Noah's visit continues with a long day of museum visiting. We saw the Picasso museum, the painting gallery (he's here with a painting of the stoning of Steven), and the Pergamon. Whew! Quite the day!

We ended the aftenoon with a lovely chat on our cousin Jeff's balcony. Ahh, summer...

We've been, surprise surprise, marching Noah all around Berlin. The weather is getting really nice and yesterday we went to see the (finally finished) new Jewish Memorial. Here they are inside. Today we're headed to the Berlin Museums!

It was quite the weekend! Last Friday my cousin Jeff needed to drive his mom's car from Berlin back to his parent's house in Stuttgart, about a 6-hour drive south. We got to come along and stay with his family for the weekend!

It's been a long time since we've been on a road trip! (See who called shotgun? Ha ha.)

(We were ashamed to be seen here. But we had a milkshake anyway.)

We saw the former East-West border crossing ...

... lots of rapeseed fields ...

... and little towns.

The Bierbrauers were hosting a girl from my cousin Anne's school, Ting Ting, whose parents live in Shangai, making it a bit too far to go home for the small 2-week vacation they're having. From the left: Ting Ting, Anne, schoolmates Julia and Lu Chi, and Jeff.

We were treated to a really great Chinese dinner ....

After dinner we took a nice walk through Stuttgart's downtown area. (Here are Aunt Susie and Uncle Walter...)

Dinner's not complete without a little dessert!

On Sunday, before we left for the train, we paid a visit to Stuttgart's brand new modern art museum. It is a gorgeous space.

We got to look at lots of art, like this painting by Otto Dix.

We are now enjoying a visit from my cousin Noah, who has been in England and "popped over" to Berlin. We went for a lovely evening walk and found a refrigerator.

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Yes, you know us, we always have to show you the dessert! The other night we had dinner at Max & Moritz, a sort of traditional German restaurant, and for dessert we had Panna Cotta (which I don't think is traditional German but it tastes really good anyway).

The fatal moment ... about 45 seconds later there was nothing on that plate but orange rinds. Mmmmmmm....

Walking home from class last night, the sky was so gorgeous ... it's lovely to see some blue after a week of rain.

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I didn't take this picture - it's from the program Nadja got when we went to the ballet last night! We saw a "Gala," which means it was a bunch of fabulous solos out of lots of different ballets. This one is from "Le Corsaires." They were all wonderful and we had tons of fun!

Hello! This is a funny picture of me, but I realized my face hasn't been on here for a while and (aside from the fact that I seem to be posting all these pictures) you all might wonder if I still exist! Here I am, in front of the computer here in our apartment. The hair is a little windblown, and you'll see why at the end of these pictures! :)

This is what Chance has been doing lately ... classes here are proving to be quite the formidable challenge! He's preparing for a big presentation on Tuesday, so he basically hasn't left the house in the last week except to go to class! Even on this lovely Sunday ...

While Chance was at home dutifully hitting the books, my friend Nadja and her husband Oliver took me for a wonderful drive through the "green" parts of Berlin and beyond! Here they are overlooking the Wannsee, a huge lake on the edge of Berlin.

Next stop was Potsdam, the main "suburb" or "satellite city" of Berlin. It's pretty small and extremely picturesque, and was a favorite place for Prussian royalty to build palaces (you can see pictures of the huge, palace-filled park in the October 2004 entries). Our first stop was here, the Cecilienhof, which was the residence of the last Crown Prince of Prussia. After the second World War it was also the site of the Potsdam Conferences.

It was raining, but it was very pretty... and Oliver was a very gallant umbrella-holder.

Potsdam is famous for its Dutch Quarter. There are tons of cute little shops and cafes, where we sat and had coffee and a snack while the bad weather passed.

You didn't think I was going to let you get away without some Schinkel did you?? Yep, this bridge was originally designed by our friend Carl (we're on a first name basis now, we've decided). Of course the metal part is from a later date.

