18 meters of paradise... time will tell.

We bought our first flat in the end of 2007 and our second one in 2012, but only renovated and joined them together in 2013. When we put them together we also joined the balconies and ended up with one very skinny and very long balcony. For most of the year it's just a long grey space that collects dust off the busiest street in Berlin, bird droppings and dry autumn leaves. But in summer when the weather does pick up for a few months and when it's not too windy we do love to sit on it and see the city life go by.

So I've been cherishing the idea of having something green there. About two years ago I decided that vines or something such like would be great there.  I've done some research.  We even went with Emmi to look at some plants in the local hardware and gardening store two years ago.  Then nothing happened.  Last summer the desire picked up again in spring, but then nothing happened either.  So when the desire came again this spring I had a firm belief that it will come and go.  But no!  Given that we came back early from our road trip we actually had Thursday and Friday with Jack to ourselves while boys were at Kita.  We used Thursday wisely by just hanging out in a cafe by the river brunching and then shopping for new kids clothes.  But Friday we decided to be productive... first we took our car for a quote of repair, so that it can at some point be fixed.  While it was being looked at by the mechanic we went shopping for pots and plants and vine supports.  We first hit IKEA to see what they had... that took about 2 hours.  Then we went to pick up the car after the quote and drove to the hardware store next door.  That took another 2.5 hours.  While Jack was paying for and loading into the boot the stuff we bought there, I went to IKEA again to buy stuff from there that we were not sure of the first time around.  So a mere 5 hours and some couple of hundreds of euros later we drove home via a major detour due to a culture festival this week, needless to say in a less than happy and content mood.  To illustrate the mood we were in, here's a little sketch from KVN (sorry, Russian only)...




BUT... on Saturday with the help of the boys we put it all up and now our balcony looks a bit more like it should in my fantasy.  We bought five big pots for climbing plants and five types of climbing berries to go in them.  There are all the berries that my Grandpa used to have in his country house - raspberries, black currants, red currants, goosberries and blueberries (actually I think Grandpa didnt' have any of them, but in any case...). We also bought some lavender and a little olive tree in a pot, but it's already starting to look a bit sad*.  Here are some photos of the balcony as it is now...

 

* NB: I am not much of a gardener... the only plants that don't die around me are cacti and succulents. But I am hopeful... and there's Google to help.

Berlin's new mayor

So after 13 years Berlin gets a new mayor.  Here's a pic of his official reception at the Red Cityhall... Germany and their traditions never cease to amuse me.  Oh, in case you're wondering, he's being greeted by an assembly of chimney sweeps... as you do....

It's been waaaaaay too long

Yes, it has... updating the blog that is.  And unfortunately it's not something that we will be able to change any time soon, because basically when we thought we didn't have any free time with one child, we don't even have free time to think about not having free time with two :)  So in the meantime if you're interested in seeing some fairly regularly updated photos of us and the boys, I can add you as a connection on 23snaps. For that, just send me a quick email and I will add you to the list of people with access.

Thinking about so many of you here in wintery, but sunny Berlin !

New doorbell sign

After having to verbally tear some guy a new rear-opening when he was trying to collect money for something as the wife and both kids were sleeping (doorbell was off, so he knocked loudly), we decided to be fair and warn them with a new sign for our doorbell:

Translation:

Advertising / Sales, propaganda and fundraising prohibited.

Offense punishable by verbal humiliation.

The Owner

Life in 'finally!' spring

This week it has finally gotten a little warmer. We had the coldest March since 130 years and every single person in Berlin has been moaning and complaining that spring is not coming.  But today was the first night when it was above 0 and during the day it's around 7-9 degrees, which feels like the tropics - yay!

