going to hurt like hell when he leaves.

I received a call today about setting up an interview to work at the PX. Right now, I think a part-time job in a retail setting would do worlds of good for me. Not only will it give me something to do with my days, especially when Jerry's gone, but it'll be a fairly social job with a lot of interaction with people.

Christmas is on its way and I must say that being in Germany during this time of the year is pretty wonderful! Throughout the country you can find outdoor Christmas markets where you can purchase ornaments, table linens and gifts as well as Gluewein (mulled wine) and Lebkuechen (German gingerbread). German Christmas ornaments are pretty cool. They have ones that are delicate and beautiful as well as ones that are a little more fun. My favorite are the wooden ones with strings to pull to animate the ornament. My favorite so far is a wooden frog whose legs move when you pull the string!

It's getting late in the day and I still have a bunch of things on my to do list. So I'm off for now!

can you believe this?!

Yesterday, Elyssa sent me an e-mail message with photo attachments showing off her new hair cut. Elyssa decided that bangs were in order. So she took matters (and scissors) into her own hands and gave herself some! That's not the unbelievable part. Look at this beautiful girl....I can't believe she's the same Elyssa I know...she looks so old!

This looks a little more like the Elyssa I know!

This is what she looked like just two summers ago:

Also the summer of 2006, at our very first Unbirthday Party:

It's amazing to see the changes that two years (and eyeliner!) can bring! It's exciting to see her becoming a young woman, but I miss the little girl that I first met!

starting to wookiee...

The Pagella household has two annual events in June. The first is Ma's dance concert, which is followed by the second: ma turns into a wookiee. Following the intensity of the dance concert and the months of classes that preceeded it, it is somewhat of a letdown for Ma in the days and weeks following the concert. During this period, she flounders about, not really knowing what to do with herself and makes sounds reminiscent of Chewbacca. I haven't been around for the wooky period in years and I suspect that it has lessened as the family has filled their summers with vacations and visiting.

I'm finding myself nearing a wookiee period. Since I quickly unpacked and set up the house, there's very little that I have to do during the day. I've been finding myself lying around more than usual and yearning for projects or a job! Though I check the weekly listings for job openings, I continue to find myself overqualified or completely unqualified to fill the vacancies. So I decided to apply for part time work at the PX while I continue to look for something more permanent and fulfilling.

I haven't sunk completely into a state of wookiee, but I feel it coming on! I'm the kind of person who has difficulty sitting down to watch a television show without feeling guilty because I could be doing something more productive. So wookiee and Hev are not a good match! I am optimistic that I will be able to avert the complete wookiee transformation with a few trips to the gym and possibly a part-time job. Yesterday I took the bus to the post to get the car from Jerry. On the bus ride, I met a wife who is new to the post (only one week) and is looking for a gym buddy. She seems very nice and having someone to go with and be accountable to always helps me with my commitment to the gym.

It seems weird to me that we have been in Graf for less than three weeks. I feel so at home here that it seems like we've been here longer, despite the still-empty walls (counting the days until our hanging appointment on the 29th). I feel more at home here in these short weeks than I ever felt in the months at Schweinfurt. I guess that's a good sign, since this will be my home while Jerry's away. Today, I was talking to my mom on the phone (like I do every day) and she said that people often ask her if I'll be staying here in Germany while Jerry is deployed. She has her doubts, but my plan is to stay here. Part of military life is the absence of the soldier and I feel like I need to build up relationships in my community to help with these absences. Otherwise, I'll be running home all the time. Of course, I plan to visit family and friends while Jerry's away. But my home will be here in Germany.

This has been one of those all over the place entries and I'll end it with pictures of my latest project. My family has oftened mocked my obsession with home improvement shows, but today I did the designers on Trading Spaces proud! I have two framed pieces of art. Unfortunately, the white frames just blend into the white walls and don't really compliment the artwork. Because of the way the art had been framed, replacing the frames seemed overly difficult and would be pretty expensive. So, I invested $3 in a can of spray paint and picked up some masking supplies at my favorite self-help store. And I'm very please with my results!

