Museum für Naturkunde

I had been to this museum once before with the girls on a crowded weekend and was happy about Greta’s interest in dinosaurs, but (embarrassingly) mildly disappointed in the lack of dioramas. The Buffalo Museum of Science (housing the closest thing to a natural history collection) in the 1970′s was built around the diorama — at least in my memories — and I loved them. Rooms upon rooms of tiny models of animals and people with authentic-looking resin water and glowing fires. I remember them crumbling a little even then, and I am pretty sure most are no longer there.

So for my latest visit to Berlin’s Museum für Naturkunde, just Simone and I went on a weekday morning (part of our campaign to play hooky on Fridays to save her from the freezing cold trip to the sport hall).

This time I stopped looking for dioramas and instead appreciated this museum for what it is — truly an archive not only of natural history (biggest dinosaur skeleton in the world!) but also of an institute of research. Everywhere, the craft of the collection is present.

It has quite the history, more of which can be found here. But briefly, in 1889 three separate museums founded in the early 1800′s as part of Berlin University merged to form the Museum für Naturkunde: the Anatomical-Zootomical Museum, the Mineralogical Museum and the Zoological Museum. Bombing during WWII ruined parts of the building and collection (a whale hall like the one at the Museum of Natural History in NYC, was smashed to bits). It was the first museum in Berlin to reopen after the war and remained an East German institution until the wall came down in 1989.

Somehow, in my quest of the diorama, I missed one of the most impressive things in the museum — a dark climate-controlled room (freezing) with floor-to-ceiling shelving of jars of shriveled things floating forever in formaldehyde.

There is a room dedicated to taxidermy, showing some early missteps (terrifying lopsided eyed wild-cat; for some reason I don’t have a picture). Throughout the exhibits, video and pictures show the scientists at work.

Though they seem to be enjoying their work (love the guys on/in the ox!), questions about the state of their world at the time of such documentation are sort of inevitable. Walter Arndt, a zoologist working at the museum was executed in 1944 for badmouthing the regime. During the GDR times, though Western scientists were allowed to work at the museum to ensure advancement of study, the East German scientists working there were not allowed to travel to the West, instead expanding the collection with trips to Cuba and Russia.

On the upper floors, there are semi-empty rooms too damaged to open to the public where one can see bits and peices of collections from days past. The huge jar behind the table has some horrifying specimen trapped in there. Perhaps too large to move downstairs?

Fish, food, and furniture

Inspired by not one but two posts from Berlin bloggers in the last week about the wondrous things to be found at the Scandinavian Embassy, and faced with two kids with no kita on a gray day, the girls and I headed west.

After a long S/U-bahn ride and a few wrong turns, the aquarium was a welcome respite from the damp, freezing weather. Though crowded with mobs of school children with the week off, I was honestly moved by some of the enormous prehistoric-looking fish floating eerily past my face in the dark. Greta was flitting here and there, super into the snakes and lizards, while Simone was sort of apprehensive about things (jellyfish were VERY perplexing). I liked the giant tanks and the giant fish, and the old-fashioned feel and manageable size of the space, especially the beautiful stained glass windows.

Then the 10-minute walk to get what I really came for: lunch at the embassy canteen. We passed the Korean and Mexican embassies on the way, both of which looked strangely abandoned. Especially in contrast to the beautiful and very occupied Scandinavian building. Somehow, it managed to be light and open inside even on a day that was so totally awful and gray. The cafeteria is not open to the public until 13:00, so we toured the furniture exhibit for a bit.

Then we waited in a line of well-dressed adults (I would eat there every day if I worked anywhere nearby) and got our tray and at our huge and excellent lunch of salad and cannelloni bolognese. We were torn between that and the whole sea bass with bratkartoffeln and cabbage. It just means we have to come back.

Some of our field trips do NOT work out, especially when I skip Simone’s nap. But today was lovely.

A little taste of Sylvester

People are already setting off fireworks outside. The videos below were taken during the last few fun-filled days, and they are hopefully just the beginning of the dance party that will happen tonight. Happy New Year!

My little Simone:

And the lovely Greta:

Simone’s crummy week

A strange week befitting of the (ongoing) halloween season, which was this year merged at the kita with the Nov. 11 St. Martin’s holiday. In October, we did manage to carve a bang-up set of pumpkins.

