Lost! & Found.

Yesterday Saoirse and I decided to go to the Hamburgerbanhoff Museum on Invalidenstrasse to check out their collection. I was interested to see what Cy Twombly they had as I had read a really good New Yorker piece (no surprise for Nick and Julia) about him last year and was excited to see something in person. Unfortunately, instead of the eight euro entrance fee I was expecting, the woman at the booth tried to charge us eighteeen euro which was basically my budget for the day. It turns out she didn't believe Saoirse was sixteen and eligible for free entrance and as well misunderstood our desire to see the collection and not the temporary show. So, eager to avoid yet another unwanted purchase (cursed turkey!) I said no thank you, accepted her disgusted expression and took our money back.

We again set out on our bikes, not really paying attention to where we were going but now that we're biking regularly, I'm starting to understand that Berlin is a small city that is super easy to navigate.

Items of note about Berlin.

1. This city often smells of sulphur or something rotting. Though not always at the same time. Veda told me that Patsy first commented on this when she was here, and though I am not known for the most advanced olfactory senses I would have to agree.

2. Biking in Berlin opens this city like November 9th, 1989. I realize it may be presumptuous but I don't think you can really know Berlin if you don't own a bike.

3. Do your shopping on Saturday as on Sunday it is really difficult to find anything open, including grocery stores. This is particularly important if one is vegan and want a change of pace from falafel.

So after some time of haphazardly biking along we ended up in Prenzlauerberg. Now, I have described this area of Berlin in the past as being like Surrey but clearly there is a wide variety of sights and sounds within each area and where we were was more like North Burnaby, which is of interest because that's essentially where the Gatzaenkers live back home and it is by chance where they live in Berlin. Spooky...

While in Prenzlauerberg we came upon a massive flea market held in Mauerpark on Eberswalderstrasse. When I say massive I'm not kidding, there would be no way we could have seriously seen all the booths though we did manage to find beer. I was annoyed at Saoirse because there was a ton of vinyl being sold that I could have spent all day perusing but she was worried we would lose one another. Although her concern was justified I still called her a scheissehund...what else could I do?

The highlight of the flea market was arguably the open air karaoke fest we stumbled upon where there were probably a thousand people clapping along with germans singing Bonjovi and Abba, us too, it was rad. I've not seen so many happy people during the daytime since we've been here, hold on, maybe the german nation are a nation of bats...happiest at night...

Soon however we left as it was getting late and we didn't know exactly where we were yet, but soon enough familiarity was in sight and we were home to 5 Katzbachstrasse, Kreuzberg, Berlin, Deutschland. Ich liebe Berlin mein freunden. Ich liebe Berlin.