March 30-April 7 Easter Break Part 2

Saturday March 30

Got up early for a long run. J's dad had described a long quiet path from Isenbüttel to the next village, so I followed that and took a loop along a woodland path as well. Saw a huge jackrabbit, deer, and a giant hawk of some kind with a split tail like a swallow. Definitely "am Land" here. It snowed the whole time, but was not as windy or cold as yesterday. Tonight the time changes so it will be dark for my morning runs again after today. :(

J and I repacked and loaded up the van, checking out of the Pension around 8:30, then headed over to the S's house for breakfast. After breakfast the girls colored eggs with J and her mom.

This is one of those traditions that I really don't like, but the kids totally get into. So glad J's mom was willing to do it with them and make it seem at least a little like Easter! It's a strange one this year since we aren't going to be anywhere that we'd go to church on Easter and there won't be any fancy family meals with ham and potatoes and pie...

For our final meal, we had a traditional German meal: Rouladen and potatoes. Yum! A little cake and ice cream to top it all off and then we finished packing up the girlss things and headed to Berlin.

Special thanks to J's sister, A--who dislikes being in pictures herself--for taking the photos.

We made a grocery store raid stop and a few potty breaks along the way and still made great time, getting to the Jugendherberge around 5 p.m. After getting our room and bringing our things in from the car, we ate our light supper in our room, sent the kids off to play in the "Spielraum" (ping pong table, pool table, toys, and other stuff) while I made up the beds and cleaned up.

Sunday March 31

Slept well! We ate breakfast at the hostel, then headed into downtown, deciding to drive instead of taking the public transit since the city was fairly quiet for the Easter holiday--at least the streets were! The museums were another story: gobs of people and everywhere families out with their kids. We found parking easily with the "Navi" (GPS) near our destination: Naturkunde Museum with the world's largest complete dinosaur skeleton. We spent the morning exploring dinosaurs, the environment, the "how-to" of taxidermy, evolution (yes, it's still taught in some places of the world!), a really cool sculpture installation using taxidermied birds and an even more fascinating installation on the demographics of Germany and how and why society has changed or influenced population patterns and immigration (well, at least J and I thought it was particularly interesting).

ME taking pictures!

J discussing mammoths and cloning... hmmm. J wants to live long enough to pet a mammoth!

Watching a video that showed the dinosaur skeletons fleshing out and then walking through their earthly habitat.

You could use these "viewers" to watch the same video as that displayed on the floor screens. You point the viewer at one of the skeletons and the video starts fleshing out the skeleton, adding skin and then movement. Pretty cool.

In the "Species" room within the Evolution exhibit. HR spotted her favorite animal: the Red Panda.

Grace was pointing out all the "tigers" (actually, cheetah and leopard, but they were all the same to her!)

Then we had a "picnic" lunch (our Easter Lunch!!!) back at the car (hastily eaten since it is still quite cold!) and drove over to the Sony Center at Postdam Platz to go to Legoland Discovery Center--an underground indoor Lego play world with giant Lego sculptures, rides, play areas, tutorial "labs" and a mini-movie theater. We pretty much camped out there, letting the kids roam freely while we sat on some benches near the food court in the center of all the fun.

The first part of Legoland was a huge mini-replica of all the major sites in Berlin!

The Sony Center where Legoland is located--see the yellow giraffe in the center? There's a giant Lego giraffe outside on the sidewalk!

A "SEED" concert! One of our favorite German bands with Peter Fox at the mic.

Meet... Harry Potter!

And Hagrid!

When they were good and tired, we headed back to the hostel for the supper buffet and some quiet play in the Spielraum or our room and then an early bed time.

Monday April 1

Easter Monday--still a holiday here so the shops and grocery stores were closed. But many of the museums were still open and the restaurants. So, after breakfast at the hostel, we headed to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum for the morning. On the way from the parking lot, we walked along a section of The Wall that has been retained as part of a permanent memorial. The museum itself was fascinating! The big girls especially got a lot out of it, but the little girls liked hearing the escape stories and seeing the crazily adapted cars and gizmos that people used to try to get across the border. Upstairs was an extensive exhibit on the development of non-violent resistance and an overview of the different world religions and how they have influenced different cultures as well as displays examining the challenges we face today.

