Deutsche Oper

We are very lucky to have a well known Opera Singer as a parent at our school. She is the lead in an Opera called "Tannhäuser", by Richard Wagner. She organised for the school to get some free tickets to see part of a rehearsal and a tour of the Deutsche Oper
Behind the main stage we saw where they keep the props, and lots of other interesting stuff
Here is the gridded picture of a large backdrop that is being painted at the moment.
and the current progress.
In the room they construct props carved from polysteyrene blocks....this rabbit is underway!
We loved this crocodile.
and how could we resist having a photo taken with this mum and her joey! I wonder how we can get this home after they finish using it??

The stage layout for one of the scenes for "Tannhäuser". This was the scene we watched being worked on.

It was interesting to see the director and other people working with the cast members on little things, like how slow they need to walk, or a change of placement of people. The Opera Choir were amazing when they all sang together, so inspiring! We only stayed for about 45 minutes watching the rehearsal, as the tour guide said "We don't want to turn children off Opera by boring them!"

In December they are doing a children's Opera of Hansel and Gretel, so we will try and get tickets for that. The tour guide said the government subsidise the tickets as they want all people to be able to experience the Opera not just the rich people!

3 seconds of fame

Ingrid and Nicole went to see the Loriot exhibition at the Film and Fernsehen Museum at Potsdamner Platz today.

Today was Vicco von Bülow's 85th birthday, and the RBB news team were there filming the crowds.

2 days later one of the teachers at the school told me she had seen me on TV...so I managed to find it on the internet!

Loriot feiern 85

click on
"Multimedia (Abendschau Video): Loriot feiert 85. Geburtstag, 12.11.2008"

Ingrid and I saw the irony of watching us on TV, watching TV!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

At Potsdamer Platz the slide has been constructed and is now being covered with snow.

The wooden huts for the Christmas markets are under construction...The roasted chestnuts are cooking already on some corners!

YIPPEE!!!!!

Ka De We windows...again!

Some days I am glad that my camera is so small that I am able to carry it in my handbag all the time...because some things just need to be seen to believe!
Royal de Luxe did an 8 day performance at the KaDeWe windows. I was lucky to see the final day.

In the Revolt of the Mannequins, 13 shopfronts in the city center are transformed into theatre stages, where the mannequins perform a 10-day play. Every night, the Royal de Luxe team changes the positions of the mannequins, making the story jump to the next episode. 10 days, and 10 episodes per shopfront, lead up to the final Revolt.

The mannequins have left the building.

and escaped the windows

You can see a You Tube video in Antwerp of the same performance..warning, it is over 9 minutes long.

Royal de Luxe blog, this one is in French, but you can flick through the photos to get a good look at the process. The blog is in French, but here is how you can see the photos. Click on one of the boxes, then click on the word "L'intégrale!". This will bring you up the 8 days of photos of that specific window. It takes awhile to load, but worth watching. Scroll down to the bottom, and work your way up to day 8.

For the English version to explain the Revolt of the Mannequins click on this link.

I can tell you that the little old ladies who were strolling in for lunch, were unimpressed with the window displays!

Then on the other side of KaDeWe were some more children friendly windows...must be close to Christmas!

Capturing the sunrise

This morning we awoke to a glorious sunrise. When Phil pointed it out to Cameron, Cameron decided he wanted to take a photo of it. It is quite usual when we are travelling for the cameras to be in the boys hands - they take some really great photos (and with digital cameras, there is no problem deleting those that don't turn out so well, or photos of slightly 'inappropriate' things for our albums, like toilet seats, or the inside of someone's nostril.

Here are the photos Cameron took of the sunrise.

Domain Dahlem Fair

We rode our bike down to Domain Dahlem today (About 8kilometre each way). It is a farm in Berlin. Every now and again they have some type of festival that is nice to attend. Today there was a craft fair, and lantern festival and the kids had the opportunity to make some things.
Cameron was happy to play on the tractors,

and Alexander had a go at taking wool roving and making a felt ball.

There were spinners and weavers, but they were kept behind a fence, and not particularly approachable to speak to.

We came home with some of Oma's home baked Farm bread, that was delicious with the casserole for dinner. We also bought 3 jars of homemade jam, after test tasting about 10 different types of jam!

Meet Sucky - our new fish!

On Saturday we went to the aquarium shop where we bought our fish tank (a few years ago now). We needed new lights, and after proving the Darwinian theory (survival of the fittest) it was time to give lonely 'oldie' some new friends (or dinner, if they are too slow - I think Oldie is really Hannibal Lecter Goldfish!). He won the last series of "Survivor, Owens Fish Tank".

When we reached the shop, the owner (who recognised us from 2 years ago!), said he didn't have the globes, and his yearly order would come sometime after Christmas. He kindly recommended that we try a big pet store a few Kilometres south of his store - it was massive (about the size of a Bunnings warehouse!)

They have everything (Crocodiles, turtles, sugar gliders...(yes, sugar glider possums....2 of them, you have no idea how gobsmacked we were!!!), spiders, snakes..and the usual other pets. Just no puppies or kittens like the pet stores back home. The boys loved looking around, and we ended up buying the lamps, a new 'pirate ship' for the fish and a few new inhabitants for the tank. On this performance, the small shop owner has just done himself out of a customer.....

