Tierpark Berlin

My dad is a big fan of amusements parks. He likes to regularly visit one, but doesn’t care too much about variety. When we lived in Zeeland (Province in the South West of the Netherlands) we always visited Diergaarde Blijdorp near Rotterdam. When we lived in Naarden we exchanged the animals for the fairytales of the Efteling. Since we live in Berlin we have been to the Berlin Zoo three times last year. Because I do like some change myself, my dad was eager to go to the Zoo again and Berlin has got no less than 2 zoos, I laboriously persuaded him to pay a visit to the Tierpark in the Eastern part of Berlin this time.

The reason Berlin has got two Zoos is that the original Zoo was situated in the West part of Berlin and impossible to reach for the people living in the old East-Berlin. So in 1955 the Tierpark was founded. This Zoo is beautifully located on an old estate in Lichtenberg. The animal enclosures are very spacious and widely spread through the area, which mainly consist of trees as if you’re walking in a forest, interspersed with flower beds. What also differentiates this Zoo from any other I’ve visited is the fact you’re allowed to take your dog with you. We didn’t today, but definitely will in the future once do so.

The space in the Tierpark and therewith the space the animals have, make this to be a very pleasant Zoo. Our favorites were, of course, the elephants, crocodiles and the ancient turtles in their little house in a corner of the premises. I’m curious which of the two Zoos my dad chooses next time he visits.

Tempelhof

While I was running around Berlin with my primary school friends, daddy was taking the girls to Tempelhof. The perfect place for three energetic toddlers and just 1 parent. Running and biking around endlessly, with a minimum chance to get hurt

Beach

Something we try to do every time we’re in the Netherlands: Go to the beach. We used to go there quite often, walking the dog. I’m not really the laying on the beach, tanning type. Beach walks is what it’s about. What I love most about beaches is the feeling of freedom. With the sea as far as the eye can see on your side 

Today we visited Wijk aan Zee. The the sea on one side, the Tata steel factory on the other. Some find the factory rather disturbing. It never really troubled me. It’s a quiet beach, mostly people with dogs or surfboards. There are two beach bars with a very relaxed atmosphere: Aloha and Timboektoe. Including some live music on this Sunday afternoon.

Prinzessinnen Garten

Oma came over to stay with us for a couple of days. She has an amazing kitchen garden back in Holland, so I wanted to go and visit the Prinzessinnen Garten with her today.

6.000 square meter hidden behind a round-a-bout in Kreuzberg. Boxes and crates full of herbs and vegetables. Of course not really the right time, vegetable wise, but it all looks great anyway. Oma explained the girls about Jerusalem artichoke, we bought seeds for her garden. We had coffee, lemonade and carrot cake in the shadow of the foliage.

It is a beautifully warm and sunny day for the time of year and this is one of the best spots to be on a day like this. It feels fresh in their shadow, the atmosphere is extremely relaxed. People around us drinking coffee or beetroot juice. Ordering a plate of the daily special or opening the lunch box they brought themselves. What also strikes me is the diversity in people that sit here. It’s not just the organics one might expect, there also are tourist, business people, groups of friends catching up, hipsters and three generation families. That’s us

Tempelhof

After the bulky breakfast we drive up to Tempelhof , the old disused airport in the middle of Berlin. Lawns as far as the eye can see, crossed by airstrips. Girls running around as fast as they can. It is here where our oldest drives her bike for the first time without her training wheels. Very proud parents and grandparent watching her go go go

Ecoscope

Today we’re visiting my aunt and uncle again at their Ecoscope in Renesse. We’re so glad they’re still in business. Last time I just brought one of the girls, today it’s all three of them running around on the premises, chasing chickens, throwing sticks for Kit the Bull terrier. We have a wonderful day drinking juice and coffee, collecting eggs and making little boats out of bark and feathers.

Reza is so happy again that everybody here can understand what she’s saying again, she’s talking for hours. She’s even mingling in the conversations my uncle is having with his visitors.

