Here's the outside of our building - we're the ones at the very top in the corner!

We took a walk the other day along the river. It's still freezing here. Today it's snowing, again. It's been quite the week ---

Here's one of my favorite posters ... every time I see it, I think those are Rod Stewart's legs...

Our last day at the Goethe Institut ... we all went to lunch together afterwards. That's Enma, Chance and Angela in the front row, with the rest of the class strewn out behind ... we'll miss them!

One more of our favorite Anglicisms ... our toilet paper is called "Touching!"

My cousin Jeff and our friend Angela on the U-Bahn after we saw a 5-hour ballet ... it was really good but we were rather sleepy afterwards!

:)

Welcome home! here is our final living space, on the 5th floor of a gorgeous building in Kreuzberg. This is the living and work room ... 

... the kitchen (which I LOVE) ... 

... the bedroom (the wallpaper is embossed!) ... 

... and the view out the window. All those vines are going to be green and gorgeous in the springtime!! 

Our street is so beautiful. It looks a lot like Paris. We love it. 

Last week we had my cousin Karly and her boyfriend Michael for a visit! It was great fun - we stuffed them full of food and then made them tramp through Berlin for hours on end in the cold. We are such good hosts!!! :) 

The joys of the IKEA warehouse ... Karly & Mike chipped in for a very nice futon mattress for our floor -- all you who are coming to visit after them should be very grateful! 

You can't pass up the chance to play "American Gladiators" when there is such great equipment readily available. 

Okay, this is the only picture I could find where the "eating" expressions were all equally hilarious on everyone. :) We introduced Karly & Mike to the joy of Turkish Doeners - Jeff was with us too and showed us a new and very yummy spot to get them. 

One afternoon last weekend when Chance and I were supposed to be doing homework, we took a walk around the corner to the "Kreuzberg" ("cross mountain," for which our neighborhood is named). It's just a little hill with a monument on top, but it was pretty. Much better than homework. 

Here's Mike trying to look very calm and warm at the tram stop, where it was a balmy 26 degrees. Fahrenheit, I mean. Despite the cold, we think they enjoyed themselves. 

Karly made us pot pie. Mmmmmmmmm ... it was soooo good. A Real American Treat! Thanks, Karly! 

On Tuesday we went on a tour of the "Kanzleramt" or Chancellory, basically the White House of Germany, where Gerhard Schroeder and his 500 administrators help run the country. This is the cabinet room. It was pretty cool to get to see where all that governing happens ... plus, we even got to see Kanzler Schroeder doing a photo op! 

...okay, you can't really see him, but he was really there. I promise. We also got to see Frau Schroeder recieve Frau Putin, the first lady of Russia! It was quite the evening. As my sister said, we were "rubbing elbows" this week!  

And finally ... this large sign says "stay a while." It's a quote from Goethe's "Faust," and it's in front of the Deutsche Theater, in front of which I stood yesterday for 4 hours - in the Washington-style rain, I might add - waiting to buy tickets for all those super-popular plays that went on sale yesterday. There was drama - people were yelling at the employees, employees were yelling at people, people were crying to the cashiers about needing tickets and the cashiers were looking frazzled and exhausted. I was next to a very nice older couple who complimented me on my "sehr gutes Deutsch" and gave me chocolate to "warm me up." What a day. Today it was snowing, so I guess I was lucky to just have had the rain.... 

finally

Hi!
We finally figured out how to use the internet at our new place! It's slow, but it works and now we feel connected to the world again, hurrah!
We've had a busy couple of weeks. First we moved to a new place (in the same neighborhood as our old one, but about a 10-minute walk) which we love. Then my cousin Karly and her boyfriend Michael came to stay with us for a week, which was tons of fun! We walked them all around and stuffed them full of European delicacies, including the mysterious but oh-so-yummy pistachio boloney!!
Pictures shall be forthcoming.
For now, our new info!
Address:
(no c/o this time - just our names)
Willibald-Alexis-Strasse 40
10965 Berlin
Germany
Phone:
++49 30 6900 4926 (home)
++49 179 864 4073 (cell)
More very soon!
Ciao!