Yes, Parting Can be Such Sweet Sorrow

 

            So…it is one thing to celebrate our last U-Bahn ride, or last trip to our favorite Italian restaurant, or even our last croissant from the bakery across the street.  But seeing a friend for the last time is hard!  Today, we said “Til We Meet Again” to Miss Claudia.  She has taught Bryce and Emily’s German for eight weeks here in Berlin but she has been SO MUCH MORE than a teacher! 

            I liked Claudia from the very beginning.  And it wasn’t only because she let me cheat and speak English in the classroom!!  Teaching Bryce and Emily was obviously more than just a job to her.  She wanted to know them and about our family.  She was eager to hear about homeschooling, wishing she was allowed to experience such a thing with her daughters (it is still illegal here in Germany).  She commented on how Bryce and Emily worked together, helped each other, and complemented one another.  She made learning German fun for the children…understanding that creating a positive experience would lend itself both to short-term and long-term learning.  And early on, she brought her daughter to one of the classes.  What fun they all had!  Bryce and Emily teaching Morea (10) some English and Morea teaching Bryce and Emily some German!!

            We also had some special weekend experiences.  Team Thomas met Claudia and Morea at a big farm one beautiful Sunday afternoon.  We talked, the children climbed trees and ate fresh carrots (we still aren’t sure if we were allowed to pick them!) and simply enjoyed building a friendship.  And just last weekend, we all met Claudia, both her daughters (Cial is 3) and some other friends of Moreas.  In all there were 3 adults and 6 children.  We spent half of our time together at a playground running the children ragged and the other half at a wonderful museum.  It was much more about being there together than where we were!

Claudia and I related to one another as wives, as mothers, and as women.  We shared thoughts on marriage, on parenting, on travel and a lot about life in general.  She was so patient with my German and, thankfully, she spoke great English (although she would be the last to admit it!) 

Once upon a time I wouldn’t have believed it possible for me to form such a friendship in such a short time–we are talking about eight weeks here!  Sometimes that probably saved me some heartache, but now I know it also probably cost me a tremendous amount of joy.  I thank God for blessing me with such a tremendous base of family and friends from which I have learned much about love and friendship.  God is love, indeed.

Claudia and her family depart for a family vacation in France tomorrow.  The Thomas Family returns to the States this Friday.  Claudia and I exchanged street addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers.  We also exchanged small tokens that would remind us of our time together.  It shouldn’t have been that hard to say goodbye and yet it was.  We shed some tears and after we had separated once ran back to each other for just one more hug.  Yes, I, Karen, ran back for a hug!!

The Thomas Family doesn’t know if will be returning to Berlin.  Claudia and her family would like to travel to the United States next year, but as yet there are no concrete plans.  So we left with the knowledge that our lives connected in a special way in this place at this time, knowing that we are both the better for having the experience and hopes that we would continue to foster this connection.  Good-byes were simply out of the question. 

The Only Way to Get to One Place is to Leave Another

 

WOW!  Time flies!!  The last few weeks have been a fairly steady weekday routine of seminars for Todd and school, German classes, household chores, and taking advantage of good weather when we can for Karen, Bryce and Emily.  On the weekends Team Thomas gets out to two or three different places to see or do something we haven’t yet seen or done. 

It is definitely not lost on any of us that our time in Germany is rapidly coming to a close.  The last couple of weeks have been especially reflective.  We dart back and forth between reminiscing about all we have experienced here and the great anticipation of returning home to family and friends.  We started making a list of those things we will miss and those things to which we are looking forward.  They are in no particular order!  See if you can figure out who contributed (could be more than one of us) each item to the respective lists!!   We are sure we are forgetting some so check back every now and then to see if we have added to the list!

