So everything in Berlin is a bit mysterious.  From the outside most buildings either look like architectural competition winners or bomb shelters where heroin addicts and crack heads hang out.  There is very little in between.  So yesterday we decide to go to an indoor putt putt park for a little R&R.  This is what it looked like from the outside.

We wandered around.  No signs.  No friendly people nearby.  Only graffiti. And empty beer bottles.  On a whim I opened the door and voila!  It was like an oasis inside. There was a small cafe, a room where infants and toddlers were playing.  Happy people!  And downstairs there was glow in the dark putt putt golf course.

Fun!!!  18 holes of glow in the dark fun.  Ruled over by an older German man who schooled Declan and Cal on the finer points of putt putt by yelling "YA!" when they made a good shot and "NO!"  when they made a bad shot. Tough to shake him in a basement. Mystery solved.

Another mystery.  The other day we went into a comic book store.  I'm thinking, comic book store + 2 boys = fun!  We walk in and it is the world's most unfriendly comic book store.  Seriously, the guy behind the counter took one look at the boys and thought,"Ugh, kids. I'd rather be cleaning up the nuclear waste at Fukashima." The hairy eye ball followed our every move.  Cal would pick up a book and the guy looked at me as if to say, "If you gave your child a loaded gun, that would be a better parenting choice than letting him look at that comic book.  Look at the cover woman!!!" So we slinked around the store, feeling the heat of his glare, Dec picked up a Calvin and Hobbs book and thumbed through a couple of pages.  He guy clicked his tongue, waved his finger and made him put it down. NO LOOKING AT COMICS IN THE COMIC BOOK STORE!  We left.  Needless to say we didn't buy and of his stinkin comics.

Today we are going to try and solve another mystery.  We are going make our second run at the Museum of Things.  It's a cute little museum about objects in our neighborhood.  Time Out Berlin said that it is cool so we are going to go! We tried to go earlier in the week but I read the hours wrong and it was closed.  Unfortunately, I still cannot read German and even though I've been here for 3 weeks and even though the door was closed, I couldn't seem to figure that out.  There was a serve yourself vending machine near the front and I thought to myself, "The key to that museum must be in there!" There was an Englishman there along with us who was trying to get in as well and he agreed that the key must be in there. So we hunted down the right change, opened the little door in the vending machine and this is what we got:

A eyeglass cleaner
A plastic rain poncho
2 sweets
2 cocktail umbrellas

No key to the museum. 

The English guy got this in his bag:

a measuring tape
2 sweets
a pair of dice
some asprin

No key to the museum

He was pretty bummed because he was going back to England before the museum was open again so I offered to send him a postcard once we had visited.  He gave me his card.  He is a translator. But he couldn't translate that the there was no key in the vending machine. This man is not a good translator.  Nice man. Not a good translator.  So if you ever need anything translated in Bath, England.  Don't look up this guy.