Day 4--Part 1 Autobahn & Schwerin

Friday morning we rode the U-Bahn over to Alexanderplatz to pick up our rental car.

At our first rest stop (to eat ice cream!)

The built in navi only spoke German, so I'm sure glad Aubrey was there to translate! We drove out of Berlin and onto the autobahn. Oh so fun! There are some parts with a speed limit, usually 120 kilometers per hour (about 75 miles per hour), others are unlimited. There are only two lanes each way on these divided highways, but the traffic was light, there were no semi trucks, and people know how to drive fast. So, my speed on the unlimited sections was about 150 kph (93 mph) to 160 kph (99 mph), but a couple of times I went faster. The fastest I went was 190 kph (118mph), but only because the car wouldn't go any faster.

I know I look a little maniacal, but I really was driving safely. It was just so much fun :)

Our first stop on this little road trip was a town called Schwerin. We went to the Freilichtmuseum (Open Air Museum) which includes several buildings from the 17th-20th centuries that recreate the look of a typical village. It sits on the south shore of Lake Schwerin, which makes for lovely views. The weather was perfect when we visited, which made for a happy mom and kids.

Carson the blacksmith

Aubrey found a pizza cutter (apparently the charcoal in the background is used to fire up the  blacksmith's fire each Wednesday--too bad we were there on a Friday)

Me by a very old fishing boat

The oven, far from other buildings

After the museum, we drove into town. We had a little trouble navigating (due to a wrong turn, one-way roads, and construction), but eventually got to where we needed to park. We set off to find some lunch and bathrooms and actually ended up at a small mall. They had free bathrooms and food, so we stayed there. Then we walked over to the Schloss (castle) on a little island. We only walked around the outside, but it was just lovely, and the weather continued to be on our side.

Aubrey, me, Maren in front of the Schloss

Maren, Carson, Aubrey in the garden at the back of the Schloss 

As lovely as this town was, we had to be on our way and move on to Lubeck, so we bid farewell and, without a wrong turn, headed for our next destination.

And We Pause Now for a Brief Interruption...

Just had to take a minute to report on my last few days. To sum it up, lots of driving and lots of sitting. Why? Well, last week Maren went to EFY at Snow College, but wasn't attending with anyone she knew. That meant I drove to Ephraim and back twice last week. (Then just a couple days after getting home, she went to girls' camp, but I only drove her to the stake center, whew) This past Thursday and Friday I attended the BYU Symposium on Books for Young Readers in Provo. That entailed driving to Provo each morning by 8, sitting all day listening to fabulous authors and illustrators, then more driving. I even got to throw in a drive up to girls' camp at Heber Valley Camp to see Maren receive a special award. That drive was SO worth it! Then today, Maren was volunteering at the zoo, so I got to drive back and forth to Hogle Zoo twice. All I can say is, thank goodness for audio books!

More on EFY: Maren had an awesome time and made new friends!

More on BFYR: Awesome! I can hardly wait to attend next year. This year's presenters were Nic Bishop, Ally Condie, Jack Gantos, Jeanette Ingold, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, and Tom Lichtenheld. They are all so talented at what they do and so interesting to listen to. I was familiar with the work of some of them, others not at all. It was a wonderful experience. I am surprised at how tiring it is to sit and listen to others speak all day, but when I realized at how much information I was being given in such a short time, it made more sense. Not my normal day, unlike when I was in college and doing this sort of thing all the time. Now I'm old, so it takes my brain more effort, I guess?

More on Camp: Maren had no idea she was going to receive the Spirit of Camp award. I didn't know until Monday morning myself. It meant I had to miss one of the speakers from the conference (Ally Condie), but it was so worth it to be there for Maren. It's such an honor to receive this award. It's given in honor of a young girl from our stake who passed away a few years ago, Jolynn Manuela. She had such a love of life and girls' camp despite her health issues. The Stake YW leaders fast and pray about who exhibits the same spirit of life that this girl did before deciding who should receive it. A member of our stake presidency who knew Jolynn well shared her story before talking about the girl who is going to receive this year's award. While Pres. Sermon was telling Jolynn's story, Maren whispered to me, "I love this story, even though it's sad, it's so awesome." When it became apparent to Maren she was the one who was being presented with this special award, she started to shake all over and got tears in her eyes--anyone who knows her knows that she is NEVER emotional, so this is unusual (how she can be related to me, I don't know, I cry at the opening of a supermarket...) She's such an awesome girl and I'm so blessed to have her as my daughter!

More on the zoo: Maren can't get her driver's license soon enough for me so she can drive herself!

