Awkwardly Social

My day started with a dermatology appointment to check out my weird spot mark that is turning into a mole and a weird age spot that is just getting bigger.  Both are nothing except signs that I live in Los Angeles and am above the age of 28 and I have fair skin and I’ve never fucked with my face. PHEW.

Then I didn’t stop.  Normally after a doctor appointment I’ll feel tired and need to stay in my room catching up on the internet, not today. I took Lula to the groomer, I got a new tire for my car, I picked up books from the library, I took down the Christmas tree (except for the final step of disassembling the thing which Seth won’t let me do), I swiffered the whole house, I cleaned out my dresser, folded laundry, cleaned out and reorganized my closet, gathered my dry cleaning and walked the dog.

I’m EXHAUSTED, but I knocked off two things off my Maternity To Do List which feels pretty amazing.

My sister used to make fun of me and say I dressed like a female bird. Dark, neutral colors ranging from grey to beige.  And cleaning out my closet proved kind of another eye opener.  I still have only two shirts that could be called colorful.  Which hopefully, once I’ve had a baby and lose all of that baby and IVF weight (ha!) I’ll remember to keep building my wardrobe with color and patterns in mind.  I love the way color looks on people, I just always manage to fade into the background.

I also took all of the jeans out of my dresser that I can’t currently wear.  Oh, sadness and woe, that is a lot of denim I haven’t been able to fit into because I stopped taking Adderall and exercising intensely for at least an hour a day.  I might never fit into those jeans again, but I’m not ready to give them up just yet. (Below the jeans of shame.)

I made the grave error of going to the grocery store myself this week and came home with Cheez-its, Top Ramen, Alouette spreadable Sharp Cheddar, and Cap’n Crunch.  It was not my healthiest pregnancy moment. And this week I’ve hit the 10 pound mark in total weight gained. Oh, Tamara.

I am also pretty sure I’ve got another inner ear infection, as my jaw on my bum ear side is KILLING me every time I yawn, and I yawn a lot these days.

I went to acupuncture this week and told my lady I freaked myself out about laying on my back while I’m sleeping.  She reassured me that I would know if laying on my back was cutting off oxygen or blood supply to the baby because I’d feel nauseous or dizzy or just generally uncomfortable.  So now, I’m still not able to lay on my back because I’ve convinced myself I don’t know what’s comfortable anymore. Hello, I am a crazy person.

We’ve been having ridiculously nice weather for the past week, temps in the 80s, bright sunshine, it’s been awesome, but I’m feeling a little hermitty and I’m not sure why. I’m planning on snapping out of it in time for a good cold snap to roll around, I’m sure.

 My 36th birthday was celebrated with a low key dinner at an Italian restaurant, cut short by a digestive “emergency” caused by an ill-advised meal of 1/2 jar of pepperocinis for lunch. It was, uh, explosive.  I came home and cried because I didn’t get any cake on my actual birthday, making me the most pathetic pregnant person ever.

The day after my birthday I got an awkward pregnancy massage (gift certificate, woo!). It was a little weird when the therapist guided me down the hall by putting his hand on my shoulder and then the therapy room only had the ambient noise of what sounded like a parking garage air filter.   I hate massage music generally, but this was… weirdly quiet but also loud.  Then the massage therapist got chatty at the end and I left all out of sorts.  Laying on your side and your back during a massage is foreign to me, and I think when I go back to finish off my gift certificate (2.5 more massages!) I’ll make sure I get a female therapist and speak up about the lack of any sort of music or noise machine.

Then to top of my post birthday day, I got in a huge fight with Seth when I back-seat drove (to keep us out of an accident) and he yelled at me.  The night finally ended with a cupcake from Crumbs Bake Shop and all was right with the world again.

The past week I’ve been making sure I walk at least 2 miles a day and I’ve added a pregnancy DVD to the mix.  I’m kind of in a love/hate relationship with Linsday Brin, I like the workout alright, but there’s something hateful about doing such an easy workout and still being exhausted at the end. All the working out and walking has me at a 1.5 pound weight gain for the week.  Which brings us to our unflattering photo portion of the evening!

(15 weeks, above)

(16 weeks, above)

I’m always a butt/thighs weight gainer and this pregnancy is no different.

I’m off work for about 5 weeks before my next show starts so I’m going to try to get a few meals cooked and a few books read and hopefully a few things done on my rapidly expanding Maternity To Do List.