 

THINGS WE ARE GOING TO MISS…

THINGS WE ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO…

·         The Berlin apartment ·         The public parks and playgrounds ·         The U-Bahn ·         The Italian Restaurant down the block ·         Walking everywhere ·         The grocery store across the street ·         Croissants (also across the street) ·         The Ampelmann ·         Schnitzel ·         Traveling to such great places ·         Our German teachers and others we have met on our journey like Massimo, Leonardo, and the Italian brothers ·         Little daytrips on the weekends ·         The Berlin Zoo ·         German lessons ·         Ice cream after German lessons *    Hearing the church bells from our apartment *    The unique sirens of the ambulance and police and fire trucks

·         Baking chocolate chip cookies ·         Bubba ·         Seeing family and friends ·         Hershey’s bar with almonds ·         Our house ·         Exercise class ·         Snowflake ·         Gold Fish, the snack cracker ·         Basketball hoop in the yard ·         Church ·         Being at home ·         Chocolate crème pie ·         Chinese food – American style! ·         Washer and dryer just downstairs ·         Monday night basketball ·         Calico critters ·         Big back yard ·         English!! ·         Our homeschool co-op ·         Exploring Michigan like we explored Berlin ·         Mrs. Richardson’s frosted chocolate chocolate chip cake ·         Cool Whip! ·         Working out and playing at BHC ·         Less expensive phone bills ·         Olga’s ·         Kit Kat bars

 

It is What it is!!!

          

           “It is what it is” is one of Team Thomas’s favorite expressions.  It comes out when we are discussing anything that we may not like, may think inconvenient, or deem “unfair.” But we also know we can’t change it, so we may as well acknowledge it and make the best of it.  Even, dare I say, learn something from it!!  This was one of those weeks.

            Todd left on Monday afternoon (Sept 22^nd) to do a seminar at Resort Schwielosee, which is about 45 minutes outside of Berlin.  Neither one of us was particularly wild about him going for the week, but we also understood it is all part of the package.  We tried to keep a stiff upper lip, as they say, and off he went.  But then Tuesday arrived.  It was COLD and WINDY and WET!!  It poured from early morning through the middle of the afternoon!  Bryce and Emily tackled their schoolwork and I monitored their progress and the never-ending laundry pile.  By early afternoon, schoolwork was complete, laundry was complete and the rains still came down.  The children got a bit stir crazy and the walls of the already small apartment seemed to close in further as each moment passed.  I tried to come up with some creative options, but I wasn’t particularly creative and the children weren’t particularly eager to let me off the hook!  Finally, the rains stopped…just in time for us to make the trek to German class – which, as you might have guessed, was not the break the children were looking for!!  And it was still COLD and GLOOMY and DARK!  We survived German and managed to get home before it rained on us again…dinner was uneventful and the walls to the apartment, it seemed, had not expanded while we were off trying to speak German!!

            Todd and I texted each other late in the evening.  It seemed that his program didn’t go a whole lot better than our day!  But “It is what it is!”  While I couldn’t change the reality, it didn’t mean I couldn’t change MY ATTITUDE about my reality, right???  So I started to think about what I might do to “change things up” for the next day!  Immediately, I felt blessed all over again by our decision to homeschool.  If nothing else, it can be flexible!!  It did get me thinking though…we are here in Germany homeschooling where it is illegal to homeschool!  In fact, though there are probably more families like us in this country, we could be the only family in the whole country homeschooling legally!!  It made me realize what a privilege it is, but also that it is not easy to do something that no one (at least no one we know) around us is doing.  I realized how important our homeschool co-op really is because it provides support, encouragement, and a feeling that we are not alone as we educate our children.  Homeschooling is not easy, with its daily ups and downs, and our co-op gives us a sense of common purpose, as well as a place for children and mothers alike to share and refuel!  I hadn’t realized just how important that sense of community is.  Another lesson learned!!

            OK…but there is still tomorrow (Wednesday Sept 24^th).  What am I going to do to change things up?  Here’s what I came up with:  We do not live far, it turns out, from where we lived when we were here in 2000.  S0, on this new day that brought with it a new attitude and crisp air but bright SUNSHINE, I took Bryce and Emily to their “old stomping grounds”.  Bryce was only 2 and Emily only a few months old in 2000, so they had to trust me!  As we walked, I told them that we were going to the playground that contained Bryce’s first slide.  And it was HUGE!  I told them how, because it was Bryce’s first slide, I, of course, had taken LOTS of pictures of him whizzing down it at full speed!  We walked and I reminisced…we had one of those strollers for 2 children, a place for Baby Emily to lay and a platform for Big Brother Bryce to stand on in the back (or sit down if he was tired).  I would push the stroller and Bryce would either ride or he would hop off and run on his little two-year old legs hither and yon.  I told them how we would pass the time walking on these paths…I would be singing to Emily and Bryce would be checking out every rock, leaf, worm, and stick he found interesting (which was most of them!!)  It was a difficult stay in Germany last time around, but those walks were the highlight! 

