No house

I'm so sad.

Brad just called with the news that the house we'd arranged to rent in Berlin has sold, so we're not going to be able to rent it. I'm bummed because I was getting used to the idea of living over there, and picturing our family snug in that house. I'd even begun to figure out where our furniture was going to fit in each room.

Now we have to start over on the house-hunt. Brad is leaving this Sunday to begin working in Germany, and he already has made arrangements to look at more houses with our agent. I'm sure he'll pick out something good - he chose our house here in MI all by himself - but I wish I could see it before I have to move in. I need to imagine myself living there so I can get my mind wrapped around it. We're talking about my mental health here!

But for now, I'm saving my melt-downs for the fact that Brad is leaving on Sunday.

I'm so sad.

Mein Po ist OK!

So, as many of you know, Brad just accepted a position with Daimler Financial that has us moving to Berlin, Germany. Last month, Brad and I spent a week in Berlin checking out schools and finding a place to live. Some have asked to see the details, so here they are. I hope this isn't like watching boring slides of your neighbor's vacation...

(The title of this post is the first sentence I learned in German. I read it on a sign on a hospital advertising their great ability to cure hemorrhoids, and I was so excited that I understood it. This sentence became our catch phrase for the trip.)
We arrived in Berlin on a Saturday morning after spending the night on an airplane. We flew from Detroit to Frankfurt, Germany, then had a torturous layover before catching the final flight to Berlin. The airport in Frankfurt is not my favorite place. Once in Berlin, we wandered around Potsdamer Platz until our hotel room was ready. We had lunch at a little restaurant, and when I went to the ladies room, there was a note hanging on the paper towel dispenser from the "Toilet Frau." The note was in German, so I don't know what the Toilet Frau had to say, but I did enjoy the idea of a Toilet Frau. I think that is what I should call myself from now on.


After resting most of Saturday afternoon and night, we got up on Sunday to attend church. I had been corresponding via email with a Bro. Olaf Wenke, so I knew a little about the ward. Here is a picture of the ward building - we were told that the money to build it was donated by a former Berlin mission president who moved to Salt Lake before World War II. He had a successful mattress store in SLC, and when the war was over, he wanted to do something to help the LDS people back in Berlin. So, he donated money to build three churches. This building was built in 1951, and it is the only remaining building donated by that kind man. Isn't it cute?

We will be attending the Dahlem Ward, which has several English speakers, including my friend Olaf and his wife. We arrived in time for Sunday school and attended the English class. It was very much like any gospel doctrine class. For sacrament meeting, they gave non-German speakers headphones, and Olaf sat with a microphone and translated the whole meeting into English so we could understand. I was very impressed that he could do that for over an hour.

When sacrament meeting was over, we were able to meet several families from the ward. We were delighted to meet the sister of Eva, one of my friends from the Clarkston ward. Her name is Susanna, and her husband works in the American embassy. There were several Americans, so that made me feel a little less like a fish out of water. I don't think I could make this move without a ward family to take care of me.


That evening, Brad and I spent a delightful evening in the home of one of Brad's colleagues. Mike and Karen and their four cute kids are also from Michigan, and they have been in Berlin with Daimler for about a year and a half. They had a TON of great advice for us, especially pertaining to how to survive with a big family in the Berlin culture. They also shared the stuff they had learned about what to bring over, how to maintain a life back in the states, and what they found to be the hardest transitions in their move. I was very interested in Karen's advice about grocery shopping (can you believe you can't buy Cream of Mushroom soup in Germany?) and the day-to-day how-to's of running a family. We could have stayed up all night with them!


The next day, Monday, we met our new best friend Stephani (pronounced Shtefani). Stephani works for Irema, a relocation company that Daimler hired to take care of us as we make this move. She made appointments for us at all the schools we saw, and found all the houses that we looked at throughout the week. She also provided us with stacks of information about doctors, transportation, and all kinds of little details we otherwise would have no idea about. Stephani was a huge help to us all week. We were impressed that she can speak five languages - everytime her cell phone rang, she would look at the caller ID so she'd know which language to use when she answered the phone. She told us her mom is German, she was raised in Holland, and she is married to a Spaniard. Her three children speak German, English, Spanish, and I think Dutch. I felt a little lame that all I speak is English.


