As promised...

So I am trying to become more responsible in 2008. I would say it is high time since I am now entrusted with the education of tender young minds.

First...a painful reminder that no matter how much I will it to happen the subway will never take me where I truly want to go.

Now, BERLIN!!!
So when I went backpacking through Europe a few years ago, I never made it up to Berlin and I really wanted to go. Teresa (my sister) wanted to go as well so we decided to set out complete with all four of her little boys, 6, 4, 3, and 4 months. That in and of itself is an adventure. I have traveled a fair amount and it was amazing the difference between traveling with adults and traveling with kids. They were not at all impressed with the historical significance of the Berlin wall!!! I had a lot of fun and I am so glad that Teresa and the boys allowed me to drag them all over Berlin. I love the city, it is a great mix of old and new and has such a charming feel to it despite its rather shady history.

The drive up took about 7 hours, with one stop at a McDonalds to play on the toys. We checked into an apartment that we rented for a couple of nights. I took the boys on a walk to get rid of some of their 7 hours of couped up energy scaring Teresa half to death, (I am not used to telling people where I am going or when I will be back, I answer to no one in my life) sorry Teresa.

My travel companions.
Batman
and the stroller boys.

The next day we went to see pieces of the Berlin wall and my favorite monument that I have ever seen. It is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews. The explanation on Wikipedia is surprisingly concise "It consists of a 19,000 square meter (4.7 acre) site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs or "stelae", arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. The stelae are 2.38m (7.8') long, 0.95m (3' 1.5") wide and vary in height from 8 inches to 15 feet 9 inches. According to Eisenman's project text, the stelae are designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason."

The paths that lead through the concrete towers go up and down for no particular reason. It does give you an oddly chaotic feeling but then they are all perfectly arranged.

The boys thought of it as a maze and went running through all over the place. I would highly recommend this place.
I then ate a real live Berliner, right there in Berlin. It was fabulous, but I would submit that most German food is fabulous. I like it better than French or Spanish.
We went to see Checkpoint Charlie and had some dinner in a restaurant there. When Steven and I went to the bathroom there was a woman there and we were trying to figure out which bathroom was women's and which was men's, Steven asked in German and the lady responded in Spanish that she didn't know what he was saying. That language is so useful!! I use Spanish all the time.
Here is the famous sign that you would read as you passed through the wall to the soviet side.

Here is Nathan posing with a "guard" with Checkpoint Charlie in the background.
The next day we went and saw a piece of the wall that is still in place. History: At the end of WWII the allies (The US and the Soviet Union were allies) split up the occupation of Germany but they both wanted a piece of the capital city, Berlin, even though it was in the middle of the Soviet side. So they split it up but it was still one city and people worked on one side of the line and lived on the other, they shopped on the different sides and could pass easily no questions asked. The tension between the Soviets and the US increased and one night without warning the Soviets put up barbed wire, followed by a wall on the border, closing off the western half of the city to all the surrounding area, separating families, friends etc.

This is how it looked. The shabby white wall closest to the camera is the border wall with us on the Western side, behind it there is the death strip, sand and land mines and electric fences and barbed wire, followed by the inner eastern wall.
This is to show how tall it was.

We watched some videos in the museum and it was just so crazy and sad for the people, especially those in Eastern Berlin who were going to be occupied by a starving country. The US and the USSR used their position in Berlin to show each other that they were better and that the other did not have any power over them. I loved Berlin and all the history there.
Thank you Teresa and the boys for a great trip.

Winter

This Jacob growling like a lamb.

Hello there. So it has been over two months since I updated my blog and I feel that my only loyal reader (Mom) is getting hostile.

So as to keep things organized and accessible for my other loyal reader (Dad) I will write in a list.

1) I went to Utah for Thanksgiving and absolutely loved seeing the family. I was also able to hang out with a friend that I met in China, who convinced me to go skydiving in Ogden. For those of you who did not know, I am deathly afraid of heights and continue my life long quest to conquer that fear. So we drove up and they dressed me up like a road cone and then we got into this tiny plane with about 15 other divers who were all kind of nutty. When we got to 13,000 feet they all started jumping and the guy I was strapped to started pushing me toward the open door. I was SO scared but once I got to the door and the guy threw us both out of the plane it was a lot of fun. I had a blast and I can cross one more thing off of my list of 100 things I have to do before I die. Since I crossed that one off I have been looking into how to get to Antarctica and where the Dalai Lama is touring this year. New Years resolutions can be pricey.
2) I have seen many shows since I have been here in NYC but I had never seen Les Miserables. I went and saw it at the beginning of December and it was fabulous! It is definitely one of my favorite shows. I just find the story and the characters so compelling.
3) I went to Germany for Christmas and spent some great time with Teresa and her five guys. We had a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner of KFC and then a fun live nativity made more fun by Steven, Nathan and Jacob and their boundless energy. I was fortunate enough to play the part of the star again, only this time the star was merely perched on my finger instead of around my face.
As you can see in this picture the "wise men" were told to follow the star to baby Jesus. Jacob jumps right in and gets cozy with the baby, Stephen is merely enduring the play, and Nathan can't get his eyes off the star.
4) I got to play santa on Christmas Eve, and these are the fruits of my labors.

5) One of my students guessed that I am 50 years old. (WRONG!!!)
6) Another of my students used the F word as an adjective in his essay response to the standardized test they took today. The answer looked at little like this, “cuz he was F#@%ing pissed off” the correct answer (the one they will get from the students in the suburbs) is “He was upset”
7) After the test today my kids asked me what a calf was. They have no idea what most of the things in this test are talking about. A huge problem for them is vocabulary acquisition. I read through the test today and thought “could I have passed this as a sixth grader?” The answer, of course, but I had two educated parents who spoke in and educated English my whole life. I was surrounded by educated and articulate English speakers, everywhere that I went. From the time I was born I was constantly acquiring vocabulary. Only about 3% of the whole school population has parents who speak English and far less than that have parents with more than 7 years of formal education. In short, I am voting for Obama.
8) My roommate Cristi got the five hour version of Pride and Prejudice from Amazon and I have determined that there is no better escape from the drudgery of inner-city middle school stress than a nightly visit to Jane Austen's little dream word where people are polite even when they are cross.
9) I bought a space heater and my Mom got me an electric blanket and some very warm pajamas. These have revolutionized my life and have made me a bit of a recluse.
10) I will write about my visit to Berlin within the week. Just FYI I find the place charming and would love to live there, I think I have a strange pull towards all things, people and places with traces of communism.