Long Week!

We had a bit of a hard week this week. We started up by getting up at 5:30 AM on Monday morning to got the the Auslandersbehorde to try to get our residency papers sorted out. You see, there is a strike. Consequently, the next appointment is two months from now. BUT, if you come at 6 AM and get in line, you can also be seen without an appointment. Unfortunately, we did not have all the papers we needed, so we had to come back.

We were planning to go back the very next day, but Vigo woke up at 2:30 in the morning screaming in pain from an ear ache. We took him to a doctor on Tuesday morning. She immediately signed him out of school for a week and put him on antibiotics. We ignored the school note after Wednesday. He was already feeling much better, and was definitely fine to go to school. We took him back in today for a follow up and his ears are still a little clogged. This has been affecting his bike riding because his balance is off and has caused him to shout and say, "What? What?" a lot more often than normal. The doctor today gave him an interesting therapeutic tool. It's a little bulb with a balloon on it. He's supposed to inflate the balloon with his nostril (first one and then the other) several times a day to help force the fluid that is blocking his ears out.

So Vigo spent Tuesday and Wednesday home from school.

We went back again to try to get our papers early this morning, but we were told that they aren't seeing anyone who doesn't have an appointment today. Ugh!

We had a pretty nice weekend, mostly roaming around town on our bikes. The latest pictures are all on Flickr.

Week Three

Vigo had a fairly uneventful week at school. The real work is starting and he's not having quite as much fun anymore, but he still doesn't want to leave the place in the afternoons. Vigo has a friend at school called Eduard, but he was feeling a little homesick this week. He'd like to do some video chatting with some of his old friends. Eduard is the 3rd grader who is partnered with Vigo to mentor him as an older, more experienced member of the school in the way Vigo was partnered with India last week. The kids really take this mentoring stuff seriously. Vigo was also a little sick last weekend and had to skip the pool on Monday. He has a lingering little sniffle still.

One big thing this week was getting Vigo a fountain pen. He wasn't required to have one, but most of the other kids use them and he wants to do things the right way! Vigo and Erik went to the paper store together and chose a really well-designed Pelican brand pen. It has a smiley face on top to indicate that you're holding the pen right-side-up and it's indented for small fingers, to promote proper holding. Vigo told me Saturday that he almost doesn't make any mistakes at all with his new fountain pen. He used his pen to write his first fiction reading report. He has to write a report every week about a book that he gets from the school library. He picked a thick fantasy book but he didn't end up reading that because he was tearing through the remaining Secrets of Droon books we bought him before leaving the US. He read 400 (illustrated) pages of this stuff last week and now he doesn't have any more Droon left. He wants to get the rest of the series, read them, and then re-read all of the books again, in order this time. This week he brought back a book about volcanoes and earthquakes. It's not fiction, but we're going to run with it. He's been enjoying it a lot.

We got Vigo's bike fixed by Job at Culture Road and he's been riding to and from school every day. He really loves that bike!

Dan spent the week with us and said that Vigo seems really happy. Dan might be able to teach Vigo to play the trumpet, though Vigo also seems to be warming up to trying out a woodwind instrument. Iris spent a night with us over the weekend. We are so glad to have those guys around to hang out with!

Friday after school we went to some kind of family festival at the park. Erik looked at all the listings and organized a really great Friday night outing for us. They had a lot of games at the little family festival, like tug of war, a sack race, and a giant balloon that the crowd kept aloft for about 12 minutes! Erik and Vigo had a great time, but I ended up leaving with Sam because of her terrible fear of balloon animals. The sound of squeaking balloons just makes her quake.




After that, we went on our first big family bike ride to attend a couple art openings. Even Sam came trotting along with us!




Vigo really loved the work of Miao Xiaochun at the second gallery we went to. He asked a lot of questions about the pictures and videos and looked at the catalogs of the artists' other work. The next day I showed him some Bosch, Bruegel, Muybridge and Duchamp on the internet because all of those artists were heavily referenced in the stuff we'd seen.