This bridge is actually the most famous for being the bridge where East and West would exchange spies. Of course we had to stage a reenactment, with Oliver on the East and Nadja on the West!

Finally the sun started peeking out ...

Then they took me to the "Grunewald Turm," this huge brick tower (built by the same guy who designed the Gedaechtniskirche in Zoo, for those of you who visited) which overlooks the Wannsee (the lake). Of course, we climbed it ...

It was gorgeous from up there! You could see 360 degrees around ... Berlin is surrounded by so much green, it's really amazing!

We drove past all sorts of ridiculously large houses ... we were of course busy picking out which ones we were going to live in once we are all horridly rich! :) (How we're going to make the money is something we're still working on, but one thing at a time ... )

On the way home we got to ride in the BMW convertible Nadja and Oliver had rented for their trip to Frankfurt last week. The sun was peeking out so we put the top down - it was fabulous!

Chance and I went for a short walk this evening around our neighborhood, which is playing host to the 'Karneval der Kulturen' - a parade sort of thing with the requisite food stands and port-o-potties. Most of the parade participants made us scratch our heads, but I think they were mostly trying to be "ethnic." Anyway there were a ton of people, as you can see!

In other news, Chance ordered the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Shows on CD from the BBC store a while ago, and they finally came! They have been a very good source of study-break material... they are hilarious and wonderful and make us happy even when we have to do homework. :)

Look how that ivy across the way got all green all of a sudden! (You can compare it to the pics from February 13 - it's quite a difference.) The sky has been amazing, too. I have been told by a Berliner that we are having the "Eis-Heiligung" (the "Ice-Sanctification"), where for 5 days or so the Arctic air comes down and freezes everything. It is a bit chilly, but not too bad - during the day it's staying around 13 or so, which is in the 50's. It just feels cold because of the wind and off-and-on rain. It's actually a bit like home... In this picture you can also see the evening shadows projecting on the wall. That time of night is so pretty, and it's nice that it doesn't happen until 8:30 or so - now we are reaping the summer benefits of being this far north, as opposed to winter when the sun set at 3! :)

I can't believe it's taken me so long to introduce you to my good friend Nadja! We met through the Goethe Institut's "Tandem Partner" program, through which you can meet native German speakers who are interested in speaking your native language. Nadja's English is wonderful, and she is a big help to me with my German. And on top of that, she's a ton of fun to hang out with! She's a native Berliner, and today she introduced me to a new part of the city - the Grunewald (it basically means "green woods"), which is a humongous green space in West Berlin. There are several lakes (as you can see on the map) and gorgeous greenery!

It's amazing - just 20 minutes from the university there's a place where you can only see trees and water! It was so beautiful ...

The sun was shining (not too hot today...) and we had a fabulous walk. There are paths all the way around the lake, plus lots more that lead into the woods around.

There are two huge dog beaches along the lake, and there were tons of cute puppies playing in the water. (You can see one in the left-hand corner of this photo.) There were also frogs and cuckoo birds. Nadja told me there are even wild pigs here! (Apparently they make driving at night a hazard.)

It was so wonderful to be in the fresh air and to see some "real nature." It reminded me of home...

On the way home we noticed we were passing Schinkelstrasse - and Nadja even pulled over so I could take a picture! Let's all say it together: "Schinkel, Schinkel, Schinkel!" Very good.

It is HOT! Yesterday it was almost 90 and very humid. I wore flip-flops. It was fabulous. Chance and I took a nice long evening walk... it felt like we were in a sauna. What is summer going to be like?

This is one of our favorite neighborhood haunts, called "Kaffee am Meer." They have tons of outside tables and it's a great place to people-watch. They have great German "Abendbrot" (evening bread), too.

It seems that the good weather has arrived. Yesterday I got to hang out on my cousin Jeff's balcony - he has a great place near the center of Berlin.

We spent the whole afternoon just enjoying the sunshine and drinking coffee...

I have a feeling it's going to be a nice summer.