Phil set the tank up and introduced the new fish. They all looked happy and settled.

The next morning, Nicole and the boys noticed we were 1 bubble eyed fish short. Where was he hiding? Nicole thought she noticed him hiding under the filter. When Phil took the filter out, we found he had been sucked up into the filter inflow, and was jammed there.

Phil dislodged him. He was a bit mangled, very stressed but still alive. Phil shifted him to rehab (one of Nicole's tupperware containers) where he slowly came good! We reintroduced him to the tank, and he seem back to normal (well, almost..). He still looks a little ragged, but we are expecting a full recovery! He has been named, 'Sucky'.

Today another of the new fish got trapped in the roots of one of the plants. We are now certain (n=2) that the bubble eyed fish are lower on the IQ scale than the other gold fish. This one has been called 'Mucky' because he was trapped in the dirty roots.

The last black fish therefore got a name that consisted of a consonant + 'ucky'. You will be pleased to know that the choice was 'Ducky'......

Sucky, Mucky and Ducky with 'oldie (Right) and a new menu item (?)....

The new ship (with the infamous filter behind it - Sucky steers well clear now - who says goldfish don't learn??

The Island of Als and the Danfoss Universe

The next morning we drove right across the base of Denmark to the island of Als - here was a 'science theme-park called 'Danfoss Universe' that we thought would be fun for the kids -and we were right!

We set off and drove through a small village called Mogeltonder, which has a really cute street of houses and a castle (home of a distant royal) at the end. Queen Margrethe's youngest son Prince Joachim lives in this castle, so you can't pop in to look at the castle and the gardens to this one. However there was fabulous thatched roof houses to admire!

After quite some drive we found Danfoss Universe, which was set up by the founder of an industrial company and his wife, to give kids a fun, hands on experience with science.



We all loved it, and the boys were into everything. Their highlights included being able to operate real diggers,



the mechanical exhbitions, here is Alexander being a hamster.

the water park, the temperature rooms (including an ice slide and a hot room).

Phils favorite was undoubtedly the Segway display, where he got to have a really good go zooming around the course. Of course, guess what he wants for Christmas now...

The boys also had a small turn (the guys were great - the boys were too young to go on the track, but he let them have a turn in the warm-up area).


plenty of great play equipment to play on for many hours!



The boys also loved the fact that they could lift a small car. This exhibit was in the car park and the boys demonstrated their amazing 'strength' by lifting the car before and after our visit to the park.

Being so late in the season, the park was fairly quiet, so we were able to calmly get around and do all of the exhibits, have lunch, and be on the road home by 2pm.

Thereafter, it was just a long drive home. We stopped at the last petrol station inside of Denmark, and used almost all of our remaining Kroners, then hit the highway. We had one pit-stop for a coffee and a break just after Hamburg, otherwise it was straight through to Berlin and home by 7pm.

We loved our trip to Denmark. We had a great time together, we saw lots of interesting stuff and did lots of fun things, and had super weather as well. Staying in youth hostels was a great way to go, and with a copy of the Lonely Planet guide and a huge map, we made the most out of the 6 days we had to get around Denmark.

Romo Beach

After we left Ribe, our next stop was the Island of Romo. This is a really popular destination for Germans in summer (we could imagine how many Germans would be spreading their towels over the sand at 6am...), but this was right at the end-of-season, and even the youth hostel was closed for the winter.

We parked the car next to beach (I'm not as brave as those who drove onto the sand, deciding that getting bogged on the beach would not be the greatest addition to our holiday fun!). The beach was enormous! We walked for ages to reach the waters edge (the North Sea), and Phil, Alexander and Cameron ran around all over the beach on their way there.

We walked along the shore for a while, and there were lots of shells (the kids love fossicking) and other stuff on the beach to explore. The weather was great - it was cool, but blue skies and calm. A very pleasant experience for so close to winter.



On the way back to the car, Phil, Alexander and Cameron went 'hooning' in the sand-dunes - Running, jumping, rolling and having a great time. After getting back to the car (choosing which shells to take, and getting rid of lots of excess sand), the sun was starting to set and it was time to find the youth hostel (this was an entertaining game we were playing each night). a couple of hours on a beautiful stretch of beach was a real highlight for all of us.


The locals drive their cars out and fly kites. The wind was so strong that the guy with the red kits was being dragged along the beach at some moments!

Here was a sight I had never seen before. You drive your 4WD on to the beach, let your dog out, and drive down the long stretches of beach, and the dog runs in front and behind...that's one way of getting your dog out for a run!

The youth hostel we booked was listed as 'Hojer'. However, it was 8 kilometres south of Hojer, and was in a small town right on the German border. We were the only guests for the evening - from chatting to the owner, it appears that they should have been shut, but they didn't block the dates on the internet site and our booking was accepted and locked in.

As we were right on the border, we decided to walk to Germany for dinner. The kids loved this idea - it was less than a kilometer to a nice pub just on the German side (queue the music from 'Deliverence'...). After a nice walk home (across the border again), we settled in to a very quiet youth hostel for the night.