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Wherever we went we were able to get good tasting meals at reasonable prices and with excellent service. Astrid proved to be a wonderful cook too whenever there was a chance to cook something at home. Remember we were on the go a lot. When we had been eating out during the day, Peter Uwe and Astrid served for supper usually some lovely rye bread and a choice of wurst and chesses. Astrid often prepared a salad to go with it.
We had the unit on the second floor right next to our hosts’ unit. For breakfast early in the morning we would go over to their dining room. They usually had breakfast already waiting for us. Peter Uwe always helped his wife with the preparation of breakfast. We had our own well supplied kitchen in our unit. However we never had to use it for cooking. But it was good that we were able to make us coffee or tea.
In the evening we usually stayed with Peter Uwe and Astrid in their unit, just talking about a lot of things, looking at photos or watching a movie. We didn’t spend all that much time in our own unit. But when I felt a bit tired after a long outing during the day I could lie down and rest for a while in this very quiet beautiful bedroom of ours. By the way, the bedroom had a huge wardrobe and ample drawers to put things away. There were more bedrooms above our unit. But of course, we did not need to use them at all. The place was large enough for four to six people, so my brother told us. When Corinna, Peter Uwe’s daughter, visits with her whole family, there’s always enough room. In summer extra guests can be accommodated in a little hut further away from the main-house.
Where the little hut is there’s also a laundry. Under its roof there’s space to dry the washing in the open. On average plenty of sunshine reaches this hut. This is why solar panels were placed on the hut’s roof rather then on the roof of the main-house which doesn’t seem to get quite as much sun. Peter Uwe explained to us that these solar panels save on electricity costs for all three building. Yes, there is a third building, which used to be a barn and which is a huge comfortable dwelling for one family now.













I still didn’t publish anything yet about the Bode Museum in Berlin. But before I do this I want to finally start publishing something about Mecklenburg/Vorpommern where my brother Peter Uwe lives with his wife Astrid. We spent some lovely eight days with them just before it was time to travel back to Australia.
Peter Uwe picked us up from the Hansa Viertel in Berlin with all our luggage. This was on Thursday, 8th November 2012. They live in a small village in Meck/Pom. In my post about Berlin-Borgsdorf I published a sign near a street in Borgsdorf which indicated that this street was a bike-track leading right through to Kopenhagen, Denmark. Well, this bike-track leads actually also through the little village where Peter Uwe and Astrid reside.
If people want to take a week’s rest in beautiful Meck/Pom they can book in at my brother’s place. Peter Uwe used to have a number of units available for holiday makers. But most of them he has rented out now to permanent residents. The unit, where Peter and I stayed, is usually reserved for holiday makers. A board indicates when it is vacant. One day we noticed the ‘vacant’ sign was still up. We pointed this out to Peter Uwe. It took him just a sec to turn the sign over indicating ‘occupied’. Peter said, that they had made sure anyway that the unit would be reserved for our stay with him and Astrid.
What it said about these two women from the Middle Ages I found very remarkable. This is just one of the many interesting things we could read about in the Jewish Museum. It made me reflect on people’s attitudes towards religion many centuries ago! Here now I do not want to hesitate to add this picture from the Jewish Museum . I’m glad I looked through the pictures in our files once more and found it. I remember I was very moved by it when I saw it for the first time. I still think it is an outstanding document about a time past.
A few weeks after Yom Kippur Peter and I went again to the Jewish Museum together with Corinna, my niece. This time it was open, of course, being visited by a large number of people including school classes. Lots of young people, who worked there, (I think some on a working holiday from Israel), were extremely friendly and assisting whenever one needed help with something. We spent hours and hours looking at the various displays.
I was amazed about the extend of information at hand. It was an enormous eye opener of Jewish life in Europe over hundreds of years. I am glad the pictures that Peter took are still in our files and that I can publish them now.
This is displayed near the Field of Stelae. It Says: Europe Foundation Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe.
We only found out about Yom Kippur when we saw this sign at the entrance to the Jewish Museum which we had planned on visiting. We walked to the next Underground Station, got off at Potsdamer Platz, took pictures and then walked on to the Field of Stelae.


