A Hop Across The Pond

I was good for most of the week. It was Halloween and there was a box of mini chocolates in the office… you know how the rest of that story goes.

There isn’t a ton to report out on for the first couple days of last week – just some more bodyrocktv bootcamps, juicing, salads, and work. Wednesday though, a bunch of people from the office went to ‘The Comedy Store’ in Picadilly Circus for some good ol fashion improv. No, we weren’t the ones acting. But we were the ones almost spitting out our beers in laughter. Damn the Brits are funny. Inappropriate, but funny.

Thursday a few of us carved pumpkins at the end of the work day to display on the King’s Cross steps over by Regents Canal. After finishing up, I went for a small shopping spree on Oxford St, (It’s becoming a problem – this is happening almost every week now). Luckily this time, the clothes I bought came with a free side show. I walked into Primark and heard girls screeching on the second floor. Hmmm.. let’s go check that out. I approached a huge crowd of people peering onto the floor behind the accessories rack. Tippy-toes wasn’t doing the trick so I hopped up and down a couple times before I was able to really see the action. Girl #1 had punched girl #2 in the face and her nose was very clearly broken. I decided it was probably best that I remove myself from the situation so I went down a floor and continued to wonder how they were going to clean the blood off the white floors.

Friday was Halloween and the first of many that I actually didn’t dress up. I guess showing up to your office in a Thing 2 costume isn’t as well received in London as it may be back in Lexington. I opted for dress pants and a blouse instead… we’ll call it… ‘Corporate Midget’. If I haven’t told you before, we enjoy an awesome perk every week with free Friday breakfast. Usually they bring it in or have it delivered but this week was extra special – the entire office walked around the corner to Skip Garden, a lovely outdoor picnic area, enclosed by dainty potted flowers, for a healthy day-starter. Displayed on a tilted, wooden table they had coffee, tea, organic yogurts, fresh fruit, muesli, breads and jams, for us to piece together our ideal breakfast. That morning I started out good… yogurt and fruit. Later I wasn’t so disciplined. As I mentioned before, there was a big box of mini chocolates haunting me all day so I cut my losses and had a few. Well more than a few. Like 10 pieces. “Chocolate? What chocolate?”. Luckily we also had our weekly lunch run along the canal so I could run off 2 of those chocolates. Anywhoo, after work, one of my favorite coworkers and I headed back over to Skip Garden for the Halloween night party. It was a little less of a party and more of a hangout, but still pretty awesome nonetheless. It was already dark and we were able to see all of the pumpkins lit up on the King Cross stairs on our way over. Skip Garden had some seriously intricate carvings in their enclosure as well. They certainly do not mess around with their pumpkins over here – If I try to explain the detail I may hurt myself so just refer to the pictures below. So, back to the actual “party”—In the center of the garden they had a bon fire, surrounded by tables dappled with fancy pumpkins and autumn treats ranging from pumpkin pizza to spiced kale chips and butternut squash soup. The owner of SG offered us a glass of wine and I figured it would be rude to decline… so I took one of those and a small bowl of butternut squash soup. DELISH! We didn’t stay too long before I headed back to the flat, packed for Berlin, and FaceTime’d Mel + Dave for a bit.

Saturday was an early morning wake-up: I was headed to Heathrow to meet Jennelle. I mentioned in my last blog post that I purchased a flight to Berlin on a whim – Jennelle was going to be there for work anyway so I figured it didn’t make sense for me to stay in London, right? After security check I found her at a little café on the second floor. It was so nice to see her… one of my best friends was here and I was so stinking excited I couldn’t contain myself! We gave each other a midget little hug and took time to catch up on things while we sipped on coffee. I noticed she had a Frappuccino-like drink and I laughed as I asked her if she tried ordering an iced coffee. Ha, bingo. Now you’re all starting to understand why I miss my DD ice coffee so much. We boarded our Germanwings flight and made it to Berlin around noon. Luckily, hotel check-in was super efficient and we were able to make it over to our walking tour just in time. We met our guide in Paritzer Platz, under the Brandenburg Gate. Our guide was another Australian – I swear Sandeman tours only employs Aussies – but he was awesome. He started off by explaining why the French embassy in the plaza was so bland and closed off. The German woman seated at the top of the Brandenburg gate, Victoria, was specifically molded so that she was looking down at the French embassy. It was Germany’s way of saying, “We’re watching you”. Oh those Germans! Another fun tidbit about the building directly behind us – that was the hotel that Michael Jackson dangled his baby from a few years ago. Remember that? I had no idea it was in Berlin. You know what I also didn’t realize? How insanely messed up Berlin was up until very recently. I know, I know – call me ignorant but I cannot believe that the Berlin wall fell only 25 years ago. Like really?! Between all the disorder, bombings, and separation, that city has quite a bit of rebuilding to do. The tour took us to Checkpoint Charlie, over to Humbolt University where Albert Einstein taught for 9 years, and into Babelplatz where the Nazis burned thousands of books on May 10, 1933. As you stand in the square, you can look down into a blank room of empty book shelves to commemorate all that was lost that day. On that majorly-depressing note, we also visited the site of Hitler’s bunker. Our tour guide was quite a whiz on everything Hitler – including tales of how he was so addicted to cake that his teeth were rotted beyond belief, making it the only way they were able to identify his body after his suicide and the Nazis’ attempt at burning the evidence. And since all Nazi headquarters were so well-built in that time, the rebuilding of the city required a three-time acute bombing of the bunker before it was actually destroyed. To end the tour on a lighter topic, Berlin has a famous pedestrian crossing signal “Ampelmann”, which was supposedly created to make it “fun” to cross the street. Amplemann t-shirts, keychains, and trinkets are now sold in every tourist store across the city.

