Cameron's Squirrels

Cameron would love a dog, but this is not possible in an apartment in Berlin. However, there are a family of squirrels that live in the trees around our place that Cameron declared as 'his pets' when he was about 4 years old, and they have remained with us ever since.

Cameron's room provides a tree-top level viewing platform, and in the days leading up to the first snowfall, the squirrels have been very active. Here are a few photos of the squirrels from Cameron's windows. They can sit so still then ZIP! they have exploded away at great speed. They were playing chase, gathering some of the branches for their nests, and eating the small pinecones.





We must have watched them for a good 20 minutes, but it was quite chilly with the windows open!!

Brother's Grimm fairytale - in German

The company organised its German language class Christmas trip - this year a boat trip with Glühwein and cookies, and then a theatre performance of Brothers Grimm fairytales at the Die Märchenhütte Theatre

The boat trip was lovely, and we got to see much of Berln from the waterline. It started to snow, and as the boat fogged up, it really cold on deck with big wet snowflakes falling (guess where the kids were?)

After the boat trip, we went to a little theatre that was like an old hut, with a small stage at one end. The first fairytale was the fisherman's wife. It was performed by two actors, and was really well done. The boys had a great time, enjoyed the show, and only asked once for what a particular word meant (they understood the rest in German!). Papst...."The Pope"

We were settling in for the second fairytale when one of the staff approached us and told us it was not suitable for kids under 14. With scary masks, explicit nudity and sex references/acts, Rapunzel sounded like it was going to quite some show! We took the kids out of the theatre and headed for home (the adults a little disappointed and intrigued by what they had missed!)

However, seeing one fairytale was great - the kids got to experience this type of theatre and the show was excellent.

A great day all round.

Christmas Tree 2009

Phil came home from work, and we gave him 3 minutes to get changed, so we could head off down to the Bauhaus to buy our Christmas tree before the shop closed.

We were also after some Christmas lights that we had seen in Paris. No luck with that, so we will have to look around at some other places.

We picked a tree, and the man gave me the ticket to take inside to pay for the tree, while he prepared the stumb for us. As the man went to bring it to the grinder, the top snapped off the tree. Phil said to him, if you hurry and grab another one before she comes out, she won't know the difference and she won't be angry. Not sure if he realised that Phil was joking, and he quickly raced off to get another one, and told Phil this one was a better tree.
We got the tree into the car and headed back home. After dinner we got the kids decorations out and they decorated the tree. Only a small tree this year, so not all the decorations have come out of the boxes. The kids put all the decorations up, and only needed help for the higher ones.




Now to find what we did with the star for the top of the tree. Must be in another box in the cellar!

A weekend trip to Paris #5. Notre Dame Cathedral and Musee D'Orsey

From our apartment window, we could see the Eiffel Tower in one direction, and to the left the Seine River and the Statue of Liberty. The boys were confused about this statue, as they know it is in New York. This statue is the first bronze model made on a much smaller scale. So we went down to the River to have a better view of it!


Sunday morning in Paris. A small bakery with Croissants fresh out of the oven (trays of them!). After getting ourselves checked out of the hotel and storing our bags, we found this little bakery for breakfast. We sent Alexander up to practice his French, (he has started French in school this year) and he did a magnificent job of ordering 6 croissants, a hot chocolate, juices and a couple of cafe au laits. Delicious!


We caught the Metro into town again, and visited Notre Dame Cathedral. It rained a little whilst we lined up, but with umberellas and jackets, we were fine. It is amazing how quick the hawkers change from selling Eiffel Tower key rings (3 to the Euro this morning) to selling umbrellas (5 Euros each!).


We entered the cathedral during Mass, and when the soloist or the choir sings, it is an amazing sound and an incredible experience. We were fortunate to hear this during our visit, and to spend time looking around inside.

Our next planned stop was St Chapelle, however two things got in our way. The first was a street market selling animals. The boys (especially Cameron, who adores animals) looked at every goldfish, bird and other small animal on display. A Cockatoo in a cage was really screeching, and there were plenty of cockatiels, budgies and lots of different types of finches. On other stalls there were chickens, ducks and all manner of small rodents. It was noisy, but really interesting.
There were lots of Christmas trees on sale, and we loved the stands that came with every tree!

The second problem was the strike. No one was going in to St Chapelle, and a stationary queue stretched back to the Seine. We decided that it was not worth it, and decided to walk along the Seine River (in hope) to Musee D'Orsey.

The Museum was open, and even better it was the first Sunday of the month, which is free entry. There was a long queue, and just as we were getting set for a long wait, a museum employee ushered us over to a different entrance because we had children. Straight in, no waiting!! Fantastic!! We went straight to the Cafe for a delicious lunch, and then set about exploring the collection.

Musee D'Orsey is is an old railway station, and perhaps not the best space for art collections - however, the work that they have is spectacular! Many of the key impressionists are represented, and some of the works that you have seen in books as images are so much better when seen for real, Van Gough is a perfect example of this. We particularly loved Van Gogh, Cezanne, Degas, Manet, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin and Monet. Here is Alxander in front of Monet's, Lily Pond, a painting both Alexander and Cameron knew quite well from art lessons at school.

Spending 3 hours in a Museum is tough on little legs, and Cameron would stop and do his leg stretches that he learned in PE to keep him going. Some of the sections were closed for refurbishment, but we saw a lot, and were incredibly impressed.


After such a great effort by the kids, we took them for an afternoon tea at a cafe where we had delicious tortes and ice creams, and hot chocolates. we then walked the 3 km back to the hotel, stopping for some photos of Invaliden dome. The colour of the sky in the evening was amazing. We collected our gear from the hotel, walked to the metro and caught the train to Orly airport for our flight home.

A brilliant, full and fun weekend.

This was such a great weekend, we want to take an extra Friday off and visit Barcelona, then Rome, then Athens........then...

A weekend trip to Paris #4 - Montmartre

After the Louvre, we walked along the Seine River to the Musee D'Orsey, but it was closed due to the strike action.

Looking at our maps, we decided to catch the Metro to a suburb of Paris renowned for its link to artistic culture, Montmatre.

Montmartre sits on a hill, but the underground Metro does not match the surface terrain, so we had 181 stairs to climb from the platform to the street (that fact is courtesy of Alexander and Cameron!).

We then had another big hill to climb to reach the Sacre Ceur Church, with about another 150 steps. From here you could get another really good view over Paris, back to the Eiffel tower and the Arc de Triomphe.

The rains had cleared off and it was overcase but fine. Being a trendy, arty part of Paris it attracted 3 specific types - the arty Parisians, the tourists looking for arty Parisians, and all the 'hangers on' selling stuff or trying to be 'arty'.
There was an excellent guitarist playing on the stairs of the church, and street performers working in the courtyard below. There were a few of those 'human statues' and lots of tourists soaking up the atmosphere. We ventured around to Place du Tetre, the local square where artists sell their wares in a small market.

We walked around admiring some of the excellent paintings, as well as the prices they were charging. We had many offers by vendors to do portraits of the boys. One guy went from 70 EUR per boy down to 40 EUR for the two of them! We wandered down the local streets, bought a few souvenirs and post cards, and stopped for delicious Cafe au laits and crepes.
It is a really interesting corner of Paris, particularly on a Saturday afternoon. We then caught the Metro (after all of those steps) back down to Central Paris, found a restaurant in the Latin Quarter again for dinner, and then walked back to the apartment, past the Eiffel Tower again. Another fantastic day touring in Paris.

A weekend trip to Paris #3 - Louvre

The sky was a little more threatening as we woke up on Saturday morning, so we packed some umbrellas and headed down to a local cafe for breakfast. Croissants, coffee and orange juice, a great way to start the morning. We then caught the Metro back up into the heart of town and walked from Odeon station to the Louvre. Our timing was a little off - as we left the Metro, the skies opened and it bucketed down. Even with jackets and umbrellas, we were soaked through to the skin.