In a reply to one of Munira’s comments I mentioned that we had no washing machine in our unit in Berlin and that there was no laundromat near-by either. So I had to wash all my things by hand whereas Peter could give his shirts and trousers away, leaving them in a shop around the corner and picking them up again five days later. We assume the items were probably sent to Poland for washing and ironing because labour there is cheaper!
I forgot to mention to Munira that during the sixty days, that we were in the flat, a woman came in, but only twice to change our bed-linen and supply us with fresh towels. We did our own cleaning of the place. Not exactly a five star service but then we didn’t have to pay for five star service either! We were quite happy with the arrangement. We were supposed to regard our place as a furnished rented flat and not a hotel. So we were really grateful that all the bedding and towels (including kitchen towels) were provided.
However, to have to wash my things by hand did take a bit of time to get used to. There was only a small basin in the bathroom. Most of the time I had to use the bathtub to do my washing in. I could use a plastic bucket to put in the bathtub. However, this meant I had to bend down quite a bit! I kept thinking about it how in the old days, when people didn’t have washing machines yet, a lot of the washing was done by hand. For larger items boilers were used. The nappies used to be washed in boilers too. With three babies under three we used to boil up a lot of nappies!
Gradually I got used to the task at hand. Remembering the old days I was glad that at least I didn’t have to use boilers any more! The bathroom was always pleasantly warm and there was always hot water out of the tap. I could dry my washing on some clothes lines above the bathtub. These clothes lines could be pushed against the wall out of the way when they weren’t needed.
Come to think of it, there was one other thing that was a bit difficult for me, being not a young chicken any more. I’m speaking of taking a shower. Imagine the shower was above the bathtub! That means when I wanted to take a shower I had to stand in the bathtub. Climbing in and out of the bathtub was sometimes a bit difficult for my old bones. I just had to do it carefully and slowly. Once I was sitting in the bathtub and had difficulty getting out of it. So I called Peter and he gracefully helped me out!
After exactly sixty days our time was up at the apartment in Berlin. My brother came to pick us up and take us to his place in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The dwelling place he provided for us was somewhat different from the small place we had had in Berlin. Peter has a few pictures of it which I am going to show in one of my next posts.

We loved to go for walks in the Tiergarten early in the morning. Close by was the Siegessäule (Victory Column), which Peter loved to take pictures of.

During the second week in Berlin Peter’s sister Ilse came to see us. We went for lunch to the close by Italian restaurant, where we sat outside on a beautiful mild, sunny day. We were all very happy with our meal. And it didn’t cost much! We were surprised we could get for so little money (5 Euros for a pizza!) such a big meal.




On Monday, 10th September 2012, the day after our arrival in Berlin, we went to visit Daniel and Sakorn who was celebrating her birthday with a lot of her Thai friends. Daniel is a son of Peter’s sister Ilse. We traveled by public transport together with Ilse to the beautiful private garden where the birthday party took place. Later on the other son of Ilse, arrived with Susanne to join the party. I went to sleep on a garden lounge Daniel kindly provided for me. He also gave me a nice warm blanket. I was still badly effected by jet leg!


Sakorn gave me boiled rice and freshly cooked vegies, wonderful vegies, for she knew I didn’t eat meat. She gave me also some excellently spiced sauce with my meal. And of course there was a selection of drinks available. They also offered Jägermeister, but I declined. I had the feeling that day that alcohol wouldn’t agree with me. Sakorn understood that I was still suffering from jet leg. She and Daniel fly just about every year for a visit to Thailand. We encouraged them to also come over to Australia next time they’re in Thailand. I think they might actually do this. That’s great. We love having visitors.
I’m coming now to Sunday, the 16th of September. On that day we were travelling by public transport to Borgsdorf visiting Ingrid and Erhard at their summer place. Ingrid is related to Peter’s family. Over the years we were always happy to visit Ingrid and Erhard whenever we happened to be in Berlin. On the phone Ingrid wanted to make sure we would come on Sunday. When I mentioned I still had a bit of a cold she said, not to worry, it was going to be a lovely, sunny day. I could just sit outside in the sun and this would do me good. I didn’t have to do anything. She was going to cook lunch for us, she said.
She did serve us a wonderful lunch. She loves to cook with healthy ingredients and lots of herbs and vegies from her garden. I really felt all right sitting in the autumn sun for hours and hours and being served a lovely meal and later on coffee and cakes. Before the coffee break we all went for a walk to the close by river. Borgsdorf is a very secluded little village. In people’s gardens we could see on their fruit trees hundreds of red apples. Sorry, no picture of the apples.




