2004 year end letter
Hello,
It’s time once again for our holiday/end of the year/ beginning of the year/ early spring? letter to our friends and family. We hope that whenever this letter finds you that it finds you well.
Let’s see, frankly the first half of last year is a bit of a blur. Fritz continued to work at Xerox from their Palo Alto office. There he worked with a research group that was doing some interesting video chip development, and helped with the development and with getting it integrated into some Fuji Xerox products. He also did some work moving some copy functions from hardware to software, which resulted in a nice cost savings to the company.
Jackie continued doing the stay at home mom thing with Zoe while Grace started two times a week at a parent’s preschool Co-op called Open Gate Nursery School. It was a great place for Grace to start her schooling experience and Jackie (and Fritz) were very involved with the community there and with the on going operation of the school (working one day a week and attending evening classes, etc.).
With our neighbors, friends and family there in California we plodded along quite contently. We did take a vacation trip to Germany in April, then somewhere along the line the idea of moving to Berlin had formulated. By July we had sold our car, our home and many of our belongings and Fritz had arranged a new job with Xerox working remotely from home in Berlin. By August 5, we were in Germany beginning a new adventure.
We landed in the relatively spacious (well at least for one family) apartment of my sister Sharon who graciously put us up. This was a huge help for us and provided us with a nice soft landing here into a whole new life. The two families got along pretty well (though it was a big transition for all). With help from Sharon and Henner we were able to navigate some of the bureaucracy of moving to a new country (where you don’t speak the language) e.g. registration with the police, Visa permission to live here, etc.
After about a month we were moving into our new apartment; we luckily found a nice apartment at a reasonable price just a few blocks from Sharon in the central Western part of Berlin called Shoeneberg. We had both kids attending German kindergartens and Fritz and I were enrolled in German language classes.
After a few months our apartment is now comfortably furnished. Fritz has built a workable office for himself in a (very) small room of the house and he is busy figuring out how to make his usual significant contribution to Xerox in his new role from home. Working from home (especially when it is 5,000 miles from your team) has been a change for him but he is enthusiastically throwing himself into work and learning German and enjoys both challenges.
The kids both like their Kindergartens. Both are in the neighborhood, just a short walk from the house. The transition was pretty big for them. Zoe went from being at home with me to a full day at Kindergarten (and from sleeping with us to sleeping in her own bed) and Gracie from just 1 ½ hours alone at preschool (and 1 ½ with me there) to full time in a school where everyone speaks a different language. It wasn’t easy at times, especially those first three months (although in retrospect the memory has significantly faded) and now they are for the most part both enjoying their new lifestyle.
Zoe has really grown up this past year going from a baby to a full-fledged Toddler (she’ll be 2 in March). She continues to be full of joy and often laughing although she has a tremendous will (especially when it comes to dressing and undressing herself) and I like to call it a good sense of herself (ie. she won’t take **it from anyone, I think her teacher called it something like “a quiet certainty” about her). She is still not talking in sentences yet but seems to be developing bilingually. (German friends are always pointing out to us things she is saying that we don’t even notice.)
She and Gracie are playing together and having lots of fun (until someone gets hurt of course). Gracie continues to be creative and active. As she can now communicate in English quite well, her perspective and way of saying things are often a source of joy and wonder. Her unique combination of enthusiasm and shyness made her integration here an interesting one. But in time she cleverly figured out how to interact with the other children at school at first non verbally, then with English and now more and more in German.
In addition to getting acquainted with the German society we quite intensely have been getting to know each and every new germ/bacteria here in Germany. It seems like we have been continually sick (colds, flues, impetigo, scarlet fever/strep, ear infections, you name it). We have learned a lot of German phrases involving visiting the doctor, illnesses and parts of the body and have even made a few trips to the ER (Erstehilfe in German).
And if that weren’t enough, amidst finding our way among the new germs, the new society, new neighborhood, new home, new work, new school etc, Fritz and Jackie somehow managed to get pregnant once again. Evidently this development occurred in the first few weeks here in Germany and the baby is due mid May (another new set of German vocabulary words). The pregnancy is going well and fairly uneventful. We have found a nice, competent “Hebamme “and OB/GYN here. And we are hoping to have another home, water-birth. All ultrasounds seem to indicate a healthy baby boy is coming and we are openly awaiting him joining our family here.
The move has been a real adventure for our family. I think the transitions we are going through, although we expected them, were even bigger than we could have imagined. Learning the language for example is an extremely big process (especially while maintaining the busy lifestyle of a family of four with small children, etc.) and we are working at it (sometimes seemingly with little progress) whenever we can. Building friendships and a new support system is also slow going but having family here has been greatly supportive (although we need to speak more German!)
Living in a big city for the first time is interesting for us and Berlin has a lot to offer (although one must mention that the Winter here is not at all like in California.) Our neighborhood while in the city and close to everything has somewhat of a “villagey” feel to it and we can carry on many of our daily activities without leaving it. The city is loaded with museums, theatres, restaurants and parks and we are doing our best to explore them as well as try to see a bit of the neighboring regions. We are also just a short trip away from so many other wonderful and interesting places. We did take a weekend trip (without the kids!) to Naples so far and hope to see more.
Having said that we encourage any of you with interest and means to come over and see us. We have a few visits planned for this year and are looking forward to them greatly.
For those of you that we won’t be seeing this year please do keep in touch. Our email address is the same Jackie_Fritz@hotmail.com. We have a blog page that we have not been so good at keeping up with which is http://ebners_berlin_adventure.blogspot.com/. Our address and phone number is:
Ebner
Eisenacher Strasse 26
10781, Berlin
Deutschland
(+49) (30) 23 62 65 08
Love to all of you!