Here are the two pieces, hanging on the wall (left) in our old dining room:

And here they are now, ready to be hung in our living room:

It's amazing how such a small change can make such a big impact!

sometimes the army gets it...

I'll admit that army life can be frustrating at times. In fact, as we get closer to deployment, it seems that the army throws more annoying things our way. But sometimes the army gets it so completely right. One of the great things that the army provides is this place called the self-help store, for soldiers living in government quarters. There, you can find all sorts of things for your home, free of charge. Things like light bulbs, hardware, tools (to borrow), paint supplies, paint, and lawn care items. Which is all pretty cool. And those things alone would have impressed me. But what has won me over and has me singing the army's praises is the fact that it is, in many ways, a green self-help store! The light bulbs they provide are all energy efficient ones. They provide the special garbage bags required to recycle plastic items in Germany. They issue electric lawn mowers to those of us with lawns. And they collect and properly dispose of hazardous household waste!

As you can probably tell, I paid a vist to the self-help store today. I picked up some necessities, such as bags for the plastic recyclables and light bulbs. I also picked up some grass seed and our electric mower. After some difficulty figuring out how to get the mower into the car (eventually requiring a friendly German man showing me how to fold down the handle), I got it home. I was so excited that I immediately mowed the lawn. And then obsessively cleaned the mower. Now I want to get some special cleaning supplies to keep our mower looking new! It's amazing how mowing the lawn and cleaning the mower could make me so happy...what a weirdo!!

nothing says i love you like deodorant!

Last week, we received a care package in the mail from my parents! I'm pretty sure it was put together by Ma though. A good and thoughtful mother-in-law, she sent two pounds of whole bean Dunkin Donuts coffee for Jerry. As for me, she hooked me up with four bottles of my favorite deodorant (which I've sadly been without for months now) and a slew of Lancome face products! Clearly, I have the best Ma on the planet!! They also sent us two anniversary cards: one funny and one sweet/sappy. And the apple doesn't fall far from the tree - I gave Jerry two anniversary cards too: one funny and one sappy!



I'm having one of those weeks. Where I have things that I want to say/write about, but at the same time feel like I have nothing to say. So I figured I'd sit down and just start typing and we'll see what comes out :-)



Last weekend, we had friends from our old post visit us at the new house. The had been here before when it was empty, so it was nice to have them stay here with proper furniture. As you can see, Scooter helped us with the last of the unpacking in preparation for the arrival of our guests:

We had a really fun time with Tracy and Matt. They got here Friday night and I made chili and great (if I do say so myself!) cornbread and then we spent the evening at home playing games and enjoying grown up beverages. I kicked some Yahtzee ass!! On Saturday, the four of us went to Nurnberg, a city that none of us had ever been to. It was very cool! Being late sleepers, we didn't have all that much time to spend there, but we were able to check out the shopping district inside the walls of the old city. I must admit that it was a little strange to walk down an old, old streets and to find it lined with strip clubs and sex stores! This is a picture of one of the streets (I believe that the end of this street is the strip club section) and you can see Tracy and Matt (holding hands) and Jerry Giant.

This is one of the spectacular churches in the center of the old city:

And here's a very bizarre fountain:

There seemed to be a lot of naked boobies and boy parts, even on the skeletons!

Apart from the weird fountain, there were lots of other interesting sights and shops. With so much to see, we're certain to go back to Nurnberg. With so many places to shop, Tracy and I may make a trip there without the husbands :-) There is going to be a special chocolate and gingerbread market there this weekend. Since Nurnberg is only an hour away, Jerry and I might return to check out. Following our trip to the old city, we made our way to a suburb of Nurnberg in order to go to IKEA. From there, Tracy and Matt drove back to Schweinfurt and Jerry and I drove our very full car back home. At IKEA, we purchased five sets of shelves for our DVDs and a living room chair! It's a miracle that it all fit in the car!

