We soon found out that there was a great baker’s shop in the neighbourhood. Peter usually went down there early in the morning to get fresh bread rolls for breakfast plus a piece or maybe two pieces of cake! There was always a great selection of different cakes to choose from.
One Morning Peter bought this selection of different breads.
On Saturday (15th September 2012) Peter went down to get extra cakes for the guests we were expecting for afternoon coffee that day. When they pressed the bell Peter asked them to wait downstairs; he was to go down to guide them to the lift and show them the way to our apartment! I waited upstairs at the lift. Out came my nieces lovely family. There she was, my beautiful niece Corinna with Walter and son Carlos Emilio. Carlos had grown so much since I had seen him more than two years ago.
Even though I still suffered a bit from this nasty cold, we had a lovely afternoon together.
We had arrived in Berlin on Sunday, the 9th of September. After we had a couple of rather dark unpleasant days a bit of a cold started to hang around me. Luckily towards the end of the week the weather had improved. The skies cleared and there was plenty of sunshine! So we went on quite a few outings to explore the city or take some rest in the close- by Tiergarten park area.
It amazed us how many bikes there were to be seen all over the place. Still there were many, many cars as well. The way some of the bike-riders went through the heavy traffic, often looked pretty scary to us. A lot of buses were often part of the street-scene as well. There seemed to be quite a bit of traffic too on the different water ways. And street repairs and new buildings going up where-ever we went in the midst of the city. Our first impression was, this is a buzzing city where always something was going on. But then there were the quiet areas in the parks in the midst of the city where the city seemed to be far away.
We later found out that Berlin has in just about every district a lot of park area. Only 60% of the available place is built upon, the rest is landscaped in some way. We believe this report because wherever we went to during our stay in Berlin there always seemed to be some beautiful looked after park for people to enjoy. We also noticed a lot of memorials and sculptures. Of course we took quite a few pictures of a lot of them. Since most of my pictures did get lost in cyberspace, I am now using for my posts mainly the pictures that Peter took.
Die Siegessäule (Victory Column)This picture with Klaudia was taken during our first week in Berlin
The first few days in Berlin Peter and I were suffering terribly from jet-leg, that is we woke up in the middle of the night and just couldn’t go back to sleep. Sometimes we would start playing Rummy Cub in the middle of the night! On one of the first days it got windy and cold. We were out on this day. I soon did get very exhausted. Next day I started getting a bad cold. But when the weather improved and I did go out into the sunshine, I soon felt a lot better. But I think a bit of this cold was with me for nearly a week. Peter bought me some lovely flowers. We soon noticed all over Berlin there was a glut of flowers. You could buy flowers just about everywhere, beautiful fresh and low priced.
We arrived at Berlin Tegel Airport on time, however it took quite a while before we did get through customs and were able to receive our luggage. Klaudia was waiting for us. It turned out she had forgotten where she had her car parked, that is she knew where the parking area was but she wasn’t sure how she would be able to get there. She ventured into one of the old lifts of Tegel Airport and left us behind. All we could do was wait. In the end we made it to the car all right. With all our luggage!
Our arrival was on a Sunday. In Berlin nearly all shops are closed on Sundays. Klaudia first of all took us to Peter’s sister’s place. Surprise, surprise, she had a big bag full of goodies prepared for us. She had thought of everything that we would need for the first day in our apartment, things like butter-milk, bread, cheese and wurst and fruit and tea-bags as well as milk and butter. Remember, the shops are closed on a Sunday, she said. Peter’s sister lives pretty close to the airport. However, we thought we might take off somewhat early so we’d be closer to where our apartment was. We had been told a woman would meet us in front of the apartment block at 2 pm. Perhaps there was a chance to meet her bit earlier so she could let us into our apartment? If not, we’d just stay in the surrounding park area, called ‘Tiergarten’ till it was time for the meeting.
Actually in the Tiergarten, not far from where our apartment block was, is the ‘English Garden’ with the English Tea-House. Klaudia was well acquainted with this place and led us there where we had some lovely refreshments sitting in the outside garden area. It was a beautiful balmy autumn day. Before we went to the Tea House we found a nice picnic table where we all dug into the stuff Peter’s sister had provided. I remember as cheese there was ‘Harzer Käse”, which I love and which is hard to get in Australia. Everything Ilse had packed, tasted wonderful!
