Compartmentalizing Berlin

Like the bears that are their city's symbol, Berliners crawled out of hibernation this weekend and into the streets. Excluding the ridiculousness of Oktoberfest and Karneval, I've never seen so many Germans in one confined place as I saw in Mauer Park on Sunday. This city is alive!

The weekend for me was all about embracing the tease of spring. On Saturday I spent the afternoon lolling around Kreuzberg, weaving in and out of interesting stores. Kreuzberg is a neighborhood in the south of Berlin that has a delightfully grungy feel that screams "Berlin!" (Another expression I've started thinking about using, if not actually doing so, is "that's so DDR!"...but I'm not sure if that's PC just yet?) Anyways, Kreuzberg is the go-to hipster locale in this city, although non-hipster identifiers like myself still feel welcome. There are lots of ethnic eateries shoulder to shoulder along the streets, small boutiques showcasing Berlin designers, and tons of book stores. That afternoon I also catered to my obsession with Taiwanese beverages and had an amazing coconut milk tea. It's been too long since I had at least one a day in Taipei.

Saturday evening a friend from the program had some of us over for a good ole' barbecue at his apartment's rooftop deck. It was just not cold enough to sit outside with our eats...bratwurst and burgers for everyone else and grilled sweet potatoes for me. Like a typical southerner I love me some sweet potatoes, so I didn't feel as though I was missing out (too much). I'm really looking forward to spending lots of time outside in the coming months...and hopefully losing some of this perpetual paleness. I tried out some German self tanner lotion this weekend, and now exactly half of my body has a fake sunkissed glow :/

Sunday my friend Tara and I strolled around Prenzlauerberg. I've decided the best way to get to know Berlin is through a compartmentalization strategy, one neighborhood at a time.  Prenzlauerberg is the next stop over from Wedding, where I live, with lots of cute cafes and shops and now...gasp...outdoor seating! We strolled until we stumbled into Mauer Park, which apparently is the place to be Sundays. We pushed our way through crowds at the flea market to check out the wares and then had a shotgun picnic on a rock. I find it comical that 60 degrees and gray skies would be regarded as crummy weather in Los Angeles, but here it is bliss. Perspective.

My cultural Berlin Sunday wasn't over...another friend here won a couple spots on the guest list to a literary reading and discussion at SoHo house, a swanky members-only club. The author was Claire Messud, who I had never heard of until yesterday, but the reading convinced me that she's worth reading - and so did my friends at the New York Times :) Fabulously our winnings included a copy of her book The Emperor's Children (y'all know how I love the free stuff!) so I will be starting that soon.

Later we met up with another friend for a beer happy hour at a hostel followed by a screening of a documentary called Jakarta-Berlin. The premise is a guy's land-only journey from Jakarta, Indonesia to Berlin. I love anything Southeast Asia, so I enjoyed the film (and especially its culinary aspects), although we only made it to Kazakhstan.

It's pi day today, and I recommend celebrating with some math and some pie...I have some good memories from my high school math club experience of this day :)  And that also means that I  have exactly four months left on this program. Really?