Tag: berlin

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Open Water Training in 2025

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Beggars can’t be choosers, I always say. Between wanting to train up for the 2025 Cultus Lake Triathlon (the Vancouver Triathlon was sold out before I got my act together), and wanting to swim 10k in August to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society (please consider donating), I knew I had to start getting some open water training in – my pool sessions from earlier in the season weren’t going to cut it.

Training in the Havel in Northern Berlin, proved challenging however – there’s lots of boat traffic, including river cruises, and the weeds grow thick and right up to the surface.

I used to track swims with a Garmin watch, but between keeping track of the charging cable and software reinstallations, I just can’t be bothered anymore. I felt I didn’t need that many serious metrics for most training tracking and I could get by with my phone for biking and running; but what about swimming?

I decided to look into wearing my phone in a waterproof pouch that would rest on my back, hopefully near the surface.

The pouch has 3 ziplock seals on it that are then folded over each other. I can say it did a good job protecting my phone, but I’m not so sure the tracking worked well.

I mean, I know I don’t swim perfectly straight, but that’s a little ridiculous. My wife began to worry about getting caught in the weeds and the boat traffic, so I opted to look into buying a swim buoy. I found one that could also house the phone.

I had hopes that with the tether attached to the underside of the inflatable buoy the phone would stay on top and thus track distance perfectly. Unfortunately the weight of the phone made the buoy flip upside down and the pouch was facing downward. I opted to flip it back upright at every turn-around to guarantee the location would be tracked at end points.

Looks like the location tracking worked better, but that moving time measurement is completely bogus – each of these swims was 20 min. I do recommend using a device like this though, as a just in case you get tired floation device in addition to making you more visible to boats or loved ones spotting you from shore.

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Things I’m Looking Forward To in Germany

I composed this list before our flight, but I’m publishing it after our return so you’ll see some pics and updates on how it went down.

Very shortly I’ll be flying to Germany for a month or so. It’s been 3 years since I’ve been.

1: Beer
I’ll just get that one out of the way first. I like German beer.

2: Spaghetti Ice Cream
Invented by an Italian in my father’s hometown – I don’t think I’ve ever seen it anywhere in North America.

This one was a little too big even for me.

3: Strengthening My German Language Skills
I’ll get to work off the rust. Even better, the kids both really improved their spoken German. It was thrilling to see them communicate with locals and their grandmothers in German.

4: Commuting by Bicycle
We don’t have a car there so bikes will be a significant mode of transportation. I rode at least 16km a day. The kids rode to their summer camp (on an island) by bike every day. I even got my wife a bike for her birthday.

5: Riding the double-decker bus into town

I think the double-decker buses were decommissioned. This was pretty disappointing.

6: Curry Wurst
A Berlin specialty. A bratwurst with curry powder. Also, french fries with both ketchup and mayonnaise.

7: Free Range Kids
From less ‘sanitized’ playgrounds to a largely unstructured summer camp, I’m hopeful the boys can flex their independence muscles a bit. They spent a night on the island in a tent, and went to the bakery to get us fresh buns for breakfast every morning. They rode the bus home from town alone too.

8: Fresh Water Swimming
A river and a lake are within short walking distance

A Stork on the Dock

9: Berlin Sightseeing
We might not get that much of this done, but we’ll see. We got into downtown Berlin (Kurfürstendamm) for Sushi and a bit of a walking tour. We also did our usual river cruise

10: Summer Festivals
Germans celebrate the summer a lot like other countries in the Western world.

This was taken at the Havelfest in Tegel.

Overall another successful Germany trip. I worked remotely for most of the visit, and I may share some thoughts on the ‘Laptop Lifestyle’ in a future post.

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German Vacation 2015 Recap

I used to break down these trips into multiple parts, thanks to extensive journals I kept, but I think I’d just prefer to do a single round-up and not just because I didn’t keep a journal this time.  I think I’m just going to do a summary by category.


Family Adventures


  • Climb UP! Climbing Forest.

This was one of the cooler adventures we got up to.  For adults, there are various challenges to climb up into the treetops, and of course, some zip lines.  We didn’t do the adult challenges in favour of accompanying the kids.  They each wore safety harnesses with 2 carabiners that got hooked into safety lines that ran alongside each climbing challenge.  The challenges were strung together to form an entire course to traverse.  At the end of one challenge, you’d unhook a carabiner from the completed challenge’s safety line and hook it into the new, then you’d repeat for the second carabiner, so that in principle, you were always tethered.  The kids never got any higher than around 5 feet off the ground, but I guess it’s the principle that’s important.  Shark Boy loved it and managed his own safety harness, and while the Lightning Kid seems to be a born climber, he got a little tired about halfway through the course so I let him bail.


