What is the most random thing you saw today?

Me? Well it was definitely a driver in one of those green garden trucks, that ride around parks doing small things like trimming branches, etc. - he was sitting in his little truck playing bagpipes :) Oh, and then immediately after that stumbling upon an enclosure with two gorgeous, fluffy brown bears!

Germany, aka a country of religious discrimination

we all experience it all over the world and now, this morning in fact, Polina and I witnessed it today.

We were in the train on the way to school / work this morning when the ticket inspectors barged in, they were mean, they were hairy, they were loud. All signs pointed to trouble. We've seen them fine mothers with kids, we've seen them fine foreigners who have no clue, the poor, the old, the weak - all fined.

So how would the people dressed in religious attire fare? A fine for sure we thought, perhaps some mild beating as well.

But no - shock, horror! They let the nuns off with a *gasp* warning! No one ever gets off with a warning...

Unheard of, aghast with the shock of what has just happened the entire carriage stares at the slightly embarrassed nuns and everyone thinks to themselves - religious discrimination!

I love buses

I am reading a chapter on anxiety, and came across some interesting things that I thought I'd share.

The probability to:

- be killed on your next bus ride is 1 in 500 million
- die as a result of a collision between an asteroid and the earth is 1 in 500 000 (this made me think whether that's actually true, and I came across this page, which makes this seem true indeed)
- die in a tsunami is 1 in 500 000
- drown in a bathtub is 1 in 685 000

So - it is more probable to die from a tsunami, than drown in your own bathtub. And buses are super safe - unless an asteroid falls on top.

Also some more interesting forms of phobias, that I have not yet mentioned on this blog:

• Gamophobia - fear of marriage
• Phobophobia - fear of being afraid
• Hedonophobia - fear of pleasure

From Russia with stamps - or Halloween in Berlin

Below is a letter we got yesterday from Russia. It has to be the largest number of stamps on a single letter that I've ever received. Alltogether making an amazing 126.5 roubles! It came registered post and spent some time travelling around Berlin, because although the address was correct (in latin), the name of the receiver (me) was in cyrillic... and because in Germany letters don't get delivered to the address, but to a person, it got sent back with a fatal sticker markng it 'receiver not reached'... but then came the knight in shining armour and on the way back at some post office there happened to be someone (probably one from former East Berlin, where they had to learn Russian at school) who could transliterate my name, and put it in latin letters. Jack had lots of fun though at our post office trying to pick up the letter and proving that he had indeed the same surname in German as the one on the letter in Russian. The content ended up being our receipts from Ural Airlines for the tickets I purchased for us online. I have to say - they're pretty dedicated :)

In other news, on the weekend C&C brought us a pumpkin, that's now waiting to be cooked. It was sitting sadly on our outside windowsil and using Anya's idea I made eyes for it. Now it seems that there's a fifth creature in this household :)

Potsdam in Autumn

Last Friday Anya and I ventured out to Potsdam. I think we picked a perfect day for it, because it was very sunny, and not too cold (like today, when it's about 6 degrees and very windy). We did the usual tour through Park Sanssouci, and then had tea, cake and biscuits at the Russian Village of Alexandrovka. Then we went somewhere where I haven't been before - namely to the park Neuer Garten, where Schloss (palace) Cecilienhof is (that's where the Potsdam Conference of 1945 took place with Churchill, Truman and Stalin). The palace is very nice - actually it looks more like a large traditional German residence, than a palace. It had very many different types of chimneys and lots of pretty vines. The whole place (Potsdam that is) looks very pretty now in autumn - with trees being in many different colours, all of the fountains still working, and the whole place having a feel of something continuing and changing at the same time. Following the palace we made our way back to the train station along the nearby lake and then through the town proper. It was definitely a very nice trip - and we were pleasantly tired by the time we got home to a dinner made by Jack.

Some photos are the be seen here.

Banjo and the amazing flying mouse

Today we ventured out towards Brandenburger Tor to see what's happening. There were still many stalls left from the day of German unity. And lots of kids carrying around yellow balloons. So I decided that I wanted a balloon, too! They were being given out by the organ donation stand (good marketing right?!)... so we came up and procured one helium balloon. With this balloon we came home, and to the great excitement of Banjo we suspended his favourite mouse by its tail and alas - it became a flying mouse. Even now - a couple of hours later it provides immense entertainment :)

PS: here are two pics of the aforementioned (very full) storage room...

Autumn guest season is officially open

Anya arrived today all the way from sunny Melbourne. She picked the day of German unity to land in Berlin - although it was raining and very windy the whole day, so we can't report on any events that took place today at Brandenburger Tor (there was a curiour show of huge puppet figures). Lufthansa actually decided to be ahead of schedule, by about 10 minutes, which is unusual for an evening flight. As we were making our way to the airport we saw some planes landing in what were very windy conditions indeed. As Anya came out she reported that the landing was unfortunately pretty bumpy. But she's here, and with a nice selection of Tim Tams, and Lemingtons(!!!) for your humble authors - so all is very good.

In other home-related news, Jack has been wonderful and cleaned up our balconies for winter... and yesterday we sorted out our storage room. A couple of months ago in order to win back some space there I took buckets of paint that we have left over and put them on the small balcony. That required taking everying out of our 1m x 1m storage room (which is packed to the brim) and then rearranging it all back. I was very proud of my three hour effort. However, when Jack got home he very reasonably pointed out that it's not good to keep paint on the balcony, because it'll freeze in winter. Doh. So yesterday we played tetris again, and now the paint is back in the storage room, and instead it's all the old tiles and glass that's on the balcony this time. Phew...