Then on to the bad week. Every day included Simone crying her eyes out when dropped off at the kita and though her lovely English-speaking teacher was back in the classroom, she was on late-shift. Meaning that I had to hang out with Simone until 11:30 at the kita and THEN leave her screaming. Monday included the added bonus of a tense afternoon kita meeting as part of the never-ending Cat group parents v. management saga. Tuesday morning I somehow lost my keys between the kita and home and thus locked myself and the girls out of the house until 5:30. While waiting at the kita, Simone fell off a slide and slammed her head on the edge of a wooden play house and peed in her pants and on me when I picked her up. That night, when everyone was inside and safe and sound, Simone came into my bed at midnight and when I asked her what was wrong she looked at me very seriously and threw up into my face. After a semi-quiet Thursday home making lanterns, we joined Greta at the kita St. Martin’s party. I forgot my camera, but the bonfire was bigger than ever this year.

Then to just wrap things up, Thursday, Simone and Greta and I spent the morning in the emergency room after Simone somehow managed to pull a muscle in her neck trying to get into a tiny dress of hers (“I can do it myself!”). She was totally fine, but could not move her head without screaming for most of the day. Things are sorting out, but I still have not found my keys. On the positive side in Simone’s life:

She has a new haircut with bangs!

And she rides a laufrad!

The ram and the bull

Belated birthday updates for my girls, shown here in their birth month of April working with some of their new gifts (note mini Gene Simmons).

That was about it for Simone (that and some cake).

Greta, meanwhile, had an excellent party that started with a scavenger hunt designed and implemented by Aaron, who quickly turned into a playground pied piper as he was followed by an enlarging pack of children while trying to keep the riff-raff (non-party kids) away from the clues.

And here, the German-English birthday song, the German bits translated as “marmalade in your shoe; apricots in your pants.”

St. Martin ’09

Our first Berlin holiday repeated. See St. Martin 08 here. This year I got a little too complicated with our lantern and the entire thing was pretty much covered in scotch tape by the end of the afternoon. But check it out lit…

Simone sported Greta’s ’08 lantern, though somewhere along the way she detached the bulb from the lantern stick (some parents use candles inside their kids’ paper lanterns!). Attendance at the kita parade was low due to outbreak of swine flu (starting in Greta’s very own class), but we could not turn down a bonfire and sausages.

Mauerpark Karaoke

There is a little something for everyone on Sundays in the Mauerpark, former site of the Berlin wall and its surrounding dead zone, and just minutes from our place. In addition to the picnicking park and football stadium, there is a small farm, a crazy excellent fleamarket:

random DJs with their speakers duct-taped into trees:
photo credit: Laura McG

a Lord of the Flies playground:

and an outdoor karaoke amphitheater hosted by two Irish brothers, their laptop, and their trusty bike with speakers:

Broad daylight, people peddling beers from coolers on bikes, no one hogging the mic or the song lists. Thousands (really) of people who are all super supportive to whoever has opted to perform.

Read more about it here and their webpage promises to come soon here.

Braids!

The work of Simone’s babysitter, Olga. Who makes a living watching kids and creating jewelry of small food items she makes out of clay. Greta gets the tiny hot dogs and cupcakes that don’t come out of the kiln quite right for her doll house.

Kleine Freunde

It all happened when I got back from our Christmas holiday and I was determined to start really living here. I had been reading any blog I could find about Berlin, what to do, what to eat, where to go, etc. Berlin Reified had been especially relevant and fun to read. I first noted that the author lived sort of in my ‘hood, and then I noted that she had a little girl around Simone’s age. I gathered my courage and emailed her through the blog, basically asking to be her friend, excusing myself for trying to pick her up via the Internet. For our first cafe meeting, I was late and she saw a woman alone with a baby and chatted her up, turns out that she was English-speaking and our names are similar enough so that there was some confusion, but it led to a very happy baby party. So now we are three (six). With our three girls with names that begin with S.

Big Chief

Oh, my little baby, Simone; she is becoming quite the big girl. Walking almost exclusively, super fast walking with plus insane laughing if I am trying to stop her, climbing all over everything, perching in high places to survey the view (chair/couch arms are her favorite), trying to ride Greta’s bike. She constantly wrestles Greta to the ground.

Eats everything, and has no problem communicating her immediate needs (NO time for baby signs). She is obsessed with her own shoes (“coo”) and her poncho, and her beads. Much of her day is spent waddling around our apartment finding these objects and adorning herself with them.

A. has taken to calling her “Big Chief” after Dr. John, with his various shawls and Mardi Gras beads.