  • Germendorf Zoo/Theme Park

We’ve visited this place annually for at least 3 years now.  When we got in, Shark Boy found a dead snake beneath a statue of an elephant, and by the time we were done, he still considered it a highlight.  This year I had us navigate toward the ‘Dinosaur’ section before we got too close to the carnival rides and playgrounds that always seem to high-jack the kids’ interest in the animals there.  I think I only saw one dinosaur (statue) but we got to see some animals we haven’t seen in prior visits.  For me the highlight was a puma, which is not only one of my favourite animals, but this one actually got up and walked around, which is kind of rare for big cats in captivity (in my experience).  He did seem to take an unhealthy interest in Shark Boy; at least, unhealthy for the boy – his ears pricked up, he stared, licked his chops, you name it.  


We got to see monkeys playing, meerkats, parrots and even pet and feed a deer.


Then it was time for lunch and rides.  We shelled out for them to ride these electrically powered motorcycles (they move fairly slowly), which not only gave us a sweet moment of the two brothers riding together, but we actually got the Lightning Kid to ride his own.  He did a great job of steering until he’d get distracted by what his brother was up to, and then he’d crash – which didn’t hurt him but resulted in tears from the sudden shock.  There was an indoor play area which used to house a ball pit and a few bouncy castles, but they’ve expanded it into a much more extensive play area with all kinds of climbing structures.


I don’t like to make fun of personal appearances, but I have to tell this story.  My wife and I were sitting near the ball pit which was intended (according to the signs) for kids aged 0-5.  There were kids much older in there, and they were throwing the balls out of the pit and generally making a nuisance of themselves.  The supervisor turned up and told them off – and they got off light, because the supervisor was a witch from a storybook, I kid you not.  Hook nose, wild and wiry hair, crazy eyes… all that was missing was a wart.  I know we weren’t all created to have movie star good looks, but maybe using a brush once in a while… on the other hand, maybe it helps with her job.  My wife and I have read a lot of German children’s literature (as children ourselves, we don’t like it too much for our kids) where there is often some kind of boogeyman who comes and gets you when you don’t follow the rules (see here for an example) – so we couldn’t help but laugh to see one of these scenarios brought to life.


  • River Cruise

Another annual mandatory outing.  We had lovely weather, but this year they stopped making a stop near where we were staying, so we had to make a round trip.  The food menu seemed reduced too, but at least it’s getting easier to keep the kids safe while they roam the decks.


  • Bike Ride

We rode our bikes through the local forest into the town of Tegel to find a playground.  This day was particularly hot, so the shade provided by the trees was very welcome.  Shark Boy had been getting over a flu, and I think we overestimated his recovery, because he simply quit well before we could get home, in spite of covering a much bigger distance last year.  Still, taken as a whole, I have to call it a successful outing, and hopefully a precursor to future family bike trips.


Food


There’s a Simpsons episode where Germany is referred to as the land of chocolate, so we had plenty of that.  I honestly don’t quite understand how Germans stay thin (my observations of people make me think that they’re thinner on average, though I found this on Wikipedia – Canadian men are 2 kg lighter than Germans [who are 6 kg lighter than Americans] on average).  They have some good habits like more walking and biking as transportation, not to mention that the evening meal is generally quite light, with lunch being the big hot meal, but still!  The bread is made with white flour, the meat is often red; I have a hard enough time eating fruit at home, but with fresh cold cuts and cheeses bought on a daily basis, they really get pushed to the side.


And then there’s my fetish for ice cream made in the image of pasta… I try to eat Spaghetti Ice Cream as often as I can get my hands on it while I’m in Germany since I can’t get it back home.  The ice cream is pushed through a press to make noodles, the tomato sauce is actually strawberry sauce, and the grated cheese is either grated coconut, or grated white chocolate.  I didn’t get to try any new places this year, but I got enough samples to keep me happy.


My wife and I had two date nights: once at our favourite little Italian place, where they always treat us like royalty and once at Alten Fritz (which has been open, in some capacity or another, since 1410!).  We actually went to this restaurant twice: once with a larger group, and once with just the two of us.  The first time I had a Goulash made with Wild Boar, and the second time a platter with 3 kinds of dumpling; it was really an eye-opener to how fine traditional German cuisine can be.  There’s outdoor seating and even a little forested area with pond that really adds to the ambience.


