Day 2

I made us get up a little earlier this day. Like, I think I got up around 9:00 a.m., Easton woke on his own maybe 9:45 or so and I woke up the little two just after 10:00 a.m.

As I got out of the shower I discovered my contacts case missing from where I had put them the night before. And now Jason had two contact cases with his stuff. Lovely. I texted him with a "is there any chance you could be wearing my contacts?" and the answer was basically "no chance". I'm sure you can see where this is going. All our spare contacts are on the boat, which was stupid of us, but, well, that's how it is. So, I put on my glasses for the day and the kids and I headed out.

This time we went to our main street and went south. Towards the TV Tower.

Dalton was helping lil Autumn walk along the wall. Aww.



And--of course--Easton is jumping. That boy.

The tall thing you see behind them is this old church:



I currently know absolutely nothing about it other than it helps me figure out which way is home now that I don't have my Rocky Mountains to always tell me which way is "west". And it also dingle dongles several times a day for, seriously, like 2 minutes at a time. Perhaps longer. It's at maybe 8 in the morning, then at noon and then again at 6 p.m. I think. It's charming. Except when you're jet lagged and trying to have a snooze.

The kids and I stopped in at some café for some better coffee than I had at home. And a Schoko-Croissant to share:



Ordering was a slight challenge again. But I got what I wanted and let's just focus on that. Although I will add that it's quite a challenge for me to know how much money to give them when I don't see a total on a register. Like, they'd say something like, "3 blah blahs seven and forty" (except all in German). And I guess that's 3.47. But again, I'm making it work and I'm already learning.

As we were sitting there a fire truck came by and the sirens sound all old-fashioney just like they do in the movies. The kids like it. They think it sounds like monkeys, I guess. Anytime we hear one off in the distance they all go, "Monkey truck!"

After our café stop we headed back south down the Allee. I remember my sister saying how clean Germany is. Compared to where we lived in north Denver, I have to disagree. And there is hardly ever a trash can. I had to carry my empty "take away" cup of Kaffee for blocks before we spotted one. And it's not like they're hard to spot:



We stopped in some stores here and there. Just being curious, really.

We also stopped for a few photo ops:





Berlin is covered in graffiti. Erm, I think they actually think of it as "street art". It's not exactly legal but I don't think "they" do a darn thing to discourage it or fix it. It's just the way it is here. It's as much a part of Berlin as, like, gamblers in Vegas or jazz music in New Orleans. It is seriously, seriously EV. REE. WHERE.



Anyway, eventually we got to some we've-gone-far-enough point on the west side of the Allee so we crossed over to the east (Ost). Even the cross walk signs are different here:





We stopped in that store called "Rossmann's" you can see above. Easton said, "This could be like our new Walgreens." It's a chain. We browsed around and then bought some bottled waters. It seems everyone buys bottled water here. I think it's "fine" to drink their tap water but at a restaurant or whatever, they always always always bring it to you with a bottle of water and glasses ("still or gas?"). Nein ice. Interesting side note time: the "checkers" all sit down here. And why shouldn't they? But yeah, all the grocery and other store clerks have a little stool. And they don't give you bags for your goods here. You can buy one but you are encouraged to bring your own reusable ones. And they don't bag it for you ever. I knew this coming in. Luckily.

We continued our walk back up the east side of the street. As we got right near our flat, we saw an official photographer guy, 2 assistanty people, and a model. Autumn wanted to stop to watch:



Dalton did not:



Easton wanted to take a picture of me:



Then we had enough and went home for some lunch.

We took it easy that afternoon. I put Frozen on my computer DVD player for the kids. American DVDs won't work in German DVD players.



I unpacked quite a bit and tried my first load of laundry. All the labels of the settings and such are, of course, in German. And the thing is teeny tiny. But I got one going:



It seriously took, like, the whole rest of the day to wash and dry that tiny load. Goodness.

We decided to head back out to our grocery store on our block for some stuff for dinner. We got a "new" loaf of bakery bread to try. Apparently, Germany has more varieties of Brot than any other country. I wish I made a note of the specific kind we tried that night. I thought I'd be able to go back and spot it and figure it out but nope. We'd like to try lots more of the Brot. We also got stuff for Spaghetti for J. Noodles with butter and Parmesan for me and E and headed back home:



We had our very first meal for 5 in our little flat and then headed out for ice cream to finish "filling up" after our not-all-that-exciting dinner:





It wasn't particularly cold or anything, but we thought the kids might get chilly at night in the shade while eating their ice cream. (By the way, how cute is the cobblestone sidewalk in the background???)

Hey, I just noticed this thing doesn't have graffiti:



We stopped in a different grocery store on our way back home that night. I hadn't known about it just yet being only Day 2 and all. :)

Then I think we probably called it a day. We were still giving kids a little melatonin at night to help them adjust and that was Full Day #2.