Topography of Terror
I remembered something funny yesterday while planning my Berlin Staycation.
When I was a kid my family went to a cabin for 10 days in the summer. It was my absolute favorite time of the year and I prepared for it months in advance. I used to make an itemized list of exactly what clothes I would bring with me, what toys, what books, and I even started making a daily schedule.
- 8am: get up, get dressed, make breakfast - eggs, toast, bacon, pancakes.
- 9am: go to Ally's cabin. Play UNO.
- 10am: if sunny - go to beach. if cloudy, go to store, play pool. Eat candy...
etc.
I think I can honestly say I've relaxed somewhat since those days, but I blame my anal-retentiveness on a sincere excitement about making the most of holidays. They just go by too damn fast.
I do, however, still schedule time for candy.
Monday was lazy; yesterday was much more 'productive' if holidays are supposed to be productive. After spending nearly 4 hours at Topography of Terror, I irritated Jed to no end by nagging him for not marking down some of the cafes I wanted to go to on our map. If there's one thing I hate, it's searching for food / coffee in touristy areas. It ended up alright, because while we paid about twice as much for coffee as we normally would in Berlin, we also discovered a very awesome bakery that had what looked liked superb cinnamon buns. I say 'looked like' because we were already full on foccacia and wildfruchts kuchen by the time the buns came out.
One of the things we wanted to do was visit the international magazine shop at Alexanderplatz, but it turned out to be thrice-fold overpriced. When a magazine clearly says it is 3.50 EUR, and then it is marked up to 11 EUR... it makes my spleen swell with rage. Oh the prices we pay for speaking English! *shakes fist*
Alexanderplatz, Berlin
We biked home well satisfied with our day. And then discovered this awesome blog about Berlin which made us laugh our pants off and make short lived plans to combine our forces and write an equally awesome blog about Berlin. This we dismissed after deciding that the British have all the advantages in being drily hilarious and caustic without being offensive. I am just offensive and Jed doesn't write or update nearly enough to be a successful blogger. Oh well.
We're still searching for a new apartment from June 1, and I'm more or less accepting our fate to be subletting wanderers in Berlin. It's not so bad moving from place to place, you get to live in cool areas and not have to worry about owning stuff, and sometimes you get to look after people's cats without having to pay for the vet bills. All good things.
Today: going to look at an apartment and then the Neues Museum and some new / used English bookstores :)
Tomorrow: Potsdam!
I always thought the Mauerpark was kinda gross, but I've slowly come around to it. If you don't mind clumpy grass mixed with a healthy dose of cigarette smoke and graffiti, I feel confident you will see the charm of the Mauerpark in time.