We had an OB appointment today, and I was super excited to have an ultrasound, and then told I was only going to get a doppler of the heartbeat. SAD FACE. The heart still beats though, so HAPPY FACE.  As I said on twitter in spite of (or because of?) all of my worrying, this fetus remains living.

I’m still sort of confused about amnio.  At this point, seeing as we’ve made it so far keeping this fetus alive (14 weeks 2 days!) I feel like I don’t want to find out about any bad things.  I just want to lalala them away.  Our Down Syndrome/Trisomy 21 chances (Which I just found out today are the SAME thing, huh, really did I hear it right? Someone confirm.) are 1 in 2,500, our Trisomy 18 chances are 1 in 48,000.  Miscarriage rates for amnio are listed (in a 2006 survey/study thingie) at around 1 in 1,600. I don’t do odds very well, but um, I still find the Down’s rate and the amnio rate VERY close together.  I have one more blood test that I’m doing next week and after that maybe I’ll have a better answer on whether to continue testing or just let it go.  Snore.  Sorry, even I’m tired of talking about this.

Let’s talk about lists.  I’ve started to NEED to make lists.  Do you have lists?  May I copy your list? Baby related only.  Although if your house cleaning list is rad, I’ll take that too.  Ha, just kidding, I don’t clean. No really, I maybe swiffer every other week, but the rest of the cleaning is Seth’s domain. Also the grocery shopping.  And the cooking (I mean take out delivery ordering).  So, what do I do around here? I sometimes feed the dog, and I always clean up her “situations” in the back yard.  I’m basically like your ne’er do well teen aged daughter. But slightly less surly.  SLIGHTLY.

One other random thing that I’d like to report is last night I had a dream and one of the side characters was this woman I worked with 4 years ago and then again worked at the same building with last year.  We weren’t close, but friendly enough to have drinks once or twice and say hi in the hallways.  Well, in my dream I couldn’t remember her name, I woke up and was like, DUH her name is the large planetoid object in the night (and sometimes day) sky.  And then, CREEPY GHOST MUSIC, I saw her at my doctor’s appointment today.  THE VERY NEXT DAY.  I was so weirded out that I didn’t say a word to her.  Does this mean I’m psychic?  Or that the world really is coming to an end?  Or mere coincidence.  I don’t know, but it’s still giving me woo-woo chills.

I boarded the flight for Berlin on the eve of leaving my first trimester.  We’d just had an excellent First Trimester Screening and a first appointment with the OB I call Dr. Callie.  But a few things were flipping me out, because pregnancy for me has been and most likely will continue to be a long journey of minor flip outs.

The first thing flipping me out was my new ear drum.  I had it surgically grafted in February and by all accounts it was totally healed, but three days before our flight I was getting congested and worrying about the fact that most (all?) decongestants are Class C drugs, which depending on your OB can either kill your baby or be totally fine.  My OB was out of the office for the rest of the week so her nurse called me back and said I could use Tylenol Cold & Sinus.  After 3 terrible drug store visits, I googled Tylenol Cold & Sinus and um, THEY DON’T MAKE IT ANYMORE. By this time, I’d seen my acupuncturist who tried to free my sinuses of whatever gunk had taken hold in there with a steam/herbal remedy.  It sort of helped, but my anxiety about not having something to protect my shiny new ear drum on the plane was still weighing heavily on my un-medicated mind.  Pregnant women, I believe, are this crazy because we cannot just take the good drugs.  The xanax and the sudafed and the opiates (*ahem*).

The second thing flipping me out was that I had planned this trip to concur with my late mother’s birthday.  The small amount of money she left me, I knew she would want to be spent on things like travel or experience.  She was big on experience.  In fact, she and my father set up a trust fund for my sister and me as babies for college or “educational experience” which included pretty much anything we could convince them would enrich our lives. (Horse camp!) So, I booked our tickets over Christmas and her birthday because she would have LOVED to visit Germany on her birthday and because it really was the only time my husband and I are guaranteed to not be expected in a cutting room.  But my grief began to take hold the week before Christmas and I wished I had opted to spend mom’s birthday with my sister.  Seth told me to change the tickets, but my mom would have been appalled at the $400 per ticket change fee, so I forged ahead.  Tears and pregnancy hormones streaming.  These tears came back full force when things started to take a shit-sky-dive with Seth’s son and I sobbed that I couldn’t DO THIS! I should be with my SISTER. And maybe I should have been, but my mom taught me many things, and one of them was how important it is to do new things.  That was not very comforting when I was wishing she were still alive and could be there with me at the symphony.

