And the destination is...

Feel a little bad saying this considering the votes, but Mr. Porter & I are headed to England in April!

Greg, Ian's dad, is visiting in the summer & is dieing to go to Italy. Thus, we will go on that trip, but just a little later in the year. We have only spent a long weekend in London, so we are excited to see more of the city and do some day trip.



What we ARE looking forward to:

• Horse racing! including Hurdles & Steeple Chasing. I might buy a big hat
• Cambridge!
• Roald Dahl Museum!
• Theatre!
• Camden! Bring on the punks
• Easter in church?!
• Windsor! Check out some castle
• Wales! Can we make it that far?

 Soooooooo....Pretty exciting. Tally ho!

Tower Bridge. Picture we took on December 5th, 2007 shortly before Ian proposed on the bridge

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Berlin Graffiti

Everyone who has been to Berlin has seen this piece. Awesome.

A Hate Letter to the Ausländerbehörde

So the day of the visa appointment finally came....and went...without us getting our visas. BLARG! We know standards have been raised, but we were much more prepared than when we received our visas in 2008. We had an appointment, a list of required documents, official German insurance, and a smile.

Apparently when they sent us a list of required documents they thought it was very efficient not to ask for some beforehand and just see if we telepathically foresaw them being asked for.

We had brought:

• Passports (duh)
• German Insurance Contract
• Work Contracts
• Marriage Certificate + translation
• Proof that we are not baby rapist (possibly more commonly known as clean bill of criminal history or Bundesamt fuer Justiz
•  Registration in Berlin
  
• Copies of our diplomas
• Lease Agreement

Note they had only asked for half those documents. So we were surprised when he asked if we had brought our resumes. Excuse me sir? Not on the list. In addition, they wanted a monthly budget, a screen shot of our bank accounts, and our insurance wasn't quite right. ARG! We listened to instructions and plodded on home to update our resumes (even though we have jobs), get the other paperwork together and stew. What an enormous waste of time and money!  We would have gladly had the paperwork ready, especially as we have been waiting for this appointment for about 2 months, if they had simply asked.

Along with stewing, we had some beers. Everything will be fine, but sometimes you just gotta say

"The joys of being an expat!"

Update: Ian is properly visa'd! Still waiting to hear on mine, as it is more complicated (not the straightforward "English Teacher" ). Thumbs pressed....

Want to hear more about stamps & frustration at the Ausländerbehörde? 

• They love stamps... lots of stamps.
• The most Frustrating Waiting Room in Berlin 
• Officially Visa'd

Pizza Pie!

Last night we made some AMAZING pizza, courtesy of my Uncle Dave's (should be) Famous dough recipe. SO good! And my Uncle Dave even sports a mean toss technique. Check out the apprentice, Ian, at work.

Perfect Gift

We are going to a new Irish friend's birthday tonight & we were brainstorming about what to bring. Then it hit us:

Stars & Stripes Bourbon

We once saw a crew of Russians wheeling a whole shopping cart of this & bottles of coke out of the Real grocery store. Perfect.

Turnhalle - Day at the Gym

Thursday is the day Ian takes the kids to the gym, or turnhalle. Hilarity ensues.

"There is a game where one little kid gets a tail.
How do you attach it? Do you velcro it or something?
No- just stick it down their pants.
What?!
Well, they are wearing tights and...anyways. Doesn't matter. The kids aren't too bright, they are supposed to catch the fox, so the 'fox' runs in a circle and they all chase him. I'm like 'Just cut him off! Work your angles!'

So little dumb Mina is the fox. Saphire, our little Canadian princess, starts running straight for her. Mina ran smack dab into Saphi in a hit that would have made the NFL highlight reel. Mina laughed and Saphi just looked at us sucking wind. 'Whew!' Whew!' In the meantime, Darius saw a kid standing by himself and decided it was the perfect time to push him down. 'How does that hardwood taste?"

This is a Thursday in Ian world.

Berlin v. Berlin

We heard about this game before we even came over here. Berlin's west team, Hertha did poorly last season and was regulated to the 2nd league. On the east end of Berlin, old iron worker's team Union did very well and was promoted to second league. For the first time ever- it would be  

Berlin v. Berlin

We went, we saw, it was epic. I will let the pics & videos speak for themselves.

Ready for some Berlin madness

Inside Olympiastadion

Berlin moneymaker

Hertha Fans

Fire in Olympiastadion

Berlin Olympiastadion

 Perfect Madness. We had a great time. And thinking about this post inspired me to write a post about Americans & Soccer, "We are NOT the Champions". Good luck with the team spirit America.

Apartment Tour

2nd apartment, 2nd Tour. This tiny abode was our place in Prenzlauerberg for January.

Dogs on my Mind

I am desperate for a dog. I have literally been pining for a dog since 2004. Ian actually has taken the plight of the rational one in this case (a rarity). I'm not that truly irresponsible, there are good reasons (hence- still no dog).

Yes- we have now moved to Europe twice
Yes- we live in tiny apartments
Yes- we are subletting
Yes- we have two cats that we are hoping to have sent over

BUT I Really Really Really want a dog! I just found a site for animal adoption in Berlin that I have been torturing Ian with. He apparently decided to fight back and showed me this picture.

 

Ok Ian. You continue to win....for now. And just for you- le sigh!

UPDATE: Ian found a dog we would like to adopt. What do you think?

Seriously Cool Subway

"Brooklyn resident Alexander Chen built this cool, melodic web page that represents New York subway lines as ever-growing strings that are "plucked" by intersecting trains. Best of all, it's built off a live feed of actual train data.

Chen created MTA.me by mashing up MTA's public API with some clever Javascript, vector graphics (SVG), HTML5 and a dash of Flash, according to a post on his blog. Layered on top of this technical achievement are some pleasing artistic decisions: The passage of time accelerates, so you can easily watch a 24-hour train cycle; ghost trains on long-discontinued lines slip by in the middle of the night; and longer train lines make lower notes when "plucked" than short ones, mimicking a real stringed instrument. Having arrived from Sweden just this past September, Chen has come up with a remarkably ingratiating ode to his new hometown. Let's see if future versions — the ones that come out after the Gotham innocent gets more time underground — stay so precious."



Conductor: www.mta.me from Alexander Chen on Vimeo.