Tourist For A Day

Color coordinating produce really says "I care."

My mom and grandma arrived exhausted on Saturday evening. In an effort to really pack it in, they made the most of their seven hour lay over in Paris and left the airport to see the sites. Ambitious!

Since they both do such a good job of being hospitable when I visit, I made two trips to the store to stock up on sustenance for their week in Berlin. Taking into account all their traveling plus the threat of looming rain clouds, I figured a home-cooked meal was the way to go Saturday night. Plus this allowed me time to unwrap all of my online shopping and Halloween goodies hidden away in my mom's suitcase. Practically Christmas! (Speaking of, there are already holiday cookies and decorations in my supermarkt, um what, is this America??)

Sunday morning I woke up to continue my 24-hour effort of good hostessing (obviously this cannot continue during the work-week, who do you think I am, Martha Stewart??). For breakfast I made the red-pepper-eggs I tried out last weekend, this time topped with sauteed mushrooms and scallions. Nothing but the best for my family! I also attempted to make "mummies" aka crescent roll-wrapped sausages because I am dead-set on throwing an adorable Halloween party and things like this need practice. Obviously not one person will notice and/or care, but that doesn't matter. (This is a clear indicator of Pinterest addiction in case you need concrete examples for my intervention..or Pin-tervention. Bwahaha. That is another example.)

Far superior to most B&B breakfast spreads. And please notice how my centerpiece has grown. Hooray fall!

My mustard eyes need work. These are the things that keep me up at night.

After a relaxing morning (of me stomping around impatiently ready to leave), we meandered our way through my neighborhood to the heart of Mitte.

My favorite building with my favorite Dolo.

Dolo was amendment that we do things that I hadn't done yet, which was pretty easy to do since I am the worst tourist ever. One thing on the top of my "If I only had time" list has been a boat cruise, and with the perfect blue sky weather, we figured why not. The best part about it, besides for the adorable captain flirting with Dolo - perhaps my new Opa?? - was the fact it was half English, half German so you only had to listen to 50% of one-hour. Otherwise known as "the length of our attention spans."

Actually, I take that back, the best thing about the cruise was that during this time, Dolo learned that she could extend the strap on her purse to use it like a cross-over bag. According to her, this is the greatest thing that has ever happened to her in her entire life. (With the exception of the time these horrible raccoons were removed from her attic and also the time she was elected to the School Board. I am sure you noticed and are appalled by the fact that the birth of her first grandchild is not included on this list. As you should be.)

At the bottom of the picture you can see The Purse in all its long-strapped glory.

Me and meine mutter. "We're on a boat!"

This is the building I talked about running past last weekend. Isn't it cool?

After the boat cruise, we scurried over to the Reichstag, aka where the German parliament sits, to make it in time for our reserved entrance into the glass dome. You have to sign up online days in advance for them to screen people (unfortunately something Ashley had learned the hard way) so I had made sure to submit our names ahead of time. Literally it could not have been more perfect timing considering it's closed for its annual windexing cleaning for the rest of the week. The views -outside and inside - were spectacular.

This view of me is less spectacular.

But this is cool, huh?

And this.

Brandenburg Gates, and behind it, the American Embassy (which looks a little prison-like from this view)

Me and my peeps. I am sporting my new cool military J.Crew coat in case you care.

My tiny little Oma.

From there we walked down the street to the Brandenburg Gates, which was fine and all, but then I saw this, the most amazing site I've seen in Germany so far:

Yes that is a French bulldog driving a horse-drawn carriage. Ah-maze-ing right?

With a few more hours of daylight, we hopped in a cab (after a brief almost-meltdown involving me and public transportation) and headed toward Schloss Charlottenburg. Although I do believe if you've seen one Baroque palace, you've seen 'em all, it was still pretty and interesting. (And, for the first 30 minutes of our audioguide tour, it was educational, but then we had to turn that off, because, like I mentioned, we all have the shortest attention spans.)

Here it is from the outside. Not too shabby for a lil' ol' summer home.

And here is an illegal picture I took (and got reprimanded for) in the inside. It has approximately "some number I heard but forgot" pieces of china decorating the walls. It was pretty sweet. 

All in all it was the perfect day of Berlin adventure. Now I just have to worry about them entertaining themselves for the next five days before we head to Barcelona. I feel like a working mother, stressed and guilty for leaving them at home, but what can you do, someone has to bring home the bacon. Fingers crossed they don't get in too much trouble!