Bye Felicia

It was our last day for hopping on and off the bus. We split up from the Seagroves and managed to grab some front seats. 

We rode to Alexanderplatz where we switched buses to grab the blue route. 

We were able to see a different part of the city and to see the longest continuous stretch of wall. 

We found the world clock and saw that it was just after 7am EST. 

Everyone was hungry, so we found a little pizza place. 

It feels so quiet after being with another family for over a week. 

After pizza we enjoyed some delicious gelato as we walked back to our bus. 

I love these busses, but the German ones spend a really long time at each stop. Like 10+ minutes. That makes it sloooow. 

The American Embassy!

We hopped off the bus at Bellevue Palace, which is the official home of the President of Germany. It’s beautiful!

My friend that used to live in Berlin said we had to climb the Victory Tower, and I kind of wanted to do it anyway, so we made it happen. 

It’s beautiful!

And windy. Even at the bottom, but especially at the top. 

We were all a little nervous, probably Matt and D the least, then Frankie. 

But we all managed to walk full circle around the top. 

This is how I feel the whole time. Even my hair stands on end. 

The Gold Else is really lovely though. 

Could almost be a lighthouse. 

I am always happy I climbed and also happy to be back at the bottom. 

Those 285 steps made all of our legs a little wobbly. 

It was 60° today and I pretty quickly regretted bringing my coat. I knew I wouldn’t want it for the climb, so off it came. 

Matt has really wanted to see this sculpture from a Depeche Mode video, so we finally made our way over there today. 

He’s been semi patiently waiting, so I was glad we could go on a nice weather day. 

I even got a video for him. 

It was just over a mile to our apartment, so we walked and walked. 

These are the outside doors to our apartment. This leads into the courtyard. Matt says this is how it was in Spain too. 

Amy and I walked in search of sparkling cider for midnight, and on the way back I picked up the best Doner Kebab of the trip. I got a big Doner with everything on it and Matt and I shared it. It was so tasty!

We played games and ate appetizers and rang in the new year on our garden rooftop with pots and pans and celebratory ribbon. 

After the rooftop festivities we ventured out onto the streets. The fireworks have been going off randomly since we got here, growing more frequent each day as we got closer to NYE. But tonight was like nothing I’ve ever seen. Just nonstop bangs, a cloudy haze, and fireworks coming from every direction. I took a bunch of videos (which I never do) to show just how wild it was. We stayed glued to the walls of our complex and when the kids would inevitably venture pot we’d grab them back in. Revelers were drinking, and these were not little fireworks, they had full on big ones. They were shooting them at passing cars and over top of buildings. It was so crazy. 

After a few minutes of that we can inside and cheersed some spritz-fritz. 

And blew some more confetti ribbon. It is now 1:37am and there are still loud bangs going on, though not nearly as many. 

2022 was hard. And also really beautiful and so so good. Why does it seem the bad always has to happen to enjoy the good? I know the answer, I just still don’t like it. But I’m grateful for all the lessons and growth that have come as a result of this difficult year. I’ve got my word of the year for 2023 and all my resolutions all written down. I am 100% ready to say bye Felicia to 2022 and I hope everyone will just be cool going into 2023. Let’s all be chill and go in nice and easy. 

Here’s to a new year. 

Happy birthday, Quinn!

Matt and I went for an early morning walk. I wanted to check out a discount shoe store for some Chelsea boots. Literally everyone wears them here and they’re so cute! Our trip was successful. I found a pair I like and they were 1/3 the price I’d seen them in other places. 

We came back to a birthday cake for this beautiful lady! She’s 11 and I’m 44, how perfect is that. 

They did a funny thing with their Christmas Jammie’s where they smacked the present on their knee to open it, so max volunteered his head for her birthday gift. Goofballs. 

We love all the old cars and bikes. 

And the fancy stores. We went to Pull & Bear because Matt bought clothes at one when he was on his mission in Spain. We loved it and found loads of fun deals. And then the self checkouts! You put everything into that bin and they automatically know how much everything cost. It was pretty impressive!

We found this slogan in several construction areas. I don’t know what “Stump Franki” means, but it’s pretty funny. 

Tiny car tours! How fun!

We went to the Trabi store and didn’t walk around the museum, but saw it. These would be a fun way to tour the city. 

We did some shopping and sightseeing while Matt and Frankie went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum.. 

A sweatshirt with this on it is coming home with her. She has spent all her souvenir money and now has moved on to using her spending $. 

She is soaking up all this history and really loved the museum

We walked through a Berlin Wall memorial and a nice young man offered to take our picture, and then we took one for his group. 

We got a laugh when we found that he’d also taken one of himself. Sneaky sneaky. 😂



We wanted a nice sit down restaurant but evening busses are always weird and people were hungry, so we settled on a nice’ish food court. Everyone got what they wanted and we all got to spread out. These 2 are thick as thieves. 

We had another game of Skull King tonight (Amy won again) and Delaney asked to take a picture of her cards. 3 pirates are pretty impressive!

On our way home from dinner we stopped by a grocery store for NYE and New Year’s Day food, and while I think we did end up going overboard, I don’t think it will be too too bad. 

We decided tomorrow would be a good separate families day and then we’ll come together in the evening to party and kick 2022 straight to the curb. Bye Felicia. 

Hop on, hop off

We rode the hop on, hop off bus day. A little cheesy, but I love this way to tour a city. You see a ton of places and learn interesting things, and are still able to go at your own pace. 

We love the Christmas markers in Berlin! We like them way better than the Nuremberg and Munich ones. 

And also 9 heads and a tall church is not an easy shot. 

So beautiful!

We were able to walk through this church and the organist was up there working it with both hands and both feet. Super impressive. And each of those individual squares of stained glass!

We stopped off at the Topography of Terror museum. There is so much history here, I couldn’t take any of it in and spent most of my time there just trying to find people. 

Frankie loved it and wants to go to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum too. She’s taking it all in. 

Rainy time on the bus. 

We all sat everywhere and would move around as other people would leave or board. 

Musical chairs at its best. 

A back of the bus moment for these two. 

They love to carry Delaney like this. And they were allowed to until somehow max used Delaney’s foot to kick Frankie in the face. Then we were done. 

We appreciated that they were stretching and being silly here where there wasn’t a huge crowd and things that could break, because that’s not always the case. 

During our last trip on the bus I got my favorite spot up front on the top. It was rush hour and amazing to see how the driver navigates these busy and tiny streets and all the dumb tourists! The front row gasped several times as we had near collisions with cars and people. 

It’s beautiful to be out after dark and see all the Christmas and city lights. 

The kids spotted and M&M store so Matt offered to take them over there while the other adults walked through a Christmas market. 

They did some karaoke. 

And danced in this fun video making machine. 

It would take your silhouette and make a video with tons of M&M’s. 

We managed to leave without buying anything, so I thought that was impressive. 

This wall of m&m’s that you can move around was fun too. 

We took a Ubahn (train) back towards our apartment and Matt was able to do some haircut tourism that he swears is a thing. He loved it and looks super sharp!

I hadn’t realized until this post how long and unruly his hair had gotten. 😂