Jackie, Fritz, Grace and Zoe
It’s time once again for our holiday/end of the year/ beginning of the year/ early spring? letter to our friends and family. We hope that whenever this letter finds you that it finds you well.
Let’s see, frankly the first half of last year is a bit of a blur. Fritz continued to work at Xerox from their Palo Alto office. There he worked with a research group that was doing some interesting video chip development, and helped with the development and with getting it integrated into some Fuji Xerox products. He also did some work moving some copy functions from hardware to software, which resulted in a nice cost savings to the company.
Jackie continued doing the stay at home mom thing with Zoe while Grace started two times a week at a parent’s preschool Co-op called Open Gate Nursery School. It was a great place for Grace to start her schooling experience and Jackie (and Fritz) were very involved with the community there and with the on going operation of the school (working one day a week and attending evening classes, etc.).
With our neighbors, friends and family there in California we plodded along quite contently. We did take a vacation trip to Germany in April, then somewhere along the line the idea of moving to Berlin had formulated. By July we had sold our car, our home and many of our belongings and Fritz had arranged a new job with Xerox working remotely from home in Berlin. By August 5, we were in Germany beginning a new adventure.
We landed in the relatively spacious (well at least for one family) apartment of my sister Sharon who graciously put us up. This was a huge help for us and provided us with a nice soft landing here into a whole new life. The two families got along pretty well (though it was a big transition for all). With help from Sharon and Henner we were able to navigate some of the bureaucracy of moving to a new country (where you don’t speak the language) e.g. registration with the police, Visa permission to live here, etc.
After about a month we were moving into our new apartment; we luckily found a nice apartment at a reasonable price just a few blocks from Sharon in the central Western part of Berlin called Shoeneberg. We had both kids attending German kindergartens and Fritz and I were enrolled in German language classes.
After a few months our apartment is now comfortably furnished. Fritz has built a workable office for himself in a (very) small room of the house and he is busy figuring out how to make his usual significant contribution to Xerox in his new role from home. Working from home (especially when it is 5,000 miles from your team) has been a change for him but he is enthusiastically throwing himself into work and learning German and enjoys both challenges.
The kids both like their Kindergartens. Both are in the neighborhood, just a short walk from the house. The transition was pretty big for them. Zoe went from being at home with me to a full day at Kindergarten (and from sleeping with us to sleeping in her own bed) and Gracie from just 1 ½ hours alone at preschool (and 1 ½ with me there) to full time in a school where everyone speaks a different language. It wasn’t easy at times, especially those first three months (although in retrospect the memory has significantly faded) and now they are for the most part both enjoying their new lifestyle.
Zoe has really grown up this past year going from a baby to a full-fledged Toddler (she’ll be 2 in March). She continues to be full of joy and often laughing although she has a tremendous will (especially when it comes to dressing and undressing herself) and I like to call it a good sense of herself (ie. she won’t take **it from anyone, I think her teacher called it something like “a quiet certainty” about her). She is still not talking in sentences yet but seems to be developing bilingually. (German friends are always pointing out to us things she is saying that we don’t even notice.)
She and Gracie are playing together and having lots of fun (until someone gets hurt of course). Gracie continues to be creative and active. As she can now communicate in English quite well, her perspective and way of saying things are often a source of joy and wonder. Her unique combination of enthusiasm and shyness made her integration here an interesting one. But in time she cleverly figured out how to interact with the other children at school at first non verbally, then with English and now more and more in German.
In addition to getting acquainted with the German society we quite intensely have been getting to know each and every new germ/bacteria here in Germany. It seems like we have been continually sick (colds, flues, impetigo, scarlet fever/strep, ear infections, you name it). We have learned a lot of German phrases involving visiting the doctor, illnesses and parts of the body and have even made a few trips to the ER (Erstehilfe in German).
And if that weren’t enough, amidst finding our way among the new germs, the new society, new neighborhood, new home, new work, new school etc, Fritz and Jackie somehow managed to get pregnant once again. Evidently this development occurred in the first few weeks here in Germany and the baby is due mid May (another new set of German vocabulary words). The pregnancy is going well and fairly uneventful. We have found a nice, competent “Hebamme “and OB/GYN here. And we are hoping to have another home, water-birth. All ultrasounds seem to indicate a healthy baby boy is coming and we are openly awaiting him joining our family here.
The move has been a real adventure for our family. I think the transitions we are going through, although we expected them, were even bigger than we could have imagined. Learning the language for example is an extremely big process (especially while maintaining the busy lifestyle of a family of four with small children, etc.) and we are working at it (sometimes seemingly with little progress) whenever we can. Building friendships and a new support system is also slow going but having family here has been greatly supportive (although we need to speak more German!)
Living in a big city for the first time is interesting for us and Berlin has a lot to offer (although one must mention that the Winter here is not at all like in California.) Our neighborhood while in the city and close to everything has somewhat of a “villagey” feel to it and we can carry on many of our daily activities without leaving it. The city is loaded with museums, theatres, restaurants and parks and we are doing our best to explore them as well as try to see a bit of the neighboring regions. We are also just a short trip away from so many other wonderful and interesting places. We did take a weekend trip (without the kids!) to Naples so far and hope to see more.
Having said that we encourage any of you with interest and means to come over and see us. We have a few visits planned for this year and are looking forward to them greatly.
For those of you that we won’t be seeing this year please do keep in touch. Our email address is the same Jackie_Fritz@hotmail.com. We have a blog page that we have not been so good at keeping up with which is http://ebners_berlin_adventure.blogspot.com/. Our address and phone number is:
Ebner
Eisenacher Strasse 26
10781, Berlin
Deutschland
(+49) (30) 23 62 65 08
Love to all of you!
Jackie, Fritz, Grace and Zoe
posted by jackie and fritz at 5:03 AM
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