Training


  • Swim

I used our proximity to the Havel River to my full advantage and I’d packed my wetsuit.  I got in 3 open water swims, and since I’ve been doing a lot more than usual pool training, the difference that the open water makes was a bit of a surprise to me.  I’m not sure of my technique in open water, but I’ve got the rest of the summer to figure it out.  I got 3 different swims in, and one was 1800m, close to a half-iron distance swim.  I think I’ll be putting together a post about swimming in an unfamiliar river.


  • Bike

In addition to the family bike ride mentioned above, I got in 3 rides.  I knew my cycling training would suffer the most for not having access to a road or tri bike, but two of my rides were with the Lightning Kid, including one that had us out for about 3 hours (2 hours of actual riding) – it was great bonding time for us, and he liked seeing the sights and sounds including visiting a pens where boars and deer are kept.  My third ride got cut short by a flat tire.


  • Run

Running is the easiest form of training to accomplish on vacation.  Running with my brother on the day we arrived with jet lag (after an overnight flight) was pretty challenging; I expected to feel tired, but I had this dead feeling in my legs that I wasn’t prepared for.   For the first few days in Berlin we had a lot of cold weather and rain so my first solo run was not enjoyable, but I also had nice runs in sunnier weather, alternating between going along the Havel River (and trying, unsuccessfully, to race one of the Steamboat cruises) and through the forest.



Beer

In addition to the usual suspects I also got to try the original Budweiser.  This Czech lager is nothing like the American brew and I really enjoyed it.  There was also Altenmuenster, which I gave 3.25 stars out of 5 and my wife and I both had a Kronbacher Radler.  If you haven’t heard of a Radler (Moosehead is making one, for example), it’s a little like a shandy or other beer based beverage.   A mix of sparkling lemonade and beer, the story goes that a bar owner was getting cleaned out of stock by thirsty cyclists stopping in, so he found a way to stretch his inventory while still quenching his customers’ thirst – Radler translates to ‘Cyclist’ as it turns out.  So of course we had one while on the family bike ride mentioned above.


That’s a wrap on another German holiday!

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Snapshots From Germany

In my on-going game of blog post catch-up, I would like to engage in the (probably pointless) exercise of telling you, dear reader, about our annual family trip to Germany.  Last time I kept a detailed journal, not so much this time, so I’ll wrap it up in a single post, with just the broad strokes. With Germany in the World Cup final, I’m sure you’re all eager for a little taste of the Fatherland, right?

Travelling with small children is indeed exhausting, especially the flights, but I have to say, my boys are actually pretty good, all things considered and they get compliments from airline staff and other passengers.  They’ve both been on planes since they were 6 months old, and while the Lightning Kid still doesn’t get the need to stay seated, they show their veteran flyer status in their general behaviour.


Due to the German holiday calendar this year, we weren’t able to spend as much time with my brother’s family, and we ended up heading to the Berlin area shortly after landing.  Germany gave us some great weather this year, though it was late May, it felt like a full-on summer (meanwhile, back in Canada, the climate was still shaking off the Polar Vortex).


 This gave us an opportunity to swim in the Havel river a bunch including off a boat!  Shark Boy really improved his swimming and it ended up paying off a few weeks later at TriKids Burlington.  I even got my own open water swimming training session, and though it didn’t feel great in terms of technique, performance or accomplishment, this is the first year I’ve gotten one done while on vacation though that river has been there the whole time, so I feel proud of it.


This boat was docked nearby, and it gave me a daydream about living on it, and having constant access to open water, living a nomadic, triathlon lifestyle a little like Team Wuertele.  Having a cottage is pretty good too, though.

We don’t do much sight-seeing while there and prefer to be homebodies… it’s quite cozy. Apparently some ducks thought so too – but nobody told them that ducks aren’t roof birds…


The other big physical activity we did as a family was a bike ride; Shark Boy rode at 10 km on his own, and now that the Lightning Kid is a little bigger, he can ride longer in the rear seat – he is also carrying on his brother’s tradition of reaching forward to try and give me a wedgie.


While we didn’t sightsee, we did have to find ways to keep the kids entertained, and we looked into a couple of amusement park and play centres as we’ve come across them over the years. Lots of jumping and climbing for both boys, and it’s great to see the Lightning Kid really rock his gross motor skill development.


After Berlin, we did finally get a chance to spend time with my brother and his family, and what we didn’t have in quantity of time, we made up for in quality. Seeing the cousins play and bond really reinforces the feeling that family is something to be treasured. We took a nice hike up one of the Taunus mountains.