Monday morning, we visited a couple of schools that had been recommended to us. First we went to the Berlin British School (BBS), and were very impressed by what we saw. We met with some very nice people and liked the fact that the school campuses were near the woods. I was a little taken aback when we were looking at the preschool playground, and our guide pointed out the sturdy fence between the playground and the woods, telling us that it was to keep the pigs out. Apparently, the woods near Berlin are full of wild pigs - yes, PIGS with the hair and the tusks! As Karen had said the night before, "Rodents of Unusual Size - ROUS's!" That freaked me out a little. All the students at BBS wear uniforms, and there was a very proper, British feel to the school.


After BBS, we went to the Berlin International School (BIS), and were not impressed at all. We arrived at lunchtime, and there were a bunch of high schoolers standing outside the gate smoking and acting kind of rowdy. When we went inside, we got chewed out in German by the woman we were meeting with because we were three minutes early. She wasn't very encouraging when we expressed concern about Pepper and some of his needs at school, and as we walked through the halls on our tour, she seemed very impatient with the students milling everywhere. The whole place felt very chaotic, and it smelled funny, too. Both Brad and I walked away from that meeting thinking the BIS was a definite NO!


Monday evening, Olaf and his wife Antje from the Dahlem ward invited us to their home for Family Home Evening. Antje had baked us a beautiful cake with sliced apples on top, and we spent a couple hours with them eating cake and talking like crazy. Olaf is born and raised in Berlin, so he was a gold-mine of information about the city and the history of the church there. Antje is Swiss, so she and Brad had a lot to talk about, since that is where Brad served his mission. Both Olaf and Antje speak very good English, so I felt very comfortable visiting with them. There was a very warm spirit in their home, and it did a lot to make me feel welcome in Berlin.


Tuesday, we went to the Berlin Brandenburg International School (BBIS), and found our winner. BBIS is a bit larger than BBS, and it felt very American. The classrooms were big and sunny, and the whole place was very cheerful. We met with both the elementary and middle school principles, and they were delightful! The elementary principle took us on a tour of the campus, and she greeted each child we saw by name. Every class that we visited was organized and very child-friendly. Once, in the hall, a little girl about 9 years old leaned over to me and said, "This school is awesome!" I thought that was a pretty good endorsement! They also were the only school who made a point to tell us about the special-needs programs they offer and talk to us at length about Pepper's schooling. As we talked with them, I felt like they understood Pepper's challenges and had programs in place to help him. That was a big--huge!--relief to me.


We met with the middle school principle, too, and liked him immediately. He is actually British and just jazzed about the international school educational philosophy. He nearly bounced out of his seat as he explained how it works - he said it is inquiry-based learning, which means as subjects are introduced and taught, the students are encouraged to find something about it that is interesting to them and pursue their own study in that area. It sounds like an awful lot of work for the teachers, but I like it. He was also very mindful that Jessica is worried about this move and talked to us for some time about what the school could do to help her find her place there.


Here is a picture of one of the buildings at BBIS. We learned that the school is housed in an old weapons development plant that was built during World War II by Hitler. Apparently, this place was where video technology for bombs was first conceived, so it is a historic site. It seems weird to think of sending my children to a place built by Hitler, but whatever. It looks a lot more gloomy on the outside than it is on the inside.

There are six buildings like this one, but not all are currently in use. The school has preschool through grade 12, so all my kids would go here together - even Luke.

Another selling point of BBIS was the new track and gymnasium. It was by far the nicest sports facility we saw at any of the schools. The gray building is the gym, which is big enough to house three basketball courts, a couple of dance studios, and all the locker rooms and storage that goes along with that. There is even a rock-climbing wall.


Now that we had a school chosen, we spent the next three days looking at houses. Stephani had a list of houses for rent in our price range, and I think we looked at about ten places. She was good to show us only houses that were big enough for our family and that had gardens (the European word for a yard). Here are a few memorable houses we looked at:

This house was gigantic! It had 15 big rooms with high ceilings and ornate details. There were five levels, and the top floor was designed as servants quarters. (That is Stephani in the bottom right of the picture.)

The house was a disaster inside, as it was going through a major renovation. Here is the stairwell - we imagined the kids having fun throwing stuff down the middle.

This is the kitchen and dining room area. You can see how big the rooms are. I felt like our furniture would get swallowed up in all that space. The kitchen was just wretched.

One of the ceilings - they were all different. We learned that it is normal in Germany for tenants supply their own light fixtures in the rooms. IKEA anyone?

Another house we looked at was brand new and ultra modern. It was actually an apartment, and the thing that impressed Brad the most was the garage.

