This was an interesting week for the McNeills.

The week started normal enough. We were excited to get our container from the US and the weather was finally warming up. However, on Tuesday we had a bit of a setback; Chad was laid off. Yes, it’s strange and no it doesn’t make any sense to recruit someone for several months, pay to bring them halfway across the world and then lay them off after only 4.5 weeks of work. There is no rational or reasoning. There is no good excuse or even a semblance thought that was put into the decision. Chad was one of 30 people laid off due to an internal power struggle that he couldn’t forsee or control. In the wake of the layoffs his boss was also let go and it’s likely Chad was a casualty of the way his boss was perceived in the weeks leading up to the event. Nonetheless, Chad handled the news with grace and respect. He took the rest of the week to hand over all work and sent an inspiring email to the company where he encouraged them to press forward with the products and to not let minor setbacks stop them from achieving the goals they have set for 2018.

If you subscribe to this blog then you likely care about us. So, let us take a moment to let you know that we are fine. This is not a major issue for us but rather a small setback. We remain positive, happy and are excited for the next wonderful opportunity that will befall Chad. We intend to stay in Berlin and Chad is already taking meetings with various groups that are excited to have someone with his experience already in country.

Although Tuesday was a bit of a blindside there was no time to lament because our container arrived on Wednesday. Doreen had to go to the Passport office in the AM so Chad spent the morning making trips from the temporary place to the new flat. Although it was only 300 meters away, that’s a lot when you are carrying belongings for a family of 3 an 2 pets. We wrapped up by 1 pm and barely had a moment to spare as our container arrived. It was a sight to be seen. We have each had 1 or 2 things that we have missed since our move. For Doreen it was her foam roller and bed. For Chad it was his valet and night stand so he could have a place for his keys and wallet and for Logan it was “…all my toys.”

We’ve met some great people since we’ve been here and Ben is one of those people. Ben hails from the Middle East. He moved to Berlin many years ago and speaks 7 languages. He’s helped us with our lighting and general maintenance of our new place. On Wednesday he brought a friend to help us unload and carry our belongings to our apartment. We unloaded the container in 45 min and had everything up in the new flat less than 2 hours after the container arrived. We spent the majority of Thursday and Friday organizing our flat and getting used to the building.

As Saturday rolled around it became obvious that we needed to go back to our favourite place to shop; Hoeffner. You might remember Hoeffner from a few weeks back as the place with the man dressed all in white. Well guess what, he had a new costume and remembered Chad when he saw him. Guess who got a new selfie with a new costume? It might be worth it to go back seasonally just to see what Mr. Hoeffner is dressed as. We returned some of our goods, purchased new goods, saw the equivalent of German Home Depot “Baumarkt,” and checked in at Ikea to make it a hat-trick. We needed a several small things but also a desk. Thankfully Ikea could supply us a compact heavy box that would become a desk with a little patience and ingenuity. We are getting quite good at the U-Bahn Moving as the locals call it.

We took it easy on Sunday. We had lunch at the new Berlin location for the oldest brewery in the world, Weihenstephan established in 1034. This is your typical Munich based German brewery feel with lederhosen, huge steins, and the usual delicious food like sausage and headcheese.

As we try to do every Sunday we experienced a little culture. On our walk back we explored a new street that Doreen had been down before. Our stop on the U-Bahn [Subway] is Rosa-Luxemburg Platz; named after Rosa Luxemburg the famous philosopher, economist, anti-war activist, and socialist. Near the U-Bahn stop is the square that bears her name with the building that is dedicated to her activism. On the city blocks surrounding the building are famous quotes from her.

Rosa, born March 5th, 1871, was an impressive woman. She was a polish-jewish immigrant who escaped the persecution of the Russians and fled to Switzerland. She received her doctorate in 1898 while in Zurich and rethought Karl Marx social theories to reform them into democratic social discourse. She disagreed with Lenin’s need for strict party structure in favour of the natural order of the proletariat. For this she was jailed. After being released from jail in 1907 she returned to Berlin to teach at the Social Democratic Party School where she paved the way for for free and democratic schools for the working class. To this day the quality of education in German can be traced back to Rosa and her education efforts in Berlin. She was sent back to prison for this work where she wrote one of her most famous articles “The Crisis in the German Social Democracy.” On January 16, 1919 she was arrested again but this time murdered.

Her work was continued in the area of Berlin where we currently live. When WWII broke out this area was one of the first to round up Jewish citizens and send them off to camps. Up and down our street and the surroundinh streets in our Kiez are small gold placards with the names of the Jewish citizens that were taken. The placards carry the person’s name, when they were taken and when they were returned or, in most cases, died in a camp

I don’t know how Rosa would feel about all the hip bakeries and stores in her old Kiez. Would she be proud of the current German education system? Would she be proud that the people get to chose their own destiny by voting even if they have voted for a capitalist democratic society 100 years later? I do know that her presence is felt when you walk down the street and that the lessons she taught are still relevant today.