On Friday I left Berlin though and headed to Plessow, which is a small village close to Potsdam. My boyfriend Matt goes to school and lives there. He goes to a customs school and lives in a dorm on the school area. He had planned to have a barbeque with a couple of friends and I was invited. The day was amazing and warm and we even got to enjoy some time of sun while barbequing. I had a got a bottle of rosé wine to drink while the others had beer. Well here's where I faced the first problem: there was no bottle opener. Crap! Somehow Matt finally managed to open the bottle (after hitting it against a tree and digging the cork with a knife) and I got to drink one glass of my rose while having some grilled chicken and potatoe salad. Yummie! After our barbeque we headed back to Berlin to spend the rest of the weekend there.
Matt was cutting the meat for Lenny
On Saturday we decided to have a look at Kreuzberg. After changing the underground line two times we finally got to Görlitzer Bahnhof. I'm starting to get the picture of how big Berlin really is. It takes ages to get from one side of the city to the other. From my apartment in Charlottenburg I need about 30 minutes to get to Kreuzberg, and those are both parts of the city which are relatively close to the centre! Anyways it was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and the sky was blue. We started off at Oranienburger Strasse and walked around a bit. After a while we decided it was time for ice cream, so we headed to a ice cream place my collague Chris had recommended me. I was sure worth the recommedation, the ice cream was divine. Matt had coconut and lychee and I had carrot-orange and strawberry. If you go to Berlin, I can only recommend the ice cream at this place! It's called Eissalon tanne B and is situated at Lausitzer Platz in Kreuzberg close the the underground station Görlitzer Bahnhof.
Enjoying some delicious ice cream on the most beautiful summer day
In the afternoon we got some sparkling wine and strawberries and sat down at Urbanhafen and just enjoyed the sun. Urbanhafen is a great (and popular) place to hang out when the weather is good. It's more alternative when it comes to the people and there's a lot of green. Next to the Urbanhafen I discovered a nice coffee shop, which seems to be quite new, because I can't find any information about it online. I just went there to use the bathroom, so I don't really remember what it was called, but I sure know I have to go there again! It was on the corner of Carl-Herz-Ufer and Baerwaldstrasse, that's all I know.
Sunshine!
While chilling at Urbanhafen I was checking out my tourist map and found something interesting. Ritter Sport has a so called chocolate world called BunteSchokoWelt, where you can have a Ritter Sport chocolate bar made just the way you like it. The most interesting thing about the place was the making of the chocolate though. I was a bit disappointed, because the rest was made only for commercial reasons. There was a huge shop with different Ritter Sport products and upstairs a café and a small round where you could see how the process of making chocolate goes. After a piece of chocolate cake (which was delicious though!) and an ice coffee we walked along to the Brandenburg Gate. We were going to the Room of Silence when all of a sudden someone put on some music and everyone around us just started dancing! They were dancing swing dances and the atmosphere was just amazing! I wish my feet hadn't been to sore to dance. I decided I have to get Matt to take a dance course, because I really can't be with someone who doesn't know how to dance, I mean I love it so much!
All kinds of chocolate at BunteSchokoWelt
Born to hand jive!
We were actually planning on going out in the evening, but we ended up being so tired that we just went to sleep.
Today had two highlights. In the morning we went to a breakfast buffet in an arabic restaurant. The place is called Assafir and it is a cozy restaurant on Wilmersdorfer Strasse, which is the main street in Charlottenburg. The restaurant was decorated in an arabic theme with red sofas and golden decorations. They had so many different things to eat there and everything was totally delicious! I got to think about my trip to Egypt last Christmas, and I realized I hadn't tried almost any of those dishes there, but they still reminded me of the trip.
Moroccan mint tea. Delicious.
In the afternoon we went to Werder, which is a small town 30 minutes with the train from Berlin. Today was the last day of the 133 flower festival Baumblütenfest. It is basically another reason for the people to drink and have fun. The festival is arranged every year to celebrate the blooming trees. The idea came from a fruit farmer called Wilhelm Wils who thought it would be great to give all nature lover an opportunity to enjoy the blooming fruit trees. The first festival was arranged in 1879 and all the people who came to enjoy the flowers weren't of course a bad thing for the local businesses. The festival got bigger and bigger every year and at it's highest the number of people coming to the festival was in 1998 with 750 000 participants. Nowadays the number is around 500 000 every year. This year the trees bloomed way too early, so when the festival started the blooming was already over. I was very sad about this, because Matt told me how beautiful it usually is. I did enjoy it anyway. The weather couldn't have been better and we walked around for a couple of hours and tasted some fruit wines. I can understand why people keep coming to the festival - the wine. It wasn't really for me, they were all way too sweet and many with a very high percentage of alcohol - up to 17%! What I could have done was trying every stand with different kind of snacks, there were a lot!!
A bar boat at the river Havel
Looking on to the mainland from the festival island in Werder (Havel)
I have one week behind me now and it's been amazing so far. I can't wait to see what Berlin has to give to in the next three months!
Oh and I have to say: GO LEIJONAT! You've done well so far, keep up the good game!
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti