My dad's visit

April truly is family month. Not only did my brothers grace us with a visit at the beginning of this lunar cycle, my father also came over for a visit last week. It was great to see him again and to catch up. We spent time walking through the city, drinking beer at a beer garden (for the weather was beautiful - and has been ever since) and made a daytrip to Oranienburg to visit the Nazi death camp Sachsenhausen, a chilling yet well-documented memorial. Here are some pictures:

 

I enjoyed our talks about the past, we spent a long time discussing my parents' divorce and the effects that this fact had on us children. I personally believe my parents could not have made a better decision for all of us and think that they handled the following hardships very well. It was hard for both them when they separated, but they both found someone new. Both of them found someone who was a much better match for them than they had ever been for one another. That is what I always tell people when they ask me what it was like for me to go through my parents' divorce - and that is what I wholeheartedly believe. It felt good to be able to tell my father that.

Oh, and of course we went to Prater:

And the good thing is, April is not over. It is Easter weekend at that means we have four days off. But we will not be celebrating these days by ourselves. We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of even more family members: Olaf's parents are driving up as we speak and my mother and her boyfriend could arrive any moment now! This will be a wonderful weekend!

Happy Easter, everybody!

Spring is here!

Well, as it turns out, several sappy romantic costume dramas and a couple of bottles of wine later, I happily drifted off to sleep to wake up to the return of love. That was a good morning!

And a good week, as it turned out. It was the last week of my most lucrative month ever and I am proud to report that I actually made more money than Olaf in March!! OK, it was my gross income (as a freelancer I only pay taxes at the end of the year) and his was net.... but still, it was a feat to be celebrated! One needs these little feats to be proud of, doesn't one...

Anyway, we had the weekend after that to ourselves and spent it doing our tax returns for 2010. I do not say it very often, but Germany truly is a great country. As a freelancer, I can deduct basically anything from taxes, from any books I order on Amazon (for class purposes, of course!) to repairs on my bike (my means of transport to get to my clients) and from topups for my prepaid phone (it's my the only phone I have and hence my work phone) to every single public transport ticket I have bought over the course of the year.

Oh, and have I mentioned that spring has started? My brothers came over last week, because my oldest brother Hascar wanted to run the Berlin half-marathon and Ward decided to taggle on, and it was a gorgeous weekend. We visited several beer gardens, cycled around town and spent several delicious hours on our backs getting a tan in a number of Berlin's excellent parks, while catching up and exchanging the necessary family news. Sitting in Prater Biergarten on Sunday afternoon, after Has had run the half-marathon, we had eaten ourselves into a stupour at brunch, after shopping for vintage items at the Mauerpark flea market and getting a tan in the park itself while listening to the open-air karaoke in the background, we ended our weekend talking about the past and reliving memories of growing up, the decisions we made and the challenges we faced, a conversation which I really enjoyed and which has got me thinking. In short, it was very good to have some quality time with my bros!

On a sad note, we had to say to goodbye to Pieter and Nicole, who left to go on their magnificent trip through South America and will most probably not come back to Berlin afterwards. The city feels strangely empty without them, I guess it is important to have a little bit of home with you when you live abroad - and they were our own little piece of The Netherlands! Have a great trip you guys, I look forward to seeing you in June!

After a little vodkafest to inaugurate Mira and Oles' new place on Friday, we were persuaded to organise a little impromptu cocktail party at our house last night. It was a lot of fun, although we were afraid nobody was going to show up for a while! In the end, it was a select group, but that did not mean the cocktails tasted any worse!!! It also meant we spent this morning lounging in bed and only barely managed to get up to start cleaning the house. But that's all done now, which means it's time for another little trip to Prater!! ;-)