So now I'm happy to be living in a house where the DVDs are off of the floor and on shelves. While we had intended to have black and red shelves, we discovered that we had purchased grey shelves instead of red! Stupid GiantPantz didn't double-check the color before leaving the store! Fortunately, the grey looks very good and we're going to be needing a few more sets of shelves. When we go back, we'll be sure to get the red ones! I still need to make an appointment to have the thing hung on the walls, but then our house will be in great shape....yay!

Finally, the thing that is weighing the most heavily on my mind and the thing that has most likely been preventing me from writing lately: Jerry's deployment. For many months, we've been told that Jerry will most likely be leaving in November. When we first heard this, many soldiers balked and confidently said that if they're saying November, it probably will be in January or February. It seems that those soldiers were wrong and that November is accurate. Right now, it seems likely that Jerry will be leaving before Thanksgiving. Jerry and I haven't had the best luck with Thanksgivings. Since we've been together, we've only spent one actual Thanksgiving day together. But we do always make up for it and have our own 'Thanksgiving.' But that's where my thoughts have been...trying to prepare myself for something that is going to be challenging for me, to say the very least.

As I prepare for Jerry's departure, I'm looking to kickstart my own life here. I'm starting to actively look for a job and am trying to get involved in my community. I need to start getting back into shape. I know that when I'm eating right and exercising, I'm in a much better place and much more emotionally able to deal with the tough stuff. I'm also looking into what I need to do to get back on a path to teaching. I'm not getting any younger and it is becoming clear to me that teaching is what I should be doing. While we're stationed here, I may look for less formal teaching opportunities, but will work on getting certified in order to teach high school English when I return to the States. A girl's gotta have goals, right?

A girl's also got to get some sleep and it's getting late! Night!

pizza, pie and cold duck

Yesterday was the big day! Well, the anniversary of the big day. Yesterday, Jerry and I celebrated our first anniversary! (And my best friend Kathy celebrated her second anniversary! Happy Anniversary Kathy and David! And while I'm making happy wishes, Happy Birthday to my Grandpa Henry who celebrated his birthday yesterday and Happy Anniversary to my parents who are celebrating their anniversary today!!)

Initially, we had big plans for our anniversary, but in some ways they dwindled, in others they just changed. In the end, the big day was celebrated over spicy chicken pizza

pecan pie

and a bottle of cold duck.

Oh, we alsobought a new microwave, since ours was damaged in the move:

This may not seem like the most romantical of celebrations, but there's more to our anniversary celebration than what we did last night. Initially, we had booked a room for this coming weekend at a resort near the Romantic Road. We had planned on seeing some castles, relaxing at the resort, and visiting Munich. After the trips to Berlin and the move to Grafenwoehr, we were honestly a little tired out and needed a break from travelling! So we decided to postpone the trip. Because of the deployment, it is unlikely that we'll be taking it any time soon, but we do plan to make our way to that part of Germany in the future. Instead of travelling, we plan to buy a piece of furniture to commemorate our first anniversary. We thought it would be nice to celebrate our anniversary in a way that will be with us for a long time. We plan to mark the piece somehow with the date and the fact that it was purchased in honor of our first anniversary. Should the time come that we no longer want the piece of furniture, we'll keep the part that is marked. Yeah, we're cheesy like that :-) For our first piece of furniture, we're specifically looking for a nice dining table. We're going to explore some furniture places in local towns this coming four-day weekend. One place in particular has an open house on Sunday and features all hand-crafted furniture.

During Jerry's weeks off last month, we also added to the tattoos that we're working on together. We started the tattoos last year with matching hearts, symbols of our marriage. This year, we added another heart, with a reverse color-scheme to mark the first anniversary. We added other elements as well and are beginning to see how these tattoos will grow over time. Though we added mostly the same elements, we've created different patterns. They have nearly healed, so pictures will be coming soon.