I also got a nice run in with my brother.



Like any vacation, it was over too quickly and now seems so long ago.

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The Germany Journals (Ger-nals?) Part 1

Telling the whole wide world you’re going out of the country is not really wise – so though I wanted to blog about this trip to Germany as it happened, I needed to save up the posts until we got back.


This afforded me a unique opportunity to treat it more like an old fashioned journal.  I’d write up the days experiences for later reading in a notebook – old school paper and pen!


The first thing on my packing list is running shoes.  I’m hoping it’s going to be that sort of vacation.  I’ve had similar ideas in the past and though these trips aren’t exactly sedentary, I usually only get sporadic runs in.  The kids kill the plans, to be frank – they don’t sleep, they get sick, they get us sick and I’m too exhausted to train and it’s not fair to make my wife take them both when she’s just as tire, if not more so.  It’s her vacation too.


DAY 1:


There was a a good deal of me that was afraid of this trip – the exhaustion and disappointment have detracted from the journey the last two times.  Still I looked forward to visiting my brother and his family near Frankfurt and my Father-in-Law and his wife in Berlin and being on vacation beats digging ditches.  The one thing that scared me more than anything was THE FLIGHT: 8 hours overseas with a 3 year-old and an 18 month-old.  When Shark Boy was 18 months old we made the same trip and 3 adults weren’t enough to control him on the plane and now it was the Lightning Kid’s turn and there would be two of us, still with Shark Boy to contend with.


It’s been my experience that airlines don’t do that much to help the parents of small children.  I don’t want special treatment per se, but I figure you can’t expect toddlers and babies to be reasonable so making them comfortable ends up helping make everybody more comfortable.  We had two things in our favour this time compared to previous trips:

  1. A direct flight
  2. Lufthansa as an airline


We’ve had problems booking seats together on other airlines (KLM and British Airways to name and shame) and/or getting the bassinet row (up against the bulkhead – the airline gave them to tall passengers instead) but Lufthansa did both by default before I was able to do our online check-in.  That was nice, but common sense is still not that common; the period when a man is rocking a baby to sleep might not be the time to ask him about menu choices in a loud voice, Ms. Flight Attendant!  We basically pulled an all-nighter and the kids didn’t sleep enough but they kept their misbehaving (especially loud screaming/crying) to a minimum.


Between being up all night and jet lag, the first Saturday was basically a write-off for accommodating fatigue and allowing recovery.  The only activity I can claim is lugging suitcases and chasing children… but our rewards were a filled-zucchini, wheat-beer, and plenty of chocolate.
The Zucchini was for lunch, traditionally the warm meal, whereas dinner is lighter.


DAY 2:


Between a nasty cough and jet lag the Lightning Kid gave us a rough night but thankfully Shark Boy adapted to the environment of his cousins’ bedroom with ease.  Seeing the cousins (ours 3½ and 1½, theirs 4 and 2) get along and play together is one of the biggest appeals of this trip – better than the beer and chocolate even!


After taking the kids to a playground and lunch, my brother and I were able to go for a run.  I remember grabbing my heart rate monitor strap while packing, but I couldn’t find it in my suitcase (flashforward: it was found in a box of diapers when we got home) – luckily I still had the Garmin watch unit to track and quantify the run.  My brother led the way – luckily he let me know it would be a lot of climbing early on, so that three-quarters of the time would be spent on half the distance – otherwise I’d have thrown in the towel early.  We got 10km done in just under an hour – pretty good considering the hills.




In the afternoon we made an outing to downtown Bad Homburg for ice cream – running and spaghetti ice cream were the two things I wanted to have regularly on vacation – things were off to a decent start!
I didn’t do any food photography or else I’d offer you a better view of Spaghetti Ice Cream.  Note the Lightning Kid’s smeared face and trademark electrified hair.


DAY 3:


On Monday the weather was terrible and fatigue levels were high so we didn’t get up to much besides visiting my brother’s sister and brother-in-law (does that make them my in-laws squared?).  It gave the kids a change of scenery and a chance to play with other kids  (though I suspect the novelty of different toys is the real draw for them) and the adults got to partake in the German tradition of coffee and cake (though maybe I should have tried harder to emphasize more of the former and less of the latter.


DAY 4:


With the long weeknd over we had a prime opportunity to take the kids to a local pool.  We took Shark Boy and his younger cousin and kept the Lightning Kid at home due to his lingering cough and a possible ear infection.


