Ostern Schnee

Apparently the weather is bad globally this Easter. Maybe it's a sign of global warming, maybe not. We heard through the internets that the roads in our hometown were slush-covered and slippery last night, and reading this made us glad we were not there this Easter.

We drove to Berlin Friday evening, partly because the weather during the day was quite terrible. We woke up yesterday morning (remember, it has not snowed all winter in Wiesbaden) to pebble-sized hail, then fat snowflakes, and then more hail. I took pictures of snowflakes perching on the blooms of my azaleas. And then the sun came out. So we got in the car and drove towards Berlin and were soon met with... more snow. Enormous snowflakes slicked the surface of the Autobahn, and me with my summer tires :(

We made it to the Hotel Bogota (http://www.hotel-bogota.de/) safe and sound but it is not a drive I would like to repeat. Much of the Autobahn between Frankfurt and Berlin is twisty and mountainous, and there wasn't much traffic, which was good and bad. Good in that if I slid, or needed to brake, there was most often no one in front of me. Bad in that there were no tail lights to follow...

Today the highlight of my day -- pun intended, sorry -- is getting my hair colored at an Aveda salon (http://www.lux-eleven.de/) in Berlin. Yes, I drove from Wiesbaden to Berlin to have my hair done. It's Aveda, which means it's plant-based and not chemical-based, which I like. And they will use my exact formula (although, of course, your mileage may vary), so little experimenting *crosses fingers* will be required. And I'll feel younger and *crosses fingers* prettier for my upcoming stupendously-pointless gigundous stress-inducing meeting with the executive directors from back home, which is worth some $$$. And R will be mightily bored. But I have tempted him with a day of Legoland tomorrow, so that lets me off the hook, maternally. I got tickets for us to go to "Soul 4Kids" ("Deutscher soul stellt sich vor... ") tomorrow night at the Admiralspalast (http://www.admiralspalast.de/) on Friederichstraße, which also features a show called "Swing Royal Easter Ballroom" with the "Puppini Sisters" tonight (who appear to be a straight-faced send-up of the Andrews Sisters) to which I am sorely tempted to also drag R. Yes, it's a selfish grownup sort of a weekend for me, with occasional forays into kiddom for R's sake. Today, for example, I am letting him watch the Berenstein Bears (auf Deutsch of course) before we go adventuring on the U-Bahn to the Aveda salon.

Tonight: the DDR museum, and Checkpoint Charlie.

This started out as an email to a friend, and ended up as a post on a blog no one reads. WTF? And on re-reading it I noticed it reads like an ad for Berlin which, I guess, it is. I love Berlin. I wish we lived in Berlin, or at least lived closer to it.