Since the big weekend was out, we then decided to have a nice meal in the area. Later I decided that I'd rather make a nice candle-lit meal at home. But, because we only have one car and Jerry had it at work yesterday, I wasn't able to get the ingredients early enough in the day to make the special meal I had in mind. I had thoughts of using the new microwave to reheat a very tasty meal I had made a few days ago (chicken parmigiana stuffed with spinach, mushrooms, garlic and mozzerella!). But then we just thought we'd stick to our favorite: pizza. And we really made it special by adding some pecan pie and cold duck! Neither of us had ever had cold duck...it's like a red champagne. I thought it was pretty gross, but it was pretty funny toasting our anniversary with cheap champagne in our plastic party cups! Jerry mustn't have thought it was that gross, because he polished off the bottle!

We also exchanged sweet and sappy cards and I've been promised some flowers...a big deal from a man who doesn't like to give them :-) Cards from across the ocean and e-mail cards and wishes from family and friends rounded out our anniversary. I feel very blessed to have such sweet and thoughtful people in our lives, and of course feel blessed to have found the man with whom I hope to celebrate many, many anniversaries.

our last day in berlin

So, we're finally coming to the end of our story of Berlin. Initially, we had planned on spending the last day taking a tour out to a concentration camp. But then we decided that it would be, you know, depressing. Something that we definitely want to do before leaving Germany, but something not right for that particular day. We had read about the Victory Column, which can be climbed. We thought that would be a good way to start our last day in Berlin. But first, breakfast was in order. We again enjoyed the breakfast provided at our hotel. Jerry decided to try one of the eggs, assuming it was hard boiled. He was wrong. It was soft boiled and soft egg white spilled out of the egg. Bleh!! But at least now we both know to stay clear of the eggs!

After checking out of the hotel (fairly painlessly), we made our way across town to the Siegessäule (Victory Column). Here is a view of it as we were approaching:

There are no crosswalks to reach it. You have to go into one of four entrances that take you to a tunnel under the road in order to reach it. Looking up from the base, it's pretty impressive:

There are two viewing levels. The first is just a couple of flights up and can be seen in the photo above. It's the area with the columns. The second viewing area is at the very top, directly below the giant statue of Germania.

The way up is by several flights of spiralling stairs. It's quite a workout, but worth it for the view from the top (and the sense of accomplishment). This was taken of the street below, through the ornate decorations at the top:

Here's Jerry, checking out the view:

And here's Jerry coming back down (note all the graffiti!):

From the top of the Victory Column, Jerry observed a lot of activity a few blocks away. As the area is heavily wooded, we couldn't see what it was all about. Back at street level, we decided to investigate. It turned out to be a special family day at a nearby castle. Yep, a nearby castle. It's so strange being in place where castles pop up all over the place! We had seen this large building from the top of the Victory Column, but didn't realize that it was a castle. While we didn't attend the event, we did snap a picture of the Bellevue Castle:

Knowing that our trip was winding down, we made our final stops in Berlin. We passed by Checkpoint Charlie and then went to pick up a few Ampelmann souvenirs at a really cool (and huge!) book/souvenir store, which we had visited in the previous days. We also had some hot beverages and warm foods outside this restaurant:

Though it hadn't seemed very cold when we sat down, by the time we left our teeth were chattering. The restaurant was extremely shortstaffed on that Sunday and we found ourselves waiting a very, very long time to pay. And we weren't being typical impatient Americans....it really was an outrageously long time. Though the wait was not fun, the food was very yummy. We had a bowl of tomato soup. In Germany, we've yet to be disappointed by tomato soups. They tend to be more like tomato sauce than soup in America. This soup was thick and spicy. It also had slice of oranges in it! Jerry wouldn't brave the oranges, but I gave it a try. The taste combination was interesting, but not all bad! We also had some warm apple strudel with vanilla sauce....also very tasty!

