We went to the KaDeWe today.
This creation of the Brandenburg Gate is made out of
marzipan, 50 kilogram of marzipan were used for it.
It took 150 working hours to design it!
50 kilo marzipan were used for this. It took 150 working hours to design it!
A street in Altstadt Spandau
Wow, what an underground station!
From Spandau we went by bus to remote rural like Staaken for a family visit. This is at the furthest edge of Berlin.
Last night we strolled through the city center to get a glimpse of the Festival of Lights.
We went to the Jewish Museum today. I’ll write a blog about it some other time.
My brother and his wife came to see us today. They showed us pictures from the family meeting near Stuttgart. One of our cousins turned 70. For the birthday celebrations 48 family members had turned up. I had to guess who the older family members were. Some actually looked familiar to me even though I hadn’t seen them for a long time. The younger generation of course looked totally unfamiliar to me.
We went for lunch to the close by Italian restaurant at Hansaplatz. Later we had coffee at cafe Buchwald where we had some lovely cake called ‘Baumkuchen’ because the inside of the cake looks like the inside of a tree trunk. Our guests talked about a movie they had seen only yesterday. The movie is called ‘The Wall’ with MARTINA GEDECK. This is the movie we had recently seen also. I believe overall my brother kind of liked the movie too, however he would have preferred a bit more realism. His wife thought the surrealism was borderline for her. A bit more of it and she would have felt like walking out. However they both granted that it was wonderful photography and great acting by Martina Gedeck.
At church this morning the theme was: Thanksgiving. I was surprised that ‘Thanksgiving’ is celebrated already in October. There was an organ player playing songs which I didn’t know at all. The whole order of the Mass was different from what I am used to in Australia. Well, it was Catholic, wasn’t it? How come it didn’t feel the same as in Australia. I really don’t know what the difference is.
I love listening to the church bells ringing.
As I said before, Berlin has many, many very well kept park areas. What is also very noticeable are the many spots where some kind of building is going on. Just in the area where we are staying plenty of public work near the streets and foot paths is going on of which I took some pictures.
These rocks are being used near footpaths
Last week we saw an interesting play in the Jewish Theater. I’m going to write about this some other time.
There’s a lot of space in between all the highrise apartment buildings in Hansaviertel. These buildings date from the 1950s.
Dolls like this seem to be very popular at harvest time (autumn)
This week we saw two beautiful movies, both set in Austria. One was a light entertainment TV movie, the other we saw in a huge old fashioned cinema. The main character was played by Martina Gedeck. She’s such a good actress. You had the feeling she lived her role. Really unforgettable. Supreme photography of a very remote Austrian country site high up in the mountains. Excellent music selection for this type of movie.
We met an old friend of Peter’s. They used to be colleagues in the 1950s! He joined us in a trip to ‘Schloss’ Paretz.
Today is already the last day of the fourth week of our stay in Germany. The week started with Sunday when we went with Angie on a beautiful boat-tour through the city. The following day (Monday, 1st October), we met Angie at Bellevue-S-Bahn-Station and had morning coffee with her at Thürmann Baker’s Cafe at Hansaplatz U-Bahn-Station. There’s a Post Office at Hansaplatz from where Angie sent off a parcel to one of her sisters. The weather was very pleasant again. Just right for a lovely walk through Tiergarten towards the Victory Column. Angie enjoyed this walk with us. Later on we met Ilse and Finn at the Italian Restaurant close to Hansaplatz, where the five of us had a very satisfying lunch again outside in the garden area.
Afternoon coffee and cake we had upstairs in our little apartment. Angie had booked in at the newly opened Holiday Inn at Alexanderplatz. She left on Tuesday to fly back to America. Peter and I went to Prenzlauer Berg on Tuesday and had dumplings at a restaurant near Rosenthalerplatz.
Wednesday it was time to travel ‘Criss-Cross-Through-the-Cauntry’ to Munich for my cousin’s Urn-Burial on Thursday. On Friday we travelled back to Berlin. Travelling time was about nine hours. We just had to change trains frequently. That way we were able to travel at a much reduced price. For the two nights in Munich we stayed with my cousin’s family. We love this family. They are such friendly people. Even though it was a very sad occasion to meet them, we still had a good time with them.
So far we’ve had always friendly weather during our stay in Germany. Today is the first day where it is quite cold, wet and dark outside.
Now we’re looking forward to the start of our fifth week in Germany. What is it going to bring to us?
Today just a few photos of our third week in Berlin.
Despite many people using public transport and going around on bikes, one can see lots of cars everywhere too.
We left the gardens of the restaurant after an excellent lunch to have coffee and cake in our little apartment. We had been very lucky that it had still been warm enough to sit outside for our meal.
Peter said: Let’s go to the Kaufhof
Best of all was, I could find some toilets there. On the fifth floor there was also the DINEA that Ilse had recommended to us.
interesting decorations surrounded us
Last Friday was the day when we strolled along the Kurfürstendamm. Since then we’ve been to quite a few other destinations. First of all we had family visiting us for afternoon coffee and cake. I’ll be writing about this some other time.
Sunday was a lovely, balmy, very sunny day as forecast. So we went to see our dear family friends Ingrid and Erhard. During the summer months they often stay in their little summer cottage which is surrounded by a beautiful garden area. They invited us to spend the day with them in their garden with plenty of homegrown cooked food, which was delicious. I’ll blog about this later on.
On Monday Ilse came to see us. We had delicious pizza at a close by Italian Restaurant sitting outside in lovely sunshine. For afternoon coffee and cake we went to baker Thürmann, also close by.
Yesterday, Tuesday, our destination was Bayrischer Platz. Just round the corner is Bozener Strasse, where I grew up. I felt quite nostalgic to see my old stomping ground again. We picked up a few large, shiny, rather big chestnuts from under the huge tree at the end of Bozener Strasse. I remember this tree very well from my childhood!
We had lunch at a baker’s shop close by. Next door was an Italian restaurant where lots of people were sitting outside enjoying the beautiful sunshine. We ordered gelato with fresh cream and soon were sitting outside too with these lovely ice-cream dishes which cost only three Euros each!
It was midday when we heard the freedom bells from the close by Rathaus at John-F-Kennedy-Platz. It was only a short walk for us to this place. In front of the Rathaus was a market. An Indian fellow sold jackets. I bought a warm jacket from him. He told us, he had relatives in Brisbane when we mentioned that we were from Australia.
Another spot from the past beckoned: Stadtpark Schöneberg. This place awakened heaps of memories in us. We took a seat close to the pond where we could watch the ducks. I remembered pictures of me standing close to the duck-pond as a toddler more than seventy-five years ago! I felt so tired by then I actually nodded off a bit sitting with Peter on a bench with the sun shining on us.
The Underground station Rathaus Schöneberg is right next to the duck-pond. So we took the underground to go back home to Hansaplatz. We took heaps of pictures every day. But here now is only a small sample of them:
For most of the week we experienced a rather cold wind. One day we went to the Kurfürstendamm to have lunch at Café Kranzler. The cold wind at the top of the building prevented us from sitting outside. However we were able to take a few pictures from the lovely outside area. Some people sitting in the more protected areas outside cafés of the Ku’damm were able to enjoy the sunshine.
AuntyUta 