We ran for the entrance to the Louvre - only to find it also affected by the strike, and not open! We headed to a cafe next to the Louvre entrance, and whilst I ordered and got the heaters on the terrace turned on full blast, Nicole took the boys into the toilets and rung out their socks, and put these and their shoes under the hand dryers. They were better when they returned, but certainly not dry!
From our vantage point on the terrace over a coffee, we could see when the Louvre opened, and strolled over to join the line when it had finished raining, and we were finished with our coffees. After wringing out the sleeves on the boys jackets, we made our way into the Louvre and passed all of our wet stuff over the cloakroom attendants - who could hang it up for a few hours so it could dry!

We took the boys up into Denon wing, and looked at a lot of interesting Renaissance art. We finally reached the Mona Lisa, and we discussed this with the boys.


We then spent the next few hours working our way around sections of the gallery (much was closed) and the boys were fantastically behaved, and really interested in a lot of what we were showing them.

We ate lunch in the Louvre cafe, visited the inverted pyramid (famous from Dan Brown's DaVinci Code novel) and then picked up our (still damp) outer gear. At least the controlled environment in the Louvre meant that we were a bit dryer!

A weekend trip to Paris #2 Champs Elysses

After a late lunch, we walked to the Arc De Triomphe. Due to a national monuments and museum strike, it was not possible to climb up or enter. We enjoyed walking around the outside, looking at the embellishments and statuary.





We then walked down Champs Elysses and discovered Christmas markets. They were pretty much like all other Christmas markets, and we stopped for some chocolate covered fruit (yummy strawberries coated in chocolate on a skewer, for example) Cameron enjoyed a chocolate coated apple.

We had a Santa photo taken with the whole family and enjoyed the Christmas lights. One of our strangest Santa photos yet, where Santa spoke only French, and our French is limited to "my name is...". please thank-you, hello and goodbye. So, we are not sure what this Santa will tell the real Santa in the North Pole what we would like for Christmas.
Nicole is inspired by all the Xmas lights, and we are off to BauHaus this weekend to light up our apartment like the Griswalds in Family vacation Christmas.
We walked down to the big ferris wheel, which sits at the end of Champs Elysses in Place de la Concorde, next to the Obelisque. It was warm in the cabins, and we enjoyed the view over Paris as dusk fell.

We decided to get some dinner - we found a fantastic little restaurant in the Latin Quarter, then walked another 4km back to our apartment. We all enjoyed a hot shower and settled into the very comfortable apartment with views out over the Eiffel Tower, which was spectacularly lit to celebrate its 120 year aniversary.

A weekend trip to Paris #1 Eiffel Tower

We have been wanting to take the kids to Paris for quite awhile, and we found the perfect opportunity to take a Friday off, and have a 3 day weekend touring Paris.
We were up early Friday morning and in Paris by 9.30, bags checked into the hotel and ready to walk to the "Tour Eiffel" (as they say in French). We were expecting rain, but the day was cold with clear blue skies. It was the perfect day to take the kids to the top.
Our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, the building to the right is the Australian Embassy...not a bad view for the staff there!! The flag above the kids is the Australian Flag, but now windy enough to see it properly.
We lined up for a while and eventually got our tickets. We were offered Eiffel tower key rings every minute or so for the half an hour we lined up. Prices varied from 2 per Euro down to 6 per Euro! We finally got our tickets, and had 45 minutes before we were to go up the tower. We went for a walk in Parc du Champ de Mars, directly behind the Eiffel tower. We stopped for the kids to have a run around, and to take a few photos.

We lined up again to go through at 12:30 to line up for security so we could line up for the first elevator to the second level. When we got there, we lined up for the lift to the 'sommit'. It was cold and clear, and at the second level the wind blew in cold and chilled us all (even with many layers). Eventually we entered the tiny lift and made it to the top.

The views from the observation deck were stunning. We spent some time looking around Paris, and Cameron was really impressed that he could go to the toilet and everything would fall 324m to ground level. We then queued up to catch the elevator back down. It was a good thing it was 'low season' - in summer the lines and the waiting are at least twice as long! As we were in the various lines, the boys were regailing us with facts and figures, like how high it was, how old it was, and lots of intersting facts about how and why it was built. (It has 1665 stairs and is 324m tall, for example).


I think we were really fortunate to be able to share the Eiffel tower with the boys on such a great day - they (and we) had a fantastic time!


We next walked through the Palais de Chaillot and found a small baguetterie for a late lunch.