Ode to Joy

Euro 2016 is going on. Berlin like all of Germany has got the football fever. Arrived back to the capital last night after a week in Ireland, retracing my steps in my old haunts with my daughter. More about that later: A trip down memory lane.
Today, glorious sunshine and fresh air around 20 C awaited us; very welcome after the wet and cold in Ireland.The weather there hasn't changed that much: cold and wet--14-18 C max and a lot of rain.
So today I did a special favor to hubby who had looked after himself in Berlin and held the fort while I was away...watering plants etc.
I took him to the biggest Chocolaterie (chocolate factory/maker in the world) called Fassbender & Rausch, situated on the beautiful Gendarmenmarkt. That is an area which belonged to the former GDR (German Democratic/Socialist Republic ) until Reunification in 1990.
I was there once before and remembered the amazing sculptures they had in the window, purely made out of chocolate.Now the football theme prevailed.

Livesize! The original sized balls will set yo back by about $100. Having watched last night's match between France and Switzerland, we were surprised to see that a football can burst during a match. Maybe they should try the chocolate ones.

Other items of interest were for example the Titanic or the Brandenburg Gate. See the exact specifications for how much weight of chocolate went into it, how long it took to build etc.

And here the specs. Feel like biting into it?

Maybe you'd rather bite into the scrumptious cheek of a Cherub?
With the EuroCup 2016 taking place in France or anywhere else outside Germany, real soccer fans always can get together and celebrate in a public spot which in Berlin is called the fan mile.Here's a good view of it and the adjacent ferry wheel within the mile. Given the current political dangers, I don't have any appetite to watch a match there as we avoid big crowds.

And the second view from further away...They expect over 100,000 people there for future matches.

The official song for the Euro 2016, btw, is Beethoven's Ode to Joy.I was livid that Irish commentators (and Iranian TV as I heard) falsely named our national anthem as Deutschland ueber alles....Composed by Joseph Haydn in 1796 and the lyrics written by Hoffmann von Fallersleben, only the third verse is being sung since 1952 and become the correct version, named correctly " Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit"  which means Unity and Justice and Liberty.. So much for knowledge about European co-member states!
Here is the correct text:

"Unity, justice, and liberty

For the Fatherland!

Let us all strive for that

In brotherhood with heart and hand! 

Unity, justice, and liberty

Are the foundation for happiness; 

Bloom in the radiance of this happiness,

Flourish, 'O Fatherland!"

So far there has not been much to celebrate about our German team, the former World Champions from 2014. No Ode to Joy so far!

We are Berliners now!

It took me 3 days to adjust to the climate and getting over jet lag so that I'm only starting this year's exchange experience here today. Hubby slept it off for almost 36 hours.
The weather is only beautiful, around 80 degrees with a welcome breeze. We had a few little adventures already in between our napping bouts, but here's about the apartment first.

 It's in a very nice area on the high-end outskirts in Berlin, a maisonette --which should have forewarned me that steps are involved. Not a problem; they keep you fit and all that. But dragging about 250 pounds of luggage up 46 steps almost broke our backs. As I learned on my latest trip to Germany recently, taxi drivers aren't obliged to lift your bags in or out of the car anymore. Must be new union regulations. And our female taxi driver certainly had no inkling to help. She clutched her card machine for payment while hubby and lifted the bags out of the huge van. Then we saw the steps. Somehow I had not realized we were on the 4th floor.
The circular stair case to the upper floor that has a wrap around terrace the size of most Irish flats totally took the wind out of us. No wonder we collapsed. We wonder can you hire a man to carry suitcases up or down the stairs into a car for you? There should be an app for that!

We haven't unpacked yet.
Two nice terraces with lovely views await us for breakfast and other meals.Mega parties could be and were hosted here, I'm sure.

Computer is giving me a tough time rotating the pics. Sorry about that! I'm working on it.

Are You Packed yet?

No!
Hairdresser, car wash, laundry, shopping groceries for our exchange partners on their first night.
The list seems endless, I should say seemed endless.Now there is an end in sight: Tomorrow is the due date. By then, by hook or by crook, we have to get out of here. The lawn men came early enough to get us jump into action.

Where does this expression come from:Are you packed yet? Obviously, I won't be packed myself but our stuff. As a native German I'm asking: Shouldn't it be "Have you packed yet?" grammatically? And why does this question annoy me every time? Maybe because of a guilty feeling? But we're entering philosophical territory here and you are looking for nice pictures and anecdotes; even the nitty gritty, be honest- some juicy tidbits of what goes wrong. Or am I wrong?

Germany, here we come! No more rain and flooding, please!

Seven Days and Counting...

