After arriving late from The UK on Thursday night and booking into the AO Youth Hostel at the Zoologischer Gartens Bahnhof we decided a quiet hotel would be better.
We moved to the Atrium Hotel on Motzstrasse, which is in a quiet little residential area with a small group of supermarkets and cafes nearby.
It is an almost idyllic spot (as far as that can be in a big European city). The nearest U bahn is Güntzelstrasse (<- look, a word mit umlaut off a German keyboard! :-).
Anyway, on Friday we all went to the zoo, and a big one it was too. We spent all day there.
Saturday we went to the Technical museum and Spectrum (Spectrum is like the SA Science Investigator Centre). The kids spent about 3 hours there and then we went to the museum proper. By this time Rhiannon was beginning to show symptoms of an approaching cold. I was too.
Saturday night we went to a German restaurant, with no menu. Rhiannon and I had the duck with red cabbage and -dumplings- (!). The duck was nice, but I really liked the red cabbage.
Sam had the sniffles for a few days previously but he got over it. Rhiannon and I got his cold in turn and it has hit us reasonably hard, Rhee especially. I could only do about 4 hours activity in a day. So Sunday I had to chase around after an Apotheke, which are generally closed (as is everything) on Sundays. The closed ones usually have a sign in their windows where to find an open one. So on to the UBahn again and a chase around Berlin. I finally found an open one.
Pity I hadn't got to the chapter on health yet in my German lessons :-( but I learnt a new word, "erkalten". After a bit of a rest I took everyones clothes to the laundromat and did the washing.
While there I found out that, sadly, Sabine can't put us up in Frankfurt so the plans have changed somewhat. Speaking to Heike we will go through the old east Germany when (if!) we leave Berlin and meet them at Zeigehain on the weekend. On the way back from the laundromat I bought some Chinese takeaway for tea, which we had in the hotel room.
This is an area which I have trouble with still because I although the same words are used the German pronunciation of the words is quite different and, try as I might, I can't say them the German way. Also Sunday night we watched a show on TV called(if I remember correctly) "Die Comedie Falle", The Commedy Trap. It was a little like a German Candid Camera. While it would have been much more funny if we could have understood the dialogue better, it was still pretty humourous. (There was one particular bit where an unsuspecting babysitter was convinced the house was haunted).
Monday we all just stayed in. It has been drizzling here since Saturday anyway. We went out for a bit of lunch and a little walk in the afternoon and then went to an Italian restaurant for tea.
Rhee says she is feeling better (I am still fairly snuffed up). So, if Rhee feels up to it we will go for a look around Berlin proper this afternoon, with a view to leaving for Dresden or similar on Wednesday sometime.
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