From ME's camera

We ate a quick lunch at a nearby hole-in-the-wall and then walked to the Holocaust Memorial where we let the kids run around for about 30 minutes before walking a short distance to the Brandenburger Tor. We wanted to go to the DDR (GDR) Museum but it was at the other end of the huge avenue, Unter den Linden. We were contemplating how we would get there when I noticed a row of bicycle taxis. After asking how much it would cost, we decided to take two: 3 older girls piled into one and GE with us in the second. This way we had more time to examine our surroundings and ask questions of our driver on the way but the kids didn't complain about the cold or having to walk so far! The girls loved it. :)  We warmed up with some hot tea (me!) and hot chocolate (the girls!) at the museum café before entering the exhibits. The DDR Museum is designed to be very hands-on with drawers and flaps to open, things to pick up and hold, even old toys to play with. You could sit in the Trabant cars and in a little movie theater to watch a film on construction of new housing (propaganda). It pretty much laid out what life was like for East Germans starting from childhood on through grade school, high school, training for work, and every day life.

I had to work to suppress my natural instinct to keep the little girls in sight. But they had an uncanny ability to always know where I was (as long as I stayed in one place) and would race up and down and zigzag between the pillars, coming back around to me or J from different directions.

The big girls were given a meeting point and time and sent off to explore on their own.

But we'd run into them from time to time.

That's my guy who made this all possible!!

Our Berlin "Gate" picture (I've been forgetting to get these everywhere we go like we did in France). Look for the tall guy holding the little girl with the red hat (3rd pillar from the right).

All tucked in for the "taxi" ride!

Riding in the Trabant at the DDR Museum.

Hope she learns to sit down before she learns to drive!

GE making tea in the living room of one of the "apartments".

Daddy gets a chance to squeeze into the Trabant. Hilarity ensues... Weren't there any long-legged East-Germans?

Watching the bedtime children's show that used to run every evening in the DDR.

Taking Russian classes at school (every DDR child had to study Russian).

For our last dinner in Berlin we wanted to eat at an authentic Berliner restaurant. The first one we had an ad for (from the hostel lobby) was closed due to construction. Then we thought we'd walk towards our car and find something along the way but our route seemed to be completely destitute of any restaurants! So, we finally got in the car and drove to a different area (I had a couple of coupons for restaurants from the hostel lobby, so I could plug in the address into the GPS). Score! Great dinner and ambiance (but now I can't find the restaurant info anywhere, so apologies that there's no link for this one!).

With his Berliner Bürgerbräu Rotkehlchen .

MK got the fish... Wasn't expecting the whole fish! (But she liked it anyway.)

J got the Berliner specialty: Eisbein with Sauerkraut and Mashed Potatoes with some sort of greens. Anyone want to offer a guess for what type of meat that is?!

Tuesday April 2

Got up early for a run (in the dark again because the clocks went forward on Sunday). I stuck to the path following the canal that headed towards the big downtown plaza areas. Despite the early hour there were plenty of folks already out and about!

We ate breakfast at the hostel again, then packed up and striped our beds, loaded up the van and headed north to Greifswald on the Ostsee. J's cousin KSD and her husband TD live here. He works for Max Planck as a physicist. KSD made some pasta for us for lunch and then the girls played with their two little cousins, G and M while J and I went over to the Jugendherberge to check in and make the beds (there are DJH's all over the place! Some of better quality than others, but so far, we've been generally pleased--definitely nice for families since we don't have to worry as much about the kids running amuck in the hallways and making noise plus there is almost always some sort of play or game room and a breakfast buffet is included.)

ME took this one while I was gone to the DJH. Little M, age 22 months.

J's cousin KSD

Then back to their apartment (which happened to be easy walking distance from the DJH) to hang out and eat supper. J took the kids back to put them to bed and KSD and I walked to the downtown pedestrian zone for a little "night out". We haven't had a good long conversation together since we were in college! So fun to see where they're at and how their little family is doing (they'll be navigating life in Germany for longer than us: TD has 2 years left on his contract and could stay on longer; they've been in Germany for the last 4 or 5 years).

Wednesday April 3

Packed up our stuff and hit the road again... We'd checked the ferry schedules and knew that there was one at 11:15, 1:30, and 3:00 going to Gedser Denmark, but we got there early because we hadn't booked ahead of time and I wasn't sure what the procedure would be. We drove through a sort of no-man's land near the harbor area and then followed signs to a toll-style entrance, paid our ticket (thankfully thought to ask if we could book our return ticket at the same time and found out we could get a discounted 5 day ticket, saving 50 Euros!). We were told to line up in the "1" lane. Then we sat in the car and waited for over an hour... Time for our picnic lunch (we'd made a grocery store raid in Greifswald before we left town). The kids were great: playing their DS's, talking, coloring, playing--all in the van while we waited). Then the ferry pulled up! A guy with neon uniform started getting the huge semi's lined up and then had the different rows start pulling ahead to drive onto the ferry.

Waiting in line at the Überseehaven (Overseas harbor). That's our dark eggplant colored VW "Caddy" on the left.

Keeping busy while we wait.

The ferry pulls in (that's the smokestack with the Scandlines logo). That red semi is leaving the ferry we're about to embark on!

