Herr Schmidt - Rabbit

We recently got our first pet in Berlin. I've never been one for pet shops or breeders so the first step was finding the animal shelter. Actually- the step before that was finding the word for animal shelter. Ah, "Tierheim". We're off.

The place is out there. Berlin is a large sprawling city that people complain if they have to come from 2 kiezes (neighborhoods) away. This place would take an hour to get to. Shit.

Once we reached the train station after multiple transfers, we took a bus. We were let off in the middle of nowhere...in the rain. Fields. Fresh air. This is Berlin? Holy Cow- Scottish Highland Cattle (that's what my mum says & I am taking her word for it)!

The Tierheim itself was pristine. A hexagonal cement structure, everything was clearly marked with a pond and the dog section in the center. I took one look towards the dogs and Ian said "No! You cannot go in there. We'll leave with a dog." Somewhat reluctantly I turned towards the "Bugs Bunny" section with the rabbits. We entered a long hallway with the right side taken up by rabbits behind glass. Some were brown, some were gray, some were black, some were large, some were itsy bitsy. Nervously we surveyed the scene. Would there be a test or something?


After being politely ignored for 20 min (German customer service) we practically jumped on the first official. She explained the process, we paid 20 euro, and then it was time to pick a bunny. "What should we look for?" Ian asked. "Dunno. A cute one?" This was a tough order, because in case you didn't know, bunnies are crazy adorable. We picked basically at random, a tiny brown male. "He hasn't been castrated yet. You could come back on Friday."

Oh. Yeah. You're cute little guy, but we are not making this trek again. Once again we walked the hall, considering an enormous spotted female named Ruth, a gray male named Boris, and a white and brown spotted guy named Hugo. For no obvious reason, we picked Hugo and re-named him Herr Schmidt. We're clever like that.

It's been about a month and my life feels back in harmony having a creature to look after. He was pretty unsure about us at first, but is slowly warming. Bunnies are never going to be big cuddlers (Ian is hoping to beat the odds) but he is really good about being picked up (most of the time) and endures the nightly raping where we put him on the couch with us and pet him. You can see in his eyes he is just pretending to be in another place.

Champagne to welcome him home. Jackass didn't take a sip!

He is also naughty. I am not a fan of the word naughty, it seems to denote an adolescent sense of being bad. But all the rabbit sites (http://www.hopperhome.com/, http://www.myhouserabbit.com/index.php, http://www.thebunnybasics.com/) use the word constantly. The reason is- rabbits are naughty. He looks you in the eye and starts chewing a cord (good-bye Wii cord). We are trying to train him to respect the call of a hawk "Kaaa-ka!", but so far haven't really had success. Looking up behaviors online I noticed google had some interesting suggestions for how I wanted to end the sentence "Why do rabbits..."

• thump
• eat their babies
• dig holes
• poop so much

Hmmmm. Not exactly the cute bunny things I think about before we got Schmidty. But again, happy to have him making a mess of the place. I already have a truckload of nicknames. The most obvious, Schmidty, is really only once you get to know him well. He's German like that. The others include, Schmidopolis, Schmiderino, the Schmidster, Schmidt-head (Ian's fav), Bubble, BunBun.

He is really adorable...

..and soft...

...and would make a nice stew. Kidding Schmidty!...this time

Way too many pics of Mr. Bun

UPDATE:  

Miss Bellatrix Badou, cat extraordinaire, is here! She & Schmidty are...checking each other out.

Update Update! 

Because bunnies are better in twosomes AND we're crazy - we now have 2 bunnies! Say hello to the lady Marlene Dietrich.

Observations from the Kita

Ian recently returned to school...not for himself, but to teach (lord help those kids). Everyday, he comes home with hilarious stories from the Kita.

The class has started visiting each of the kid's houses. I don't know why you would want 18 2-3 year olds and their teachers in your house, but apparently it has been nice. On the latest visit, they visited a regenbogenfamilie (I can't get enough of that term- "rainbow family"). An unusual feature of the house is that they had a small pond within their deck, just begging for a kid to fall in. One of Ian's favorites, a somewhat tubby boy named Toby, obliged.