Community pools in Germany are like shopping malls with different size pools instead of stores – warm pools for kids, lap-swimming pools, outdoor pools, water slides, wading pools, whirlpools (do I sound like Bubba from Forrest Gump yet?)… enough to rival some full-on water parks in North America.  It’s frustrating to think how often pools back home struggle to survive city budget cuts when they would have a fraction of the operating costs they do in Germany.  It seems like the culture embraces physical activity and being in the water more somehow – which doesn’t make me feel any better about the situation back home.


The good news is that Shark Boy had a blast – his favourite was the smallest slide, though he was willing to do the biggest one with me – a long, dark twisting tunnel with lights that flashed on and off – he politely declined a second go round.  Non-swimmer kids were required to wear water wings – these gave him some extra confidence to be at arms length from me; in fact, by the time I gave him a flutter board, he was using his flutter kick to swim clear away from me and I had to chase after him.  Though it was heavily assisted – it was the first time he moved himself through the water independently and I considered it a milestone to be proud of.


TO BE CONTINUED! STAY TUNED FOR PART 2!
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The Germany Journals (Ger-nals?) Part 4

When we last left off, my brother and his family had just joined us in Heiligensee, near Berlin.  Read The Germany Journals (Ger-nals?) Parts One, Two and Three if you haven’t already.


DAY 13:


Once the kids are all up, we got the fun of seeing them play together and then a quick bike ride to the park – with a combination of bikes with kid seats, a trailer, and little bikes for Shark Boy and his cousin.  We got to the playground, played on the playground train (made of stumps) then the slide and a game of hide and seek.  The Lightning Kid sat this little excursion out in favour of a morning nap – but when we got back for lunch and naps for the rest of them – it was his turn to ride in the bike seat.
I generally prefer the trailer for safety reasons, but it’s great to see him enjoy the ride (and more importantly, tolerate a helmet).

We’d seen posters around town for a Kids’ Fair near the big shopping mall.  Things to do for kids seem to be always available in Germany – if you know where to find them.  In this case our search led us through the mall which resulted in extra stops for espresso, ice cream (my third spaghetti ice cream of the trip) and books (as well as a tantrum or two).

We had some trouble finding the place (it’s a semi-industrial/commercial park) and when we did – there was barely anyone there.  The carny/operator guy seemed to think the threatening weather had kept the crowds back but I couldn’t help but think the hidden location added to that.  The good news was we could walk onto any attraction like a bouncy castle as a family or even have rides stopped and started at our leisure.  There may have been some bent rues about adults on rides too… We called it an evening before the rain hit and got the kids home for dinner and bedtime.


DAY 14:

In the morning we took all the kids on another riverboat cruise except the Lightning Kid.  Its pretty uneventful, in spite of the kids’ efforts to run around, split up, and generally get close to railings and other threats.

In the afternoon my brother’s family and mine split up to visit different friends – in our case, an old friend of my wife’s who lives in Teltow.  It’s a second chance for Shark boy to play with his little friend who he’d previously abandoned in favour of a boat ride.

To me, driving in Germany is a little more stressful than back home – there’s different rules for right of way (cars entering the street from the right have right of way unless otherwise marked – very counter-intuitive), you can’t turn right on red, the speed limits (or lack thereof) on the Autobahn and generally dealing with the fact that you don’t know where you’re going.  Like I said, it’s a little more stressful.. but factor in dark and rainy weather, rush hour traffic and noisy kids in the back seat and you have a white-knuckle experience.  Our GPS unit seemed determined to route us to every major road and highway via some byzantine combination of side streets and alleyways.  There might have been smoke coming out of my ears by the time we got there but it’s nothing a beer and pasta dinner (plus cake and cookies) couldn’t fix.

DAY 15:

We took the kids to Jack’s Fun World again; it was interesting to see how the presence of his cousins affected Shark Boy’s behaviour – he was a lot more game to get onto structures and trampolines and less into riding solo on video game motorcycles and other stationary, coin-operated machines.  He even tackles some slides that he left alone the last time we were here.  A big highlight for me is seeing the Lighting Kid flash his big smile at me when we ride the little train together.

Knowing we’ve got the journey back to Frankfurt the next day, we opted for a slower afternoon rather than take the kids swimming – they’d had enough big time action for the day.  It was nice to keep things simple at home and we got a shot of the kids together on the couch in what is becoming an annual tradition.