It's the usual race to the finish line of getting the house ready. Why do we never seem to finish on time in a leisurely way considering we’ve done swaps for 5 years running already? The To Do List gets longer instead of shorter.

In case you’re wondering what I’m on about: We do spruce up the house each year for our guests, i.e. exchange partners from overseas. Hubby, in fact, has several lists:
TO DO

1. Well before

2. A couple of weeks before

3. Last minute

With only 7 days left, one would hope to have passed the second hurdle. Whenever I hear the word project coming from himself, my neck muscles get very tight and I have visions of more stuff that needs doing. I’m all for painting the bathroom before we leave. There is a lot to be said for a freshly painted bathroom; but why can’t the tools be put away as soon as the painting as such has been done? Oh, because caulking is necessary? Only after that the shower curtain can get back into place? Right!

So when I saw him ponder over a beam outside the front door yesterday which is rotting at the base, I knew I was in for another “project”. Hopefully not that lengthy, because we still have the remainder of the list points 1 and 2 to finish. Then my heart almost missed a beat: the scaffolding he put in place to hold the beam! He means business!  After several trips to the Homedepot he had all necessary materials at hand and the beam went up quickly indeed. Now, just some finishing touches like painting which I can do.

I tried a new strategy this year and warned him I wouldn’t go on our annual home exchange tour if he kept this up. But I couldn’t win him over: Then I will never finish my projects if you don’t give me a deadline.

Just got a text from our first home swappers in Berlin: “Thank goodness, the workmen left and the balcony is done…only needs pressure washing now. If it wasn’t for these swaps, these things never got done.”     

Pet Care-- An Extra benefit to Home Swaps

                                                                                               
I outlined several benefits in my previous postings that home exchanges bring. Here is another one for you: With people in the house, you can rely on it that your plants will be taken care of. Just like you water theirs or mow their lawn. 

And if you’re a pet owner, your precious pet doesn’t have to go to a kennel if you find pet lovers who are willing to look after it. In case you own a pool, your swap partner will not only enjoy it but also take care of it.

We don’t have pets but inherited a few willy-nilly when we found an aquarium with fish in one house and a pond with fish outside. The exchange partners Versailles, at the last minute, announced a rabbit that needed feeding but ignored to mention a guinea pig. As an ex farmer’s wife, I didn’t mind, but these two were fighting all the time when they were left in an outdoor free range roaming cage together. 

You can’t really go away overnight with pets to feed. So from then on, I asked potential swapping partners several times if they had pets. Unless they lie like the couple on the houseboat in Amsterdam who pretended not to have pets. They "forgot" to mention the dog they had taken to the kennel for the vacation time. OK, technically, there was no pet, but the boat, however, was infested with fleas. And stupidly they had left multiple cans of “vluyn spray” standing around:they didn't even bother to hide the evidence!

I haven’t put you off the idea of home swapping, have I? What's one bad egg in a basket of a wonderful dozen otherwise? We are undeterred! Intrepid -- as the name suggests. 

How do you protect your house against burglars?

You know by know that I'm a fervent fan of home swapping. After all we're preparing for our 6th season running with 3 swaps this year. Sometimes we only did one or two, sometimes three before. It always depends on the offers you get that appeal to you and that fir inpt your vacation plan or schedule. Now that hubby is retired we're even more flexible than when he was working. And we were only able to go on extended trips because all he needed for his work was his laptop and a good cell phone connection and data plan.
One of the most convincing arguments in favor of home swapping for us is that your house is never empty or alone. Even if you have an alarm system, things can go wrong: pipes can break, power outages, sprinkler systems give up - you name it. With exchange partners somebody is in the house, at least to alert you if not fix it. And it is the best protection against burglars! Otherwise I wouldn't dare to mention here openly that we're going away for 3 months! But our house is occupied all the time.

Airbnb, Hotels or Home Swapping?

Have you heard of airbnb? The hottest traveling tip, apparently. You may have seen their ads on TV and it seems to be a great source of income for home owners who want to rent out a room or two to travelers - according to a feature on NPR.
Basically, it's your typical Bed & Breakfast. Personally, I prefer a hotel room but some people want to meet the locals instead of staying in an anonymous hotel. I was extremely surprised to see that Airbnb/Dublin was booked solid for my upcoming trip to Ireland. With hotel prices hovering about the $200 mark there, it is understandable, however.
For us, nothing beats home swapping! If you have followed this blog, you know why. This year will be our 6th season. It will take us to the capital of Germany, the Black Forest in Germany and Luxembourg. Not sure where that is? It is nestling in the triangle between Belgium, France and Germany.

In a little over 4 weeks time we will be on our way. Join us on our annual trip to Europe which this year will almost last 3 months!