Back in Berlin
(written July 17, 2005)
Leaving the quiet peaks of Bavaria, we headed back to Berlin for our last days in Germany. We fly back July 18. If you have kept up with these missives, you know that we added two days to our Bavaria trip in order to get two more good days of hiking, so we cut off two days which were originally going to be four days in Berlin before we returned to the US.
Our day began, Mark on his bicycle and me on my feet, taking our last spin around Garmische. We were up early to see the sunrise reflected on the mountains before we finished packing, loaded up the car, and ate our last breakfast in the hotel. Before we left, the owner’s son gave us a gift of a Garmische wall calendar and his good wishes for our safe trip home with apologies for the rain during our stay.
We headed north to Munich to find the airport (our trip from Munich to Gramische on July 4 had been three hours long in the dark and pouring rain because we kept making wrong turns). Though this trip was in the daylight, we still had some epithets flying around as we tried to negotiate the drive through Munich amid construction and signs in the wrong places. We arrived at the airport in 1.5 hours, turned in the car, finally found our check-in gate, ate lunch, boarded the plane, and slept all the way to Berlin.
Now the adventure begins. Mark originally had the idea that we would spend our last four days in an apartment, mostly because of the great experience Laura had had renting one in Paris. Living like other Berliners, we would shop, make some of our own meals at least breakfast, and experience the city in a different way than staying in another hotel. We both took part in the selection of this apartment in West Berlin Schoenberg district, looking at photos on the Internet.
Cutting our stay in Berlin to two days, we decided to have all our meals out, not to buy groceries, and essentially to use the apartment as our hotel. As arranged, we picked our key up from the Argentinean Restaurant below and found our apartment building. We ascended the elevator and opened the door to a spacious modern three-room apartment, spartan in its furnishings and stuffy and warm. We had only one key, but Mark quickly negotiated with the landlady to get a second key. I must say that what seemed like a good idea quickly faded as I took in our surroundings—it really was more like camping than I had been used to with all the other swell places Mark had arranged for us to this point.
Being the good Girl Scout (though I did my share of pouting), we decided to head out to the famous KaDeWe Department store and stopped on every floor to look at merchandise, ending up on the 6th floor which is known for its food selection--every kind of food you can imagine. On the next floor is a food court and there we got a snack and sat to read the Herald Tribune and look out the glass atrium to the western part of Berlin. Next we found the times of the movie we had seen on the first part of the trip, took a cab, and went to the theater only to find that Garden State was not showing until 11:15 p.m. Since it was 7:15, we decided to watch an 8:15 movie, Wedding Crashers, so went to get some supper. The film was light-hearted, so my spirits were lifted a little.
Today Mark did his long run, and I did my morning routine of shower and stretches, after which we ate at a nearby hotel’s breakfast bar. Our day since has consisted of spending time in the gardens of the Schloss Charlottenburg (the castle of Frederick I, named for his wife, Charlotte), eating our picnic lunch packed at breakfast, walking across the street to see the Berggruen Museum which exhibits mostly Picasso, Matisse, and Klee and next door, the Brohan Museum which features “Art nouveau, Art Deco, and Functionalism (1889-1939) . . . [in] glass, ceramics, porcelain, silver and metal work in combination with furniture, carpets and lighting as well as prints and painting.” There was a special glass and metal exhibit as well. Both museums were small and well laid out in 1850 vintage buildings which fit in architecturally with the Charlottenburg Castle across the way.
In between, we had an ice cream sundae. We have been noticing here and in the Alps the most incredible ice cream treats and decided that we would have our dessert before dinner (which we will eat at 8:30 p.m.), so between museums, we walked down the street to an Italian ice cream spot. I ordered a strawberry sundae with fresh strawberries, two scoops of vanilla and one scoop of strawberry with whipped cream and strawberry juice on top. Mark ordered a children’s dessert: two scoops of chocolate and whipped cream which came with wafers making a face, and an ice cream cone split and made to look like the top hat of a clown’s face. It was every bit as good as it looked.
Added July 19, 2005
For supper, we traveled back to our old neighborhood that night to find an Indian restaurant where we ordered chicken and vegetarian curries, rice, yogurt, and chapattis. With the good weather, we could sit outside and watch the people. We then walked 45 minutes to catch the 11:15 show of Garden State which Mark had so desperately wanted to see again but which he missed most of because he kept nodding off and snoring--I must cut him some slack though because he had run his 1.5 hour run that morning, and we had done quite a bit of walking during the day.
Our flight Sunday was without incident; just a two hour delay at JFK which made us 2:45 a.m. arriving in Pikeville, having been awake at that point 26 hours because of the time change. Today we have been unpacking, going through three weeks of mail, sorting through gifts we purchased, and looking forward to having dinner tonight with Laura and Shawn and Brian and Lahla! It’s good to be home, but the trip was so good that we are remarkably relaxed.
