Market Mania

One of the things we like best about Berlin so far are the open air markets. It's here the small producers come out to show off their wares, and where you can enjoy a grocery shopping experience outside of the usual supermarket confines. To me it feels very continental and there's something about the buzz of seeing all the lovely fruit and veg set out and the vendors passionately extolling the virtues of their homemade bread, cake, cheese, or what have you, that is just plain fun.

Our favourites so far have been the market in Winterfeldplatz. This is located in the Schoneburg/Tiergarten area of the city in a small square, and surrounded by lots of little cafes to rest up after buying the weekly shop.

Another favourite is our local market in Kollwitzplatz, literally five minutes from our apartment. This little market is completely organic, with all the products from clothes to bread being 100% organic. One of the vendors has THE best waffles ever - made with buckwheat flour and served hot with cinnamon sugar, or Nutella if you are feeling decadent.

Last in this selection, but definitely not least, is the Turkish market in Kreuzberg. This buzzy area is known for its Turkish population, first- and second-generation and the market has that Middle-Eastern feel. You can get dried pulses, couscous, rice to Turkish sweets to freshly made flatbreads, olives galore and big bundles of fresh mint or coriander.

We actually bought most from this fella here. The market covers a range of Middle-Eastern food. This man's stall was called simply 'Die Greche', or 'The Greek'. He had an amazing range of olives and seafood to hummus, baba-ganoush and sundried tomatoes. He was quite the character and ended up giving us as many free samples as stuff we ended up buying. Delicious!

And of course, after all that walking around, looking at things and sampling, we needed a little something to keep us going. In my case, a type of fried Spanakopita (pastry filled with spinach and feta), which was very good though quite filling. Check out that grease on the paper!

Tourists in Berlin (Part 1)

I have been meaning to put this post up for about a week now so sorry for the delay. One of the days last week myself and Eric decided to do a bit of sight-seeing around Berlin and to see some other areas around the city. So we hopped on the very efficient U-bahn down to the Schoeneberg/Tiergarten area of town, which is in the former West Berlin.
Our first stop was the Winterfeldt Markt in Winterfeldplatz, a huge outdoor food market that runs twice a week (more on markets here in Berlin later). Then we went walked down Ku'damm, basically the main high street in Berlin, and popped into KaDeWe, known for being Europe's biggest department store. And yes, it was bloody enormous and I would have to say very impressive. They are famed for their sixth floor which is basically a huge delicatessan, where, you can imagine, we spent our time saying 'wow, look at those fish', 'wow, look at those cakes!' You would swear we had never seen food before!

And just so you don't think all we do is look at food in Berlin, here are some photos of other places we went on to see afterwards. Above is the Kaiser Wilheim memorial church which is a major landmark in Berlin. It was built by Kaiser Wilheim II in 1891 but was bombed in WWII. It is now a museum with some impressive photos of Berlin in the late 19th century.
A new church was built right beside it, which we popped into for a couple of minutes. This too was also impressive. It is made using mainly stained glass bricks and is really beautiful inside (see photo).

After that we decided to make a trip to the aquarium, which was nearby. It wasn't as big as I thought it would be. I thought that some of the tanks were too small, particularly for the sharks and the electric eel. They really didn't have that much room at all to swim. I actually found it a bit distressing to look at them. I hope that they will expand it some day as I think it is just too cruel for the poor creatures.

The smaller animals looked fine and happy however, such as the reptiles (see above) and the jellyfish (below). (Doesn't the lizard above look like a mini dinosaur?)

Movie Night

Eric and I went to our local cinema the other night - Das Film Cafe. It is a small, funky cafe just around the corner from us that has muted lighting and comfy vintage furniture. It sells organic coffee, tea, cake and breakfasts (all with film-related titles like 'The Director's Cut' breakfast and 'Leading lady' breakfast). They have a range of film magazines to look at and dvds to borrow. AND, they also show films every night of the week in their basement cinema. Luckily for us, on Monday and Wednesday nights, they also show the film of the week in English or the original version. So this week we decided to toddle along to see what it was like.

I have to say the whole experience encapsulated Berlin for me. We arrived at about 8 o'clock (film to start at 8.20pm). It was 4 euros in, or 6 euros with a drink (Eric got a Beck's and I got an organic lemonade). At about 8.15pm the guy behind the counter said 'Okay, let's go down!' and the seven of us that had gathered by then followed him downstairs in an orderly line (hiliarious!).