Berlin Zoo

We took Opoe to the Zoo today. An ideal place with enough to see but at least as important: enough benches to rest a bit and a nice place to stroll around a bit. What the girls liked the most? The playground and the petting zoo we went to at the end of the day. There we were allowed to touch and feed the animals.

Afterwards we went to Schleusenkrug in Tiergarten for some proper German schnitzels while the girls were producing some proper toddler art on the other side of the fence. We like this Biergarten very much because it combines German food very well with the alternative laidback Berlin style.

What impressed Opoe the most today? The size of the Sinas we ordered her

 

Wannsee

 

Aquarium

My sister came to visit for a couple of days. We’re so happy she’s here, we love to have her around and the kids adore her. First day: pouring rain. Of course we don’t want to stay inside now she’s here, but a shopping expedition with three small kids is not an option. Then what? The aquarium! 

The Berlin Zoo has two parts with separate entrances to can visit, the regular Zoo and the aquarium part. Last time the oldest went there with my parents, but they didn’t have the chance to go to the aquarium as well. Favorite animal? A crocodile! She never wants her face to be painted any other way. Where are the crocodiles? Of course in the aquarium!

The crocodiles were by far the most favorite, but all the fish, and certainly the beautiful jelly fish, where good for a lot of fun too. Above the ground floor two floors with frogs, snakes and a lot of insects (huge spiders still give me the creeps) were nice as well, but the ground floor definitely was the main attraction.

Amsterdam Light Festival

Our time in Amsterdam has gone by in a split second. Tomorrow is the day we’re leaving again and we haven’t done everything and seen everyone we would have liked but really feel we are heading home again and that is a good feeling. Because the eldest is sleeping over at grandmas and grandpas we are more mobile than usual and there is one thing left I liked to do: visit the Amsterdam Lights Festival. You can do it by boat and there’s a walking route with both different light sculptures, we chose to go by foot but next year I’ll definitely want to do both.

The festival is wonderful –although I wouldn’t recommend going on a Saturday, we skipped the Hortus Botanicus for the long line – but what made it really special for us was that it felt like a proper goodbye to our home city. Walking through the center with all the Christmas lighting still there, the nine streets district, along the canals, Artis, het Scheepvaartmuseum and visiting the courtyard of the Grant Hotel where a couple of older family members of M were married when it still was the town hall.

We will miss you Amsterdam, but be back soon and one day indefinitely.

Sowjetischen Ehrenmal

Rarely have I been so surprised by a structure as when we walked up to the Ehrenmal in Treptower Park. I was not prepared for the massiveness, grandness and impressiveness of this place. I have not been to Russia so far, but this little piece of Berlin it makes me feel a bit like I'm there in the old communist Russia. The huge blocks at the beginning, the tombs leading up to the meters high statue of the Russian soldier saving a child while destroying a swastika. Fascinating regarding the tremendous battle of Berlin and the losses that the Russians suffered, but at least as fascinating is that the Russians have a build a  structure like this pthat makes the visitor feel small, petty in front of the huge Russian soldier. Impressive, almost frightening.

Rijksmuseum

The plan was to visit the renovated Rijksmuseum before we leave, it has been closed for so many years and the results are so magnificent that we really really wanted to. Unfortunately of course we didn't. Due to busy schedules, not wanting to visit with three little ones and the mega mega long lines the two times I actually got myself over there.

What we did do though is visit their newly planted gardens which are also really worth a visit, especially on a sunshiny day. They've become beautiful, although there are a lot of people in the weekend and it's in the middle of Amsterdam it really feels calm and peaceful there. Children (and dads) playing with the fountain, people sitting on the chairs and benches reading books, looking at their tourist maps or drinking coffee from the little stand in the middle of the garden. It feels a bit like Paris actually.

Ecoscope

Growing up in the tiny village of Dreischor gave me a really save childhood with a lot of playing outside. Walking up to our little village school with only 60 children from the age of 6, why not, hardly any cars let alone creepy people on the way. Something my girls probably will never experience in the way I have.

