A farewell to my favorite addiction in Venray

This is an inanimate object I have grown to love over the last few months! It is our drink dispenser in the call center. On a daily basis I get about 8+ little cappuccinos or chocolades or coffees and they all taste so good. While 8 sounds like a terribly high number one must keep in mind the size of the cup equals maybe your ring finger, so it can’t be more than 3-4 ounces at a time!

I’m going to be sad to say goodbye to this machine. Plus I'm probably going to have a very bad headache next week when I go back to work in Raleigh and have no lovely drinks to enjoy--- Nash I may need a bux break with you and Wesley!

B I N G O

Here is a picture of me doing what I do best, playing games, it was BINGO day for us on Friday! Fun times had by all!

The Blown Up Cathedral

One afternoon we went to visit a cathedral that was left in its damaged state from WWII. It was very unusual to see a blown up cathedral right in the middle of a very busy high street. All around the cathedral life was going on, one could shop for legos, have a Starbucks coffee, go to H & M while thinking about history and how it plays a huge part in this town.

High Tea @ the Hilton

In honor of Mercedes we stopped one afternoon for tea at the Hilton. Very beautiful, very swanky hotel! Here is a picture of the Berlin Bear dressed up like Mr. Hilton! Mercedes- figured you would enjoy seeing this!

Chocolate Made Beautiful

We visited Berlin’s most famous chocolate store one afternoon. The store had all sorts of displays which were of course made out of chocolate. The funniest part of the visit is about 1-2 stories above the store you could see a dentist office! Morale of the story is gorge out on chocolate and then head on upstairs to fix those teeth!

One of my TOP favorite activities in Berlin

So when you think about going out for breakfast you might think IHOP or if you have in the Wake County area you might think NOFO or Southern Season (oh man those sound tasty right now!!). However if you ever get to Berlin you MUST put the Mercedes Benz Dealership, isn't that humorous! It is by and far the BEST breakfast I’ve ever had in all of Europe. Our menu consisted of eggs, the crispiest bacon, the best roll (seriously all the Germans at work like to point out to me that German bread is the BEST in all of Europe and I must admit it is quite tasty!) and the most exciting juice I have ever drank in my whole life, rhubarb juice. Mom and I both agreed it was as if we were drinking rhubarb pie! The breakfast was made even more exciting because we were surrounded by the most glamorous cars. I saw a great NCSU car for Chris and the cutest little person Mercedes. I put that vehicle on my “to buy” list for if Team Ellingson ever expands! I felt like this breakfast would have been even more enjoyed by people like my husband and other gentlemen I know that fawn over the shiniest and best cars out there!

Sbux sighting at checkpoint charlie

Sbux sighting occured at checkpoint charlie, really hillarious to see the bux right where East Berlin was mere years ago, way to go Starbucks for infiltrating Communist land!
Yippee--- got to have my pumpkin spice latte again! This fall I barely got to enjoy my favorite beverages since I’ve been in Venray, but in all honesty I haven’t missed it, cappuccinos over here are TASTY. Luckily while in Berlin we got to have a drink here and of course I got a mug, it has the berlin bear on it and is NCSU red, I suspect Chris will try to use it often!

The Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie

Berlin is an emotionally moving city because you quickly realize that the city was divided until just recently. I thought often while we were there about all the people that were my age that grew up in East Berlin and how their life was probably so different from all of our lives and how they probably grew up missing out on all sorts of simple things we just take for granted. The other weird thing about Berlin is you clearly see where the wall was at all times, so you can wander down a street and go from west to east and vice versa. The city of Berlin left up the “path” of the wall with a brick embedded into the pavement. This really makes you think about how strange it must have been to just have a wall in the middle of the city. I really enjoyed our visit to Checkpoint Charlie, there was tons to read about the wall and tons to see and it was a bit surreal to think about how all of this was so different just 20 years ago. I felt like we were standing and participating in history in real time.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day Mom and I did lots of walking around. We loved walking around and seeing all the old buildings and felt extra lucky because we saw everything all decorated for the holidays, so lots of twinkling lights all around! It was an odd day because it was a holiday yet some places in Berlin were open. Places that were open were car dealerships (maybe so people could go and see the car they asked for that Santa didn’t deliver on?), tourist shops (mom LOVED looking in the tourist shops!! It would be like going to Emerald Isle and hanging out at berts or wings all day!!) and then Madame Tussand’s. I’ve been to the wax museum in London and figured we should saunter through this one mainly just for a chance to get out of the cold for an hour or so. We ended up loving this museum and both appreciated that the museum focused mainly on famous eastern European people and then famous people that had some sort of connection with Germany. My favorite picture is the one of mom and her new BFF, Samuel L Jackson! Notice how they both sport that beret with such style! When I saw Bono I made sure to let him know how happy I was with my husband for getting us tickets to the U2 concert on my birthday, Bono let me know Chris sounded like a pretty sweet husband!