Day 3--Berlin (long post with lots of pictures)

Our first sight-seeing day! We set off at a reasonable time to start on our list of things to see and do. The U-Bahn was our first stop, since public transportation was to be our mode of travel that day. After buying tickets and  finding an ATM, we headed out on the bus along Unter den Linden towards the famous Brandenberg Gate. Several embassies surround the square by the gate, including the American Embassy. Because of the EuroCup, there were projection screens set up behind the gate for big parties when the games Germany was playing in were aired. So our pictures and memories of this landmark will always include giant screens...

Brandenberg Gate

One of the giant projection screens for the soccer games (you can see the sculpture from the gate at the very top)

Looking down the park at other screens

The only picture of all four of us taken on this trip

The American Embassy

 Next we walked over to the Holocaust Denkmal (the official translated title is Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe). This is Germany's national Holocaust memorial designed by American architect Peter Eisenman. It was debated about for years, but finally completed in 2005. We took lots of pictures here, and might of stayed even longer if we didn't have an appointment coming up. There is an information center beneath the memorial that we visited as well. 

I thought the raindrops on the walls looked like teardrops (purely coincidental that it  had been raining)

We had made reservations ahead of time to visit the Reichstag, home of the German Parliament. We had to submit our passports, go through security, be escorted through a couple of sets of glass doors before reaching the Dome where we were given an audio tour. There are good views of the city from the dome and Aubrey was able to point out a few things to us.

On the steps outside the building

Cool reflection from the floor of the dome

At the top of the dome

The dome from the outside

Brandenberg Gate from the roof of the Reichstag

Tiergarten from the roof

A cool sculpture outside the Reichstag

The Reichstag
You can see the dome behind the old front

We were pretty hungry by now and decided to find us some currywurst. Luckily, there were vendors set up in the park near the giant screens and we were able to satisfy that craving. Currywurst was first made in Berlin and is a favorite there. It's a steamed & fried or just roasted sausage cut into slices and covered with curry ketchup (or just ketchup and curry powder). The kids all had that for lunch with frites (french fries), while I had bratwurst and frites. I happen to like my frites with mayo, Maren & Carson tried it too, but Aubrey isn't too fond of fries and mayonnaise, so he skipped that part.

Maren just finishing her currywurst

With our bellies full, we decided to walk to Potsdamer Platz. Along the way we happened upon the Otto Bock Science Center. The unusual building caught our eye and when we found out it was free admission, we thought, why not? It was pretty interesting, all about our body's movements and inventions that restore mobility. Check out the website here.

After our detour, we made it to Potsdamer Platz, a large office and shopping area. There are pieces of the Wall on display here, along with a brick path where the Wall stood. We wandered around a bit and found a Lego Discovery Center. It was pretty pricey, but the store was open (and free), so we browsed there for a few minutes.

Along the way to our next destination, we saw these. Trabants (nicknamed Trabi) were popular cars manufactured in East Germany. Apparently they weren't that great of cars, but were durable, so people held on to them, especially since they were difficult to obtain. According to Wikipedia, a Trabant "is regarded with derisive affection as a symbol of the failed former East Germany and of the fall of communism (in former West Germany, as many East Germans streamed into West Berlin and West Germany in their Trabants after the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989)."

Next, we came upon the Topography of Terror. This is an outdoor museum on the site of buildings which  were the headquarters of the Gestapo and the SS from 1933 to 1945. The buildings did not survive the war, but in later years the cellars were excavated. Also, there is a large section of the Berlin Wall that was never demolished. 

Looking down the Wall

We made our way to Checkpoint Charlie. It seems pretty commercialized and touristy now, but it was significant in that between 1961 and 1990 it was the only crossing for foreigners between East and West Berlin.

The Altes Museum was our final destination for the day. It was their late open day, so we took advantage of the evening hours to view the Greek and Roman antiquities housed there. 

The Berliner Dom which is right next to the Altes Museum

By now we were tired, hungry, and ready for bed, but hunger won out first. We stopped at a little restaurant on Unter den Linden called Kartoffelhaus No. 1. It was a quaint little place with interesting decorations. It certainly wasn't fancy or high-end, but we weren't looking for that anyway. After a meal of pork steaks for the boys and vegetable skillets for the girls, we headed back home to sleep the sleep of exhausted travelers.

Germany Adventure, Day 1 & 2

The title of this post had to be Day 1 & 2 because it was all just one long blur of travel that, because of layovers and time changes, were two calendar days. We left Salt Lake City on Tuesday afternoon and flew direct to Paris (11 hour flight) where we spent 7.5 hours in the airport waiting for our next flight to Berlin. 