That night, Jennelle and I took the tour guide’s recommendation and went to a local German restaurant, Marcus Bräu, which brewed its own beer and served traditional dishes. Obviously we both got the same thing – Schnitzel and a stein of Berliner Marcus Bräu. I had only eaten 2 granola bars and a yogurt that day so it’s a good thing they presented us with a plate overflowing with fatty goodness. I felt bad about myself but it was just way too good to not finish the entire thing. Later on, we went on our own little German pub crawl, trying a couple local beers including the Raspberry Berliner Weisse, which was more of a sparkling pink cocktail you drink from a straw. I didn’t hate it. The bar tenders must have gotten a kick out of us because they ended up making us take these weird frozen shots, which were also good, but we had no idea what was in them. We’re still alive – don’t fret.

The next morning we woke up early so we could get in a run before our second day of adventures. Berlin’s major park, Tiergarten, was right around the corner from the hotel so we did a quick 5K wake-up jog through the park trails. Being away from New England this fall, I haven’t been able to get my foliage fix so this was the next best thing. The leaves actually changed colors before they fell, unlike most of those in London that fell before they died and didn’t paint as pretty of a picture. After the run and a hot shower, (it was prettyyyyy chilly there in the morning), we were on our way into the city. We decided we didn’t want to take a taxi this time and instead, try to figure out our way using a map. We actually did pretty good, never getting lost, but walked a lot further than we had planned. I think we walked at least 3 miles before we reached our destination for breakfast. It was already 11am but we rewarded ourselves with a fresh piece of quiche and a cappuccino at a local café. Afterwards, we went back over to the remains of the Berlin wall, reading all the graffiti messages that had been left: “MADDNESS”, “WHY?”, and “<3 = J Happiness”, were some of the ones that really stuck out to me. I just cannot believe that level of division could exist in such recent years. The true definition of irony though, is that there are now iron posts around the wall to protect its remains. Go figure. We wandered back to Checkpoint Charlie which we had seen the day before, and over to the Jewish museum where we learned more about the grim history of the holocaust. Later we cheered ourselves up by visiting Fassbender & Rausch, one of the oldest and most iconic chocolate shops in Berlin. Not only were there about 5,000 different chocolates to choose from, there were also palaces made of chocolate. We walked in the front door and were greeted by two Holly-sized nutcrackers made of chocolate, next to an active chocolate volcano. Around back there were chocolate recreations of the Brandenburg gate and castles that would be perfectly fit for chocoholic Barbie. We limited ourselves to buying only a couple to try while we relaxed for about 15 minutes with a coffee at an outside café. It had warmed up that day quite a bit so we still didn’t even need jackets. In fact, I didn’t wear a jacket the entire weekend. We continued our journey and capped off our trip at the Checkpoint Charlie Beach – a most-definite tourist area covered in sand and decorated with palm trees, beach chairs, and food vendors. That’s when I got to finally try curry wurst, which was actually the best. The perfect combination of sweet, spicy, and salty. It’s a good thing I didn’t go to Germany for work because by now I’d probably be about 300lbs on account of the wurst. Eventually it was time for Jennelle and I to part ways – I left for the airport and she prepped for work.

You will start to notice that a lot of my pictures will feature me as a four-eyed version of me. I finally went to the eye doctor today to figure out why the heck my eye was such a mess. Inflamed cornea – can’t wear my contacts for at least 3 months. If you know me well, you know how much I love wearing my glasses. NOT. This will be fun – you bet your sweet behinds I will be taking them off for pictures and pretending not to be completely blind as I smile for the camera. The ultimate inconvenience factor here, is that all my friends are coming to visit this week and then we are off to Paris. My eye could have chosen a better week to be a PIA.

Pretty crazy that I am officially in my last month here – just a few more weeks before I am back home in Boston. I seriously cannot believe how fast the time is flying by. Until then, I promise to continue making the most of my journey and recanting the stories for your entertainment. EYE will SEE you soon.

Yours truly,

Four-eyes.