The third thing flipping me out was the slightly ominous warning about International cheese given to me by my pretty laid back OB.  The ONE thing she told me to watch out for was unpasteurized cheeses that are more common in Europe than in the U.S.  So, every single meal I ate in Germany, from our first meal at the in-laws with potato gratin, I wondered if I was engaging with the enemy.  I had no idea how much cheese would be in German food until I tried to order from a German menu.  Turns out, A LOT.

The final thing that flipped me out were the fireworks and the smoking.  We could not escape either.  The fireworks, as I mentioned in the Travel Diaries, were so loud and nerve-shattering that I was filled with adrenaline for many, many hours, and I was pretty sure all the gun powder smoke was going to have an adverse effect.  Not to mention soaking the fetus in all that nerve calming gin.  (Just kidding about the gin.) The cigarette smoke was insidious.  Our hotel room was at the end of the hall near the stairwell, and every night cigarette smoke would waft in under the door.  I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if my jet lag hadn’t kept me awake most nights from 2am to 6am, but yeah, I began shoving a blanket under our door every night and still it wafted in.  Poor fetus, I hope it enjoys it’s childhood asthma.  That is, if it survived the adrenaline bath.

My biggest win was splurging on Business Class seats.  Being able to lay down, have real meals and not have to touch another human on the plane saved what little sanity I still have.  I know this kind of travel is probably not feasible for me the next time I visit Europe, but goddamnit, I might just start saving now, because wow, what a difference.

I made a more modest goal of reading only 30 books this year because of the upcoming baby of doom which will explode my reading schedule into a million pieces come July. All my star ratings and books I’m currently reading can be found on my Goodreads page.  All links on this page and other reading list pages are Amazon Affiliate links. All other reading lists can be found by clicking this category called “Reading Lists.”

25. Half a Life by Darin Strauss (10/15/12)

24. Rumors by Anna Godberson (10/11/12)

23.  Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin (10/9/12)

22. The Baby Sleep Solution by Suzy Giordano (10/5/12) I don’t think I’m strong enough to do this method.  It seems much easier if you’re exclusively bottle feeding.

21. The Underneath by Kathi Appelt (10/2/12)

20. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (9/28/12) LOVED this.  It took me two tries to get into it and when it was over I was a little annoyed at the to be continued ending, but yeah, I can’t wait to read the sequel.

19. Secrets of the Baby Whisperer by Melinda Blau (9/3/12) I totally disagreed with a lot of the advice in this book.  Like A LOT of it.  Just read Happiest Baby and you’ll be fine.

18. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James (8/22/12) Well.  It is kind of good?  But totally needed an editor. A professional editor.

17. The Happiest Baby on the Block by Harvey Karp (8/9/12) Pretty much you should just watch the DVD.  The book is way over written and all you really need are the techniques to calm your baby.  And in truth we really only used them for 2 difficult weeks (4-6) and after that Moses was pretty happy without swaddling or shushing or swinging, etc.

16. You Take if From Here by Pamela Ribon (7/3/12) I basically inhaled this book in one sitting.  Even though the book has an inevitable conclusion, I sobbed.  SOBBED.  So well written and well realized.  LOVED this book.

15. Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson (6/10/12) I loved when she wrote actual stories about her childhood.  The cow insemination story made me cry I was laughing so hard.  The conversations with Victor?  I just don’t love them and her blog and this book were FULL of them.

14. Hynobirthing: The Mongan Method by Marie Mongan (5/14/12) Ha. NO.  It’s pretty much The Secret for giving birth and yeah, I’m WAY too cynical to believe that if you change your vocab about labor and delivery, you’ll change how you feel the pain.  I’ve had cramps, lady, you can’t visualize that pain away.  BELIEVE ME, I’ve tried.

13. The Paleo Diet by Loren Cordain (5/6/12) This reads like the person who wrote it really wants to get into infomercials.  It’s not well written, it’s very rah rah change your diet and your life will be so much better!  I am curious about the science behind it.  He talks about all the research his team has done and then never footnotes the actual studies.  I’m not saying he didn’t do that research, but um, I’d like to see all this “evidence.” All that said, I will probably give this a try because a woman I work with has gone from 29% body fat to 19% with Paleo and Crossfit in 3 months.

12. Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers (4/15/12) Seth loved this book as a kid.  Loved it so much that he was furious when the movie came out and “ruined” Mary Poppins. I read it and was like, woah.  Mary is kind of mean and weird and vain and the kids are afraid of her, but love her anyway.  I so did not love this book. Give me my Disney Mary any day.