Vigo is starting to experiment with an English accent. Most of the kids at his school speak English with some form or another of UK accent, so it's not surprising that he's picking it up a little bit. Of course the accent he's going to probably end up with after a year here will be some kind of Irish/English/Welsh/Norwegian/Icelandic/German English accent. I asked him yesterday if he was going to start talking with an English accent and he replied, "No . . .Well, to tell the truth, sometimes. Because my nose is a little bit stuffy."

Today (Sunday) Vigo and I went just the two of us to the park. The Volkspark Friedrichshain is huge and there's still a lot of it that we haven't explored. I took Vigo to try out the climbing wall. After that, we went to the cafe inside the park and got something to drink on the terrace. Vigo finished reading his Encyclopedia Brown book and I did my German class homework. It's getting a little chilly here, but if you find a spot in the sun--when there is sun--it's still pretty nice outside.





Tomorrow we all have to get up extremely early to go to the place where we can get our residency papers sorted out. We have to be there at 6:30 in the morning. It turns out the people who handle paperwork for foreigners are on strike, so we can't get an appointment for two months. We can't really wait two months for our paperwork. They told us if we come first thing in the morning one day, they can process us.

Week Two in Berlin

Week two in Berlin, and we are starting to settle into our groove. Vigo loves Berlin and says that the days seem short here.

On Saturday afternoon last week, we all went to school for the big ceremony to welcome the new first graders to school. In Germany, this tradition is a really big deal. Kids on their first day of school are given these enormous cones filled to the brim with toys and candy. Vigo's school is not a typical German school and the school tried to convince the parents to fill the Shuletutte with school supplies instead of candy. Apparently this suggestion was met with utter outrage. The compromise was that the Shuletutte wouldn't be brought into the classrooms. The kids could hold them for pictures in front of the school and then take them home to open them. These things were really impressive. Vigo was wishing he was a first grader.



Erik went to school early to help set stuff up. When we got there, he and a couple other fathers were attaching balloons to little chairs. Vigo had to get there a little bit early, too, to rehearse. All the older kids had a little welcoming message to say together. I'm glad to report that Vigo did a great job of standing still with his hands by his sides for the whole ceremony. He was in the front row and he was a little bit nervous. He came out, looked for us, and when he saw us he got that proud happy look a kid gets when performing in front of his parents. The school has a mentoring system where older kids are partnered with younger ones. Vigo's older partner is Eduard and Vigo in turn is the partner of a first grader named India. He takes his role very seriously. On this day, he had to take India by the hand to lead her to her first lesson in the first-grade room.

Our first visitor came fromparis on Saturday afternoon. Christophe came to help us celebrate Erik's birthday. Erik's sister Iris and her partner Dan also came, as well as Iris's cousin Ingo. We all went out to eat at the Thai restaurant that's on the ground floor of our building. Thai is Vigo's favorite kind of restaurant, so he is pretty happy to have this place so close.

On Sunday, we went to the Kids' Day at a place called the Kulturbrauerei. This is an old factory that's been converted into concert spaces, bars, theaters, and cinemas. For the event, they had a little flea market where kids and moms were selling their old toys and clothes, a fun demonstration by the junior firefighters, a rotating rock-climbing disk, and a bunch of rather noisy inflatable rides.



At the little flea market, we bought Vigo a mountain bike. It needs a little bit of work, but he did ride it to school a few times this week. Luckily, we also discovered a great bike shop and de facto cultural center right up our street. It's run by a guy from Ethiopia called Job. He fixes bikes and rents bikes out cheaply. He also has a little bar, a piano, and some turntables. Vigo was in love with this place and told us he might want to be a bike mechanic when he grows up. Vigo has an appointment today at about three to go to the bike shop and help Job fix his bike up. Unfortunately Vigo has come down with a cold ad he might not be able to go spread his germs around the bike shop. We'll have to see how it looks this afternoon.



