Getting Settled

We have now been in Germany for six weeks.  It feels like it has been a lot longer.  The first couple of weeks were a blur of shopping for and assembling furniture.  It was a lot of work but nice to have the essential stuff like beds, a couch and a dining table.  There are still plenty of things we need though and it will be much better once our things arrive.  Right now it looks like that won't happen until the end of November or even the beginning of December.

One thing we did get was a shopping trolley.  It is essentially a large canvas bag with an aluminum frame, wheels and a long handle.  It makes bringing home groceries much easier especially since we don't have a car and have to cart everything home by bus.  Anna was pretty excited when we bought it because it meant she could help "carry" the groceries.  However, she almost never goes shopping with us since she is at school and the gym.

Anna with the cart and her Fanta

The girls are settling in too.  Sabine has discovered museums.  She likes them all (at least so far) and her favorite is the Naturkunde (Natural History) museum.  The biggest draw is the dinosaur skeletons in the main gallery.  As a result she has become really interested in all bones and dinosaurs.  They also have a large display of stuffed birds that she really loves.  In fact, a couple of  weeks ago when she got to chose which museum to visit she went back to see it again.

At the Naturkunde Museum

Sabine has also spent lots of time playing with her ponies.  She has enjoyed having space to line them up or put them into some elaborate party configuration.  She also likes to set up reenactments of her favorite episodes.

Playing with the ponies

Ponies on an air mattress

Anna has settled in at school.  She is attending school across the street from the SportForum which is where she practices every day.  After lunch, she takes her scooter from the school to they gym with two of her teammates.  You can check out the school here.  There are some nice pictures of it including one when it was newly built in 1978.  Her teacher (Frau Staggenborg) lived in Seattle 13 years ago as part of a high school exchange program.  As a result, her English is quite good. She also knows lots of stuff about where Anna is from which is cool.  The only bummer is that school starts at 7:40AM and it is all the way across town.  This means we have to leave the house by about 6:25AM every morning.  We have our trip down to a science though so it goes pretty fast.  Anna likes it because she gets to use almost every form of transit the city offers.  We take the 237 bus to the Bahnhof (train station) where we transfer to the U-bahn (subway) from there we change to the S-bahn at Jungfernheide finally we get on the tram (street car).  It is only about a five minute walk from the tram stop to the school.  

Gymnastics is going well too.  Anna tried out when we first arrived and was invited to the state team.  This means that she is on a team that represents Berlin for her age group.  There are 6 girls in Anna's age group and 20 total (including all age groups).  The nice thing is that the state team really starts when you are in 3rd grade so the girls on Anna's team have only been there since August when school started.  They practice 5 days a week but the start and end times vary slightly and they sometimes practice on Saturdays.  There are lots of differences.  They have a dance teacher and regularly scheduled dance training.  They go to the sauna after practice on Tuesdays.  They go running on Thursdays (weather permitting) and on Saturdays (if they practice).  They have a much more intense conditioning routine so Anna actually comes home sore sometimes (especially after they go running or on dance nights).  There is a twice annual training vacation where the coaches take the team somewhere for a week.  In December, they are going to Austria.

The team practices at the SportForum in Hohenschoenhausen.  The facility houses practice facilities for all kinds of sports including archery, swimming and soccer (just to name a few).  It was the East German Olympic training center and is the largest of it's kind in Europe.  Patrick found something that said 3,500 athletes practice there every day.  It also includes dorms and a school.  Here is the link to the official gym website.  If you want to see more, there are some great YouTube videos (in German of course) that showcase two of the older girls at Anna's gym.  It gives a better view of the gym and you get to see the coaches too - Tammy  (This one is actually a four part series.  The Go for Gold website where it came from is something produced by the SportForum.) and Michelle.  Two great things about this gym, the wall of  windows makes it really light and it is warm even when it is cold outside.

At the Gym

Anna has learned some new skills and is becoming more confident.  Each week, the coaches recognize the girl who did the best/improved most in each event.  Anna has now gotten the award for every event and she is very proud of that.  The coaches are quite impressed with her since she never cries.  Apparently, if the other girls fall or don't like something or are having a bad day they cry.  The coaches can't believe that Anna doesn't cry and they asked her if the girls at her other gym cried a lot.  She is getting ready for her first meet on Saturday (November 17).  This is the only time she will compete as an AK8 since the German system is age based.  In January, Anna will become an AK9 since she will be 9 in 2013. 

Anna with her bar bear

October 28 was Berlin's 775th birthday and the first time the city celebrated as one.  The 750th celebration happened right before the wall fell.  It was a beautiful sunny day so we decided to go check it out.  We headed to the Nikolaiviertel which was really crowded.  We walked around a bit and then ended up at the Deutsches Historisches (German History) Museum .  Entrance was free to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the museum so it was also packed.  We wandered through quickly since it was so crowded it was hard to see.  The big hit of the day was a section of paintings both very old and some newer ones.  Both Anna and Sabine really enjoyed it.  In fact, Anna wants to go to an art museum next.

Rotes Rathaus & Fernsehturm

The Berliner Dom

The very best part of our visit to the Deutsches Historisches Museum was they had free face painting.  The lady who was doing it was very artistic.  She added glitter, painted lips and did all kinds of other cool stuff.  We had to wait a bit but it was worth it.

A couple of Sundays ago we went to the Tierpark.  It was the East Berlin zoo.  It was built on the grounds of a castle (the Schloss Friedrichsfelde).  As a result, it is big and beautifully landscaped.  We saw lots of animals including some we had never seen before like maned wolves and manatees.  They even have a honey badger but we didn't see it.  Sabine and Anna both had a great time.  They got to visit the spielplatz (playground) and the petting zoo.  Both of the girls were worried about that because they had a bad experience with the goats in the Munster zoo.  It wasn't much different here.  The goats are really pushy and want food so they stand right by the food machine and watch to see if you buy food.  If you do, they run to the gate and wait.  They push and shove trying to get the food.  Sabine didn't stay long but Anna had Patrick carry her food in and then went to find the sheep and goats not right by the gate.  

At the Tierpark