So much always happens since the short time ago I last post. It seems there is so much to see! I have to mentally tell myself to slow down and absorb a little...smell the Milchkaffee. Those are the best times really. Finding a place and just hanging out and watching people go by and trying to catch their conversations. Making talk is even better!
Even when I feel, What do next?...all I have to do is venture out and the problem is solved.
I had started Monday morning just walking along Kantstraße to the Kufürstendamm (I did take a double decker bus part way there) when it hit me that I should explore a little the Prenzlauer Berg area; a kind kind of arts, bohemian community located in East Berlin. This is also the area that Jason and I had stayed in a B&B when we were here for 4 days in May 2003 but had actually seen very little of it. We were always coming and going but not looking around too much where we actually were. We had stayed in a place with 5 floors and no elevator (just like Manuela´s). I was pleasently affirmed here in Prenzlauer Berg.
Male Couple Arm-in-Arm under the U2 along Schönhauser Allee
William Reflecting in Mirror
I ended up having a lunch of hummus at a place called Xion while talking with Jason on google chat on my blackberry. When it´s noon here I know it´s 6 am in Miami and he needs to be getting up. So I send off a Guten Morgen and he GM´s me back. If he doesn´t then I call the land line and let it ring twice before hanging up. Usually that will do it.
Xion was actually over in the Pankow area. I had walked right through Prenzlauer Berg thinking this place, no, the next place, no the next one...I had talked my way all the way through it. I will have to go back now. Of particular interests was a street that actually angled into Schönhauser Alle called Kastanienallee...it looked colorful and vibrant. Worth a look see.
It seems like I will be returning to the United States with entirely new bags...we already know what happened to my daypack and computer bag. My bag for my clothes war es kaput. Zippers all around had been a problem so I broke down and purchased a new bag at the Karstadt; two blocks away from where I was staying. Manuela is up on the forth floor but here they don´t start counting one until the second floor. I had gone up and down several times since I´ve been here so it´s a ritual by now. This time however, with my new big bag in hand, I went clear to the top, bypassing Manuela´s place by 2 floors. Chagrined, I went down two floors.
After getting the bag into Manuela´s and snipping out the tags and opening it up, I saw that the sales person had neglected to take out those plastic tags that they pin to their products that cause the alarm to go off if someone ventures out with them without paying. Well, the alarm had not gone off, strange, but I didn´t want to bring the bag back to the United States with one of those things still attached to it. Who knows what customs or security would do once they saw it. I knew I couldn´t just grab the thing and twist it apart...I tried that once given a similar situation and the thing, like an octopus, shoots out a black-purplish ink that stains everywhere. So, I had to cart it back. Back down the 5 floors.
This time the alarm goes off when I walk with it into the store...fortunately, I had my receipt. I approached the sales person and in my rehearsed German: Bitte, heute war ich hier gegangen. She nods smiling. Und, ich kaufte diesen Koffer. Head nodding. Und Sie hat vergisst ...I had the bag opened up exposing the piece, waving my receipt with my other hand...She was all embarassed and said she remembered me and aplogized again and again. Kein Problem.
Today was one of those rainy days again and I found myself going down to the Kufürstendam three times. Once with an umbrella and I just walked around wondering what would strike me (no lightening yet) and I got kind of wet anyway. I returned home to dry off and then went back to the Kufürstendamm again to purchase some pastels at the KaDeWe. Returning home, I went back again to produce the following video.
From here I walked around a bit and then realized that I had been taking the U-Bahn always to get over to Nollendorfplatz and it wasn´t really that far away; closer to the Ku´damm than one might think. But still it pays to be able to just hop on any of the transports that are covered by a monatkarte.
This evening, I had the Ghoulash and Reis mit Rotwein at a place around the corner called Zeitgeist...spirit of the time, something like that. The waitress was very nice and we engagaed in conversation a bit. It was quite inexpensive and very filling.
...flickr photo album Berlin 5.15.2007...
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