Day 20: Not Much Going On

On my walk back this morning, I decided, at Chris' suggestion, to walk by an ornate building I've been seeing in the distance every day. I've been curious as to what it is. Turns out, it's a Jewish Temple. Very ornate. Very beautiful. And very guarded. There is a barricade-style fence around the front and (presumably) armed guards at the entrance. I snuck a photo, but felt I should move along quickly. I didn't even stop to read the "Hello Visitors" sign. But, now I know.

Jewish temple (left), Church where MLK Jr. spoke in '64 (right)

As I was winding my way back "on track", a placard with, what looked like, Martin Luther King Jr's face on it, caught my eye. I got closer to see and, yes, it is him. Behind the gates is a church where he gave a speech on September 13, 1964. Martin Luther King Jr. was on an official visit to the West, but insisted on visiting the East. In his sermon, he said, "No man-made barrier can erase the fact that God's children live on both sides of the Wall." His audience responded by singing versus from Let my people go. (begin watery eyes right about now)

A woman approached me, while I was reading about his visit, and she said, in English (am I that obvious?), "You should go into the church. It is very beautiful inside. It's an open church, you can see inside. There is a very large .... inside." She couldn't quite find the English word, but I think she was trying to say organ? I replied with a thank you and that perhaps I'd come back when properly dressed (me underdressed in my exercise outfit!)

I'm sad I didn't photograph yesterday's lunch,
so today, I took two photos.

For today's lunch, the kids and I decided to go right downstairs to the Vegetarian (gasp!) Vietnamese restaurant for noodles. It was "sehr lecker (so tasty)!" However, the poor owner (cook, waiter, whoever) was surprised that the kids didn't eat all their vegetables. They had ordered wonton soup and ate all the wontons, all the noodles and all of my leftover tofu, but they just couldn't eat their green beans, broccoli, and green onions. I'm not sure how it's allowed to order in a vegetarian restaurant and say, "Hold all vegetables, please, and could you add a little meat?"

Time to get the kids out and about. Park time. We went to the big park near us and it was very crowded. The kids have a very hard time getting a turn on certain equipment. Either, the cultural behaviour here is, "I'm on it and I'll get off it when I please, even if that's 20 min from now." Or if it's that we don't speak and can't easily ask, "May I have a turn, please?" Either way, there are people (including parents with their kids) who stay on this one basket-swing FOREVER even if you're lurking nearby staring at them.

So, we decided to go back to the park across the street. The smaller one with the steep slide. This one is practically empty, so a lot more freedom to take turns on different items. I promised the kids we'd go back to the big park another day, when the kids are in school so we can have as many turns as possible.

The kids experiment with this "toy" at the park.

Basket swings, similar to this one, are at a lot of the parks around here.
This is the one is located at the little park (made of scratchy ropes),
but the kids really want to go on the bigger one at the bigger park.

Side note: I have to admit, I have a little irrational fear of going to the parks when everyone is in school. Homeschooling, here in Germany, is against the law. So, I have a feeling that we're going to "get caught". I have my response ready, "Wir reisen aus Amerika (we travel from America)." I'm sure it'll all be fine, but I have that nervous feeling I did when we first began homeschooling and I thought the Truancy Police were going to catch us at the park. In the big scheme, I bet no one cares, so I need to just get over it, right? For now, we tend to go to the park in the early afternoon, either just before school gets out or right after. That way we "blend in" :)

After the park, a quick stop at the market (yes, it does seem like we go every day) and then home for dinner. Chris is out with co-workers tonight (one of the other co-founders is in town from San Francisco, so the whole team is going out to dinner).

P.S. Yesterday was apparently the last day of summer. I wore a sweater and jeans all day today.