In any case, things here are good. We've finally gotten rid of our builders (very long story that may at some point get written). Basically for the last two months they were working very slowly and very poorly and our relationship escalated to boiling point. At that point we mutually decided that now our ways must part and they collected their equipment and left. This situation created many positives: 1) finally after more than four months we have the flat to ourselves and don't have strange people here 6 days out of every week. 2) the stress of trying to get them to fix things that they've done crappily is gone 3) did I mention no strangers in the flat? Naturally the negatives are: 1) a lot of things are still left undone, hence The Great Renovations are not finished and 2) we keep finding more and more things that they've screwed up, meaning there's more and more things that were theoretially done, but now need fixing.  So yeah - that part of our lives is just continuing fun fun fun.

Jack has been very busy at work and has been trying to juggle that with trying to do more on the renovations, spending time with Tim and also giving some attention to his at times somewhat emotional pregnant wife.  Pregnant wife for that matter has been doing fairly well.  I've finally finished all my assignments from winter semester and now starting to give my masters thesis my full attention.  The aim is to get it done by the time the baby is born... but have to see how that's going.

Tim is doing well. He's talking a lot, singing a lot and generally fairly happy. He is still in some sort of a Trotzphase - terrible twos phase, where one of the favourite words right now is 'no'. In fact that can be an answer to anything right now... even as an absolute first reaction to a question 'do you want to go for ice cream?'  Along with that he loves asking questions and a favourite is "what for?"  Other than that we've been taking advantage of the warmer and snow-less weather and going for walks on his bike.  He's getting to be very good on it and sometimes even picks up both feet and holds balance. We're trying to do more extra-curricular activities with him and along with our weekly music class, we've signed up for swimming and a 'tumbling' class, which both Tim and Jack find incredibly fun.

So there you have it - a little update on our life :)

Our first jack o'lantern

On Wednesday evening Tim and I made our first jack o'lantern.  He was a little scared of it at first, but now wants the candle on inside it all the time! :)

To Fair Vote in Russia!

Today there were mass protests in Russia against Putin and for fair presidential vote on the 4th of March. Here in Berlin there was also a little demonstration where we took part with Sveta and Kolya. Timmy and I even made a banner - our first for any demo so far. As it happened, it was by far the biggest banner and certainly one of the most popular. We had people come up to us asking to take photos with our banner and also people taking photos of the banner itself. It read "Путин В.В.ОН!" meaning "Putin go away!". According to a local newspaper there were around 200 people demonstrating. In Moscow anywhere between 30 000 and 120 000 depending on whether you believe the government or opposition. Either way - it's great that people are finally getting tired of simply being cattle and making their voice heard!

6 years

Yep, it's that blog post again. Today is exactly 6 years since we came to Berlin. Who would've thought that we'd stay here so long! We have now spent more than half of our marriage together in this city. After putting Timmy to bed, Jack and I just sat around with some nibbles reminiscing about the 6 years and especially last year. The end of 2011 was hard for all of us with Jack working very long hours, but January has already been better.

I think these days we feel more at home here than at any point previously - in fact that feeling increases the more we stay here or may be it reached some sort of a plateau after Timmy was born. Jack has his job with its regular ups and downs, but it provides more than amply for the three of us. Timmy goes to kindergarten where he seems to be pretty happy and with which we are pretty happy, too. I have my masters course, which is pretty damn interesting. And Unix... well Unix has his windowsills and our occasional cuddles (we should give our cat more love!!!). Either way - we all have each other.

As every year I have to say that Berlin has been good to us. It provides us with all the things above and more. Over the past year we made a few good friends here, which makes our existence in this now not-all-completely-foreign land better. But that makes us miss our family and friends from Australia, Russia and the rest of the world in no way less. Thanks for reading and commenting - it always makes us feel a little closer to all of you! Cheers!

