Potsdam

Saturday we decided to go to Potsdam, which is just to the West of Berlin. It's a beautiful town, but the main sight to see is the Sans Souci (no worries) palace. Mike and I coudn't help but sing "don't worry be happy" while we were there. But we started at a nice garden near the train station, and took a walk through town on our way to the palace. Brandon was excited that there was Brandenburg Street and Brandenburg gate, which both had his name in them. He also likes the Brandenburg gate in Berlin.
Next stop was the garden surrounding the palace -- there are actually several palaces on the grounds, but we only went into Sans Souci.














It was another long day of walking, but well worth it. The grounds and palaces were all amazing, although not quite as spectactular as Versailles, which was the model. However, the grounds were certainly nearly as large as the area surrounding Versailles.

Visiting the Wall

I wasn't with the boys on this part of the trip, but I thought you all might like to see some pictures...


There is only one part of town in the East where there is still a portion of the wall, and as you can see it is covered with murals. Andrew got to sit in a Trabant car (made only in East Germany before '89) at the GDR museum.

Catching up

We've been in Berlin for a week now, and I've gotten behind on posting to the blog. We've been pretty busy -- Mike has been working a lot, and hopefully that will slow down this week. I had several interviews this week, as well as getting settled into my office at the Free University of Berlin. Mike has mainly taken the kids on a tour of playgrounds this week, but they also went to the Reichstag (the German seat of parliament), the Berlin wall park, the only place where a part of the wall is still standing, and yesterday we went to the city of Potsdam. Here's some pictures from last week:
This was father's day -- Mike got to row us around on the lake in the Tiergarten, but at least we got to enjoy some dinner at the biergarten afterwards. The Tiergarten is great -- there are several playgrounds, and tons of walking/running trails. I've been running there on a regular basis. There are also animals (besides the zoo). Speaking of the zoo, we are just a few blocks away from the main entrance, so Mike took the boys there and got a membership since they have a nice playground there as well. So far the favorite playground is the "rubber" playground. You would never see a playground like this in the U.S., way too dangerous, but the boys love jumping around and playing on the various climbing sections. I'll post some pictures from the boys trip to the wall and our trip to Potsdam later today (hopefully!)

In Berlin

I'll post some pictures tomorrow, but I wanted to write a quick post to say that we arrived in Berlin yesterday, and we are enjoying our much larger apartment in the center of Berlin. Before we left Paris we made sure to get to the Orsay Museum, since Mike and I like the impressionist painters. The boys and I were tired, so we did a relatively quick tour -- Andrew liked the self-portrait of Vincent Van Gogh. The museum is under construction so many of the paintings we had seen before were in storage.

I had to go up to Brussels for a quick one day trip to do an interview with an important former politician. He was the key person who got antidiscrimination policy started in the EU. That meant I missed our last day in Paris, but it was worth it. The weather was bad in Paris on Saturday so the boys spent most of the time at a science museum.

We flew out of Orly airport Sunday afternoon, which was quite the experience. Very poorly designed so that flights can be delayed when another flight is de-planing. In any case, we made it to Berlin and it was a nice day so we went and rented a row-boat in the nearby tiergarten and had dinner in the beer garden there. Mike did all of the rowing, but at least we had given him a father's day card earlier in the day, so it wasn't all bad.

Today started off chilly, and the boys went to a nearby playground while I did some grocery shopping. They walked around town later while I went to the Free University to get the key to my office and try out the U-Bahn (i.e., subway). All went smoothly and I cooked us a gourmet meal with all the meat and veggies that I bought. It's nice to have a real kitchen again.

Another reason we're glad to be in Berlin is that the German soccer announcers are WAAAY better than the French announcers. Now you don't have to watch the screen to see if a goal has been scored. The French announcers were so low-key you couldn't tell if anything exciting was happening. Then they didn't show any highlights afterwards. This has all changed. My theory is that the French team hasn't scored a goal in so long, the announcers have forgotten how to get excited!

At last, the Louvre

After a rather busy weekend of sightseeing, the boys mainly wanted to spend time at playgrounds on Monday and Tuesday. Their favorite is a the Jardin de Luxembourgh. There are usually lots of English speaking kids there.












Mike and I were fairly busy on Tuesday with meetings and conference calls so Mike only had a few hours to take them somewhere (besides Luxembourg) so they went to the Palais Royale which has interesting outdoor artwork and gardens.
I decided to take Wednesday off so we could all go to the Louvre together. We all got audio guides and the boys did very well, Andrew was excited to see the Mona Lisa since he had heard about it on a recent TV show he watched. We spent most of our time in the Egyptian Art section, which Mike and I hadn't really seen before. We looked at some of the paintings in the section near the Mona Lisa, then went and looked at some of the decorative art and the King's crown. All of that took about 4 hours and we saw about 1/10th of the museum. The boys were particularly happy that they got to go and play with the sailboats in the Tuileries garden after we were done at the Louvre. Only a few days left in Paris!

Oooh, my aching feet!