So…we made our way to this playground and, to my amazement, when we saw the slide, it was still HUGE!  (I thought maybe it would seem tiny because Bryce had grown so much).  The children thought so too!  They started scampering up the ladder to get to the tower that held the slide’s entrance and I, of course, grabbed my camera.   The children spent the better part of an hour racing up to, and sliding down, the slide.  As we walked back toward home, we talked about seeing these new pictures side by side with those of Bryce taken 8 years ago!!

            In the same park area there is a big pond, with lots of ducks.  We decided to walk along the shore (I dubbed it the “coastal route”) to see what we could see.  I wished I had brought along some bread to feed them, but alas, I can’t think of everything!!!  But God can!!  I looked around and saw a plastic bag.  When I looked closer there was almost 2 whole slices of bread still in it!!  So we were able to spend a few minutes feeding the ducks.  What fun!! 

            After the ducks had their lunch, we made a quick trip to the grocery store for essentials before extracting our clean laundry from the dryer and heading up to the apartment for our lunch.  After lunch, we had an exceedingly productive school time before heading to German class!!  Imagine that!!

            It has turned out to be a fantastic week.  Todd returned earlier this evening and Team Thomas strolled down the street to our local (and favorite) Italian restaurant.  The owners, two brothers who speak Italian and German, know us well and are always glad to see us.  While we waited for our meal, we talked about the things we are looking forward to back in the States and the things that we are going to really going to miss.  We realized, the four of us, that life is really about the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, the ebbs and the flows.

      “It is [always] what it is” but it is better with a loving family, great friends, new experiences, and memories that will last a lifetime.   

Karen Explains Bryce and Emily’s Assignment

 

         As part of our writing program in the last couple of weeks, we were working with merging the idea of a research paper with personal experience.  So I had Bryce and Emily research a couple of  Berlin sights and then add some of their personal reflections along with it.  Here’s what they come up with:

Bryce Speaks on Berlin Sights He Finds Interesting

 

Berlin’s Best and Worst

          Out of all the monuments in Berlin, there are two that I will write about today.  A phenomenal sports complex, called the Olympic Stadium has had a perplexing past.  It was assembled for the 1936 Summer Olympic Games, but also as a way for Germany to convince the world it should be seen more positively .  The competition ring (which is in the middle of the stadium) is set 12 meters (around 35 feet) into the ground.  When we went and saw the stadium, I was surprised at how short it was … now I know!!  In 1936, there was amazingly enough seating to fit 110,000 fans.  The Waldbuhne Stage is set a lengthy 30 meters into the earth which is an area where they hold open-air concerts and movies.  It is right next to a large bell tower.  In 2004 they modernized the stadium, but it can now only hold about 75,000 people. 

Now I will talk about a structure built for an even sadder purpose: the Berlin Wall.  The Berlin Wall may have been the most heart-rending structure in Berlin.  The Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961.  It fashioned a 155 kilometer ring around West Berlin.  The people used their vivid imaginations of dangerous and scary ways of boldly escaping.  Some tried to climb over it; others tried to knock it down with a battering ram.  Still others tried to get through by stowing away in a tiny part of a reengineered car or fly over it in a hot air balloon!  The protests became so strong that they finally destroyed the Wall on November 9, 1989.  I have seen the parts of the Wall that are still up, and I even have a little piece of it, but I find it hard to imagine a separated Berlin now.

Emily Speaks on Her Favorites

 

Berlin Itself

          I am going to tell you a bit about two of my favorite places in Berlin.  The Berlin Zoo is the oldest zoo in Germany.  It is 160 years old!!  The gracious and generous king of Germany contributed the first few animals as a gift.  The Berlin Zoo housed 4,000 animals but only 91 survived the last World War.  Now the Berlin Zoo has more than 14,000 species, including those in the aquarium.  When we visited the zoo, the animals were very active!!  I liked seeing all the great animals and playing in an extraordinary playground that was right near Knut the polar bear!