Just a couple of hundred meters from our house my uncle and aunt lived in their little farm with no heating except for the big AGA stove in their kitchen in which they baked their own bread and always had a huge kettle on top with water because there was no hot water from the tap.We used to be with them every Friday when my mum went to Art Academy in The Hague. A huge yard surrounding their farm (they were no farmers btw, just living on this old little farm house) with all kinds of fruit, veg, herbs and a lot of chickens running around. 

They still live on their little farm but I haven't been there in years. Nowadays they run the Ecoscope in Renesse where my aunt manages the Milieu Education Center and  my uncle is in charge of the Cafe and maintaining the surrounding gardens. I miss their own house but also love to come here, because they created the same feeling. Unfortunately the subsidies for the center had to be stopped due to governmental cuts and the building will, I believe, turn into a cooking school or something. So this visit will probably be my last, but on the upside: next time I'll visit their own house in Dreischor again.

We had a lovely afternoon, sitting in the sun, enjoying lunch and, her favorite part, feeding the chicken.

Visiting Zeeland before 1 January 2014: you have to have coffee in the Ecoscope in Renesse, my uncle makes the best coffee on the whole of Schouwen Duiveland. You'll even get a organic biscuit to go with it.

Cathedral of Madrid

A good place to flee the city and have a moment of peace and quiet for a little while. If you don't mind the horde of tourists.

Olmenhorst

For my sisters birthday I gave her a so called adoptive tree at the Olmenhorst. It's an apple tree you can adopt to stimulate the organic apple production. The idea is that they hang a sign on a tree with your name and when the apples are ripe you can go and harvest your own tree.

It was a surprisingly sunny and warm day for the time of the year when we went to harvest. Also the last day of the self-picking season, so a lot of festivities like pony riding and archery.

We went to pick our 25 kg of apples, ate some lovely apple pie, bought some fresh goat cheese at the farm shop and mainly had a very fun day and some fresh air. They almost every weekend have some special activities and you can of course just go for their lovely high tea which is what I'll be doing somewhere in the spring

Mussel Days Zierikzee

Every August we are celebrating the start of the new season for Mussels and Oysters in the Southern region that’s called Zeeland. This is the part of the Netherlands I was born, so it of course is a special place for me. This year we visited Mussel Day in Zierikzee, a small harbor town on the top island of Zeeland. They celebrate the start of the new season and at the same time ask Poseidon to look over their fishermen by saving him from an island. Eight ships sail out and everybody is welcome on board. The Mussel princes is on the first boat and that the one to save Poseidon.

Afterwards you can eat loads of Mussels for a very low price, yummmm. Next year we'll be visiting the Oyster days :)

Goat Farm Ridammerhoeve

In the middle of the "Amsterdamse Bos" you can find the wonderful goats farm De Ridammerhoeve. A perfect place to visit with kids, but also without or with really small kids it's a nice please to visit. 

You're allowed to just walk among the goats, cuddle them en bottle feed them before you go and admire pig Yolanthe and all of her newborn piglets or get a goats cheese tosti to accompany your goats milk cappuchino while the kids are playing on one of their playground with a goatsmilk ice cream 

IJmuiden

IJmuiden, the best beach near Amsterdam. Because dogs are allowed to run freely, because it's so nice and quiet, because it has the Beach In to eat croquettes and drink hot chocolate and because you can buy the best fresh fish on your way back to Amsterdam

Forest Theater

In the middle of “het Amsterdamse Bos” (The Forest of Amsterdam) there is an open air theater: Het Bostheater. Every summer there is a play on this stage. This year they play Don Q, A wonderful play although a bit confusing.

One of the best parts of the theater also is the time before the play starts, when people have their picnic on the benches. Eating the food they brought, having wine and mainly having a good time. The atmosphere during these warm summer nights is very special and even though you might not speak Dutch it would be worth visiting a performance when in Amsterdam