Leaving the quiet peaks of Bavaria, we headed back to Berlin for our last days in Germany. We fly back July 18. If you have kept up with these missives, you know that we added two days to our Bavaria trip in order to get two more good days of hiking, so we cut off two days which were originally going to be four days in Berlin before we returned to the US.
Our day began, Mark on his bicycle and me on my feet, taking our last spin around Garmische. We were up early to see the sunrise reflected on the mountains before we finished packing, loaded up the car, and ate our last breakfast in the hotel. Before we left, the owner’s son gave us a gift of a Garmische wall calendar and his good wishes for our safe trip home with apologies for the rain during our stay.
We headed north to Munich to find the airport (our trip from Munich to Gramische on July 4 had been three hours long in the dark and pouring rain because we kept making wrong turns). Though this trip was in the daylight, we still had some epithets flying around as we tried to negotiate the drive through Munich amid construction and signs in the wrong places. We arrived at the airport in 1.5 hours, turned in the car, finally found our check-in gate, ate lunch, boarded the plane, and slept all the way to Berlin.
Now the adventure begins. Mark originally had the idea that we would spend our last four days in an apartment, mostly because of the great experience Laura had had renting one in Paris. Living like other Berliners, we would shop, make some of our own meals at least breakfast, and experience the city in a different way than staying in another hotel. We both took part in the selection of this apartment in West Berlin Schoenberg district, looking at photos on the Internet.
Cutting our stay in Berlin to two days, we decided to have all our meals out, not to buy groceries, and essentially to use the apartment as our hotel. As arranged, we picked our key up from the Argentinean Restaurant below and found our apartment building. We ascended the elevator and opened the door to a spacious modern three-room apartment, spartan in its furnishings and stuffy and warm. We had only one key, but Mark quickly negotiated with the landlady to get a second key. I must say that what seemed like a good idea quickly faded as I took in our surroundings—it really was more like camping than I had been used to with all the other swell places Mark had arranged for us to this point.
Being the good Girl Scout (though I did my share of pouting), we decided to head out to the famous KaDeWe Department store and stopped on every floor to look at merchandise, ending up on the 6th floor which is known for its food selection--every kind of food you can imagine. On the next floor is a food court and there we got a snack and sat to read the Herald Tribune and look out the glass atrium to the western part of Berlin. Next we found the times of the movie we had seen on the first part of the trip, took a cab, and went to the theater only to find that Garden State was not showing until 11:15 p.m. Since it was 7:15, we decided to watch an 8:15 movie, Wedding Crashers, so went to get some supper. The film was light-hearted, so my spirits were lifted a little.
Today Mark did his long run, and I did my morning routine of shower and stretches, after which we ate at a nearby hotel’s breakfast bar. Our day since has consisted of spending time in the gardens of the Schloss Charlottenburg (the castle of Frederick I, named for his wife, Charlotte), eating our picnic lunch packed at breakfast, walking across the street to see the Berggruen Museum which exhibits mostly Picasso, Matisse, and Klee and next door, the Brohan Museum which features “Art nouveau, Art Deco, and Functionalism (1889-1939) . . . [in] glass, ceramics, porcelain, silver and metal work in combination with furniture, carpets and lighting as well as prints and painting.” There was a special glass and metal exhibit as well. Both museums were small and well laid out in 1850 vintage buildings which fit in architecturally with the Charlottenburg Castle across the way.
In between, we had an ice cream sundae. We have been noticing here and in the Alps the most incredible ice cream treats and decided that we would have our dessert before dinner (which we will eat at 8:30 p.m.), so between museums, we walked down the street to an Italian ice cream spot. I ordered a strawberry sundae with fresh strawberries, two scoops of vanilla and one scoop of strawberry with whipped cream and strawberry juice on top. Mark ordered a children’s dessert: two scoops of chocolate and whipped cream which came with wafers making a face, and an ice cream cone split and made to look like the top hat of a clown’s face. It was every bit as good as it looked.
Added July 19, 2005
For supper, we traveled back to our old neighborhood that night to find an Indian restaurant where we ordered chicken and vegetarian curries, rice, yogurt, and chapattis. With the good weather, we could sit outside and watch the people. We then walked 45 minutes to catch the 11:15 show of Garden State which Mark had so desperately wanted to see again but which he missed most of because he kept nodding off and snoring--I must cut him some slack though because he had run his 1.5 hour run that morning, and we had done quite a bit of walking during the day.
Our flight Sunday was without incident; just a two hour delay at JFK which made us 2:45 a.m. arriving in Pikeville, having been awake at that point 26 hours because of the time change. Today we have been unpacking, going through three weeks of mail, sorting through gifts we purchased, and looking forward to having dinner tonight with Laura and Shawn and Brian and Lahla! It’s good to be home, but the trip was so good that we are remarkably relaxed.
posted by Kathy Sohn | 2:41 PM
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