11. The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (4/2/12) I found myself really liking this book and learned a lot.  I wrote about it here, here, and here.

10. What to Expect When You’re Expecting by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel (3/25/12) Ugh. This book is maybe good if you have it lying around and no access to the internet and need to look up some random symptom, but other than that, I did not like it. Thankfully, it was a free kindle Amazon loan, so I didn’t pay a dime for not liking it.

9. Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott (3/14/12) I was surprised how it seemed such a 2004 time capsule, I don’t remember her first book on faith to be so “of a time.” But it ended up not bothering me. I really liked it. Even though I have no spirituality or faith, myself, I find it oddly comforting to read about others’ faith and spirituality.

8. The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey (3/13/12) I got a creepy Christian vibe from the book, not sure why that stuck with me, but there you have it. (Maybe it was the common thread of first person stories that mentioned church and the women giving up their jobs to stay home with her kids mixed with the random Bible passages throughout? I don’t know.) I sort of knew everything he had to say and he really drags it out. It could basically be written on a pamphlet. Have a budget. Stop using credit. Have an emergency fund that you only use for emergencies. Pay off your debt using the snowball method. Save a bigger emergency fund. Invest 15% of your income towards retirement. There, now you don’t have to read the book.

7.  The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science by Natalie Angier (3/11/12)  So, given the fact that it took me 9 months to finish this book… it’s OK. I love her writing style and think her book Woman: An Intimate Geography should be required reading in high school health class, but this book was a little tough for me to get through. (Ha, obviously.) The book covers everything from Chemistry to Astronomy and covers them all in the way you wanted your high school teacher to teach you, but for some reason I would start reading a new section, be all excited and then sort of blank out until about 2/3’s of the way through the section.  You’ll like it if you were a science nerd in Junior High.

6. Fire by Kristin Cashore (2/29/12) This is not a sequel to Graceling but it is part of the same world, with only a little crossover in terms of locations. I liked it, it has strong female characters and a decent love story, but it’s pretty predictable and sort of draggy in places where you’d expect it not to be draggy.  That said, I will definitely read the next one.

5. Sippy Cups are Not for Chardonnay by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor (2/20/12) My sister’s friend Cassie gave this to me and I really liked it aside from a couple of weird semi-racist moments, which may or may not have been super in your face sarcasm?  (Chinese kids will turn into bad drivers! And be good at math! Busboys were labeled as “Mexican busboys” because then you’d know they work hard and don’t get paid very much? ANYWAY.) It’s a fun and funny read and will come in handy when I’m sobbing at 4am because the baby has decided he’s up for the day.

4. Cruddy by Lynda Barry (2/5/12) This book is relentlessly dark, but I found the main character so likeable and awesomely bad ass that it made it a really griping read.

3. Your Best Birth by Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein (1/28/12) I read this because I’m feeling woefully unprepared for labor and after watching their documentary The Business of Being Born, I thought maybe I’d feel a little better about the whole thing if I did some further reading. But, I feel like even though they claim to want the best for you and your baby, they do a lot of fear and shaming towards women who are interested in epidural and non-midwife births. That said, there is some good information about what to ask for should you want an all natural birth.

2. Crossed by Ally Condie (1/15/12) Eh, it was OK. I kept getting the plot mixed up with Divergent for some reason and could not remember the world established in Matched very well. She didn’t do a great job of re-establishing that world for people like me who forget details the instant the book is returned to the shelf. I guess if I read them back to back that wouldn’t be a problem. 

1. Murder in Italy by Candace Dempsey (1/7/12)  I don’t read a lot of true crime because it always reads like someone’s 6th grade research project, but this case fascinated me. I only knew a little about it, because it broke around the time when I really didn’t watch TV. And I recently watched the Lifetime TV movie about it starring Hayden Panitierre which was laughably bad. The book definitely helped clear up some of the questions I had about their changing stories, the evidence chain, etc. But it’s about 100 pages too long. Also, I checked it out from the library and about a quarter of the way through mysterious blood colored stains started appearing on the pages and that kind of freaked me out.

Christmas Eve

We exchange gifts, drop Lula off at her kennel and finish packing. We get to the airport really early and hang out in the business class lounge where I lament that I cannot partake in all the free booze. Our flight to Zurich is hot and a little crazy making.  The business class steward spoke to me in German the first half of the flight, then, at breakfast said, “Oh! You’re American! You have a German last name!” I guess he thought I was mildly retarded before when I never understood a word he said?