Yesterday the school had a couple hours where parents could come in to see some musical demonstrations by the association that teaches music lessons in Vigo's school. It's called Tomatenklang and it's located right around the corner from us. I saw the woodwind demonstration and it was really great. Vigo's great desire is to play a large brass instrument, and he is happy to start with the trumpet. Unfortunately, Tomatenklang wasn't offering trumpet. The guy who organizes the teachers is going to see if he can convince the percussion teacher, who also plays trumpet, to teach Vigo to play. If not, Vigo is also interested in the clarinet or the saxaphone. Interestingly, Vigo is very attracted to large, low instruments. The reason he would go for the clarinette is that he loved the bass clarinette that was demonstrated by Tomatenklang, but he is still too small to handle a big bass clarinette. The reason he wants to play the trumpet is because he really fell in love with the tuba at last year's Honk festival, but he's still too small to play the tuba.

Iris was in town for a couple nights for a conference and we got to hang out with her again a little bit. We're looking forward to going out to Dessau one weekend soon.

Erik made a great discovery yesterday. There's a boarding shop around the corner from us that organizes bus trips every weekend during the winter to a little mountain about 4 and a half hours away. Skiing is really Vigo's favorite thing in the world, and I was a little sad that he might be disappointed if we couldn't find anyplace for him to keep learning this winter.

Vigo has unfortunately come down with a cold now. He was coughing all night. We're going to take it kind of easy this weekend so he can rest up and be better (hopefully) to go to school on Monday

Week One in Berlin

Our life in Berlin is going smoothly. We still have a lot of paperwork to deal with, but we are doing a good job of keeping on top of it all. And by "we" I mean "Erik" because my German is terrible. Especially my bureaucratic German. Vigo's life has been filled mostly with school this week. He managed to dodge the jet-lag bullet for the most part and made it to school at 8:30 am our second day in the country (8:30 am here is 2:30 am in Boston).

On our first day in town, Tuesday, Vigo wanted to go and visit his new school. He understandably was a little anxious to see the place where he's going to be spending most of his time. We showed up at a good time. All the kids were out in the yard, playing. The yard has several trees in it, all of which are open for climbing. One tree has a rope ladder and a tire swing hanging off it. There's also a cool playroom made of twigs, the classic favorite Pile O'Dirt, a bunch of boulders (one of which is shaped like a giant toad), a sandbox, and various ropes, straps, pieces of wood, and some old wheels some kids have built a cart onto. After about five minutes of hiding behind my legs, the teacher pointed out some older boys up a tree and Vigo ran off to join them. We let him stay about 10 minutes up the tree and then went home when the kids all went back into the classroom.

One of the best things about this school is that they spend a lot of time outside. All of the kids have recess three times a day. The playtime is considered as much a part of the learning as the classroom time. The children invent all kinds of elaborate scenarios and games together outside, without being directed by the teachers. Last year, we were told, the first graders started a little shop in the sand pile, selling and bartering stuff they found in the playground. At first the older kids managed to pretty much cheat the younger kids out of their good stuff, but quickly the youngsters got wise and began to run a harder bargain.

My favorite thing about the school is that there seems to be no homework. As I understand it, they believe that there should be a clear separation between school and home. Parents don't come in the classroom (parents are all over the school doing various work tasks--we all have to give six hours a month to the school, but not inside the classroom), and the classroom doesn't come home. Tuesday evening, Erik went to the parent information night and I stayed home to put Vigo to bed at the right time. He fell asleep on the couch reading a book at about 7:30.

Our second day in town was Vigo's first day of school. We got him there almost on time, at 8:30. We picked him up at 4:00 and he said to Erik, "you know, I think I'm already kind of used to this school." At home he complained that he was the only one in his whole school who doesn't understand German and after dinner he and I sat down with a picture dictionary and learned some words around the house. His favorite word was das Fenster (the window). Vigo told me that he thinks the school day is too short and asked if we could go earlier.

On our third day, we got to school on time for real. I put in a few hours making photocopies and binding booklets in the office while Erik went to do some administrative stuff. I saw Vigo in the hallway a couple times. I spoke to his Principle, who told me that Vigo was frustrated during the German part of the day because he doesn't understand German yet. The Principal asked me to try to help Vigo to not be so hard on himself. After all, he is not the only kid in school who doesn't speak German. I asked the Prinicipal to maybe introduce Vigo specifically to the other kids who don't speak German because one thing Vigo had told me the day before was that he was the only one who didn't understand everything. I also volunteered to fill a little gap in the morning daycare between 8:10 and 8:20 every day. This way Vigo can have his wish of coming to school a bit earlier.

