Fernweh: Whole Lot Of Shoppin' Goin' On

Dear Daughter took off work Wednesday through Friday while we're here.

The weather outside has been bitterly cold and DD suffers from the cold more than I do.

I've been here before and have seen the "must see" sights.

Our tastes in museums vary as much as we do.

For all these reasons we parted ways for a couple of days. Nate went sight-seeing on his own. DD and I went shopping.

Wednesday we started out visiting Naehkontor, a shop I'd read about here. It's a little out of the main stream on Boetzowstrasse. When we first got off the bus, I had my doubts about being in the right place. The street was the kind of quiet, lovely side street I'd like to live on (if I were ever fortunate enough to live in Berlin). We knew we were walking in the right direction, as the street came to an end where the bus dropped us off.

But sure enough... when we got to the next corner we found the shop.

We bought a little bit of fabric and some notions, but didn't spend a "fortune".

Then we made our way to Hackescher Markt. Upon arrival we went looking for lunch. We chose a restaurant called Oliva and had Italian-style frittatas with salad. The eggs were tasty, but a bit on the oily side for my taste (who am I kidding... they tasted awesome, but they weren't anything approaching lo-cal or healthy).

After finishing lunch we went into the Hackesche Hoefe. The Hoefe are a series of connected courtyards with small shops. The shops are all high-end, so we only window shopped. But if one were after Berlin souveniers, there's a small shop with absolutely anything you could possibly want sporting the Ampelmann... the distinctive pedestrian traffic lights of Berlin. The first courtyard was ornately decorated. The subsequent ones were each a little different, but much simpler. Since they were surrounded by apartments, I didn't feel comfortable photographing them.

From there we traveled to Hueco, another fabric store. It's in an industrial district and not very photogenic, but it's probably the largest fabric store in Berlin. Nevertheless, we left empty-handed, other than some small vinyl samples for Penni (for a headboard she's planning to build... decisions still need to be made).

Our final destination on Wednesday was the Christmas Market at Schloss Charlottenburg. It was rumored to be the nicest in Berlin. It is arguably the prettiest. There were searchlights picking out the stop of the Schloss as well as illuminating the sky. Some of the vendor stalls had a tent-like roof with the light shining through, as well as all the normal decorations and lights.

The tent-like roofs were covering enclosed (as in WARM) stalls, which were a nice refuge after one had been wandering around in the cold for a while. The goods inside are similar to what's available outside, though perhaps pricier.

Thursday morning we took a walk to the "Toy Store", aka home improvement store to brainstorm hanging solutions for the headboard-to-be and to pick up a needed set of screwdrivers as part of our Christmas gift to DD and BF.

Before you jump to conclusions, the rough translation of the store name is "light way". Inside it looks much like the stores back home, except the brands are mostly German... row after row of Bosch power tools. If only we had the same power grid... I would have come home with a tool.

I also wish we had this system of various pieces made for designing and building your own furniture. Lot's of different pieces... not just these... with lots of possibilities.

But there was one thing I doubt we'll ever see in our Home Depot or Lowes, however we might wish it.

(Wine)

Potential solution found, we headed back to the apartment for lunch. Afterwards we again parted ways and went sight seeing (Nate) and shopping (DD and myself). Early evening we met up again at the Markt in Potsdamer Platz.

One fun addition at the Potsdamer Platz market was a tubing hill. The hill was more ice than snow and very fast. Everyone who came down hit the (fortunately padded) wall at the bottom.