Legoland

After Timmy got Duplo for Christmas he's been playing with it quite a bit, which made us think that Legoland might be something he'd enjoy. For those who are unaware of what it is - it's basically a lego-themed attraction, where they have various things you can do out of Lego, rides, sculptures, etc etc etc. A little sidenote - we had friends stay with us who went there and raved about it... at the time (this was in our pre-Tim days) we thought something along the lines of "yeah, Legoland - whatever... that's for kids!!!". Well, Jack and I had so much fun that we got ourselves yearly passes and decided that since Tim gets overexcited so quickly and after about two hours he was running around screaming "AAAAA" we should just get a babysitter to look after him at home while the two of us go and spend a day there! :) I don't think we even saw all of it, but the coolest thing for me was a car construction centre where you could build your own car with a huge choice of wheels and parts and things, and then test it on a few different race tracks (last photo) - so much fun!!!

Festive season in Berlin

So what did we do over Christmas and New Year?

A week before Christmas Jack's cousin Olaf was in Berlin for a visit from Frankfurt. Together we paid a visit to one of the chirstmas markets and then were playing silly at home.

Over Christmas itself we were in Frankfurt to visit Jack's relies. As usual it was very nice to be there - we were very well fed, got to sing Christmas carols and got lots of pressies. Tim got Duplo and can now stack the pieces pretty well.

After we got back we spent Boxing Day decorating our christmas tree at home. This year Timmy could actually help and was very excited about it :)

For New Years we had a very cozy celebration with a few good friends. We organised a very Russian table with Oliv'e and Herring Under Fur Coat salads. People also brought lots of stuff, so the table was almost bending with all the food and we are still eating leftovers. And like last year I baked a goose, who we decided was a direct relative of last year's goose Fedya. This one was also Fedya, and we decided that he was a polish (since he was actually from Poland) buddhist, given his reincarnation from last year. Either way, cooked to the now tried and tested French recipe of Julia Child he was tasty.

The night culminated as usual with Berlin fireworks all over the city. Unfortunately that resulted in Jack receiving third degree burns on one of his thumbs, which my poor husband is now nursing at the doctors every day this week to change the dressings. Aside from that it was a very good night and Tim slept for 12.5 hours straight without a squeak, even though the fireworks banging outside was pretty damn loud!

What 2012 has in store for us

Happy New Year everyone! We hope you entered 2012 with a good feeling. I know I did. From about September 2011 Jack has had a bit of a mad schedule at work, working up to 90 hour weeks. This meant that we hardly saw him. There would be days in a row, where Tim wouldn't see him at all and there were also some days like that for me. Jack would get home around 1am, when I was already asleep in bed and would get up at 5am to go back to work without me seeing him. I'd wake up in the middle of the night and just hope that the person lying in the dark next to me is actually Jack and not just some random person, 'cos it really could've been anyone! :)

Either way the first part of his big project is now done and we hope to be able to spend more time together. I also hope now that I'll be less of a single parent and will have more time to study, which I very much neglected towards the end of last year. So yeah - we are all looking forward to spending more time together as a family and that's really something very good to look forward to.

Our travel plans for 2012 involve us going to Novosibirsk in March to celebrate Mum's 60th, and then the same for Dad in October. We might squeeze in a few small trips in between depending on Jack's leave situation.

We also hope to be a little more consistent with the blog and emailing. Even though we wish that in the beginning of every year, who knows - may be this year it'll be better :) I realised that in 2011 we wrote the least amount of posts since starting this blog in 2005.

In any case - we wish all of you also a very good, happy and healthy 2012!!!

It's snowing!!!

First time this winter - yey!!!

Autumn in Berlin

From the world of chocolate, mountains and cheese

Ilya and Patricia are here for the long Whit Monday weekend. It's been very nice to see them. On Sunday we managed a trip to Treptower Park followed by a stroll along East Side Gallery and a stop for beer at the beach bar there. Timmy was also happy about the beach bar, 'cos he got to play in the sand and chase our beer bottles that we kept putting on the ground. It's nice to have the guys over, to catch up and also to listen to their stories about Switzerland and how pretty it is. I have to say - it makes me want to go there right now :)

Some photos from the weekend and the last few weeks...

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