We had never seen the cinema before so we had no idea what it was going to be like. To be honest, I thought it was going to be a scabby little room with a blank wall and some plastic chairs. Luckily I was wrong. It turns out that it's a plush little proper cinema, with comfy tiered cinema seats (seating about 20). Yay for us! So we happily settled in to watch the film -
In the Valley of Elah.

I just wanted to write a brief note on this film because I really thought it was excellent. It is from the guy who wrote and directed Crash and Letters from Iwo Jima. It won't be spoiling it to say that is about young soldiers coming back from Iraq. I thought it was a brilliant study of the impact of war on people and it's knock-on effect in society. It was both tender and stark, and just very human. Tommy Lee Jones was also excellent. Go see this film if you can!

So that was it! Our first experience at Das Film Cafe. No adverts, not a peep from any of the other people (no talking on mobiles or eating offensive-smelling liquid cheese), digital film, and great sound quality. In two words - film bliss!

Detox

One of my goals in coming to Berlin was to start being healthy. I have to say that I generally am quite healthy but the few weeks before we left Ireland I ended up mainlining coffee, eating junk and drinking more than my usual (measly) two bottles of beer a week. And I could really feel it. On my last two days I was basically fending off the mother-of-all migraines with copious amount of drugs and having a dermatitis breakout.

To be honest it was probably more the stress of it all than anything else. The weird thing is (and I don't know if any of you are like this) the more stressed I am and the more crap I feel, the more I feel like eating chocolate and drinking wine. Worst of all I end up feeling like I NEED the double espresso just to get going in the morning.

Anyway, I think it all added up and by the time I got here I was ready to start being nicer to myself. That was after two weeks of guzzling the best German beer and attacking every slice of wonderful German cake and morsel of mare's milk chocolate I could get my hands on of course. So last week myself and Eric decided to cut the crap out - meaning lots of fruits and vegetables, lots of water, no alcohol, no caffeine, no sugar and for some reason no carbs (we are not anti-carb people - it just seemed like the right thing to do).

Now I think that I am quite a strong person, with a lot of stamina, but boy was this hard! (Eric was much hardier than me.) I had terrible headaches for the first couple of days and felt really sick and lethargic. Then the crazed hunger set in where all I could think about was food. Regardless of where I was or what I was doing my thought process would go like this: 'Toast. Banana on toast. Banana on toast with peanut butter. Banana on toast with peanut butter and honey.' Like some crazy mantra! Eric got used to the blank, ain't-nobody-home look that would cloud over my eyes.

Anyway, suffice to say that it lasted four days! In fairness to us, it coincided with our first social outings here in Berlin - dinner with our neighbour upstairs and dinner out with Shaun, Dee's brother. If we had stayed friendless, I think we might have lasted longer! I have to say though that we are both feeling much better after our little detox. And we haven't gone wild since then, only re-introducing carbs (hail the almighty carb!), and some cake and beer, but still eating lots of fruits and veg. A balance which is suiting me much better!

Is this the best chocolate eva?

I thought a foodie blog was due so here it goes. When we moved in, our landlady, Nina, kindly left us a list of the 'best of' in Berlin. One of the places she recommended was a place around the corner from us called In't Veld, which I have to say, is one of the best chocolate shops I have ever been in. Not only do they do their own brand of chocolate, but they also carry chocolate from around the world. And it's not super sweet, creamy chocolate either, but very intense, high in cocoa, full of flavour chocolate. The kind of chocolate I reckon the Aztecs ate. The real deal.

The one bar I bought, and yes, I can proudly say I only bought the one, was the above, Zotter's Mare's Milk with Oat, except it had a German wrapper so I didn't have a clue what it was. It was amazing - sweet with chewy oats and a deep intense cocoa flavour. It was only when I read the small English translation on the back that I realised it had mare's milk in it. Yes, mare's milk! When I talked to Eric about it, a conversation straight out of Meet the Parents ensued. Me - 'it can't really be horses milk can it? Eric - 'well, horses have nipples too'

Anyway, to make a long story short it was mare's milk, we checked with the store. Apparently mare's milk is sweeter. It's also a delicacy in Mongolia (!). Either way I have to say that it was delicious. I'm not too sure whether it is the best chocolate eva, but that's only because I haven't tried any other of the chocolate in the In't Velt shop. Yet.

The Eckhart Effect

Apologies everyone for not posting sooner. It's been quite the mixed bag over the last couple of weeks settling into our new life here in Berlin. On one hand it's been days filled taking in the city of Berlin - sitting in cafes eating kuchen (delicious, amazing, mouth-watering cake to you and me, I will be blogging on this I promise), checking out the different neighbourhoods and taking in all the usual tourist sights. And on the other hand we've also been trying to make ourselves more at home here, which entailed sorting out things like our broadband issues at home and our resident's permits, all with my very limited German (being both an aid and a hindrance).

