The map I have shows the city center and the main part of Charlottenburg, so I could locate the studio's position easily, but doesn't show anywhere closer to where I am. So after a quick squint at Google Maps I figured that heading north and looking for signs for Charlottenburg should be good enough to get me onto the map, at which point I could use the map to find the studio. This worked better than I expected (I ended up taking pretty much the optimal route from the institute to the studio, direction-wise if not bike-friendliness-wise), but not well enough to get me there in time for the class. However, when I got there I saw a sign in the window saying that today's class was canceled, so I didn't miss anything.
Moreover, I ended up right near Karl-August-Platz where there's an excellent Saturday market. I had previously found a small Kaiser's supermarket within walking distance of the institute and picked up some staples there, but this is where they keep the real food! Not to mention the flowers and the hand-carved wooden kitchenware and the cheap sewing supplies and the cheap clothing (3 pairs of socks for 5 euros; see, I told you there was no point packing extra socks).
The Germans and I see eye to eye on the question of when a cucumber is overripe (pretty much never: when it goes huge and yellowy and develops a sort of watery texture in the seeds and a tangy taste, that's a good thing). I got a monster cucumber larger than a butternut squash (and at 2.50 euros per kilo, more expensive than three pairs of socks!), as well as some French black grapes and a bunch of cilantro and some pears of a kind I've never seen before. Also a chai latte with a straw, which apparently is the way you're supposed to drink it here, frothed to the point where the foam is as enduring as industrial effluent. There were all kinds of other things that I didn't buy, including quail eggs (Wachteleier, both fresh and preserved) and English scones and manuka honey from New Zealand and specialty soaps (but no carnation soap, which is Susanna's favorite but hard as hell to find. I know how to ask for it in German ("Nelke Seife") but so far I always get the same answer).
It was a rather drizzly day and over a half-hour ride back, so after some shopping and checking out the upcoming events at the nearby Deutsche Oper Berlin (Parsifal next month!) I retraced my route on the bike and came home. German bike gears are calibrated backwards from our point of view, with 1 as the most difficult gear and 3 as the easiest on a typical three-speed city bike, and I only wish I had figured that out before doing a long ascent in what I assumed was first gear. (Door locks are counterintuitive too, so instead of "righty-tighty lefty-loosy" you have to remember "left lock, right release".) Biking in Berlin seems to be about 65% like biking in Holland and about 35% like biking in India, so I feel right at home. There are bike paths and bike lanes on many streets, with dedicated traffic lights for the bicycles and so on, but on the narrow streets of the urban centers it seems to be pretty much a free-for-all.
We have a tiny shared kitchen on the ground floor of the dorm building so I used the rainy afternoon making a huge kettle of dal saag, with a bag of lentils and a box of frozen spinach and a couple of onions and a bag of potatoes and the bunch of cilantro from the market. Not much else to put in except some salt and pepper, but it came out well and it's nice to have real food on hand. Storing leftovers in my little cube fridge will be something of a challenge; I think I'll need to pick up some space-saving German Tupperware equivalents.
Local Happenings
Why are there a grillion film-company vans lined up on our street since yesterday? And the back yard of one of the houses opposite is all lit up at night. Somebody's doing some on-location filming?
A damp day is perfect for a race between a snail (Schnecke) and a slug (Nacktschnecke or "naked snail"). The snail ate the slug's lunch, zooming past him in a blur of speed, comparatively speaking. Moving at a snail's pace is still better than being sluggish!
Schlüsselkäfer says, "Back in my day before I was stuck in this keychain I could go way faster than that even without using my wings!"
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