We couldn't leave Berlin without making one last stop at our favorite doener stand! Here's Jerry, about to take the first bite!

The ride home was fairly uneventful and we made it back to Schweinfurt in good time.

The next day, we picked Scooter up from his vacation after Jerry got off of work. The days of running around with other dogs was great for Scooter....he was so full of energy and acting more like his puppy self than his lazy self! On the car-ride home, he was much more interested in getting up to the front seat than staying in the back!

And, of course, his Ma was very happy to see him!

Though this isn't really part of the Berlin trip, I'll finish off with Jerry's exciting find at a German beverage store. Often times, you get free gifts with cases of beer at these stores. Sometimes it's free bottles of beer. Sometimes it's steins or dishes. After picking up Scooter, we stopped at our local store for Jerry to purchase a case of beer. The lady at the counter gave Jerry two free beer glasses, one of which lit up:

Jerry's perfect ending to vacation!

the continuing saga...

Before continuing the Berlin tale, let me first do some 'splainin about my aversion to museums. It's not that I don't appreciate them. Nor that I don't enjoy their contents. I just find them to be too much. One of the best things about living in DC was the access to all of the free Smithsonian museums. Because they were free, you never felt pressured to see everything at one time. And for me, that's the best way to see a museum: a little bit at a time. But back to our story...

When we left off, Jerry and I were sleeping. We slept a long time, skipping the hotel breakfast the next day in order to enjoy a day of really sleeping in. Once we got going, our first stop was (of course) Dunkin Donuts!

We hit this place (not always this particular one) many times while in Berlin. Well, Jerry did. I still don't like coffee, and at this point think there's a pretty good chance I never will :-) One thing that I find interesting is that in Berlin and Germany in general, people who hold jobs that Americans would consider low or working class often have a pretty good command of the English language. Most of the people who worked in the various Dunkin Donuts or snack stands spoke English pretty well!

With the Dunkin Donuts fix taken care of, we made our way to our first real stop of the day: KaDeWe. This is mainland Europe's largest department store and is eight stories high. This entire building is the department store:

The size of a city block, this place was huge! Apparently, Gant is some designer and there were a few areas dedicated to Gant, We thought that was pretty funny! Gant shoes:

Gant clothing:

Gant coats, like many things in this store, were very expensive!

At the very top of the store is a huge cafe, serving delicioius-looking foods and providing a great view of the city. The floor below, however, was the most impressive to me. It was a collection of gourmet and fresh food vendors. From fresh cut meats to huge assortments of cheeses to tea, this floor had everything! There were chocolatiers and seafood counters, wines and bakeries. And most places had seating areas where you could sit and enjoy these fine foods. So far, that is the only place where I've even seen Romano cheese in Germany, a necessary ingredient for making my Nona's sauce!

From KaDeWe, we walked to a train stop and on the way saw some pretty cool sculptures:

The one above is pretty cool because it's a sculpture and a fountain!

We spent a good portion of the afternoon aimlessly wandering around Berlin, finding ourselves in a shopping mall at one point. In Germany, malls are scarce. Generally, small shops are found in pedestrian zones in the centers of towns. And large stores are found in a special industrial part of town. There you'd find stores similar to Home Depot, Wal-Mart, etc. So being in a mall was a somewhat unique experience for us!

On the first evening in Berlin, we had seen a pamphlet for the Komische Oper, which was showing a modern ballet of Alice in Wonderland. It had piqued our interest, so we decided to go to the box office and see if there were tickets available for the evening's performance. Because we had purchased a special train package at the beginning of the trip, we also had coupons books for various places throughout Berlin, including the Komische Oper. So we ended up getting very good ballet seats for under $30 each....not bad! Because we had some time to kill before the performance started at 18:00, we walked to the "World's Best Chocolate Store" which was in the area. And, I must admit, it was a very impressive store. Even more impressive was that, in the face of all that chocolate, we didn't buy anything. We laughed later that night, when we stopped for chocolate at a convenient store on the way back to our hotel. Leave it to us to pass on the best chocolate and instead go for the stuff at the convenient store! Silly giantpantz!