Ian has started napping with the children. They strip down to their undies and lay down for a nap several times a day, and Ian is able to catch some Zzzzs with them. However, they aren't always such good little sleepers. Ian's size & hairiness has proved alarming for children unfamiliar with him and he has startled a few kids trying to sleep. There is also the inevitable acrobatics instead of sleep, and already one who peed her pants... and then reached for Ian to pick her up. Ewww.

It's not just the kids who give Ian great stories. The head teacher of his class has really been a great supporter of Ian in the school, but her antics can make for ridiculous stories. She's a fan of the adult romper (for men- see picture), which is a tough look to pull off, especially for a plump middle-aged women crawling around on the floor with the kids. This week, she's been sick, which has made lunch a little less appetizing. Not exactly fussy themselves, the kids don't mind when she serves fish by picking it up with her hands before tearing it apart and throwing it in a bowl. Ian does. Ian's hungry.


Some stories, however, are heart-warming. Darius came over to Ian today and told him

"I love you so much Ian!"

Cue ovaries.

The Good of the Germans

I just did one of the stupidest things I have ever done. The cost was low, but the stupidity was high.

I was rushing down the stairs to the U-Bahn as I saw the dreaded wave coming up to me- my train was here! Struggling through the crowd with my bags I pushed through and got one bag half in the compartment as the doors slid solidly closed. I had the straps, but the goods were firmly trapped inside. Two guys tried to force it open from the inside as I frantically hit pulled the lever. But with a huff, the U-Bahn started to pull away and I threw up my hands & watched helplessly as half my groceries glided away.

As I waited for the next train, I felt enormously stupid. The next train was coming in 4 minutes- what was my rush? Pacing, I tried to remember what was in the bag. Ground beef, chocolate ice cream, and cherry tomatoes. At least it wasn't the beer.....

I jumped on the next train and sweated it out the wait to the next stop. As we rolled through the station, I saw the two guys who had tried to help with my Kaiser bag, holding it up to the passing train. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

I thanked them ineptly in German, and received a short lecture about not doing it again. "Never!" I promised.

Soaking in sweat and laughing like a madwoman, I made it home with all the groceries. As I re-counted the story to Ian, I couldn't believe that I could believe my luck. As much shit as we talk about the Germans, and the one extremely notable instance of us getting scammed, Germans are decent, honest, straight-forward people. While this may result in the blunt assertion, that "Yes, that dress does make you look fat", it also means there isn't as much worrying about hidden fees or getting ripped off. Most of the time- you can trust that things are as they seem. In a city as big and cosmopolitan and turbulent as Berlin, I have never felt ill-at-ease or in danger.

A Prost to the guys that stopped to help, and to all you other wonderful Germans.

Video Trip

Along with the missing photos, we have just recently discovered some missing videos! (More like Ian take the video & promptly forgets about it.) Nevertheless, here are a few videos of our travels.

Copenhagen

Tivoli Gardens
Lovely, small, and expensive

(Post where we Rate the Danes & describe our adventures)

Italy

Venice



























Best pics & ratings of Venice

Bologna

Ratings for Bologna

Cinque Terre

More pics of Cinque Terre

Summer in the City

Between our bouts of travelitis we have managed to eek out a little bit of fun in Berlin. It's not  a bad life

Pics of "Sommer in der Stadt"

Our U-Bahn stop for our place in Wedding

Enjoyed a wet but wonderful 4th of July with Greg, Americans, and an Irishman. We even got Greg to drink a beer!

I'm apparently working on perfecting the "Boo the night is over" Look

One of my favorite things on earth - marking with a red star where we've been on our Europe map.

Thomas visited with his friends from Brazil

We took them to Kunsthaus Tacheles. Built as a department store in the Jewish quarter, served as a Nazi prison, was partially demolished, and is now occupied by an artists collective. Continually threatened with eviction, you can now just wander in on a week night to live music, independent shops, and wild art. .http://super.tacheles.de/c​ms/

They liked it.

Also showed them around the lovely city...well they were good enough to do some self-touring too

Making an effort to take as good of photos of the city we live in as the cities we tour

Living in Wedding, we've been spending a lot more time in the more touristed downtown. It's actually kinda badass...for the West

Love the U-Bahn windows

I've taken pics of the Memorial for Murdered Jews so many times and finally have one I really like.

The Fernsehturm, Brandenburgor Tor, & Caller.

After all that Berlining, Tiergarten Quelle was in order. Visit us & we will do our best to take you here.