Driving onto the ferry. The whole process from the ferry pulling in and the vehicles leaving to us driving on and leaving the shore took less than 30 minutes! They have the whole process totally streamlined.

 Pretty cool! They packed us all in like sardines and we "parked", cut the engines, and gathered our stuff to go above to the lounges and "salons" to find a place to sit for the 1:45 min ferry ride. There was a cafeteria style restaurant so we rounded out our snack-style lunch with some hot food from the buffet and then hung out...

The coast of Denmark as we approach after the 1.75 hour trip.

Up on deck--we didn't stay long because it was COLD! ME was the only one brave enough to face the wind with me.

Getting shoes back on after playing in the kids area of the ferry.

Denmark: Suddenly, we remember what it's like to NOT understand anything and have a lot more empathy for our kids' experience at the beginning of the year! We laugh at some of the funny words on the radio and the signs, trying to decipher the meanings. The landscape is so different--even from the northern German one that we just left. The sky is a stark blue but the light is different as if the sun is even more slanted and there is still a lot of snow left on the ground. We drive for a little less than an hour, crossing from the island where we'd arrived on the ferry over a huge suspension bridge to another small island and then onto the island, Møn.

We are staying at a small family B&B, NyGammelsø near Stege. There's a kitchenette, game room with Fußball table and pool table, our "Familie Rum" is actually 2 rooms with a doorway between, bunk beds in the one and a double in the other. The only other guests are 2 businessmen who will be here tonight, and then we'll basically have the run of the place. I leave J and the kids there to hang out and play while I drive into Stege (a few kms away) to find a grocery store and a bank. Although there is a fridge and microwave, the stove top is so ancient I'm not sure how to make it work, so I ignore it and get stuff for a cold Abendbrot instead and a salad for me and J. Still, nice to have the fridge for milk (cereal for breakfast!) and cheese, salad fixings and that sort of thing.

Thursday April 4

We slept in until the sun blazing through the curtains couldn't be ignored. It's another gorgeous day outside. The Danes are enjoying a little milder weather as much as we are! It's barely above freezing but with the sun shining, it feels almost balmy. We loaded up and drove to the Geocenter (also check out their official website) at the Møns Klint (Møn Cliffs).

Stopping along the side of the road to take a picture of the landscape.

We were very curious about the architecture of the churches. We saw several like this. As it turned out, this particular one is one of the oldest on the island with portions dating to the 730's!

We saw lots of these half-timber thatched roof houses. They are sort of squat and cozy looking. Love it!

Taking the board walk out to our first view of the chalk cliffs, Møns Klint.

The Geocenter Museum was another fantastic hands-on experience. It's also fairly small so the little kids could run around trying things out and we didn't worry about where they were or what they were getting into.

A Wii style interactive with underwater dinosaurs.

 

MK hard at work re-routing the water with sand dams and watching the effects.

There was a 3D movie too: National Geographic Sea Monsters

One room was a bit of a mystery at first. It was just 4 walls of big stones with a fine gravel pit beneath. Took us a little while to figure out that it was a huge climbing wall!

The little girls just loved the gravel pit! My goodness it was dusty though! They were thoroughly coated with grit after this...

Then we went outside again and walked up the stair case to another vantage point.

Oh so cold! (look at those dusty pants! and behind her GE's muddy boots--the slowly melting snow made the trail very muddy!)

The chalk dissolving in the water makes the color of the water turn to green.

The rocky beach below--there are streaks of flint rock layered in the chalk. They don't know exactly how the flint was formed, but the result is that those rocks land on the beach and are ground into round balls forming the rocky beach.

Happy girl with stick and muddy boots--thank goodness for Matschhosen! But the boots have still not quite recovered!)

The wind and cold made it impossible to go down to the rocky beach with the kids (although we did see some brave souls wandering far below along the coast), but we enjoyed the lookout points and the museum was a rousing success. Supermarket raid on the way back to the B&B and then hanging out for the rest of the afternoon. J picked up a spicy herring from the cold shelves. I found a raw roll of nuts and dried fruits. We ate the herring on our salads for supper. Yum!

HR and GE noticed some young girls playing outside, so for the last hour before dinner they were also outside, running around with 3 little Danish girls whose English vocabulary consisted of "yes!" and "bye!" We figured out their names at least (one's was "Freya"!) and then it didn't matter that they couldn't communicate. HR, especially, seemed to have lost all her usual inhibitions and joined in their romps around the yard behind the B&B.

It's quiet, the sky is beautiful as the sun is going down. I'm already anticipating the end of this vacation trip with a little sadness and trepidation. After this, the rest of our time in Germany is going to fly by. I also have to start thinking about how to get rid of our accumulated "stuff", bicycles, household items that don't need to be taken back to the US, plus notifying all the appropriate -amts and the utility companies, etc. of our departure date...

