More ice creams!

So, apologies for the lack of update in the last couple of days ! We left the place of frank zander having been hit for about 20quid a night at jagerbude where the proprietor directed all new comers 'round the back' despite there being lots of empty, purpose built pitches in better locations..showers where another 50c per 2 mins, washing up water another 50c, surprised we didnt get charged for the kids dancing ! so to do my bit for caravan site reviews near berlin 'dont bother with jagerbude'
We stopped at a park and ride at fangschleuse train station so we could get into berlin for the day. Where does one park a 7meter van when the car park is full was the next challenge. Figured the two disabled spots wouldn't fly with the local police so parked in the largest open space i could find that would leave space for the local bus to turn, then we hopped on the double decker train much to fellow commuters delight with excited kids and wingy baby :-)
The journey was compliments of DB bahn as there were no ticket machines and no guard...getting off at friedrichstrasse there was no barrier so i guess in some sense karma ruled and we got our jagerbude money back!
On the train into berlin you could just about still see glimpses of the wall approaching alexanderplatz but very little of it and obviously on the tourist bus route now.
Off at friedrichstrasse and we walked up to unter den linden, the road leading up to brandenberg gate where it was lunch time and the usual 30 minute toilet stop for charlotte :-) zoe spread her lunch around her face then had a paddy a tenth of the way through as per normal too !
We decided to take an open top bus tour to get around..horrible idea i know, but got us around without walking and you could get off at each stop and catch the next one along so no need to sit on a sweltering bus all day (it was boiling) and no need to rush the sites either. We saw the main sites of course..brandenburg gate and the whole center of berlin having been remodelled since i was there 20 years ago..have to dig the photos out when we get home to compare but certainly not much wall left and all the no-mans land now taken up by office blocks of course.
We left berlin from fredrichstrasse where we arrived having spent a good 20mins trying to get the ticket machine to do english :-)
Arrived back at fangschleuse to have dinner in the van before driving to poland. This is when bev noticed we'd picked up a parking ticket ! A few exchanges of text messages with skipper mark back home and worked out we needed a sparkasse bank or post office or a clever disguise should we ever want to return to the area. Fuming for several minutes about the situation (ant not bev), making several references to history under my breath and taking a leak with anxious anticipation of being stung with a public disorder notice i saw a massive coach followed by an artuculated bendy bus swing past us giving me the evils and i realised we'd been blocking them up all day so 15 eur fine fair do's i guess..still, a problem to pay bank or post office at 6pm when we were due to be in poland in 3hr time :-(
Any how leaving the station heading for the nearest post office we spotted a rollerblader getting into her car and luckily Bevs german got us through and she offered to lead us to the sparkasse bank..speeding off at 0-60 (sorry 100 for you europeans) in 3.5 seconds she showed no respect for our built in fridge and for once, full to the brim water store. Luckily the stig of campervan world kept up and we arrived at the now closed bank but many thanks to rollerblade girl of fangschleuse ! We then met our second friendly german at her bank in gunheide..after some explanation of our situation she offered to fill in the payment details on the form with her bank account and we handed her the 15 euro cash and the form was deposited in the post box at the bank, so many thanks carola liebsch of gunheide for helping us out and really sorry you missed the super market closing !
We then set off for poland ....

Poland doesnt like tomtom, or tomtom doesnt like poland :-) half the time the car appears about 50 feet off the road, the rest of the time they've done so much road construction that we appear to be driving through fields ! Fun fun...by about midnight we'd got to somewhere in the middle of nowhere having hoped to find a layby only to find they dont have them in poland by the looks of it. Poland was of course a very different atmosphere having driving through scezinek on the border and felt decidedly uncomfortable...
We stopped, too tired to continue at trabki, at night, not too welcoming and even jeremy said it didnt feel safe...it was however just different to the affluence we're used to seeing and despite a night where bev had little sleep (waking me up to tell me about a 'car' that had stopped near us) it was much more friendly by daylight as most places are. The shop didnt take euro tho, and we had no zloty so breakfast was limited !
Driving towards our planned stop near lakes at czaplinek we realised cash is king..the last few days in fact, less and less places accept cards. In poland tho, cards and maybe no cash points either ! Suddenly we're in a place where its difficult to get cash out (seems to be some limit on how much you can get from a atm at any one time) and we need to fill up with diesel every 5 minutes ! Luckily we got sorted at a town on the way and found at the same time the poles to be very friendly people with a shaven headed tattooed lad showing me in perfect english where to go to exchange currency having noticed the trouble i was having with the bank clerk.
We've now stopped at czaplinek right on the lake and decided to stay 3 nights to chill especially as the kids are enjoying it here. Jem and charlotte have been swimming, playing pool, goading the other children by trying to sneak up on them (jeremy thinks that his green t-shirt is some sort of invisibility cloak against the grass and has been crawling up to other children not quite understanding how they spot him - charlotte is of course a foot behind him in bright pink and shouting). We went canoeing today and jem was a natural on his first attempt (if you exclude the last time bev and i went to scotland when she was pregnant with him) charlotte enjoyed it too but wasn't too keen on the drips from daddys paddle :-) jems also made friends with 'sonia' next door, having left them a note to say 'lublie' (i like) and a picture of a dog(sonia is a daschund) and not to forget zoe who is full on crawling(especially towards paper, grass, dirt or sand), shes been a real challenge like her predecessors to feed solids ! Every time the baby pots and spoons come out its paddy time but tonight bev hopefully made a breakthrough as zoe ate a whole ellas kitchen straight from the packet with her super suck ! No mess, no spoon, no bowl..now that could be a winning formula if only we had enough to last the next 7 or so weeks !