Erik had mentioned that he was worried that we might be perceived as overly-commercial Americans because Vigo has Disney co-branded Crocs and a Star Wars Backpack. I figured that might be true, but didn't really care too much. When I picked Vigo up after school that day, I grabbed his bag and went looking for him in the school yard. He was up a tree again. While I was standing under the tree waiting for him to come down, Oliver said to me, in the cutest little-kid English accent ever, obviously very impressed, "Is that a Stah Wahs backpack?" He came over to get a closer look at the marvelous shiny Darth-Vader zip pocket and started a little conversation with me about his favorite characters.

Vigo, like us, is very interested in having the right things and doing things the right way at school. I sent a pencil box we had to school, trying to be frugal, and that evening Vigo explained to me that it was not an acceptable pencil box for German school. The German school pencil box zips open and has individual elastic loops to hold about 20 pencils and markers, a ruler, an eraser, and a pencil sharpener. We went to a to a tiny store with about twice the inventory of a Micheal's stuffed into it and it took Vigo 20 minutes to choose the right pencil box for himself.

On our fourth day, Friday, Vigo and I left home at 7:30 in the morning so we could have a nice, leisurely walk through the park to school. When we got there at 8, he went to the big kids room and I went in the little kids room, to greet the first graders as they arrive. The kids are adorable. When there were only three kids in the room I made an error in judgement of getting into exchanging paper-airplane-folding techniques with one little boy. Unfortunately, eight more kids arrived who were also very interested in folding paper airplanes. The folding part is a very nice, focused, calm activity. I even got the kids to decorate their planes. Unfortunately, I left just as the test flights began, leaving the daycare teacher with a chaotic situation on his hands. I apologized lamely on my way out the door.

We had been told that on Fridays we should arrive at 3:45 rather than 4:00, so that Vigo could show us his work for the week, in the classroom. This is pretty much the only time parents are allowed inside the classroom. Erik and I are even more eager than Vigo is to do everything right at the new school, so we rushed our grocery shopping to get to school in time. When we got there, all of the kids were outside. We spotted Vigo sitting around a tree stump with three little girls, pulverizing smaller rocks with larger ones. I went toward him and the first thing I said when he looked at me and I saw his face transform from happiness to crestfallenness was "You don't have to leave yet."

This being the first week of school, the teachers weren't organized for the weekly work-showing, so Erik and I waited outside until 4:00. After dinner we played a game where Erik and I wrote German nouns on cute little tags I had leftover from some project a long time ago. These are white paper tags with a loop of string attached. Vigo took the tags and strung or taped them on the objects they correspond to around the house.

When we got home, I said to Vigo, "I see you made some friends at school."
"No," he replied.
"But what about those girls you were playing with? Lioni and her sister?"
"Those aren't friends. I only was playing with them."
"Sure," I said, "Of course. It takes more than that to be a friend. What do you
think it takes to make a friend?"
Vigo thought for a minute and he replied, "About three days, I think."

The school is so far really great. Vigo's favorite class is pottery. In fact, he has discovered a real passion for clay and we got him a 6-Euro block of clay from the art supply store so that he can design and build a scale model of his future bedroom. Swimming lessons are a regular part of the curriculum, too. These begin on Monday. Another interesting detail about the school is that the kids are all
supposed to have slippers to wear inside the school. Many of the kids have Crocs for inside and tennis shoes for outside. We have to get Vigo his indoor shoes or slippers this weekend.

Saturday, our friend Christophe came to visit from Paris. Erik's sister Iris, her husband Dan, and her cousin Ingo all came over to (sort of) celebrate Erik's birthday. We went out for Thai food and had a good time. I brought Vigo home to go to bed at about 10 and everyone else went out in the rain.

Today, Sunday, we went to a cultural center built inside and old factory. They were having family day. We bought Vigo a mountain bike at a yard sale there. Erik and Vigo are at an adventure playground now, probably playing with fire. So far, after one week, we all like Berlin a lot.