From A to Z

Tomorrow (2.12.) the elusive and funky Buchstabenmuseum has an open house, and I finally want to go look at the much talked about collection of arbitrary letters and typographical memorabilia. The showroom is usually open only monthly, but in December it seems to be open once a week – so better seize the opportunity to visit!

Photo from http://www.buchstabenmuseum.de/

First Advent Sunday

We just came home from a lovely Sunday walk around Prenzlberg and a preview of all that December in Berlin has to offer. Mauerpark was buzzing with karaoke, shoppers, tourists and glühwein. The organic market on Kollwitzplatz is now also an advent market, and there we bought homemade mustard to bring home for Christmas. My brother loves his mustard strong, and we got him a beer mustard I'm sure he'll get excited over. The Kulturbrauerei complex has a "Lucia" Christmas market on every day until Christmas, between 15-22 o'clock. They have some Finnish stalls there too, that serve Finnish glühwein, glögi. (Which naturally is far better than the German glühwein ;) I'm really starting to feel christmassy and can't wait to open the first door of my advent calendar on Tuesday!

Fried sushi? Can it be done?

We have walked past this tiny little sushi place called Sumo Sushi on Kastanienallee several times, but it always seems empty and so we've had our doubts. Recently a friend moved in across the street from the restaurant and convinced me that Sumo Sushi does nice, fresh sushi. So we tried it. What we didn't expect was to become addicted. They serve a sushi roll called "panierte sushi", fried sushi. WTF? Is frying sushi even allowed? But we tried it – and loved it! Now we can't stop thinking about fried sushi, and we drag friends there and everyone agrees: it's CRAZY good.

P.S. Sumo Sushi on Kastanienallee has changed owners in February 2010, so I can't guarantee they do fried sushi anymore, or how well they do it.

Limbo

We seem to just be waiting now. Waiting for our colds to get better, waiting for my dad's visit next week, waiting for Christmas. It doesn't feel very likely to find a job before Christmas, and since we are going home for three weeks, it doesn't really seem fair either. We see our friends a lot, and we both have set up language tandems, but it just doesn't take up that much time... Truth be told, I'm a little intimidated by sending out my CV in German and pretending to be good enough to interview in German! So I spend my time planning for dad's visit, thinking about what to cook and bake, and figuring out Christmas presents. And that's not bad either.

Tonight we are having our Irish friends D&M over for glühwein and salmon pasta. I'm still deciding whether or not to do a dessert. Life is good.

Lomography

I have two plastic Lomography cameras that take the coolest photos in the world. One is a Fisheye, that takes round photos with an extreme fish eye effect. The other one is a Supersampler with four lenses, that takes four photos in one frame. It's a bit like cheating, but there are a few tricks to getting good shots. I will continue to learn, but here are some autumnal Supersampler Lomo's (from Berlin):

It is the season to be jolly

Now Christmas time has officially begun for me. We fought our hangovers today (the result of a very successful sushi dinner party) and went to the Finnish Christmas market in Kreuzberg. It was small and sweet, but expensive. We loosened our belts enough to buy Karelian pies (five for four euro) and a bag of salmiakki candy (€1.50). And because of the state we were in, we could not resist sharing a freshly smoked salmon on rye, either, which set us back a whopping five euro. It was an expensive trip to Finland :)

Getting ready for winter

Even if the weather is freakishly warm for November (+10-15°C), one of my favourite cafés, Blumencafé, is getting ready for the cold in the most cosy way! I love their outdoor seating all year round; you sit surrounded by flowers and greenery from their flower shop. The wintry, cosy bales of hay are the icing on the cake.