The handover of the apartment at 2 o’clock went without a hinge. We straight away liked the place. It was tiny, just a studio apartment, with a small kitchen. But it seemed adequate for us as a holiday place. There were lifts which meant getting our luggage up to the second floor was no problem. Klaudia was helping us all the way. She was really great! She is a bit on the nervous side. (Who wouldn’t be a little bit stressed in a place like Berlin? Unless you’re on holidays , of course.) Once she’s a bit de-stressed, she’s a wonderful person to be with. And she said she wanted to make time for us to see us often while we were in Berlin. And she sure did keep her promise. She didn’t disappoint us in any way. We had some very good time with her. She kept talking a lot about Australia and how she’d love to go there once more.
On the way to the English Tea House
The English GardenWe like it here!Walking through the Tiergarten
Ah, it’s a cleaning car.And this on a Sunday!This is the entrance to our apartment.This is our splendid little kitchen.And this is a view from our apartment.
We arrived early for lunch. Peter took the opportunity to take some pictures. Looking at them now they revive memories of that day in Berlin. Once our guests arrived Peter stopped taking photos.
Today I was looking for some more pictures from the past. I came up with two pictures from 1958 and another two pictures from 1960
Peter with Gaby
This pictures was taken in Düsseldorf, Germany, in a park called ‘Hofgarten’, on 17th June 1958. Gaby was not quite nine months yet at the time.
Uta and Peter with Gaby
This pictures was taken by Uta’s Mum on her balcony in Berlin in August 1958. Gaby was nearly one year old. We were for a visit in Berlin at the time.
Uta with Baby Martin, two months, Monika, eighteen months, and Gaby thirty-three months.
This pictures was taken near Fairy Meadow Beach, New South Wales, Australia, in June 1960.
Uta and Peter (25) with all three children
This is where the pioneer family ended up in Oak Flats, NSW, Australia, which was ‘the sticks’ at the time. This picture was taken on the 28th August 1960 which was Gaby’s birthday. We were building a garage at the time. One year later the children were stricken by polio; as it turned out, Gaby very severely.
I’m a bit late with this post. More than three weeks have already gone into the New Year 2013. Here now I want to document what we did on the last day of 2012! Our day started with a trip to Bondi Junction, where we met our daughter. We had a cup of coffee with Caroline (sorry no photo). Then Caroline had to go shopping. We strolled back to the station. This time to a different entrance to the station, one that we weren’t familiar with yet. A beautiful large rest asrea opened up in front of us. Lots of different food and drinks were on offer at different outlets. In the middle of the plaza some delicious looking (homemade) ice-cream caught our eye. Peter and I each had a cup full of this very refreshing treat. It wasn’t expensive but tasted wonderful. There were plenty of seats everywhere to have a rest. We took the lift down to the platform. Only a few minutes and our train departed. We got off at Town Hall Station. Later on we looked at the displays of some cake-shops. We were hoping we would find some Berliners. It is our tradition to eat Berliners on New Year’s Eve. We had no luck. We couldn’t find any. We went back to Town Hall Station to catch our train to Dapto. While we were waiting for the train we took some photos. The trip to Dapto took nearly two hours. Some shops in Dapto Shopping Center were already about to close when we arrived there. We knew we had a bottle of Bubbly at home in the fridge for our end of year celebrations. But we were still without any Berliners. I felt a bit tired and was sitting down for a while. In the meantime Peter rushed into another shop that was still open. Surprise, surprise, he came out with some delicious looking Berliners in the form of stars! He got them at half price for they were the last ones that were left! At home we watched “Dinner for One”, which is a tradition with us to watch on New Year’s Eve. It is a sketch about Miss Sophie’s 90th Birthday. Very, very funny! We’ve seen it so often and every time we laugh our heads off again. Peter tried out to take a few pictures from the TV showing Sydney Harbour. At midnight he took also some pictures of the fireworks. Soon after we went to bed. But of course we did have our Bubbly and did eat the heated up little stars with it. They tasted delicious, just as good as the balls, called Berliners, do taste. Of course we did get messages and phone calls from our children before we went to bed, wishing us a HAPPY NEW YEAR.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
AuntyUta 