Ackerplatz market, Däri - Milk Workshop, The Circus of the Cycling Spoons and loving Berlin right now

You know how when you fall in love with someone?  You are utterly goo goo ga ga over how great they are? Exciting, unpredictable (in a good way), friendly. Then you suddenly find them reckless, unpredictable (in a bad way), and what you took to be friendliness, is actually horniness (and they hit on all your girlfriends, all the time)*. Most times that’s when you expedite them to the nearest exit.  Except on the very rare occasion where you see them stripped down and you think, yep, I get you and I still love you (yeah, close your mouth dear, I’m as surprised as you are).My guess is that this is probably why almost 95% of love stories are about an unrequited / misunderstood love that is requited / understood for a blink before one or both of them dies. Romeo & Juliet? Had they lived, he would have probably become a shoe salesman and she would sport a bouffant red hair do.

Because it’s complicated, intangible even to express what it is, how it works, why it works? (Oh and if you ask me, the characters of  Miracle Max and his wife run circles around all the afore-mentioned lovers.)It’s easy to be in love with someone before all the dots have been connected but once they have, well then you find yourself thinking - “That’s just a stupid drawing of a couple of kittens playing with a ball of yarn. How kitsch, how dull, I was expecting something else, I saw myself with someone better…” dump.It’s sort of the same with cities, you visit once and you think ‘Ah, to live here, I would be the happiest person in the world.’ Then you do and discover that actually you can’t put up with all the dog poop (Paris); all the over 70s (Geneva); can’t afford it (London); all the Hogans sports shoes (Munich); all the motorcycles without mufflers…oh, oh…and the imminent financial collapse (Athens) - you get my drift.But Berlin, Berlin.  Well yes: the bureaucrats are exceedingly good at telling you, you haven’t filled in the right form; receiving a flyer that says I must go collect my parcel at the post office leaves me shaking with fear (they’re mean to me); and my eyes roll so far into their sockets every time the supermarket counter girls get up from their seat to make sure I am not wheeling out a lifetime supply of diapers, that I have to pull out my compact mirror to help roll the back into their place. Buuuuuuttttt……The rest of Berlin is fantastic.

You just need to step out of your door and let things happen to you.  No plan, necessary, no money even (although that certainly helps). Read more of this post

Efa’s, Frozen Yogurt, Mitte

Frozen yogurt.

Why bother?

Am I right?

It’s a little like saying, “I’m in the mood for something bland, something white.”

“Snow?”

“Nope, frozen yogurt.”In Miami over Christmas, I developed a taste for  Yogen Früz.  They do a dizzying array of flavours and make them ‘fresh’ for your order; meaning they feed what looks a like soap bar (but is in reality a frozen fruit bar) into a machine that blends it with frozen yogurt.  It’s highly addictive, especially chocolate frozen yogurt with Reese’s Pieces candies strewn on top.  And yes, I know that by ordering that I am totally missing the point of the whole low-fat thing but you haven’t tried it, you don’t know how good it is.

In Berlin however, frozen yogurt comes in one flavour: yogurt.  (Efa’s also does a seasonal flavour.)  Which is probably the more honest approach otherwise it’s a bit like tofu burgers.  Either you want tofu or you want a burger but to want both is like wanting a Siamesoodle (a cross between a Siamese cat and a poodle, don’t google it, I made it up).

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Paninoteca

I was all set to make a Salad Nicoise for lunch today, I was going to quickly stop by the supermarket and pick up some new potatoes and tuna.

Then I passed this teeny tiny shop, with a haphazard display of bottles in its front window – badly discolored and wearing at least 1 cm of dust.  Inside it was dark and narrow, with a few cheap bar tables leading up to an old-fashioned glass display cabinet piled high with sandwiches. The ciabatta looked really fresh and each sandwich was stuffed with Parma ham, mortadella, grilled vegetables or other delicious goodies.  The girl behind the counter didn’t pounce on me with “what would you like?” instead, she let me take my time checking out the sandwiches – which to me meant they weren’t exactly hankering after customers.

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