DAY 16:

Heading back to Bad Homburg, the families were splitting up in a race – the train (ICE & S-trains) versus car.  Would the delays of train stations and transfers be less or more than those of Autobahn traffic jams? (Note: my hand-written journal runs out here. A month later and my memory of our last day is a little hazier). We rode the ICE a little more knowledgeably this time, and managed to keep the boys reasonably entertained (resulting in reasonably good behaviour) for that portion of the ride back. Moving around the cars and getting food proved challenging, as the train was full of drunken, loud Bayern-Muenchen fans on their way back from a Champions League Final victory.


We made it to Frankfurt station and felt like ice cream… but we were being ice cream snobs and the Hagen Daaz and Movenpick kiosks were not going to cut it, so we got a couple of pastries instead and boarded the S-Bahn/S Train. S-Bahns are a little like street cars on steroids, and tend to help bind outlying communities and suburbs to the downtown core of cities like Frankfurt. Ours was very crowded and our stroller had to fight for space with bikes… while a separate section of seats were vacant. They were ‘First Class’ seats; I found the idea of a First Class section in a commuter train service very odd, but there you have it.

Riding the rails (again).

We spent a lovely evening as two families; the kids playing in the backyard and take-out pizza for dinner. One last night and the next morning we would be winging our way home.

The flight home was not overnight like the way to Germany, so we were a little worried. Fortunately, the boys kept their chaos on the lighter side, and we also had another empty seat beside us. We shuffled around quite a bit to keep everybody satisfied.


This picture is not representative of the overall flight

The young lady you can see in the background of the picture actually managed to catch Shark Boy and keep him from falling off the seats while he was sleeping. I thanked her profusely, but the best part was that she had forgotten a bouquet of flowers, and we were able to find her at baggage claim and return them to her; Shark Boy did the honours of hand delivering them. And with that, we were home, safe and sound.

Obviously there are a lot of great memories in a trip like this, but I won’t lie: it was exhausting, and overall made me wonder if it’s worth all the effort. More than what I got out of the trip, or what the kids got out of the trip though, is its symbolic value (for lack of a better term). We are a family with widely varied interests and priorities, we might have some special needs, we have personalities that could be classified as forces of nature, but we will travel. We will seek adventure, we will cherish our extended family, whether it’s now when it’s hard because the children are so young, when it’s a little easier because they’re somewhat more manageable, or even when they’re teenagers and don’t want to hang with their parents quite so much. Values like these are instilled through tradition, and tradition means repetition, and sticking to it even when it’s hard.
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The Germany Journals (Ger-nals?) Part 3

See Parts 1 and 2 if you haven’t read them yet.

DAY 9:

Still more rain and cold that morning – it was starting to really get to me. It was either pouring or drizzling all. the. time. We managed to while away the morning knowing we had a game plan for after the midday nap – Jack’s Fun World – an indoor playground built in an industrial warehouse space – it was HUGE. I started calling it “Captain Jack’s” after a song Shark Boy had learned at daycare – especially because it reminded me of another Captain Jack Song.




The place was filled with ball pits, climbing structures, trampolines, slides and such which were included in the admission as well as things that costed a surcharge – bumper boats, video games, mini-golf, and those stationary rides you find in shopping malls like cars, trains and helicopters that shake when you put coins in. To my utter disappointment Shark Boy wanted nothing to do with the former attractions and insisted on the latter (I refused to spend an extra cent). It’s not that I found that kind of preference shocking in general – I probably would have done the same thing at his age – but it seemed so out of character for HIM.

After a meltdown about me not springing for mini-golf clubs (how does he even know what that is?) my low-blood sugar detector went off, and we got both kids some ice cream. That seemed to do the trick – he was into the ball pit and climbing structures in is usual way – seemingly teleporting from one end to another – and generally taking years off my life as I’d lose sight of him every few minutes.




He’d give us another example of his over-abundant energy levels before the night was out. Our hosts, my father-in-law and his wife had the idea to have dinner at the local resto-pub – it’s a short walk away from the house. Shark Boy got a chance to show off his new bike and his ability to ride it, while my father-in-law opted to spare himself from the rain and make the short drive. We crossed the street, put him on the bike, pointed him in the direction of the restaurant and off he went. I was carrying the Lightning Kid and I lost sight of him quickly. It took me a good minute to realize that our two ladies who were walking ahead of me had no idea how far ahead he’d gotten and when they started trying to catch him they’d be far too slow. I dropped the Lightning Kid off with his grandfather at the restaurant then took off at my top speed. I was in jeans and running shoes and I went full out for 600 m before I even saw him. His grandfather’s wife had asked a jogger (with a better head start than me) to stop him. He was already at a major intersection when normally his habit was to stop at every crossing.