We returned to the thatre for our evening at the ballet. Here's the inside of the theatre:

The theatre was really beautiful and the ballet very unique! If you'd like to see excerpts from it, I encourage you to click here: Alice's Wonderland The performance featured unusual costumes, including a half-naked white rabbit. And Alice was played by several different dancers. It was Jerry's idea to see the ballet, and I'm so glad he suggested it!

The performance started and early and was less than two hours long, so we were out of the theatre by 20:00. Because the night was still young, we decided that it would be the perfect time to finally make our way to the Reichstag glass dome. We were in luck, as the line through security moved fairly quickly (less than half an hour). Soon we found ourselves atop the Reichstag. Here's a night view of the city from the terrace on top of the building, but below the dome. The camera did something funny, but it looks pretty cool:

This is a photo taken of the center of the dome, as we were climbing up the sides:

And here we are at the top:

Since Mexican food was so good the night before, we decided that dinner that night was also going to be Mexican, venturing to a place listed in our coupon book. It was a drizzly night and the place turned out to be a little bit in the middle of nowhere. But it also turned out to be pretty good! Mexican food in Germany is a little bit different from here. My burrito was accompanied by some kind of a wild rice and the side salad was very German. But it was very good and again, I was able to enjoy frozen fruity drinks!

Finally, we called it a day and headed back to the hotel for our last night in Berlin.

Wow...I guess I took pretty good notes about what we did. These are some long entries!! I had intended to write about both Saturday and Sunday in this entry, but I'm exhausted just from Saturday's adventures. So there's still one more installment of the Berlin story to come!

hop into my time machine....

That's right, I'm taking you into the (not-so-distant) past! Though it seems like a lifetime ago, our trip to Berlin was just a few weeks ago. So we're going to take a little trip back in my handy-dandy time machine to describe it to you!

That week, we had initially planned on taking a four day trip to the Black Forest, with stops in Stuttgart, Triberg, Freiburg, and finally Europa Park. The day before our planned departure, we received a phone call from the small guesthouse where we had booked a room for two nights during the Freiburg leg of the trip. Apparently, the room that we had booked was not actually available for one of the two nights and our reservation had to be cancelled. Because of the late notice, there were no affordable alternatives and our trip to the Black Forest had to be abondoned, at least for the timebeing. Having returned earlier in the week from a too-short visit to Berlin, we decided to return.

On Wednesday night, we dropped Scooter off for his vacation at a nearby kennel. This place was amazing, set in the country with lots of room for running and playing. Scooter wasn't sad to see us go at all!

On Thursday, we set out for Berlin in the early afternoon. The drive there took us by an IKEA, so we took the opportunity to stop and check that out. We found some great DVD shelves, but they were way too tall to fit in our car. We're still trying to figure out a way to get them to our home :-) While we made no furniture purchases at IKEA, we did sample some food at the store restaurant. We had a waffle with some fruity and vanilla toppings and ice cream that was dispensed from a very cool machine: you placed your cone in a holder, which then raised the cone up to the ice cream dispensing part. The ice cream itself was swirled with a gooey strawberry ribbon. I think we need one of those machines for our home!

Because we were arriving on a Thursday night, our intention as to hit Museum Island. These state-run museums offer free admission on Thursday nights from 6-10, so it seemed like an ideal time to check them out. Our first stop was the Pergamon Museum, recommended to us by several people. Naturally, this museum did not offer free admission, so we decided to return the following day so that we'd have more time to enjoy it. We proceeded to the Altes Museum nearby, with an Egyptian exhibit.