Christmas Day

We land in Zurich and are creeped out and fascinated by the bird/cow/horn playing sound effects and the projected slutty Heidi on the wall of the airport train.  Get taken by bus out to the tarmac to load what looks like a ramshackle jet from the pre-war era.  Our view of the Alps as we ascended is breathtaking.  I suddenly want to become a slutty Heidi.  We landed in Berlin and immediately exited our gate, which was a grave error. Baggage claim at Tegel is at your gate.  We spent a good 20 minutes talking to hilarious “information” people who were very confused that we could have possibly missed our very obvious baggage claim and finally were directed to a tiny little shack outside of the main airport terminal to wait for our bags with a grumpy Swiss (Spanish? accent of unknown origin) woman who made the same mistake we did. Then we went to my husband’s son’s in-laws for Christmas dinner.  Lamb and potato gratin. The Christmas tree had real candles for lights. I’ve never seen a more beautiful tree.  My hives have returned in full and epic force and will torture me for the rest of the trip.  We went back to the hotel and slept for more than 12 hours.

The 26th

My mom’s birthday.  We walked around the city at dusk.  We lit a candle for my mother at a Catholic church (may she forgive me for the weird choice of religious remembrance) and had dinner at Milagro - spaetzle and pizza and minestrone.  It was eclectic.  We headed to the center (ish?) part of town to have drinks at the former Nazi and Stalin headquarters (now the Adlon Hotel) seeing the Brandenburg Gate, the old symphony hall, and embassy row, then to the symphony to hear Beethoven’s 5th, Bach’s Tocata in Fugue (as soon as the Tocata started I began to cry.  My mom would have loved it so much), Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet, something by Liszt that I didn’t like, and 2 other pieces with a Ravel’s Bolero finale wherein the trombone player totally fucked up his solo.  So much so that after he was finished he put down his trombone and lifted his hands up like, “What can you do?” I was starving after the concert (PREGNANCY!) so we got pizza and pasta at a weird restaurant in the Sony Center that required ordering and sitting and using a card and being paged.  Then we went and had coffee at the Ritz and went to bed at 2am. Again sleeping more than 12 hours, but waking in the middle of the night because where the fuck are we?

The 27th

We got up at about 2pm again and headed to the famous mall KaDaWe.  It is basically like Europe’s classy (and small) answer to the Mall of America.  We ate in the Whole Foods-esque food court and Seth’s son got pissed about something and left for a while to get a handle on himself (he is 30… and this was a sign of things to come). We headed out with Seth’s son’s wife to a beautiful Christmas market where we bought a traditional German Christmas decoration.  It’s made of out what looks like Balsa wood, you light candles underneath a fan and the heat makes them and the scene below turn.  Then, 1 hour later, I was starving again so we met up with Seth’s son who seemed like he “had a handle on himself” and went to a Vietnamese restaurant where I had a delicious vegetarian Pho.  Almost everything is tasting like heaven and pregnancy doesn’t seem so bad except for the insane hives that are making me crazy.  After that we went to an awesome German bar where beers take 3 minutes to pull and they serve pretzels with something that looks like a Slim Jim.  A man at the table behind us fell asleep in his chair and he friends jovially laughed and chatted as this were a normal thing, which it probably was. As we were about to leave, I went to the bathroom and was trapped in there by a drunken woman, who needed advice about sleeping with her married (and her words “kind of gay”) male friend because she just had sex on a date and didn’t have an orgasm, and that, my friends, did not stand with her!  She would not let me leave until I told her what to do and finally I said, “Have sex with whoever you want, but don’t forget ‘he’s married!’  We took the U Bahn back to our hotel’s neighborhood and I was starving again so we had falafel at a little fast food Lebanese place and finally headed to bed.

The 28th

We meet Seth’s son and his wife for a trip out to the Prenzlerburg neighborhood for breakfast.  I’m feeling crappy and pukey and every smell on the subway makes me want to barf. I begin to resent being pregnant as I cannot partake in the spread of deli meats and cheeses but settle for an awesome croissant and fruit that, quite frankly, is better than anything I’ve ever tasted in Los Angeles.  Something is clearly up with Seth’s son who says about 10 words then never speaks again, this is a problem and I begin to hate Berlin and Seth’s family, why can’t people just fucking ACT RIGHT.  Seth’s son’s wife and I window shop and we wind through the pretty neighborhood, but finally after being giving the silent treatment for 2 hours, we head back to the hotel and eat dinner at the fantastic restaurant there. I end up being hungry again 2.5 hours later, but eat the roll I shoved in my pocket at breakfast.

