Day 3 - Berlin

We had our first full day in Berlin and it was WONDERFUL! It was hard to narrow down the pictures, but we'd be happy to show the rest of them to whoever wants to sit through them. :)

This is the Christmas market in the light. You can
see the bombed out church much better. :(

This is the Berlin Hofbahnhof station. It ended
up being one of Christian's favorite places. He now thinks any
building with an escalator has trains in it.

This is our walk from the train station to
the Reichstag building. Isn't it pretty?

This is the Reichstag building, which is the seat of the German parliament. It has a really interesting display inside that has a time line of the history of Berlin. There is a glass dome on the top that has a great view, including the Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburger Tor). It had a particularly long line to get to the dome, which we were not looking forward to standing in out in the cold with Christian. Luckily there is a secret entrance for people with children that they told us about almost immediately, so no line. Yeah!! I recommend borrowing a child if you don't have one of your own. :)

You can see part of the line behind Cliff in this picture.

Interesting people walking by.

Christian fell asleep while we were enjoying the view from the dome. He didn't make a sound - just fell asleep sitting up. I was so surprised, and it was very cute.

This is inside the dome. The center is a bench.

We had a brief stop for lunch. Christian is enjoying some of Cliff's water - obviously much better than his water in his sippy cup.

Isn't he cute?

The Brandenburg Gate (or Brandenburger Tor)

The stage behind the Gate was being used for the big Berlin New Year's celebration. Thousands of people filled the street the day after we were there for the free concerts and reveling.

Cliff and Christian with the guy dressed up as a soviet soldier statue.

I love this picture of them! If you notice Cliff's hat and man scarf. It was SO COLD in Berlin. We added layers of clothes every day. Cliff didn't have a hat or scarf and scoffed when I suggested he get one. Not a lot of men in Texas where scarfs. :) Anyway, whenever we passed a place with scarfs we tried to find one that looked masculine for him, even though he insisted he didn't want one. About half way through the day we passed a gift shop that had scarfs and it was cold enough that he finally relented and bought this lovely man scarf and hat. Doesn't he look nice? :)

A demonstration bringing attention to the death of Benazir Bhutto.

Cliff at check point Charlie. They still have the sign that says you are entering/leaving the American sector in a few different languages. In the background on the left you can see a picture of a Soviet soldier. On the other side of that is a picture of a US soldier. There are displays around that area that give a history of the Soviet occupation of East Berlin, and puts it in historical context with other events going on around the world. It also lists people who tried successfully and unsuccessfully to escape to West Berlin.

This placard marks where the Berlin Wall was. I'm standing on the East side, and Cliff is standing on the west side.

After all the sight seeing we stumbled upon a fantastic place for dinner, Pups. We knew it was the place for us when we noticed strollers lined up outside. It ended up being a nice pizzeria with an extensive drink menu. There were candles on the tables and magazines available so that the parents could relax. On the other side of the fairly small restaurant was a large play area for the kids. It had a large ball pit, slides, bobby cars, and a toddler area. Christian loved the cars. They even let the adults in the play area with the kids, so Cliff took Christian down the slides. It was a great place for us to recharge before our meandering walk back to the hotel. The restaurant closed at 8, but when we left at 7 the staff was out the door and in their cars before we had Christian strapped into his stroller outside. We get that a lot.

Me and Christian walking down the street. This was the first time Christian walked by himself while we were out. He did such a great job! He held my hand the entire time and walked in the right direction and everything. :)

Berlin had these bears all over town. Christian was so excited to see them, and even more excited to sit on one. This one was between the Brandenburg gate and Checkpoint Charlie.

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Day 2 - Berlin

So, after a 3 hour drive and nap for Christian we arrived in Berlin. Yeah!! It was dinner time, so we got settled into the Crown Plaza and headed out to dinner. There happened to be a Christmas market right around the corner, so we went there for the evening. It had more variety than the Aachen or Cologne markets we went to, and they weren't too crowded since it was after Christmas. I think they stay open until New Years there. Christian's favorite part were the rides. We also spent some time in the Europa Center, where we actually ate dinner. It was too cold for us to eat outside. We quickly learned to dress more appropriately when we went out. :)

This is our first foray into the Christmas market.
Isn't it pretty? Christian and I are waiting for Cliff
to finish taking pictures, which is always true of our trips. :)

These are pretty popular in the Christmas markets.

Cliff worked hard to get this picture of the very pretty
church in the background, despite the weird lighting. :) It
is actually just a shell. The majority of it was destroyed
with all the bombing, and it was never restored.

This is a kind of dark picture of the Christmas market.
This is just one aisle of vendors, it took up the whole block.
They sell everything: food, clothes, toys and, of course,
Christmas decorations.

Christian was SO excited when he saw these rides. He's
too little to ride by himself. I think he would probably have
tried to crawl out while it was going. :) But, they were nice enough
to let me ride with him. He actually screamed and giggled with excitement
through most of the ride. The car not only went in circles, it also
went up and down. Does it get any better than that?

Christian LOVED this fountain in the Europa Center.
We went back to it several times.

Christian and Daddy checking out the Christmas displays.