Though, it was interesting in theory, I found it pretty boring and I was ready to leave way before we actually did. Being there reminded me that I'm really not much of a museum kind of gal. Though this may tarnish your high opinion of me, I must be honest!

After the boring museum, we decided to walk over to the Rechistag, hoping to make it in time to go to the top of its glass dome. When we arrived the line was pretty long and it looked unlikely that we would make it through security in time, so we opted to return later.

Tired from travelling and the museum, we headed back to our charming hotel with a 100-year-old elevator.

On the way back to the hotel, we had to switch trains and pass by a doener stand that had caught our eyes a few times during our first trip. The stand boasted Turkish pizza and doener, which is basically gyros. We decided to try it out and were quite happy that we did. The doener was delicious and we vowed that it would not be the last of the trip. With content bellies, we continued on our way to the hotel, stopping once more to pick up a bottle of wine. Back at the hotel, we enjoyed our wine and some German television and then got a good night's sleep in preparation for the next day's museum-going and sightseeing plans!

On Friday, we woke up early enough to enjoy the breakfast at the hotel. It was a typical German buffet, with plenty of meats, cheeses, and delicious fresh rolls. We took our time getting ready for the day, enjoying a proper leisurely vacation pace! We left for Museum Island around noon and headed straight for the Pergamon, intent on spending a good amount of time there and seeing what the fuss was all about.

Being thrifty, we got the special deal at the museum. For a few extra euros at the Pergamon, we would have access to any other of the Museum Island museums that day as well. Aren't we smart? Not really. You'd think the museum experience the night before would have been lesson enough that I would not really have any interest in spending a lot of time in museums. But I was eager to have this rich museum-going experience. So we donned our headphones for the audio tour and made our way to the Babylon exhibit. Boy, that audio tour man liked to go on and on and on about every little thing in the exhibit. And while it was interesting, there's only one piece that I could tell you about today. Even with the headphones covering both ears, that information went in one ear and snuck its way out around the headphone on the other side! After two hours of this museum, we both had had enough and left for the sweet air of outside! As soon as we were out, I suggested that Jerry might have to get another wife to accompany him on lengthy museum visits. But he informed me that we were on the same page and no more museum visits were in order for the day. Thank goodness!!

We headed over to something more our speed: Potsdamer Platz, home of the Blue Man Group, a giant movie theatre and an IMAX theatre:

It was a really cool place and we'd have loved to see something there, but our movie options weren't that great. We weren't that iterested in seeing an American movie that had been dubbed in German and there were no German language movies that piqued our interest. So we headed back to the hotel to recharge, before going out for the evening.

On the way back to the hotel, I found a great store with scarves! I've always really appreciated the European affection for scarves and have decided to build my own scarf collection, purchasing new scarves on my travels. That day in Berlin, I purchsed a velvety lavender scarf to commemorate our visit.

On the agenda for the evening was food and drink! Being in Berlin we naturally decided to go to a Mexican place for drinks and nachos! While Jerry stuck to his favorite beer, I enjoyed strawberry margaritas! Here's Jerry, happy to be in his natural habitat (in front of a large plate of nachos!):

After spending a sufficient amount of time at La Cucarachas, we walked around, contemplating a pub crawl for two. Though it was tempting, we instead opted to grab a doener and wine for the hotel and called it a night. It should be noted that doener should be eaten immediately, not kept in a bag to take home for later. Soggy doener just isn't as tasty as fresh, crisp doener! Stay tuned for the exciting adventures of Saturday and Sunday!!

Meanwhile, back in the future, I'm almost ready to give you a tour of the new house with furnishing. Unfortunately, though, the walls are too hard to easily get nails into. In fact, we need to make an appointment to have someone come out with special tools to put nails in our walls for us to hang things...a regular drill just won't cut it! So you will have to wait a bit longer to see the new home, but hopefully I'll have some photos up next week.