Cardboard Home

Our friend (and babysitter), Tramaine, is here in Berlin doing an artist's residency. Her project is taking recycled cardboard and turning it into furniture and other things for her living space. She had an open studio the other week, so we dropped by to check out her stuff. It was really cool.

We had to put on slippers before we went into the studio.
Cooper liked the floor.
This is a dresser. It actually holds her clothes. So functional!
A cute little Japanese style table. (Cooper knocked it down, btw...oops)
Sleeping quarters with partition.
Curtains and cherry blossom branches made from popcorn! So cool.
This is another partition to divide the space. I should have gotten more detailed pictures...the design was so intricate.
And here's the Coop in another person's open studio. They were playing Outkast and Cooper was loving it. He just kept stomping his feet to the beat and bobbing up and down. So funny! Also, don't mind his little tuxedo tail. It was kind of cold that day so I wanted to put a long sleeve shirt on him and all he had was an old onesie that was way too small so I couldn't snap it shut. I just tucked it in, but you know, with all that crazy dancing it wouldn't stay hidden.

Sometimes waking up to an overcast sky is the best thing in the world

Because it means you didn't wake up to a crying baby.

4:44am.

That's what time the sun comes up in our neck of the woods this time of year. Which means Cooper's room gets nice and bright, and convinces him that waking up just after 5am is an okay thing to do. Today the dark clouds decided to cover the sun's rays and I got an extra two hours of sleep. Thank you Mr. Rainclouds.

Greetings from the Rhine Valley

We just returned from a trip to the Rhine River Valley with our friends, Adam and Sabrina. We stayed in a quaint little town called Bacharach and went on a nice cruise up and down a section of the Rhine dotted with coastal castles.

Cute little town.


Lots of castles.
Despite the cold, windy weather on the cruise, Cooper loved it. There was a playground.
Which Adam seemed to like as well.
Some other things that Cooper liked.
Our last day in the Rhine Valley we just drove around and stopped as we pleased.

We checked out a couple festivals, a strawberry one in Eltville and some other one in Mainz. They were awesome. We got to see a big band playing Bavarian music and ate lots of great food.
Best sandwich ever?
Now that's a brat!!!We also visited the Kaiser Dome in Mainz. It's a big church.
We had a total blast on this trip despite several mishaps along the way with just about everything (trains, hotel, rental car, flights, pieces of ice cream cone lodging in Cooper's throat...the list goes on). To end the craziness we came home to this terrential down pour in Berlin.
What a fun and memorable trip that we'll be talking about for years!

Dad gave me a haircut...

Berlin Konzerthaus

We got to see the Concert House Orchestra at Berlin's Konzerthaus. We tried to go to the Philharmonie, but they were all sold out for the entire time we are here.

We had some nosebleed tickets, but they were cheap and actually gave a really cool view of the conductor in action and all her different expressions.
The Konzerthaus is really cool. I loved the ceiling.
And the sculptures on the wall of famous composers and musicians.
It was nice to get out for an evening and listen to the beautiful music. I think during the summer they do concerts outside in the square in front of the hall. I hear tickets for it are quite expensive, but I'm sure walking by and hanging out is free. I bet Cooper would love to see and hear something like that.

Movie Premiere - Transformers

The weather on Sunday was perfect so we decided to take Cooper to check out Tiergarten. It's like the Central Park of Berlin. We had such a nice time walking around and playing on the play grounds.

On our way back to the train station we heard screaming coming from the Sony Center. We walked over to check it out and lo and behold, we were right in the middle of the Germany premiere of Transformers!
It was funny because earlier that week Sabrina was saying we should look up some movie premieres and see if any were gonna be at the Sony Center. I was a little surprised at how few people there were. I guess when I saw photos and news coverage of premieres it always looked packed, but at this one there weren't really that many people. We just walked right up to the front of the barriers and had a pretty close view of the celebs.
I'm kind of a loser when it comes to being in the know with movies and actors/actresses. I didn't recognize any of the people, except for the kid from Indiana Jones. I don't even know his name. Pretty sad, huh?

Pretty nice dress, huh?Check it out from this angle. Yikes!