This is a small overview of the little Christmas
village they had set up for kids to walk through.

Our first view of the wall.

On our way back to the hotel,
Christian and Daddy had a ride.

My two studly guys hanging out in the rocket ship.

The first thing Christian did when we got back to
the room was grab his football.

Asleep after a long day.

Day 2 - Hannover

This morning we had the opportunity to look around Hannover. I showed Cliff where CeBIT is held and the area where I stayed when I went. Then we spent some time walking around the city center. There was a fascinating display in the Rathouse. It had a model of the city before, during and after WWII. There was a beautiful park in the back, that we would have taken more advantage of if were dressed more appropriately for the cold weather. :) There was even a group of people taking bridal portraits there. It's the first time I've seen a bride incorporate a winter jacket into her outfit. :) After our walk around town we went to a market that was perfect for us. They sold everything from groceries to jewelry, with a very tasty food court upstairs. Then it was time to move on to Berlin and let Christian nap in the car.

This is the Rathouse (like the town hall)

This is the model of Hannover in 1939.
(much more impressive in person -
we had trouble getting a good picture)

Hannover in 1945
(This just made me sad.)

This is Hannover today.

Another view of Hannover today.

Cliff and Christian in the park behind the Rathouse.

This is the only picture we had of the market. It's taken from

the upstairs eating area. Everything is still decorated
for Christmas and New Year.

Cliff and Christian outside the building with the market.

Day 1 - Hannover

With as busy as we’ve been, we actually hadn’t made any plans over the Christmas break. So, as we reveled in our time off and enjoyed the various Christmas Markts, we spontaneously began to look at places we might go following Christmas. We quickly decided that Berlin would be a good place to visit even in the heart of winter. Agreeing, we quickly booked some hotels online (I would recommend booking.com), bought a few books on Berlin from the Bookmark, and we were on the road the morning of the 27^th.

We broke the 6 hour drive up by staying in Hanover on the way there and back, which worked out well for Christian who mainly took his regular nap during the drive times. He was awake for our stop at a roadside park where he excitedly played in the leaves and was fascinated by a huge red truck. This park affectionately became known as “Poopy Park.” Well, let’s just say that the multicolored, winter leaves were not the only nature that collected on Christian’s shoes. Fortunately we had an extra pair and, a quick change later, we were pressing on to Hanover.

We arrived at the Hotel Marjana sometime after nightfall, which is to say sometime after 4 PM this time of year. The hotel was initially closed when we first arrived and had a printed message on the door with a phone number. I called the number and after a brief conversation in broken English and a 20 minute wait later, we were ushered into the hotel; the only guests for the evening and most probably for the foreseeable future. Convention season isn’t for another few months in Hanover. The minor inconvenience was certainly offset however in the fact that the 350 euro convention season room cost us only 35 euro and Christian could be as exuberant as he wanted to be for the evening. The room was pretty spacious, so he had lots of room to run and play and there were very few extraneous wires and such for him to destroy. Aside from being a bit chilly, it was perfect.

After unloading the car, we were out again in search of dinner. We thought the town center would be the place to be, but were distracted by a plane that was aglow and looked like a restaurant. We turned around, and sure enough it was exactly that. A plane that had been turned into a pretty nice, but narrow restaurant and they had a high chair for Christian. Perfect! Here are some pictures of the restaurant.

Christmas Day!

We had a great Christmas! We still missed our families back home, but Cliff's parents and brother, Corby, were nice enough to stay up late to spend Christmas morning with us via web cam. So it felt like we had family here. :) It took Christian a little longer than I expected to figure out what was going on, but he caught on. He did a wonderful job of ripping off the wrapping paper by himself, and for the most part he played with the toy he unwrapped until we gave him another one. Cliff knew what his present was before hand (I had to tell him, because he was going to buy me the same thing. Booo.), but he did a lovely job of acting surprised anyway. And I think he has used his gift every day since then - it was a Senseo coffee maker. We had another relaxing day of playing with Christian and the new Christmas gifts, playing Christmas music. In the afternoon we talked on the phone with our families during their Christmas morning. We had another great dinner. We don't cook well, so we're pretty easily impressed. :) It was a bit more traditional - ham, real mashed potatoes, spinach, and french bread. Yummm. Looking back through, I noticed we didn't take as many pictures as we should have.

Christian climbing through the presents. He loves
climbing on anything that will sit still.

This is Christian opening a present from his Grammie J.
He needed a little help pulling things out of the bags. After
we got the first layer of tissue paper out and he could see that
something was inside, he was much more excited!

This is Christian drawing on his new doodle pad with
his new crayons (which he rarely eats now). You can
also see his delicious Christmas breakfast of Kix and
apple juice. :) Cliff was nice enough to make us all
pancakes after we finished opening presents. He even
cleaned up the kitchen after. Isn't he sweet? :)

These were our lovely internet guests who stayed up past
midnight to share Christmas morning with us.

This is our Christmas morning sunrise from our back door,
that we didn't see unti lafter we were finished with Christmas presents.
I have never been terribly excited about waking up for sunrises
as beautiful as they are. With the sun not rising until 8 or later,
I've had the wonderful privilege of seeing a few more. :)