I was too winded and angry to muster a good scolding or punishment so I put him back on the bike back toward the restaurant with instructions to stop when he reached his mother. He ignored that and blew right by her. Another sprint for me and bike privileges revoked – my idea to throw the bike into the river was not taken seriously by anyone. I guess I should have been grateful to do some speed work – but safety first, especially for the kids.



DAY 10:



I guess the night cooled off any bike-related anger. My father-in-law, a.k.a Opa wanted to take Shark Boy on a longer bike ride. We planned to meet in town; my wife, the Lightning Kid and I would go in by car – while Opa and his wife would take Shark Boy through the forest on the bikes. I had my reservations but if they wanted to take on the challenges of a preschooler, more power to them. I told him not only to listen to when they told him to stop, but to ask them to stop if he was getting tired.



They ended up taking a wrong turn in the forest looking for a pen where wild boars are kept (not so wild, I guess) and long story short – they rode 10 km. He’s three and a half. He’d been riding a bike for less than a week at this point. He even had too much spare energy to sit still in a chair at the restaurant were we all ate lunch together (“Weil” – aptly name since service took a “while”). Fortunately we were seated outdoors (the weather was finally warming up – in fact the intense sunlight took some getting used to) in the pedestrian area of town so he could run around.




We ate Flammkuchen and afterwards we went to an Italian Ice Cafe that had a Spaghetti Ice Cream so good it made the last one I had in Bad Homburg seem like hot garbage.



We got home and put the boys down for an afternoon nap and I took that as a cue to get a run in. Shark Boy’s achievements of the day inspired me to go long – I skipped my *Burbathlon* antics to taake a route along the river Havel. I needed my hydration pack along since lunch had made me thirsty, but that also let me take my camera long to get some pictures from the riverbank. 12.5 km – my longest run since the *Chilly Half-Marathon*. I had a respectable pace that I liked, though I think I missed the negative split.







DAY 11:



German Hay Fever seemed to have been worse than the home brew and the Lightning Kid was still experiencing lots of wake-ups and still consistently getting up at 5 AM. These two factors had me too tired to do much on my morning walk with the Lightning Kid beyond a few toe-touching type light exercises and some triceps dips.

Get two of every animal…





The weather turned so nasty that hail pellets are overflowing the gutter. The day’s Saving Grace (or saving throw, for you geekier types) is a date night at a nice Italian restaurant.



DAY 12:



We take a riverboat cruise from Tegel back to Heiligensee – keeping a 1&1/2 year-old safe, yet happy on a boat is a lot of work but a mid-day snack of Berlin Currywurst knocks an item off the ‘must-eat’ list…



My allergies were starting to kick into high-gear… the congestion from hay fever relegated me to the couch for snoring but it works out since I’m better able to greet my brother and his family when they arrive late that night: Let the Games begin!

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The Germany Journals (Ger-nals?) Part 2

This was the day we would make the trip from Frankfurt to Berlin.  While my wife and I packed, my brother took Shark Boy outside.  The next thing I knew, he’s asking me: “You know your son can ride a bike, right?”


To rewind a bit, Shark Boy does a great job on his glider bike and can balance and steer no problem.  Still when we’ve tried to move him up to a regular bike, he’s stayed fixated on the idea that he needs training wheels.  He even threw a fit when he saw me remove them from his new Ultimate Spider Man bike.  Getting him to ride it has been semi-successful, but he still didn’t seem that close to being able to go it alone.  A couple of days watching his older cousin ride a bike, and away we go!  Swimming … biking … can Kids Of Steel be far away?


Before our train departure, we walked around downtown Frankfurt for a bit, which I recommend for those that like modern architecture and/or high-end clothing stores and had some lunch.



Sandcastles in downtown Frankfurt.


The Inter City Express is a world famous fast train – I was excited to show it to Shark Boy after he’d read about it in books; although we were on it last year he didn’t notice much – a stomach bug had turned him into a near-zombie.


We had a cabin “reserved” – the 8 Euro extra charge didn’t make much of a difference as we had company the entire 4 hour trip.  I guess the train was too full – I’d have thought two small children would have been more of a deterrent to solo travellers. It turns out, you can only reserve the seats you sit it, which makes a certain amount of sense, I guess.


