Tintin and the Museuminsel Market
Trip Start
Jan 26, 2008
1
17
36
Trip End
Feb 29, 2008
Berlin,
Germany
Monday, February 11, 2008
Our plan for the morning was to head out to the KaDaWe shopping centre, which is apparently a seven storey Mecca for those in need of a bit of retail therapy. What we did not count on was the German tendency to close things. I have already commented on our dismay at the early closure of everything from supermarkets to cafes and bars, it also seems that retail stores in Germany, for the most part, stay closed on Sunday. I can still remember a time when stores in Melbourne used to remain closed on a Sunday but it is something from the distant past
Chains
. I certainly did not expect to come across this, for us at least, ancient tradition in the middle of modern Europe. Frustrated in our attempts to see the shops we continued to wander down Kurfurstemdam in search of one of the most famous Currywurst stands at number 195. We once again came across the annoying propensity of the Germans to number from 1 to something down one side of the street and from something to something plus something down the other side which means that number 10 and number 200 could be at the same end of the street, just on opposite sides of the road. In our wanderings we came across one of the sights we had been wanting to see - the Kaiser Whilmen Gedachtniskirche, a church, built between 1891 and 1895, to honour Kaiser Whilhem I. The church was partially destroyed by an allied air raid in 1943 and now stands as a reminder of the destruction caused by war. After getting some pictures we continued down Kurfurstemdam and came across a coffee shop that boasted half-an-hour free WiFi access with purchase of coffee. Feeling in need of a caffeine hit and thinking this would be a perfect opportunity to update the blog we headed in, got our coffee and password for our free half-an-hour and then failed to log in. The staff were clueless as to what I should do so we ended up just having coffee, no free WiFi. I continue to be amazed at how poor the WiFi access in Germany is
Kaiser Whilhelm Memorial Church
. Of all places I expected this to be one where there were wireless networks everywhere. There are plenty of internet cafes but if you ask them if they also have a wireless access point they look at you blankly. The American chains are the most reliable with Starbucks being a good bet.Back on the stroll along Kurfurstemdam we went past the story of Berlin Museum, went in to see if it was something we wanted to visit and ultimately concluded we didn't think it was going to be worth the entrance fee. We finally located the much sought after Currywurst stand and ordered up - one Currywurst each and I had a Berliner Pilsner. This was probably the best Currywirst so far, tomorrow we are going to try and find the other Currywurst stand that is recommended by our guidebook. After filling up on Currywurst we headed back to the Reichstag to see if the queues to get up to the dome were any shorter on a Sunday. Turns out that because the Reichstag is one of the few things open on a Sunday, the queues are even longer. Determining that we will get up early tomorow and arrive at the Reichstag right on 8am, we next decided to head to the weekend markets adjacent to Museuminsel. Checking the metro map and the address of the market in the guide book we decided we needed to get to Hackescher Markt station, which required a a couple of interchanges to get to. After our second interchange we happened to notice the Market out the window of the train as we went by and they turned out to be much closer to the Fredirchstasser Station than to the Hackescher Markt station. We hopped off our train at Hackescher Markt station and caught the next train back to Fredirchstasser Station. We could have avoided one interchange if we had known about the proximity of the Market to Fredirchstasser Station. The market had a reasonable number of stalls selling a variety of items. There were several stalls selling secondhand books, the majority of which were, predictably, in German. There were some white elephant type stalls, some selling hats, some jewellery, one fellow selling German tin toys and one guy selling DVDs, CDs and Tintin posters. I picked up four Tintin posters, they are of the covers of the Tintin comic books, and a hat. For the Tintin fans out their I got posters of: Explorers on the Moon, Tintin and the Land of Black Gold, Tintin and the Cigars of the Pharaoh, and Tintin in Tibet. We also took advantage of the Wurst stands and tried a Bratwurst, concluding that the Bratwurst at the Queen Vic. Market is better and a Krauker (spelling?) which was similar to a Kransky and tastier than anything similar we have tried at home.
We decided to head back to the Hostel a bit earlier today as we wanted to find the laundromat and get our washing done in preparation of heading to Rome first thing Wednesday morning. We stopped at Starbucks to get some coffee and finally access the 'net and update the blog. Back at Fredirchstrasser station, where about 60% of he retail stores were open, we found a shoe store and spotted some Crocs that had a fluffy sock lining to keep your feet warm in Winter. I had vetoed Belle bringing her Crocs pointing out it would be to cold to wear then in the middle of Winter in Europe. These lined Crocs solved that particular problem and we both left the store with a pair of toasty warm Crocs each. Belle was so excited she planned to wear her new Crocs to the laundromat! We also went to the supermarket to pick up a couple of things. We picked just the right moment to head in to the supermarket as once we came out we noticed an enormous line of people waiting to get in. We next went in to the Lindt chocolate store. Yep, a store full of nothing but Lindt chocolate. They even had bars of 99% cocoa solids Lindt chocolate. There is a far greater variety of flavours of chocolate available here and we decided to sample one, 70% cocoa solids chocolate filled with a blueberry and lavender filling. Belle was not to keen on it when we tried it later, she is not all that fond of dark chocolate, but I found it very enjoyable. We headed back to the Hostel, picked up our washing, Belle changed into her brand new Crocs, and we headed out in search of the Laundromat. A two stop trip on the tram and then down one of the side streets and we came across the Laundromat. The washers are all front loading Miele machines. We loaded all our washing into two machines, got some powder out of the dispenser and started our machines running. We were not exactly sure what sort of wash cycle we were doing as we could not decipher the German instructions. The machines started running and the digital display indicated that the cycle should finish in 30 minutes time so we headed out in search of some dinner.
We must have been in a predominately Turkish neighborhood as we passed several shops with Turkish names and selling Turkish things. We eventually came across a Turkish restaurant and headed inside for a Doner Kebab. This may not seem very German but we have both read somewhere that it is claimed that it was Turks in Germany who first invented the Doner Kebab - thats our excuse and we are sticking to it, anyway today had already been a three wurst day so we are doing pretty well on the 'eating the indigenous cuisine' front. The Kebabs were excellent and our waitress was also keen for us to come back and try the breakfast menu, we may take her up on that in Tuesday morning. After dinner it was back to the Laundromat, the washing cycles were finished when we got back so we emptied the contents of our two machines into one of the massive driers and 40 minutes latter we headed back to the tram stop with two backpacks full of clean, dry clothes. Early to bed as we have an early morning tomorrow as we try to get the Reichstag before the crowds.