Friday April 5 

Got up for a longer run. It's grey and cold again, windy and light snow. Still impressed with the starkness of the landscape.

After breakfast we headed into Stege to poke around. We stuck our heads into the old medieval church in the Romanesque style, Skt. Hans Kirke. Then we walked through the center and along the old dike ramparts.

The church in Stege.

Inside, we saw our first suspended ship. Thought this was unusual but as it turns out, they're in every one!

The frescoes in the Danish churches are quite spectacular. Read a little about their history here.

The downtown main drag.

Walking along the alley behind the houses nearest the old coast.

MK's boots had busted their zipper yesterday, so she was wearing mine (she's only one size smaller these days!) and I was wearing my running shoes. I was on the lookout for a shoe store and scored! We stopped in and quickly found something that was her size and that she liked (and that I liked--still important), so I paid for the boots and we were off again.

Could she get any cooler? I was tempted to buy myself a pair, but somehow I don't think she'd have gone for it.

Found the last remaining tower from the ancient walls of this old city. Then we lunched in the Frederick VII Cafe on the central plaza. J had the herring and I had a salmon salad. The kids had fish filets and fries.

Then we climbed in the car and went to find another church, Elmelunde Kirke, which is known for it's frescoes. Another hanging ship! Then spent a good 10 minutes picking out the Bible stories that are portrayed in the frescoes on the ceiling.

Can you find the unicorn?!

What is it about statues that make my girls want to pose?

The Emelunde Kirke is the white church we saw in the distance across the island yesterday.

Then we drove cross country to find one of the many burial barrows dotting the countryside. It was a little like looking for a needle in a haystack because they are not marked with big signs and we just parked along the side of the road and walked across a snowy, muddy field. But as we were driving, I noticed a tiny sign with a picture of 3 stones--one laid across the top of 2--and an arrow pointing across the field and then I saw it!

Crossing the snowy field. A little treacherous--the snow was deep in some spots and we would plunge through up to our knees because we didn't know where the ground was underneath! Where there wasn't snow, it was sticky black mud!

What has she found?

Where's she going?

Gone?!

Everyone goes to investigate...

Huh?

Ah-ha! Hiding away from the wind.

After tromping around a bit, we headed "home" to the B&B to relax for the rest of the afternoon. Another light supper at the B&B and then to bed. Tomorrow will be a long day...

Saturday April 6

Got up with the light around 6 and went for another run, this time towards the northern coastline. It was crisp and sunny again. I saw lots of birds, a huge jack rabbit, and deer. Only met about 3 cars in my 1 hr run! Then it was time to gather the ducklings and pack up the van. We were on the road back to Gedser to get the ferry sometime between 9 and 9:30. Our ferry left at 11:15. No surprises this time. I had our return ticket already so didn't need to worry about getting there really early. Still, I was happy when we got there that we'd left with plenty of time--Saturdays seem to be the busier travel day and although there weren't any semis this time, there were a lot more cars with passengers. The lounge areas quickly filled up and we were lucky to get two small tables next to each other. We carried our cooler and picnic basket up with us and ate our picnic lunch as we crossed the Ostsee (Baltic Sea).

Our car was terribly muddy from driving to and from the Geocenter and chalk cliffs on Thursday, so we were on the look out for a car wash before we got too far underway (we had been hit by the rental car company with a cleaning fee last fall after our rainy week in France and wanted to avoid a repeat). As we came out of the harbor area, there was a huge sign for a "ScanWasch" and low and behold there was a fancy drive-in car wash. We even vacuumed out the inside as best we could with all our stuff crammed in!

Filled up the tank and then we were officially on our way "home" to Bonn. The rest of the day went as smoothly as we could wish for. We stopped once for a grocery raid (I needed to get food for Sunday since the stores will be closed when we get home and tomorrow!) and ate a quick picnic at a little park in the tiny village where we had stopped. Little to no traffic and hardly any construction. The weather was sunny but still cool. Potty and snack breaks (we didn't eat in the car after going to the effort to vacuum it out!)... home about 9:30 p.m. All on that one tank of gas from Gedser to Bonn!

Sunday April 7

Returned the car to the airport in the morning, then came home to do loads and loads of laundry! ME leaves on her Klassenfahrt (class trip) tomorrow with all the 4th graders, so she needed her jeans, sweatshirt, etc. washed and dried as quickly as possible. Our neighbor kindly let us use her dryer to speed up the process (I just dried ME's things; everything else went on the racks in our apartment and in the attic). Luckily it was sunny and warm and I could put the racks part-way out the balcony doors (is it possibly going to be spring soon?!) (but not all the way out since it is Sunday and that would be an exceedingly un-German thing to do). An otherwise quiet day at home with the kids.