          I also really love the Brandenburg Gate. The beautiful and grand Brandenburg Gate, which was built from 1788-1791, used to be one of Berlin’s 14 gates.  It’s named the Brandenburg Gate because it once separated Berlin from the city of Brandenburg.  King Frederick William II had it erected as a sign of peace.  It has been a symbol of Berlin ever since.  I had seen lots of wonderful pictures of this gate before I came to Berlin.  It was neat to finally see the real thing.  I liked its size and shape.  And it has nice columns and arches.  I hope you liked my favorite things in Berlin.  Maybe you’ll get to visit them one day!!

Emily Speaks on German Lessons

 

Hello people!!!  I’m going to talk about my German lessons.  Three times a week we go to Berlitz, the language teachers!!!!!  We walk up to floor one and practically run in because I want to meet my teacher, Mrs. claudia.  We check to see which room we’re in. We’re usually in Room 2, the fun room!!!  Tingo comes in and so does Mrs. Claudia.  You’re probably wondering who Tingo is.  Tingo is the puppet whom I love!!!!  Mrs. Claudia, Bryce and I sit down at the big table.  She gives us flash cards and says “frag mal” which means say it again or do it to him/her.  She also talks to us and writes stuff on the board.  But!  The trick is … SHE ONLY SPEAKS GERMAN TO US DURING THE CLASS!!!!!!!!  But at pausa (break time) she speaks English to us.  If you’re trying to learn a new language I have to recommend Berlitz.  AUFWIEDERSEHEN!!

Bryce Speaks on German Lessons

 

To get to German class, we use the U-Bahn, which is the subway.  Then we take a walk, about three blocks, to get to Berlitz.  German lessons are very fun.  Our teacher, Mrs. Claudia, is very nice and she is a good teacher.  She shows us flashcards and she writes words on the white board in the classroom and she makes it fun!  A couple of classes ago she even brought her daughter (she’s 10!) to class with her.  We had fun because we got to play with Morea and we got to teach her a little English!  The hardest part about German is the pronunciations, but the hardest part about class is that not one word of English is usually spoken!!  Sometimes Mrs. Claudia sometimes speaks a little English by accident though!  After class, we usually go back home, but sometimes we get to have an ice cream! 

Bryce Speaks on the Berlin Zoo!

 

Our visit to the Berlin Zoo was spectacular!!  The animals were very active!!  We saw monkeys that were running around like mad carrying their babies on their backs.  Sometimes the babies fell off and the mom kept going.  But then the mom would figure out something was missing and go back!  It was great seeing the little babies jump back on their mom’s backs!  The apes were super active!  One of them, the biggest ape out there, first was sitting down in a corner and it looked like he was thinking very hard about something.  He didn’t look very big down there, but when he climbed up the side of the hill, he was huge!!  Then he started to tackle another ape!  One of the apes, after the big ape tackled him, ran toward us.  He couldn’t get to us because there was a big pit between us and the ape, but he was pounding his chest like crazy!  It made a strange sound, like he was hollow.

  There was also a very cool Spielplatz (playground) there.  There was three parts: there was a little town, a normal structure with ladders, bridges and trampolines, and there was also a pirate ship with secret rooms!  Emily and I were in the pirate ship one for almost the whole time.  There were four secret rooms.  We were trying to find all of them, but we only ended up finding one!  We can’t wait to go back to the zoo so we can find the others!!

Emily Speaks on the Berlin Zoo!

 

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!! Don’t you love zoos??!!  I may use exclamation points this whole time!!!!!!  The Berlin Zoo is the oldest zoo in all of Germany!!!!!  It is awesome!!!  There are over 14,000 animals in the Berlin Zoo.   And have you heard of the story of Knut the polar bear??? We saw him!!!!  The Berlin Zoo is my favorite zoo in the world because………………… THERE’S AN AWESOME SPIELPLATZ  (PLAYGROUND) AND THERE ARE MANY MANY MANY ANIMALS!!!!!!  And at the time we went all the animals were soooooooooooooo active!!!!  My favorite probably was the apes.  They were mean apes though. The daddy ape ran around pushing the children off the side of their mountain thing!!  And the ape got really mad and ran right towards me punching his chest like the myths say!!!!! OH NO –  IT IS NOT A MYTH!!!  We also saw the aquarium but I didn’t want to go because I wanted to stay at the Spielplatz.  Then we went to the elephant gate to leave and I sat on the elephant’s lap. That was my favorite trip to any zoo!!! Aufwiedersehen!!