Waiting in the Salt Lake airport

Charles de Gaulle airport, where we spent far too long with not enough to do

We arrived in Berlin on Wednesday night at 8:30 pm in the middle of pouring rain. Our luggage arrived just fine, we were able to phone the apartment manager to meet us with a key, and we all managed to fit in one taxi. I wish the taxi driver had used his GPS (or as they call them, navi) to pinpoint our destination before driving WAY past the apartment and then trying to find a place to turn around (he didn't get much of a tip, I figured he could have used the navi much sooner than he did so the meter ate up his tip).
We got "moved in" to the apartment and found out that there was a grocery store open until 10:00 pm just around the corner. It was 9:40, so we hurried off to procure some food before falling into bed. Aubrey picked out some of his favorite cheeses, the least expensive salami that he had eaten his fair share of as a missionary, some breakfast cereal he missed, some tasty juice, and a few other staples (including Coca-Cola for me). We were the last ones in the store, but we got what we needed.

We stayed in a vacation rental apartment on Karl Marx Allee. It was more cost effective than a hotel and we had more room to move about--that's important when you travel with tall people...  It was right by a U-bahn station (subway), so it was pretty convenient and the neighborhood was safe, so I felt we had made a good choice. I'm glad Aubrey was able to help me make the decision about which apartment to choose--he knew the areas we'd be visiting and this was a good place for home base.

The living room with two couches where Carson & Aubrey slept

Our kitchen

The bedroom with 2 single beds where Maren & I slept

The apartment was clean and comfortable, although the pictures on the rental website made it look bigger, but don't they always? No one took pictures of the bathroom, but maybe we should have so we could have a photo memory of the world's smallest shower. Even smaller than the one we had in Italy. At least this one had hot water that lasted more than 10 seconds. Well, all but one morning anyway. The furnishings all came straight out of IKEA, but we like IKEA, so that's okay :)

We all went to sleep pretty quickly that first night so we could be up and ready to go the next morning for our first sightseeing day in Berlin. Stay tuned for day 3...

Pre-Adventure Back Story

It's taken a week for me to feel like I've had time/energy/motivation to start blogging about our Germany adventure. Before I start on a day-to-day description, I thought I should share some of the background to this trip.

Back in 2008, we had been planning  to take the entire family to Germany during the summer of 2009. We'd been saving up frequent flyer miles, talking about possible itineraries, etc. when Gary was offered the chance to do a Summer Term Study Abroad in Italy & Greece. Of course, he jumped at the chance, so our Germany trip was postponed. (Italy and Greece were a wonderful experience. You can look back to the beginning of my blog if you've never read about it.)

In October 2009 Aubrey received his call to serve in the Germany, Berlin mission, leaving January 6, 2010. We toyed briefly with the idea of picking him up, but decided that the timing wasn't great (Christmas, school, weather, etc.). Instead, we planned to take everyone to Germany the summer following Aubrey's return. It was a long term plan that was off in the future in so many ways.

And then our world turned upside down.


                   May 1, 2010


But life has a way of going on. And we must too. I felt it was important to take this trip that had been in the planning for so long. I set aside money from the life insurance, knowing that Gary would want me to go on this adventure with our kids. I let Aubrey know that once he got home, we would be returning just a few short months later. I made sure Carson & Maren knew that this was still going to happen, just like Dad had planned.


It had been so far off in the future, that when it came time to buy plane tickets, I was kind of taken by surprise. Of course, nothing ever can go quite like I planned--we weren't able to use frequent flyer miles like I had hoped and the tickets had gone up so much in price since I looked at them a year before. Needless to say, this trip was going to cost much more than I had originally budgeted. But I was determined that Gary would want us to go, regardless of such "trivialities." Tickets were purchased--we were going!


As the time for our departure grew closer, I began to have lots of apprehension. I'd never undertaken such an trip without Gary. He was the one with the "spirit of adventure," not me. I'd never even driven the California freeways until a few years ago, and I'd never driven in a large city (Gary always drove once we reached our destinations, including England on the other side of the road). I didn't speak the language (but at least Aubrey did, that was a comfort). I was the sole parent, completely out of my element. Could I really do this? Well, if I didn't, I would have been out a LOT of money for the plane tickets, and that was motivation enough. Besides, I wanted to prove to myself I could do it.


So I took a GIANT big girl pill, and off we went. My facebook status the day we left was "channeling my inner Gary."


I know Gary is proud of me. I'm proud of me too. I did something big and scary and not only survived, but enjoyed it! This trip will mean a lot to our family for the rest of our lives. I hope it's not our last big travel adventure together, but if it is, I will know that I did indeed, channel my inner Gary and enjoy the spirit of adventure.