So it was my idea to take the kids to the Eiffel tower and go up the stairs to the second stage. I figured it would burn some energy, and they had a lot of it this morning, despite a long day of walking yesterday. The trip to the tower was fine, and we only had to stand in line for about half an hour to go up the stairs. The trip up went well with the kids running much of the way. We got up to the second stage and had some lunch as well as enjoying the nice view. It was a nice cool day in the upper 60s low 70s (eat your heart out Austinites!). I had arranged to meet a friend at her house around 3:00, so we had to leave the tower around 2:30. We did the long walk to her house, and after that my feet felt about ready to fall off. We spent a little bit of time at her house and did a bit of re-fueling, then headed to the Musee Rodin. We just went into the garden where they have some sculpture and the boys could play around a bit. They liked some of the sculptures like the thinker, but they mainly liked the grassy area where they could roll around. Despite my aching feet we managed to make it over to Invalides to look at the cannon, which were pretty impressive. They even had one for Brandon! He was very pleased with that -- but then he kept asking me why I gave him a French name...

The boys loved seeing the cannon and tanks at Invalides so we'll have to go back there to check out the military museums sometime. I'm heading to the bathtub after the current soccer game is over (Germany vs. Australia).

A day in Versaille

We took the commuter train out to Versaille today, the boys were excited because it was a double decker train and they got to sit on the upper deck. We were very lucky that it didn't rain today -- it rained a lot last night. I went out for an early run along the Seine river, out to the Eiffel tower and back, so I was already a little tired, but knew we had a long day of walking ahead. We started with a tour of the castle, and had to wait in a fairly long line to get in, but it moved quickly. The last time we were here was our honeymoon! That was 15 years ago and a lot has changed at Versaille. They now have a whole new wing that is open, and they have restored a lot of the rooms and are in the process of restoring even more of the interior and exterior.

After our tour of the castle, we went into the gardens for some lunch and to wait for the water and music show. The grounds have about 30 fountains that run on the weekends for a few hours with music. There is also the "dancing fountain" as Brandon calls it. Here's some video of that one, as seen by Andrew:



The boys liked this one the most, but I had some other favorites, as well:










After spending nearly 2 hours wandering through the gardens and seeing ALL the fountains, we trudged our way over to the Trianon palace (with a little help from some ice cream for the boys) and had about 15 minutes to walk through that much smaller palace. It would have been nice to have some time to look at the grounds, but at that point we were all tired, and with a stop at the bathroom and making our way back towards the train station, all we wanted to do was stop and have some dinner (some traditional crepes, yum!) and then a train ride home. Of course the US vs. England game was still on when we got back, so we let the boys stay up and watch the end of the game. They still aren't on a normal sleep schedule yet.

Tomorrow we will probably go to the Eiffel Tower unless the weather is bad. A friend has invited us over to her house in the afternoon. I thought it would be nice for the boys to see how a normal french family lives. It will be a good change of pace for them, particularly after a long day of walking. Not sure if we are taking the elevator or the stairs at the Eiffel tower...

Rainy days in Paris

The last couple of days have been a bit rainy. Mike took the boys out to a kid park yesterday, then I took them to Notre Dame Cathedral where we got to meet a priest and hear all about the Easter story -- at least until I explained that I was raised Catholic and knew about it already. The boys liked looking at the models of Notre Dame being built best. I think they were impressed with the stained glass. I lit a candle for Mom and Dad. Today was museum day, Mike took the boys to the Centre Georges Pompidou where they have modern art -- Andrew actually enjoyed it and got to see some artists he learned about in art class this year. Brandon was less enthusiastic, but he enjoyed playing with the audio tour buttons. He still had energy after they got back, so I took him for a walk to Luxembourg garden. Hopefully they will start to get on a regular sleep schedule, Andrew had trouble falling asleep last night and slept until almost 10 this morning.

I got some time in at a bookstore and found used versions of some books I wanted. I actually have gotten some writing done over the last couple of days and have been reorganizing my book project based on the latest interviews I have been doing. I may end up doing 2 books instead of just one. My french seems to be coming back as it usually does after a week or so in the country. It's a relief -- I was starting to worry that I was going to lose it after not spending much time in France over the last few years. I think regular visits will have to be in the schedule from now on...

Hanging out with Mike and the boys

I'm very happy that Mike, Andrew and Brandon made it here safely yesterday. Mike and Andrew took a nap after arriving, but Brandon (aka, energizer bunny) was bouncing off the walls, so I had to take him for a walk on my way to get my keys to my office at the university. We got them up after we got back and went for a boat tour. They still had a lot of energy after that, so we went to the Tuileries garden where Brandon rode the carousel a couple of times and bounced on a trampoline for about 15 minutes while Mike and Andrew played football and soccer. Then they both ran all the way back to our apartment. I think they slept pretty well last night.

I had more meetings today and hope to get some work done but it's hard to stay motivated when you are surrounded by Paris!

In Paris

The French Senate

In the Jardin de Luxembourg

I managed to leave Rotterdam without getting a picture of my nephew Alfonso and me together, but I'll see him again in Berlin. My sister Rhonda will be meeting us in Berlin, so he is probably going to come to Berlin while she is there. I arrived in Paris around noon today and spent some time getting settled into our apartment before taking a walk along the Seine.

Later I took a walk to Luxembourg Gardens -- it is very close by, which will be helpful when the boys are feeling antsy. Our apartment is small, but right in the middle of things, and I expect we won't spend a whole lot of time inside.