I spent most of the train ride carrying the Lightning Kid through the cars of the train (including ones that were identified as ‘QUIET’) from one end to the other.  Someday I’m going to write a post about all the calories I burn on the kids that I don’t get to count…Both boys fell asleep with all of 45 minutes left on the train ride.  Still we arrived in Berlin (Spandau Station) excited to start the next phase in our adventure.


A little too excited in the boys’ case! The new environment seemed to be an over-stimulation which combined with their over-tiredness to make for a very late, tedious bedtime routine – bad news for their jet lag adjustment.


DAY 6:


Thanks to our hosts taking the boys on first thing in the morning, I had a bit of a sleep-in .  We took them into Tegel for some shopping – riding a double-decker bus is a big draw for Shark By and the Lightning Kid seemed to like it too.  The effects of the night before were felt heavily as the kids seemed to need lunch and their nap times an hour or two earlier than expected and hopes for getting a run in while they napped in tandem were dashed.  I took the Lighting Kid to my favourite playground in the stroller.  I hadn’t changed out of my jeans but my plan B was successful – he fell asleep on the way there.  I used the park benches and playground for

  • Incline Push-ups
  • Tricep Dips
  • Negative Phase Pull-ups
  • Squats
  • Single-leg lunges on the swings
  • Inch worms (on the train set – plank across two ‘cars’, then bring feet forward to the car your hands are on, move your hands forward into another plank, etc.)
  • Planks
  • Side Planks
Tricep dips on one of the ‘train’ cars



I was doing a side plank on a park bench, looking at a (rare) blue sky, listening to the birds chirp and thinking about how peaceful it all was when I heard “WAAAAAAH!” – the Lightning Kid woke up.   Still, everybody had gotten what they needed: fresh air and exercise for me, sleep for everyone else.  We had a very pleasant rest of the afternoon as a family.


DAY 7:


I don’t really want to write about this day.  The only undertaking was a trip into town for a few things and the promise of ice cream.  It was a nightmare as the kids’ nap and eating schedules were still off, so there were a lot of tantrums and screaming.  AND THE ICE CREAM CAFE’S MACHINE BROKE DOWN SO I COULDN’T GET SPAGHETTI ICE CREAM!


Side note 1: If you don’t know spaghetti ice cream, it’s soft ice cream pushed through a press to come out in noodles, coated in strawberry sauce and either grated coconut or white chocolate and the whole pile hides a little mound of whipped cream.


Side note 2: I might as well take the opportunity here to talk about one of my favourite things here in Germany.  When a house uses radiators for heat, it’s hard to stay warm if you’re in the wrong spot and we’ve had unseasonably cold (and wet) weather here this trip.  The plus side is these incredibly practical radiators in the bathrooms (and sometimes in a front hall).  Back home, between swims, gym workouts and showers not to mention regular hygiene I go through a lot of towels so I’d love it if I had one of these that could not only quick dry a used towel, but warm it too.



DAY 8:


In spite of continuing cold and rainy weather we braved a trip to the forest playground – Shark Boy rode his bike the entire way there while my wife chased him and I pushed the Lightning Kid in the stroller through the drizzle.  He fell asleep again before we got there and while Shark Boy played with his mother I snuck in a few push-ups, step-ups and tricep dips.  The playground is somewhat sheltered by the trees but when the Lightning Kid woke up and the rain worsened we opted to return home.  After an early lunch we got the kids down for a tandem nap and instead of the run I wanted to do, I did a living room workout instead.
  • Push Ups (100 Push Up workout 5 sets – 20, 30, 18, 18, 34)
  • Negative Phase Pull-ups
  • Lunges with 3 kg dumbbells overhead
  • Side Planks

I also developed and exercise with
  • no weights/equipment
  • functional compound movement
  • whole-body muscle recruitment


My idea is to create an alternative burpee (my wife dubbed my creation “burpees for engineers” finding them somewhat complex).  I’ll share it in a future post, but for now let’s stay on topic.


We had arranged for an afternoon playdate for Shark Boy with a friend of my wife’s and her 4 year-old son that afternoon at the same time that my father-in-law was having visitors who came by boat.  What ended up happening was that he was effectively kidnapped (I’m sure there’s a term for nautical abductions) for a few hours and our poor 4 year-old visitor had to split his time between the 19 month-old Lightning Kid and the grown-ups. Yuck!

Luckily Shark Boy came back in time for them to spend a good hour or two torturing me with silly faces.  We watched the all-important Champions League (soccer) final between two German teams: Bayern Muenchen versus Borussia Dortmund being cheered on by my wife and I respectively.  What can I say? She sure can pick a winner – she married me didn’t she?