Running Start

Although school wasn't officially out until June 17th, we snatched Eli out of school early and headed to Berlin on June 15th. We were in Berlin last December, when it was unbelievably cold. So cold that the water bottles we were carrying formed ice inside. That cold.

This trip, the weather was perfect. Jeans and a shirt with a light sweater for the cool evenings was the perfect attire. We roamed through Tiergarten Park, toured the Reichstag building again, walked down Unter den Linden, through the Brandenburg Gate and past the Embassies. We also stopped by the Jewish Museum and the Topography of Terror exhibit. We saw another portion of the remains of the Wall and the actual building that belonged to the former Nazi Air Force headquarters. We also swung by the Tempodrom and enjoyed a fabulous concert by Jack Johnson - the highlight of our trip! There is so much to see and do in Berlin. I sense we'll be back again. Next on the list is to go to Museum Island where one of the museums has the Babylonian Ishtar Gate from 6 BC, among other treasures.

After a day of rest, an a nice hair appointment for me, we started off early Saturday morning enroute to Belgium. We had the pleasure of taking this trip with the Mlacks. We spent the first day in Brussels and roamed around a bit dodging rain showers and checking out the few sights that the city holds. We had our first tastes of Belgian chocolate, waffles, and beer - all tasty and all deserving of seconds! The next day we drove an hour up to Middlekerke, a coastal city along the North Sea, and froze. It was windy and cold, so we had lunch and headed back down to Brugge.

While Brussels is a business city, Brugge is a picturesque touristy place. There were some churches, museums and beautiful sights. As always, we only managed to fit in about half of the things we thought we would want to do.

So now that we have returned from about a week of Berlin, Belgium and Brugge we are ready to figure out what our summer routine will be. Today, we slept in, had a picnic with friends and then I read a book while the boys played outside. I think I could get used to this.