Firstly, let me dispel the myth that all German's speak great English. This is what we thought coming over - a mix of English-speaker's arrogance and over-confidence in the German education system I think. What we have found is that maybe one in ten people we have met speak English, and most were under 40. And not having the language has made things a lot harder such as dealing with the Immigration office or the telephone company helpline. We are so looking forward to our German language class, which starts next week. I think it will really make a difference to our stay here. It will be great to be able to say more than usual please, thank you, can I have another piece of cake?

That's not to say that we haven't found the people here very friendly and helpful, which we have. But I must say we did a little victory dance when Eric finally got his resident's visa last week. Because I am an Irish citizen mine was no hassle, but Eric's took two day's of queuing, filling out forms and trying to talk in pigeon German with very stern Immigration officers. My sympathy goes out to all who through it every day around the world. There was one woman who just plain scared the living daylights out of me.

However, at the end of it all, when they found out he was married to an Irish citizen we got herded into this lovely bright room where a very nice woman promptly gave Eric a resident's visa more or less on the spot. And for five years, which apparently unheard of. We think the Eckhart name may have helped things along. Later we realised that Eric is now the first Eckhart from the family to have moved back to Germany since his family left in 1840s. The thought just kind of made us pause a moment.

Checkpoint Charlie

Before we moved here, when I thought of Berlin, it was how the city has become the arts and culture capitol of Europe, full of life and a cheap place to live. Wednesday's trip into the city centre reminded me of the other side of the city - its fascinating and harrowing history.


Kusi and I took our first journey on the city's public train, the U Bahn, to the city centre. It was there we saw what is left of the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie, which is now a tourist stop with an person dressed up as an East German soldier who will put an East German stamp in your passport for fun.
Standing where so many events happen which made up so much of the psyche of the Cold War experience was truly profound.

Even more so was walking down one block to the ruins of the Gestapo "Interrogation" (torture) headquarters. The exhibition there and the stories where too much to take in. I wasn't expecting the eerie and disturbing depth of feelings that the place held.

I plan to return to these spots and others such as the Reichstag, better prepared to experience them and ready to feel their stark memories. But also, as a plaque read at one of sites we visited, "these places are a challenge to us to constantly resist the solution of political problems by means of war".

Alles Güt!

Well everyone - we have arrived, safe and sound. I have to say that I am SO happy that the moving part of our trip is over. It was a lot harder and more traumatic than I thought it would be. And we would never have managed it were it not for the help of Eric's friend, Mark Joyce (a thousand thank yous to MJ - you will be treated like a king when you visit us).

And so now we are here in Berlin. We spent last night in a hotel but got the keys etc from the family we are renting from, Nina and Dirk. We were so wrecked from the move the day before (I had been holding off a migraine for two days) that we didn't get to spend that much time with them, which was a pity because they seemed very nice.

How strange it is to meet someone for the first time and then move into the their place the next day (which is what we did today)! They were hardly out of the place a couple of hours when we were straight in with all our gear!

Anyway, about our place. Senefelderstrasse is a lovely street, just off the main drag in Prenzlauer Berg. To me it has a very continental feel, tall buildings with courtyards. See the facade to our building above. Our apartment is on the first floor, just above a cafe and, get this, an olive oil shop (Eric is in his element).

Now our guidebook warned us about the graffiti in Berlin, but it is really everywhere. Above is the hallway to our place, which, to be honest, when I first walked in I was wondering if we were in the right place (Dee - Oliver Bond eat your heart out!).

The graffiti continues all the way up the stairwell. Strangely the "artists" use English a lot. One thing I would say is that their work lacks consistency - one says 'I love you' and another says 'I eat babies' (I mean, really).

However, the graffiti aside, I have to say that we are delighted with the apartment. The photos that Nina had sent us did not do the place justice. It is much bigger and nicer than we thought. A definite step up from De Vesci Court in Monkstown. Above is a photo of the room that Eric will be using to compose, chill out and generally be creative. It's huge, or as Seimi would say 'you-ige'!!!

This area has a million and one different restaurants (Thai, Vietnamese, Italian, Japanese), all that look lovely and inviting, and all are incredibly reasonable (it is possible to for two people to eat a gourmet meal for under 10 euros here!). However, we decided to spend our first night in. As well as saving a couple of bob, there's nothing like cooking (see photo of Eric in the midst above), and eating your first meal to make a place feel like home. And though it is just our first night, both myself and Eric agree that this place already feels like us.