Dave's first going away night we ended up in the basement of a gallery where we sweatily danced as the ceiling dripped. Sounds gross, but it wasn't.

I've been bugging Ian about this for a while. I simply cannot live without an animal- and even though Bellatrix the skank cat is on her way with my parents in October, we were off to the Tierheim. Way off- this place is on the outskirts of outskirts for Berlin.

But so worth it! We got a bun. He was kind enough to carry some bottle home for us as we ran out of hands.

Prost to the new addition - Herr Schmidt

Sadly, one of the latest changes is that our Irish friends have now officially left the mainland and are back in Ireland. At least they are just a RyanAir flight away. And why is he wearing that Holocaust victim/prisoner outfit? Nice enough to give us a few of their things before leaving. I'm afraid we did not take the costume.

Bye to the Irish...until next time

As always, there are more pictures of debauchery here.

Airport Goodbyes

Oh man I love the airport. Always a bit of tension, but you know you are on your way to somewhere new. I guess that's easy for me to say as I am usually the one leaving.

My mum & dad are visiting my Aunt & Uncle in Northern California and it was so good to see them all. Video chat can often seem so intimate, regular voice chat is the route we usually take. Kinda makes days like today when I do try to look more presentable for our chat more special.

Plus- my mum reminded me to look at some shots she had posted from my nephew's visit.

Look at that handsome family! My dad, Gavin, & Kyle

And somehow I had never seen photos she took at the airport on the day we left. So happy...and sad. Such is the nature of good-byes. Even just good-bye for now.

American Gothic airport style

A kiss before leaving for Iceland

My daddio

Ian & Greg

Greg & ebe

My new favorite pic of my parents

Best of all, the p's bought their plane tickets and will be on their way (with beloved cat Bellatrix) this October. Trip planning, ever our forte, is once again necessary. Eastern Europe, Croatia, Austria, and tons of bits in between are just waiting to be explored. They don't even know what they are getting into. Especially Bellatrix.

Update:

After posting about one of my favorite movies, Love Actually (I know, I know - romantic comedy with giant cast. I Pave my reasons.), I realized I was remiss in not posting about my greatest airport moment.

Airports…nothing excites me like the chance to travel. Always a hectic anxious-ridden place, I usually can't wait to get out of there. But some important moments happen between the gates and the exit. Everyone has a poignant airport moment and mine happened 4 years ago when we returned from our year abroad. We had made it in Berlin for a year, traveled around Europe for a month, bought lederhosen & dirndl, and we were flying back to Seattle. We changed in the Vancouver airport bathroom and giggled at each other’s outfits. Impatiently, we waded through customs and picked up our bags on those huge Costco sized rolling carts. We were finally approaching the exit and I caught a glimpse of our families. Ian’s grandparents, parents, my parent's new German exchange student Thomas, and right there – my mom & dad. I broke into a run, surely a sight in my drindl with cart. Dodging my fellow travelers, weaving in and out, the tears were already streaming down my face as I ran into my mom's arms. And there was my dad, laughing and hugging me too. Finally, I was home.

Becoming One with the Tourist Hordes in Cinque Terre

We knew it was going to be bad. Italy in June-July. But Greg is a schoolteacher & Italy was his #1 destination. So we took a deep breath, loads of planning, and became one with the mass of tourists.

And it wasn't as bad as we feared. Lots of it was unbelievably awesome. And Cinque Terre, where we've been a few times before, wasn't the mass of old people and blank eyed tourists we thought it would be...ok it actually kinda was. But it is STILL so awesome we loved it. And got burnt to a crisp. A good time was had by all.

Some pics:

Corniglia - the unpopular village on the hill that treated us very well

Vernazza - site of our first swim

Dinner of muscles, clams, squid, and fish

Manarola - 2nd swim

Lazy cat!

Vernazza night

Manarola

Love Lock

Rio Maggiore

Porters

Rio Maggiore boats

 

Ferry ride through Cinque Terre

 

Feeling happy, but burnt. Weak English skin

Porter power!

Yes. Very burned

Meal with tortellini from Bologna, pesto from Cinque Terre

In-n-out shirt out of our window

Greg & I on the public terrace in Corniglia

Corniglia vista

Cotniglia

Beautiful wine bar Greg found in Corniglia

Sweet hound sends us off

Full album:Cinque Terre Pictures