Basketball in Berlin!

By Micah 

(Annotated by Mommy)

Last night (it was Saturday.  As we all know, Mommy is delinquent in blogging), we went to a basketball game last night at the O2 World arena.  ALBA Berlin was playing Trier.  ALBA is the professional team in Berlin.  We got signs at our seats.  One side said “YEAH” and the other side said “BUUUH”!    

Mark and I decided we would answer all questions-from-children with these signs.  That didn't go over so well.

The signs folded up like fans to make noisemakers (insanely loud ones, if you ask me).  The ALBA mascot is an albatross (but Dafna insisted it was a duck).

If it looks like a duck...

The team colors are gold and blue.  Their uniforms looked like the Golden State Warriors.  Trier’s uniforms were green and white.  I wore my Kevin Garnett Celtics jersey, which is also green and white.  But I was still rooting for ALBA.

ALBA Berlin won the game, 87-72.  The leading scorer was Levon Kendall.  ALBA also had a player from Israel named Bar Timor.  Trevon Hughes, who used to play for Wisconsin, played guard for Trier.  He had a good game, even though ALBA won.

Former Badger

(Halftime was hilarious.  An over-emotional accordion player-- the winner of Lithuania's Got Talent! Check him out: I mean, Jan Hagedorn can you do this?  Oh, and of course, dancers dancing to bad hits of the '80's.)

We ate French fries and pretzels at the game.  We got to stay up pretty late.  Today (Sunday) I am tired.   I stayed in my bed almost all morning until lunchtime. (Kind of, first he got up, did computer, ate breakfast and played for awhile.  Then he took a nap.  Then he ate lunch).

I really liked the game.  Daddy and I are going to go back to another game soon.

We all had fun.  The blur is the sign/noisemaker.  Making noise.

Blog once a month and call me in the morning

So, we seem to be hitting a once-a-month blogging pace here.  Since we've last spoken we've:

• Visited Dublin (and added a couple of Saints to our list; some sinners too)

Most definitely NOT a saint this trip...

Outside the jail at Dublin Castle.  The walls are 15 feet thick.  But someone managed to escape through the toilet.  Endless fun if you're a 9 year old boy.

Labyrinths are calming, right?

Dublin Castle

The Pilgrimage

D checking the barley.  Then asked if we could grow hops when we get home.

Writing the recipe.  Seriously. 

Barley roast, hops add, yeast add, ferment, water mix, boil

It really did taste different

The horse-drawn carriage ride back was for their patience at the factory.  And the fact that we made them walk 2 miles to get there...

She liked it.

• Welcomed Aunt 'Chelle.  Which means another trip to Ritter Sport!  I made the best one yet-- dark chocolate, gingerbread pieces and lemon.

We really enjoyed having my sister here with us for the week.  We showed her all of the important sites-- cafes, KaDeWe, M and D's school...  Nightlife?  What nightlife?  Wurst?  What wurst?  But seriously, we really appreciated Michelle giving up her Thanksgiving and trekking all the way here to visit, introducing our children to MadLibs, flat ironing D's hair, sous chef-ing and cleaning in the kitchen.  All that and she's fun to be with, too!

• Gave Thanks in a slightly unorthodox way (though Al Johnson would be proud).

There's no (kosher) turkey in Berlin and it is hard to find cranberries, not to mention a pareve pie crust or pecans.  So we bought the biggest chicken we could find, lingonberries, made mushroom stuffing and a phyllo dough berry turnover and called it a night.  Both Dafna's and Micah's classes had Thankgiving feasts earlier in the week.  I volunteered at Dafna's class feast and had a lovely time.  The class walked to a classmate's house where they found warmth, the smell of turkey, a beautifully set table full with traditional Thanksgiving food and parents waiting to serve them (well, they may have that all the time).  It was fun and exciting to introduce turkey to a bunch of German kids (though it was an American one who asked for a piece with "peel, please").

Walking in to Mikey's house for the Thanksgiving class feast

Singing about Thanksgiving in German accents

• Had Hanukkah looking for light in these dark, dark, dark Berlin afternoons

Seriously, you think Boston is dark?  The sun rises after 8am and sets before 4pm.  And that's only when the clouds aren't covering it.  Don't worry, Dr. Miriam, We've got plenty of vitamin D on hand.  We enjoyed celebrating the first few nights of Hanukkah with Aunt Chelle and went to a couple of parties later in the week.  I was volunteered to present Hanukkah to Micah's class on the 8th day.  Yes, that sound you heard was my mother spinning in her grave.  It was fine; I downplayed the holiday, the gifts and the comparisons to Christmas and taught the kids to gamble.  Everyone wins!

• Gotten our Christmas on:

This is a very Christmas-centered society.  Like shockingly so, coming from the US.  So now, with children in public school, D brought home an Advent calendar (exactly the same project I did as an omer counter with my preschool class...), a St. Nikolaus boot (filled with a Santa chocolate and Hanukkah stickers, lovely idea, but something got lost there) and has made an Advent wreath (our family's first!) and various other Christmas projects already.  All this has led to D telling us that she knows "...Everything about Jesus.  I'm the Jesus expert in our family" which may be true.

We're looking at this as an opportunity to teach our children about different cultures, religions and expressions of religion (with a fair amount of private stress about how much Christianity they are experiencing as the norm).  I'm all for Christmas, and some of you know that I half-joked about getting one of those "Keep the Christ in Christmas" signs for our lawn in Madison (what?  I believe that!), but if you think that there is too much Christmas in public school in the USA, this is in a whole different realm.  But, on the flip side, we're contemplating inviting the Krampus to visit.  Dafna may benefit.

 We've also visited quite a few Christmas markets here in Berlin.  Supposedly the best one is here at our neighborhood castle, so we took Michelle and the kids there on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  It was nice-- warm gluhwein, and treats for everyone, snow fairies, caroling and fake snow-- a regular commercial Winter Wonderland.  With alcohol.

D and the Snow Fairies

Pig roast at the Christmas Market!

On Wednesday, Micah played in the Berlin Grundschulliga basketball tournament.  I got the early shift and Markwent later.  As far as I could tell, the tournament meant that Micah skipped the day of school, had full access to the buffet set up for the players, finished a bottle of Powerade before he got any playing time, and stayed far, far away from the ball.  When I left his coach seemed to be setting him up to spend the next 5 hours as scorekeeper/manager.  She's a wise woman.

Number 5-- actually watching the game

Put me in Coach!

He's in!

And, there you go.