Playground impressions

Lots of stuff going on... We visited some schools that we are considering for Clara next year. School properly starts in first grade here, so since Clara is in Kindergarten (Vorschule) right now we have to pick a school for her for first grade. The sign-up period is in October. It's quite complicated because our highest priority is to try and find a bilingual English/German school for her. There are several here in Berlin but the demand is so high that it is not easy to get in. Now we may have found one that Clara will have a good chance at, because she is truly bilingual and fluent in both languages. But the other issue with those schools is that they are very far away from our current apartment, and also from our workplaces. Trying to figure out the commutes is head-spinning.

At some point we can probably make a proper blogpost about how school works here - it's different from North America in many ways, and also different from when I was a kid.

Just in case the bilingual options don't work out, we're also looking at some of the local schools. Unfortunately, several of them have a poor reputation. In our parent-teacher meeting in Clara's class this week all the parents were very annoyed with this situation and a lot of families "opt-out", by sending their kids to the local Catholic school or stating their son will go to school "anywhere but not in Moabit". There are a few schools that I have heard ok things about, so we're trying to look at those and decide which one is the best one. The entire school system in Berlin is in major overhaul so the concepts of individual schools can differ quite a lot (how long the school day is, whether grades 1/2 or even 1/2/3 are taught together, individual focus of the school, etc.).

There is much more going on work-wise and so on... but we've been trying to enjoy the nice fall weather a bit, too. We had to take out our winter clothes because it's very cold in the mornings. The kids and I have been riding our bikes to daycare in the mornings (even Oscar!) but Oscar lost his walky-bike privileges for this trip because he sometimes just does not move or rides in the wrong direction or gets off and on the bike every two steps... and then I have to carry him and his bike, which is just too much. On the way to school/work, my patience is limited. Poor Oscar, tomorrow he'll have to ride on the back of my bike again! Clara will be happy though because I think she got pretty bored by having to wait for slow-poke Oscar at every intersection.

Clara "flying" under Fernsehturm...