First day of school

For a family that is used to school starting on Tuesday following Labor Day, it seemed slightly premature with the kids heading off to school a week earlier. The fact that we got up at 5:30 AM made it even more evident. Nonetheless, all of us were pretty excited this morning. Walking as a family to the U-bahn, riding south to Zellendorf, waiting for the bus, riding the bus with a number of other families, and then seeing more and more families the closer we got to the John F. Kennedy School...all of it was an exciting transition into the next phase of our life in Berlin. Owen was having an easier time of it than Lily, and we think that his age is good for seeking new friends and wanting to be part of the group without having to be too cool. Lily, on the other hand, is now a teenager and the at the orientation meeting last Friday, we could see the young teenage girls sizing each other up. Gina and I feel for Lily, but then she has a tremendous amount of self-assurance and we are confident she will do fine. Still, it is tough to watch Lily wading in these waters.






When I returned home this evening, I found a different family. Lily and Owen had spent the bus ride home from Owen's new friend house trying the best to annoy each other. So, when I entered the house, no one was talking to anyone. Owen was playing upstairs with Lego's and gave me a muffled, "hi dad". Lily was working on an art project..."I don't want to talk now, I'll talk at dinner", and Gina was working on email...as it was now prime morning time in Oregon. Hmmm. We Shellhammers are at the mercy of low blood sugar, so dinner did it's magic and with some patience we returned to ourselves and the kids could share the details of the day. Owen loves his homeroom teach, Frau Pape, but is still surprised at how much moving around he does relative to his school day at Garfield. Lily has 13 different subjects...make my head spin a bit. The vote is still out on who and what she loves and what she doesn't. We'll fill you in when we know more.

Scenes from vicinity of our apartment

It is ironical that as a brewing professor I ended up living in a wonderful apartment complex, filled with other visiting academics, which is situated very close to Rüdesheimer Platz. There is a very strong connection to wine as can be seen in the architectural features in the images below. The Platz has a Weinstube...and not a beer garden. The atmosphere is somewhat similar, just that everyone is drinking wine instead of beer. Regardless, the area is beautiful, quite, calm, and clean.

August Beer Favorites

Pilsners or Pils in Germany

Jever Pilsner	Gina has fallen in love. Okay, at 45 BU’s we know why…she loves hops. Ich liebe dich, Jever! Pronounced hop aroma with hints of apricots…as subtle reminder of Big Eddy…and herbal hoppiness. Hopiness is herbal and vegetative with fruity, apricots. Sehr schön!
Schultheiss Pilsner	Slightly more maltiness than other Pilsners we have tasted lately. Low DMS, mild cooked hop aroma, mild/smooth bitterness with moderate lingering quality. A longer aftertaste of malt than others, a fuller mouthfeel and a slightly more satiating effect. Very satisfying, one of the new favorites Made by Berliner-Kindl-Schultheiss, Berlin.
Veltins Pils	Sublime. A very clean, crisp pilsner with modest, smooth, clean bitterness that did not linger too much. Pleasant hop aroma and flavor. Low maltiness..
Lübzer Pils	Crisp, clean, slight citrus notes, low DMS, light maltiness, low-moderate bitterness with minimal lingering. Delightful.

Weizens (Hefe and Krisall)

Tucher Helles Hefe Weizen	A mixture of fruit aromas – tropical, citrus, and cherries. Mild banana and clove notes. Maltiness is more pronounced but not overpowering. Low bitterness. Very well balanced. Wonderful.
Krombacher Weizen	A cloudy hefeweizen with a powerful fruit aroma. Intense banana, tutti-frutti, clove and citrus aromas. Clean malty and yeasty flavor, low bitterness. Clean, not too cloying.
Schöfferhofer Grapefruit-Hefewizen mixz	Fruit juice and beer? There are plenty of these in Germany, and this one works well. The bitterness in the hefeweizen is low and works together with the bitterness of the grapefruit juice. The mix of orange/citrus flavor of the juice compliments the phenolic character of the weizen.

Others

Diebels Altbier	Altbier, or old beer. One of the handful of German ales. This was malty, nutty, slight cocoa, with a hint of wortiness. Mildly fruity, herbal cherriness and slight apricot. A classic example of a pale ale.
Frankenheim Alt	This must be the base beer that all PNW brewers use…malty (a blend of Munich and Caramel malts?), roasted, but low bitterness and nary a sign of hops in terms of aroma. Nonetheless, delicious.
Paulaner Salvator	A big, malty, alcoholic beer. Typical of a dopplebock beer, at 8% alcohol, it is warming with a thick mouthfeel. Roasted, caramel malts are the predominate flavor. This tastes like the base of a Stone Brewing Co. beer, such as Arrogant Bastard, minus the hops.

Moving In

Our transition from vacationing in Paris to moving into our apartment began at 3:30 AM…ugh(!)…on Friday, August 1. We had a 6:30 AM flight out of Paris Orly on CrazyJet (our new name for EasyJet) and the shuttle we were using was picking us up at 4:30…ouch! The trip to the airport and the flight to Berlin were uneventful. We got to our apartment at 10:30 and were unceremoniously given keys to our new home. It’s always fun opening the door to an apartment, condo, hotel room that you are renting…running from room to room…and this was no different. Owen was so excited to have arrived, within 45 minutes he had completely moved into his room, made is bed with the Disney blanket and pillow he got at Disney Paris, tucked Hold-You-Me (his stuffed dog) into bed, and lined up his shoes. Incredible! Was this the same boy who left Corvallis? Interesting, Lily was in a slightly different frame of mind. The reality of moving in to our home where we would spend the next year was quickly sinking in. She was excited but low level anxiety was also creeping in. It was time to start nesting. But first, we needed food and a nap. So, by 2:00, three of us (Tom, Gina and Owen) were asleep and dripping in sweat – 90F outside (with humidity) and our apartment has a solarium. Thank goodness a wicked thunderstorm cooled everything off making living possible once again. Unfortunately, within 12 hours of our arrival, we had our first sickness. Owen spiked a 101.5° fever. It was a tiny bit unnerving not knowing how to get ahold of anyone should we need a doctor. Even if we did, how would we call them with no phone or internet access. Good thing the illness burned through fast and furious and Owen was almost 100% within 24 hours.

Saturday we had three objectives: find internet access, get a map of the city, and go to IKEA. For the first, Tom sat in the park across from the pension we first stayed in and was lucky enough to catch a little bandwidth from the pension’s wireless router. We have come to realize just how dependent we are on the internet – it is our tool for searching the city, finding transportation, talking to friends and businesses via Skype. Without it, we feel really isolated. Getting access for our apartment will be a top priority this week. Getting the map was relatively easy, we went to the main Haupftbahnhauf and found a tourist information shop. For the IKEA shopping, we took the S-Bahn. When we got off the S-Bahn we saw a sign pointing us in the direction of IKEA…kind of like Disneyland. Gina said, “just follow the ant trail” and that it was…people wandering to and from IKEA…about a 0.5 mile walk from the S-Bahn. We dined and shopped in the big blue cavern, and came away packed like gypsies. In the late evening, Gina and I went south on the U-Bahn three stops (while the kids stayed home) and ventured into a very pleasant beer garden. We sat in the late evening under a buckeye tree sipping Pilsners and Weizen and talking beer, family, and travel. It was a very pleasant and satisfying way to cap off our first day as Berliners. We are really here. Then reality hit in that we were late in getting home and Gina began worrying about the kids. They were fine, although getting impatient for us to return. Gina said Lily will pay us back when she is a teenager hanging out at night and modeling our behavior on tardiness.