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More
Tell me more, tell me more… Our lovely German friend and her boyfriend have the loveliest weekly custom. Every Saturday they wander around the Winterfeldt Market and then go for brunch at More. The market is lovely. It feels posh, with nice looking crafts and organic food. You can even buy healthy oil to go on your morning cereal, if you like that kind of thing… But let’s get to the food! The place is called More and that is what you want. More and More and More. It is swish, all in red and full of gay men. It is in the famous gay area of Berlin. The shops…
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Happy Monday – Ampelmann earrings
She told me to walk this way… This is the first Happy Monday post. For those of you who don’t know, we will be sharing something we have been obsessed with over the past week. We have chosen Monday, as it seems to be the least favourite day for many people. So, here I am to cheer you up! My current favourite things are my Ampelmann earrings. According to their website: “The East German pedestrian traffic light symbols, or‚ ampel men’ are Berlin born and bred. They came into being on October 13th 1961 when, in response to the growing threat of road traffic accidents, the traffic psychologist, Karl Peglau,…
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Jumping on the blogging train
Why don’t you write me, I’m out in the jungle, I’m hungry to hear you? Recently I was visited by my lovely friend Charlotte (of Sherbert and Sparkles fame). I’ve never been much of a reader of blogs, but I am trying and I love her writing style as well as what she writes about. Having found a blogging friend who also writes about her experiences abroad, I quizzed her for any advice she had. Apparently, the new “fashion” is writing a short thank you to something random on a Friday. Apparently there are lots of blogs that do this. Have a search if you have time… She also told…
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OMG I made an Apron!
You’d be happy wrapped in my apron strings I remember my mother used to sew everything. I would choose the material and she would sit in the dining room all night making me curtains and cushions. I also remember having to do sewing lessons in Japan for a few months. I got so excited picking out a lovely blue flowery material to make a dress. I had no idea what to do, so the teacher measured me and taught me how to use a sewing machine. Each week I would work on a little more, hoping finally to own a cute dress that actually fit properly. Alas, it was absolutely…
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The Colour Run
Run for your life… After seeing a lot of photos on facebook of friends who have taken part in the Colour Run this summer, we knew we also wanted to get involved. What can be more fun than running while people throw colour at you? Luckily we found a race in our town. The run went around the Olympic stadium in the west of Berlin. There were over 3000 people all huddling together for warmth. It was cold. And foggy. And rainy. A typical English day some might say… To keep hydrated, people were drinking beers. To keep the hunger away, sausages were being consumed. In order to keep warm,…
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Paradise in Berlin – Wannsee
When autumn leaves start to fall It didn’t feel like we were still in Berlin. There were rivers and bridges and parks. We had been told about this place called Wannsee in the south-west of Berlin during the summer. We finally made it here in the autumn, just as the leaves were turning and starting to fall. It was the perfect autumn day. In the summer it is a big beach and people swim in the lakes. In the winter, everyone grabs their ice skates and gets on the frozen ice, skating for hours of free fun. One friend told us her mother had taken her and her two siblings…
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Tokunbo
We danced with the dog… This afternoon we took a break from constant translation (10 hours a day… it is harsh) and popped into a café we had come across on a jog (I KNOW – I go outside and run sometimes… even I am shocked…). I will have to blog about the most amazing cheesecake we had another time, because while we were sitting and playing some board games I noticed a poster on the wall. It read: Imagine you are in Germany. The year is 1937. You are black. To those of you who don’t know me that well, I love reading depressing books. If it isn’t about…
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Is that a beer belly?
99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer. Take one down and pass it around, 98 bottles of beer on the wall… For those of you that know me, you will be shocked. Very, very shocked. Throughout my university years I tried so hard to like beer, after all it was cheap and always had some kind of student discount. However, it was to no avail. I would try again and again. In Japan every toast is made with beer. A few times I would pretend to take a sip and then order something that was actually drinkable, but my colleagues noticed and would then always come…
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Yakisoba
Cooking up something good… I’m a quivering emotional wreck when it comes to cutting onions, however today I tried it with my glasses on to a much higher success rate. My eyes are stinging, but there was no use for tissues… I recommend wearing spectacles of some sort if you suffer from the same problem. Anyway, to making the food! Yakisoba means fried noodles in Japanese. Popular as a fast food dish, here is how to do it: You will need: 2 onions ¼ cabbage 2 packets of yakisoba noodles Whatever else you happen to have. This is a great dish to use up leftovers. We had a load of…
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Legalising Cannabis in Berlin?
Let’s get to the point/ Let’s roll another joint/ And let’s head on down the road/ There’s somewhere I got to go. Well, it’s already the case in Amsterdam and it seems a large number of people in Berlin do drugs anyway, so yesterday’s news didn’t really come as a surprise to me. What did surprise me however was that all this is happening on our front door. We live in Neukölln, a predominantly Turkish area of South-East Berlin. There are delicious kebab shops open all night and sometimes we are lucky enough to witness a Turkish wedding, when music and drums fill the street as well as clapping, dancing…