Foodball, FHE, and Friedrichshain

Monday night we sent the students off on a digital scavenger hunt. They ran around a section of Berlin snapping pictures of famous, obnoxious and obscure items ( three churches in the Brick Gothic style, having someone teach you the lyrics to the "Heidi" theme song, a chocolate Reichstag, etc.).
While they did that, Rob and I had our own scavenger hunt for their prizes. We ducked into FoodBall because we decided we had to eat there after Cindy Brewer sent us an article where it appeared in the New York Times. We ate some hacky sacks and had some organic fresh-pressed juice. The food was good, the apple-ginger juice was fantastic, but the air was a bit thick with super ego for me.
There was a demonstration in the neighborhood, we found our prizes, the kids played poker at home with Sarah, and afterward the teams all downloaded their pictures and we had brownies which I had baked Monday morning. They weren't half bad.

This morning, Rob Sebastian and I met up with John and Cecil Schultz to go on a walking tour of Friedrichshain. John is our facilitator (meaning he did all the cool graphics for this trip and made the advertisement) and Friedrichshain was one of his areas on his mission. It is the easternmost piece of the Berlin pie, and as such, it's one of the places Rob doesn't really know. Rob went into raptures over the Schinkel-esque buildings on Karl-Marx Allee which were actually built in the 1950's, but were throwbacks to the decorative Wiener werkstatt/Art Nouveau period.
This picture is for Darren Breen. We saw this house and both thought of him, because he works with alternative angels for lack of a better term. Also reminded me of Felix the Wall Artist in Mixed Nuts (it's now that time of year again, and if you haven't seen it yet, watch it once and then let it sink in -- you'll be hooked). Felix and all of his friends have come to Friedrichshain and are having a ball. There used to be punk squatters who would take over whole apartment buildings (which were vacated after the wall came down -- people left their apartments intact and took off for the west). Punk houses are mostly gone now, and there are more sedate occupants who like having electricity and running water

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mohr im Hemd

Image
I finally got up the nerve to try my own Mohr im Hemd. This was the dish that we always ordered if we found it on the menu. It translates as "The Moor and His Shirt" which is so politically incorrect that it isn't easy to find, even though it is a traditional Viennese dish. It is a steamed pudding, like the Christmas dessert I grew up on and it is very moist and very chocolate, though not as sweet as an American dessert. It was successful enough that Rob had me make it twice more in the same weekend. Happily, after learning how to make it, I feel less guilty about eating the stuff. How often does that happen? Here is the recipe I used, as opposed to the top secret family recipe that I don't even have, or the recipe from my Austrian cookbook that asks for 'gratified butter': MA's Mohr im Hemd 3 bread rolls, crusts removed and cubed 1 c milk 3/4 c unsalted butter 1/4 c sugar 8 oz best and darkest chocolate you can find 8 eggs 1/2 c sugar 1/2 c walnuts,
Read more

The Trip Home: A Report Card

Image
Our Itinerary: Stuttgart to Atlanta and Atlanta to Salt Lake. It was a good schedule, flying out at 11:00am and getting in at 9:00pm on the same day (flying back across 8 time zones too, so about 23 hours of travel door to door). German taxi driver: A+. cheerful, knowledgeable, efficient and with candy for the kids Stuttgart airport: C-. inefficient, poorly-designed, and not very helpful; had to show our passports 5 times in 5 different places. took 1 1/2 hours to process us from curb to gate. ugh. Delta: B-. The flight attendants all looked "rid hard & put away wet" and the bare bones service just can't keep up with their [government subsidized] European counterparts with their dewy-skinned attendants, steaming towels, toys for the kids, and gourmet meals instead of astronaut food served in foil pouches. They got us there and did it on time, but it feels more and more like riding on a bus with a lot of rules. German Family With Four Kids Who Sat Next To Us On The
Read more

Gumdroppapalooza

Image
I am behind this year on Christmas, and really noticing a difference. Normally I aim to meet Flylady's holiday deadlines to have my presents bought, menus planned, nonperishables stocked, cards mailed, and everything wrapped. This gives me the whole month to obsess over neighbor gifts (which I loathe). This year I'm playing catch up on all of those things. The one thing I've done right is to wrap and label the presents but not stick bows on them. This way I can hide and stack them, I know who they're for, and I'll have the perfect job to do while I'm helping the kids wrap their gifts. OK, the other thing I've done right is use Amazon. Not only do I love their wish list and the universal wish list button so that I can add things to the kids' lists as I think of them whenever I'm "looking for the end of the internet" as Liesl's sister calls it. I also love their gift organizer which lets me create an idea list for family and friends
Read more