Our Long Weekend with Liz!

So, I'm finally over the flu (yay!), our visitor has left us (boooo!), and I at long last have a free minute away from my Half-Year of Improvement (Spanish class being my newest evening endeavor) to blog again. Yippee!

Liz arrived here - on her way to Rome - on Friday and in a very happy turn of events, brought the sunshine with her (thanks again, lady!). She was only staying for a short four days, so we had precious little time to pack in lots of fun and shenanigans.

The theme of the weekend turned out to be sunshine and microbreweries, though of the second we have few pictures. On Friday, we headed first to an Eisbären game - she also brought hockey luck to them! which promptly disappeared once she left... - then to Hops & Barley in Friedrichshain for some beers with friends.

After a leisurely breakfast on Saturday morning, we headed to our neighborhood weekly market for some of their gorgeous flowers (tulips and ranunculus, but of course) and then to the bigger farmer's market at Kollwitzplatz to bask in the newly arrived sunshine (seriously, it hadn't come out in months before this).

Who doesn't have Lust auf Käse (desire for cheese) at all times? | A wannabe Gulaschkanone 

It's never too late in the season for Glühwein

Heheheheh, that yarn name still makes me giggle...

Later that day, we'd invited some folks over for the very first beer tasting of Micha's home-brewed beer, an American-style I.P.A. I may be biased, but it was damn fantastic! And not just for a first beer, for any! I'm a big fan of this new hobby of his...

Market treats and homemade beer, yummmmm

No beer tasting would be complete without a set of absolutely ridiculous, mustachioed beer googles

For some reason, pretending to give babies beer

 never gets old 

...

Liz and Hanna bonded over the wee one's love of spoons | Liz and I channeled our inner 11-year-olds with Tattly BFF tattoos

We also made our way later that night to our second microbrewery of the weekend in Wedding and yet still managed to make our 11am brunch reservations the next day at Cafe Schönbrunn. Food is clearly our priority. 

Hanna subtitle 1: "Life is so hard! Who are you and what am I doing here?!?"

Hanna subtitle 2 (one minute later): "Oh, hey dad. What's up? Life is good. Elmo is awesome."

We ladies went on a sun-riddled stroll over to Mauerpark - with an obligatory prosecco stop, of course - while the menfolk either cheered on the Eisbären again or took care of baby to let momma off the hook for an afternoon (good man!).

That night, we brought Liz to her third and final microbrewery of the trip, where we also met up with an old university friend of Micha's, Glen, who Liz met when she first visited me here 5 years ago and whom her friend called Conan for the entire night. Apparently, he looked like Conan O'Brien to her (he really kind of does) and one year later, when Liz was back, we randomly saw him on the street and he actually answered to her shout of "Conan! Hi!" So now, to him she's the random American who very frequently just shows up in Berlin and calls him Conan and to me, he's the guy that's not actually named Conan but then what actually is his real name...

I merrily took Monday off to play one extra day with Liz, which we kicked off by heading to the least exciting place on earth, the Ausländerbehörde (Foreigner's Office) to renew my visa. While it didn't go as hoped - I didn't get the permanent one, just a two-year extension, darnit! - it did end up resulting in Hanna finding her new, most favorite and delicious toy: my expired passport. Which is now covered in baby drool and I don't even mind a bit.

Our very first Hanna-and-her-favorite-auntie self portrait | A comfy lap and a yummy toy equals a happy baby

We wrapped things up with tea and oh-so-decadent cake at the adorable Princess Cheesecake in Mitte (the name was obviously very fitting for us), then whipped up some red-wine-and-leek risotto (it's good to have a foodie friend) for dinner and just like that, the weekend had to end.

I'm really lucky that Liz visits so much, I have to say. Once you live in a place long enough, you stop getting frequent visitors as the newness wears off, but she makes it out here about once a year on average and I really really really really really am so thankful that she does. As Harriet the Spy once said, "good friends are one of life's blessings. Don't give them up without a fight."

Advent Calendar Care Packages

Care packages: I love them. Both getting them from people and sending them to people. What makes them even more fun is when you have some awesome friends - or an even more awesome twin sister - who just as thoroughly enjoy gathering care package goodies and shipping them off at random intervals for no particularly good reason other than to say, "hey. Remember me? I like you."

So last year, when I hopped on the homemade advent calendar bandwagon, I knew two pleased-as-punch recipients would be Natalie and Liz in the US (since they like ridiculously useless things as much as I do and are super easy to shop for) and decided to give myself the challenge of putting together a shippable advent calendar that had a weight and size limit.* Here's how I went about it.

Step 1: Collect a bunch of ridiculous things (and some practical ones). The grocery store, the 1-euro shop, and the drugstore are my sources of choice, but you could obviously go classier if that's how your friends roll. ;)

 Items included: Cheesy chocolate advent calendars (you have no idea how embarassed I was when purchasing that Sexy Xmas! one at our local grocery store...), glow-in-the-dark cups and straws, drinking-straw glasses, Spongebob paper streamers, 2012 paper glasses (to wear on New Year's Eve), glühwein spice packets, hot-chocolate bars, mini cheese grater, mini face cream, mini deep conditioner, gold eyeliner, Labello lip gloss, tiny notepad, colorful sugar packets, and an assortment of their favorite German candies.

Step 2: Gather your supplies. Simple is good, especially if you already have a lot of packing and gift-wrapping material lying around. I went with craft paper and gold tissue paper for wrapping, red twine (a last minute switch), and holiday-colored washi tape.