The 29th

Our hotel’s breakfast is over right as we arrive and my hunger MUST be fed, so we go to another hotel and have THEIR breakfast.  We return to the hotel where I begin to feel a grump coming on that I assume will pass if I take a nap.  After my nap, I have a mental breakdown and cannot leave the hotel to do anything, jet lag, the family situation, the fact that I’ve given up Christmas and my mom’s birthday to be in Berlin with Seth’s family who is clearly having severe issues has started to wear on me.  Finally we venture out to Osteria No. 1, and have an amazing Italian meal.  Then we go window shopping, and have a grocery store adventure. I love foreign grocery stores.

The 30th

After breakfast in our room, (this discovery changes our LIVES), I head out shopping on my own, while Seth tries to figure out if his kid actually needs to be committed or if he’s just being his usually charming self.  I buy a teddy bear for the creature I assume is still growing inside of me (paranoia, will I ever feel like this baby is going to just STAY ALIVE), a pair of boots and a handbag.  Then  Checkpoint Charlie, the Reichstag, aborted attempt at Hamburger Banhoff, Brandenburg gate, I refuse to have dinner with Seth’s son and we take a cab ride that took us the LONG way back to Kreuzburg then ate at Milagro again, cried into my supper. Revelers in the street to rival Mardi Gras.

New Year’s Eve (Silvester!)

The fireworks begin at dawn and do not stop for more than 24 hours.  We have breakfast in the room and head out to Potsdam to see Frederick’s “castle” that I refuse to call a castle because it’s a palace.  The Sanssouci Park is gorgeous and we walk and walk.  His new “castle” (ALSO A PALACE) was never lived in by him, which is a damned shame because it is an impressively large piece of real estate. We catch a bus into the Dutch district in town (Frederick brought in the Dutch to dike the city, the Dutch know how to dike!) and had a fantastic German meal that I will dream about forever. We catch the S Bahn back to Berlin and I take a nap while Seth and his son go to Victoria Park to warm up their bottle rocket arms.  At around 8:30PM we all reconvene in Kreuzberg and try to find a restaurant that will seat us.  We end up in the bar of a tiny Austrian restaurant with a crazy Spanish waiter and eat another meal that I will dream about for the rest of this pregnancy. (I had this beef soup with “pancake” in it, and I’m telling you, my stomach is growling for that masterpiece.) Before we can leave the waiter has everyone do a shot of “schnapps” and I abstain.  We head back to Victoria Park to join the madness.  Fireworks are going off all around us, and we set off a few of our own.  The controlled chaos sets my adrenaline so high I’m positive I have killed the baby and do not sleep all night.

New Year’s Day

I finally nod off for a couple of hours, and we get breakfast in the room again before meeting up with Seth’s son to head out for a major day of walking. We start with the East Side Gallery - a remaining piece of wall painted by artists.  Then to Treptower Park to the Russian soldiers’ memorial, which actually is called The Soviet War Memorial.  I find that a little odd seeing as it commemorates the soldiers that died in WWII during the taking of Berlin, but you know the Soviets! It’s all about them.  Then we head to Gorlitzer Park to see where Seth’s son performed (and adapted) a huge Shakespeare play.  We eat at another German restaurant and my bratwurst and sauerkraut dreams are dashed and I eat lentil soup and French fries instead (Pregnancy!).  Then we head to the high end “red light district” but all the prostitutes aren’t on duty yet. Then we walk for what I contend was 300 miles and finally have a mini breakdown and force everyone to get in a cab, which promptly gets a flat tire and FINALLY we get back to the hotel where I fall asleep for a good 2 hours ensuring I won’t be able to sleep for the rest of the night.  At 4am my hives have gotten so bad that I start sobbing and telling Seth that I need to go home right now.  I finally fall asleep and don’t wake up until 2pm.

Jan. 2nd

Our final day in Berlin and we head to Seth’s son’s apartment and eat cake and drink espresso and talk.  Then we walk to a restaurant and have a fantastic French? German? Fusion? dinner.  Then we walk to a cafe for hot cocoa and more conversation.  We walk back to their apartment and say goodbye.  I got more sad than I expected, probably because of the underlying sadness we witnessed transforming a couple into something else.  Tomorrow we leave and I am so glad to be going home, but I will say Berlin did finally grow on me.  I will not miss the cigarette smoking, God, they smoke a lot here, and the split bed and the terrible sheets, but there is a lot to love here.