The garage was underground, and you got down into it on a car elevator. Each tenant has two parking spots, and as you can see, one is elevated. Brad wants me to mention that the top car on the right is a Ferrari, and underneath it is a SLR McClaren. I think he wanted to move there so he could be friends with such impressive car owners.

Here is another house we looked at. We liked this house because it was just down the street from the church. It was pretty old and run-down, though. It had a particularly spooky attic.

The landlord promised they would renovate it for us, but since we wouldn't be there to see it until we moved in, we were nervous about that. We did like the big yard, though.

Here is Brad in what would be the kitchen. When we saw the house, there was no kitchen, so we didn't know how that would turn out.

The rest of the pictures are of the house we chose to live in. I'm sorry they are so blurry - these pictures are from the flyer we got. The house is in an area of Berlin called Wannsee. It is on the southwest edge of Berlin, so it feels a bit more spread-out and suburbanish. The nice thing about Wannsee is that there is a direct train line from Wannsee to Potsdamer Platz, which is where Brad's office is. We took the train, and it takes exactly 28 minutes to get to his office. That is less than his commute here.

This is the front of the house. It was built in 1927, but has been recently updated. It has a very cozy, family-home feel.

This is the back yard. You can't see it, but there is a swing set and sandbox in the corner of the backyard. I also like the terrace.

Family room...

Here is the kitchen. Apparently, this is a very nice, expensive kitchen. I think it looks a little industrial, but I learned that European kitchens are very different from American kitchens. We didn't see any with the warm wood cabinets I am used to.

Dining room (obviously).

If you are like me, you like to see the floor plans of the house to get a feel for it. I'm sorry the words are all German, but hopefully you get an idea of what each room is.

This is the main floor. To the right of the front door is a coat room, which I think is brilliant. WC stands for water closet, or bathroom. The right side of this level is a guest suite, complete with its own bathroom, which I would love to fill with many, many visitors from home (hint, hint!). At the back of the house, you will see the Wintergarden, which I learned is a kind of enclosed porch used for eating during the colder months. There is lots of space for eating - I guess that is a major part of the German lifestyle.

Here is the upstairs. There are three kids' bedrooms, and a kind of master suite area. "Bad" means bathroom. The family who is there now is using one of the rooms in the master area as a den, and I think we will probably do the same. There is also a walk-in closet and master bathroom (my hot buttons!). All the other bedrooms don't have any built in closets at all. I'm sure we will be taking a major trip to IKEA for stuff like that.

This is the basement. We laughed when we saw the sauna room. This is something we saw in a lot of houses, and frankly, I don't really get it. I think we will use the big hobby room at the back left as a playroom. The "kellers" are storage rooms, and the two rooms at the front that start with 'H' are the utility room and laundry room.

A couple of other nice features of this house are that it has a driveway and garage (something you can't take for granted in Berlin), and it is very close to an Aldi. Aldi is my favorite grocery store here in MI, so I was glad to see its sign just down the street from this house. I learned from Karen that the produce you buy in Berlin goes bad really fast because they don't use any of the preservatives we are used to in the states. So, I expect I will have to go to the grocery store every couple of days at least. It is nice to have one within walking distance. Equally important - there is a McDonalds about a block away!

Once we decided on the house, we were pretty much done with all the business of the trip. Our last day in Berlin, we set up a German bank account in the morning, and then spent the rest of the day doing a little sight-seeing.

Here is Brad in the middle of Berlin. I think this area used to be on the East side when the wall was up.

We were fascinated by the evidence of World War II everywhere in the city. It was very obvious which buildings were built before the war, and which buildings took the place of bombed-out buildings after the war.

Brad in front of the Brandenburg Gate. This was a significant area near the wall when it was standing. The wall used to run just behind it, and Brad is standing on the East side.

Here is little old me in the Holocaust Memorial. This was a very interesting place. It is made up of hundreds of coffin-sized concrete blocks, and the floor is purposefully uneven. You can see that it waves up and down behind me. We were told that it was designed to give visitors the feeling of being lost and unstable, just as the Jews were during the Holocaust.

I must say that by the time I left Berlin, I felt a whole lot better about our family moving there. The first day or so, I stared out my hotel window and just thought it would be dreadful and impossible to be happy there, but after a week, I think it will be OK. We met so many kind and helpful people, and I look forward to continuing my friendship with Mike and Karen, Olaf and Antje, as well as Greg and Dawn (another of Brad's work colleagues who met us for dinner).

Honestly, it was their enthusiasm and encouragement that helped me the most. It's definitely going to be different, and hard sometimes, but I think it will be a great adventure - one our family will always remember.