Step 3: Include items to hang the tiny packages up with. I like mini things, but the wee clothespins I had were a bit boring, so I spiced them up with some gold glitter, cuz you can never have too much glitter.

Hint! If you paint over the glitter after it's done drying with clear nail polish, it won't come off all over the place!

Step 4: Wrap your goodies individually and include little personal notes on each one. Such as "Sister, here's some cuticle remover since I know how much you hate cuticles!" or "Liz, I think your life will be more complete now with these mustaches."

Hint! Make the bows on each present long enough so that they can be hung up. And also don't forget to include extra twine or string/yarn/garland of sorts for hanging and numbers for putting the presents in order (I wrote small numbers on the wrap and printed out prettier letters to be hung from the clothespin with the corresponding present).

Step 5: Box it up and ship it! And don't forget to decorate the package with plenty of confetti, tissue paper, and more little notes. (I shipped these last year on November 23 and they, very very sadly, did not arrive until mid-January. SO SHIP REALLY REALLY EARLY.**)

And here's how they looked after finally arriving at their destinations. Yes, Nat and Liz each merrily hung up and opened their advent calendars daily in January. Which is why they rock.

Nat's sparkly package on the left | Liz's hanging calendar on the right

*Note: this year I'm even wiser and have discovered that if you can fit all your stuff in a large (like 60 x 30 cm) padded envelope, it will 1) cost you almost nothing: 3.45€ for up to 500g, 7€ for up to 1kg, and 16.90€ for up to 2kg, and 2) be sent by priority air mail to arrive in the US in 3-5 days. (This is all from Germany, of course.) LESSON LEARNED.

**Or forego the box and use a padded envelope instead. Or two. Or three. Still cheaper and quicker than the box! (You can ship it this week and it'll still likely make it there for Christmas. My advice only working from Germany to the US again.)

Update: This, apparently, does not work in the US, as sadly confirmed by sister today when she found out that her padded envelope package to me cost $8 more than boxes usually do! Boooo, US postal service!

My Weekend in Pictures

Yes, very belated, but this past extra long Easter weekend was just too good not to share.

It didn't start off on the best foot, as Liz's flight from Rome was delayed for over three hours on Friday and we didn't get to pick her up until 12:30am, thanks to EasyJet. (Have I mentioned how much I despise that airline? I tweet about it enough but I honestly can't fully articulate it yet - one day I'll be less embittered and ready to tell the Paris and Rome stories that brought about this animosity.)

Short-lived fluke hailstorm

Nevertheless, we soldiered on through what should have been horrid - rainy, gray, and cold - weather but turned out to be sunny and not too terrible, despite fluke hailstorms. I thank Liz for that one; the minute she left it went back to blah. (Come back, friend! And bring the sunshine with you.)

Easter egg making

Liz's first DriveNow experience

 

Easter appropriate flowers from our local Saturday market

The Eisbären were in the semifinals this weekend so we watched the Saturday away game in the most ridiculous pub in Friedrichshain that Kai miraculously managed to find and convince that they should show hockey and not soccer. If you know anything about Germany (or really Europe as a whole), you'll know this is nothing short of a miracle, as the top 3 sports in these parts are soccer, soccer, and soccer (to quote Micha :). 

The pub was wonderfully named The Happy Pigs (yes, plural) and consisted of one teenage Turkish bartender who had never seen hockey before but had no problem telling other people who came in requesting to watch soccer that he had promised us he'd play hockey today and that's what he'd do. Since that may not have been his cleverest business move (but we sured loved him for it), we politlely made up for it by ordering way too much beer. And I blame Micha entirely for the five beers I drank (it was a bet with him that made me do it. Just because I won though, doesn't mean it was a good idea...) that led to me, in my rather inebriated state, contradicting Liz as shetold  Kai her favorite color was blue and instead admantly claiming her favorite color was actually sparkles. Yup. Sparkles. (Her clothing really helped my plight, though.)

Micha needed to concentrate and sat apart from us to watch the game...

We celebrated Easter with Micha & Kai's family - got our Easter baskets at their momma's house, where Liz was greeted as "part of the family," had brunch at a terrible and overpriced German restaurant in the 'burbs (win some, lose some), and then meandered around an old monastery - build in the 1200s! - at a cute little Easter festival.

Micha's personalized Easter egg and Liz showing off all of our (mostly pretty and) artsy creations!

Easter eggs and overflowing baskets

Liz playing in in sexy garden clogs | The menfolk

Liz wore the perfect shoes for a forest hike (to the Oster Kloster fest)

Monday was still a holiday and we had brunch with a group of friends (thanks for coming, Kerstin, Hendryk, and Tobi!) before heading to the next hockey game, this time a home one. All was going smoothly until, as we were finishing up our beers in front of the stadium about 30 minutes before start, Micha asks me, "so do you have your ticket?" And I respond with a wide-eyed stare and a couple of curse words. I have remembered my season ticket for EVERY game this year and this one time, when I had the entire morning to think of it, I forget it! (He also didn't grab mine when he grabbed his, which I maintain was just plain cruel.) So Liz and I raced back to the car, I drove our asses home as fast as Berlin would allow - through a police checkpoint nonetheless - then we raced back and only made it to the game 9 minutes late. I blame their loss on my stupidity, though. They really could have used our cheering in those missed 9 minutes.

Pre-hockey brunch at Schneeweiß

Could we BE more excited for hockey? (That must be read Chandler-style, by the way)

I took Tuesday off to spend with Liz and we had a faaaaaantasic Berlin exploration day (complete with beach bar and currywurst), which I'll share sometime next week. I miss you, Liz! Come back and move here forever!