Sad-aversary

My mom died seven years ago today; exactly a week after my 32nd birthday. For the first couple years, the time leading up to my birthday was also part of the yearly grieving process. For better or worse, this summer was just too packed to even process anything. 

This picture of Hugo on his first day back during the post-Kita school run pretty well sums up how I'm feeling.

At the beginning of the summer, after corona and between a couple rounds of barfies for Carmen and me, I found out that the 24th of August is also Ukraine's independence day. I vowed I would do something to honor both my mom and Ukraine on that day. Are the two related? No, but the date is easy to remember. 

My initial first thought was to start the "tap water revolution". I've always thought it was silly that in such an eco-friendly country with safe drinking water, that Germans drink bottled water. I swear it is not just me being cheap. Although with inflation, I think taking a second look at this custom might be in order. 

The "tap water revolution" idea came to me while being refused table water at a nice restaurant. (Note - I offered to pay for the table water.) The restaurant was inside a museum flying two huge Ukrainian flags overhead. It is worth noting that ninety percent of the gasoline refined in Berlin comes from Russia. The bottled water this restaurant was serving was brought in from over 250 Kilometers or 150 miles away. Does anyone make this connection?

My general rule of thumb is I don't write negative reviews before first writing the restaurant personally. I also write personal letters in German, which takes time. Someday I'll get to writing that restaurant but in the mean time I wrote positive reviews for these two places where Paul and I went on dates. 

While I am on the sad theme, last week an apartment move for our Ukrainian family, which I tried with a group to broker, fell through. The property manager didn't want to do the one extra step of doing a contract through social services. Sadly the news around here is much more consumed by inflation and staying warm in winter instead of helping the one million Ukrainians in Germany, 1/3 of them children, who are trying to build a life here. 

But my crew and I are trudging on; doing what we can to support Ukraine. My friend Shannon is taking cold showers. We're still not using our drier. I am being more strategic about showering (i.e I used the littles' bath water last night.) When it gets cold, we're planning on just heating two bedrooms in our house. The kids will have to make peace with wearing pajamas. For now, we will enjoy our last few weeks of sleeping like this:

and this

Birthday Vibes

I woke up about the best way possible this morning.

August 17, 7:15 AM

Carmen waddling over from her potty with her night diaper around her ankles: "Can you wipe my cola?" 

(Cola = literally 'tail', colloquially 'bottom' for little kids in Spanish)

A year ago I spent my birthday week potty training Carmen. This year, I'm fully enjoying the fruits of my labor. This morning's extra hour of sleep was an added bonus. 

The littles are back in Kita but Crosby has one week at home before school starts. I was going to ship him off to summer camp, but Crosby worked really hard to get pass his "Seahorse" swimming test so now he's learning the important skill of being bored at home.

No German accomplishment would be complete without a gift pack of gummy bears in addition to a certificate, patch, and ballon.

Crosby and I did a mask:

Not creepy at all.

We went to lunch:

Lunch specials = my jam

We attempted to go clothes shopping but even a relaxed kid with a future promise of bubble tea has his limits. I'll try shopping again when Paul and I have a date this weekend. 

Speaking of Paul, with our 10 year anniversary around the corner, I feel similarly to the summer of 2012. I'm less focused on my birthday and more working towards getting things ready for our anniversary trip to Spain. 

Thank you all for the birthday wishes.

How To: VW Autostadt Visit

The Autostadt has been on my radar for 15 years. Tante Bettina said she takes her family from the US here to visit. When Tante Bettina says something is cool, I make a mental note. I figured this Autostadt would be a nice place to hang out because Uncle Tyler could check out the cars while the little people and I would find something to do. Also, the one-hour high speed train is something amazing for US visitors.

View from the main station train platform.

This is the part of the blog where I should say something about the history of the UW Autostadt and what they do there. Going into the trip, I knew that Wolfsburg is a planned city and I only needed to walk across a bridge from the train station to get to the Autostadt.

You know you're heading to a car museum when there are people movers on the bridge.

I learned from a lady in the elevator that VW started building around 1999. But, I know very, very little other information because check out these play structures:

Close-up on these huge bean bags:

I thought about seeing if I could convince the kids to nap up there, but it was just too exciting. 

We went this route a couple hours later:

With her napping, the boys moved onto the indoor play structures:

Not pictured: the track with a bunch of cool wheeled vehicles the kids could test out and ride around.

They also worked on their driving skills:

The real show stoppers were the slides:

It was possible to rent paddle boats here to the left too, but too little time.

German engineering at its finest. Definitely fun, definitely still a little scary.

We ordered an expensive light lunch while the kids did laps on the slides. (Question for next time - is self-catering an option?) After lunch we figured we should probably go check out some museums but then, wha? Awesome fountains?

Before I knew it, Carmen handed me all of her clothes and then ran off. Hugo followed suit.

We then figured we should finally get that family photo with the cousins.

So much for the matching ensembles we planned. A very friendly VW employee then came to politely let us know that our kids needed to put their clothes back on.  Wolfsburg = not Berlin

In summary, Autostadt is a great adventure when you have a combination of small kids and adults or teens who like cars. I looked into using our 9 Euro train pass to get there but it would take three hours. Thus, we sprung for the high speed tickets. I don't know how busy the Autostadt gets on the weekend, but it was not too full on a Friday. 

Is Wolfsburg really a day trip? This photo says:

No.

The train ride back was a bit of an s%$t show. But, the on-site Ritz Carleton was just a little out of our budget as were the adjoining luxury store outlets. 

I think a good trip would be an overnight trip to Wolfsburg with one day dedicated to the Autostadt and the other to the really cool science museum next to the train station. The Wolfsburg city itself was a bit rough around the edges, but a follow-up visit when their Christmas market is up and running might be in our future.