New: Raw food in Berlin!

As the weather is getting colder (only +5C now), it's natural to think of nothing but eating. I got the opportunity to write an article about new vegetarian restaurants in Berlin, so the past week and a half my life has revolved around food. 2011 has been a great year for vegetarians and vegans in the city: NINE veggie restaurants have opened since February. When my mom was here, I dragged her along to Lucky Leek and Kopps, and since then I've been exploring raw food with A. There are two new raw food restaurants in Berlin: Gesund & sündig in Wilmersdorf and café style LebensfRoh in Kreuzberg.

Gesund & sündig
Germany's first raw food restaurant opened in June. The location and the opening hours reveal that most of the diners at Gesund und sündig come from the sports centre that the restaurant is connected to. Luckily it's along the Ringbahn and thus within reach even for a Friedrichshainer. A more central location is under consideration for the new year, we were told. Everything on the menu here is raw and vegan. As a starter we share a plate of delicious "Sweet and sour sushi" (€7.90): a mixture of sunflower seeds and sauerkraut replace the rice, and the centre is carrot, zucchini and pineapple sticks – because of the seaweed, it still clearly tastes like sushi. In Pizza Crudo del la Casa (€7.90) the base is made with dried seeds and has a slightly bitter, nutty flavour which the tomato sauce and roasted vegetables balance with their mild and sweet taste. The "ricotta" on top is made of cashews. Pasta is replaced with sliced courgette in the "lasagna" (€8.50), and the side salad is instantly a new favourite: rucola and pear with a garlic dressing. Everything is as bright and colourful on the palate as on the plate. I tried a super healthy green smoothie (€2.80) while A played it safe with a fresh apple juice (€3) – we pretended to be health nuts and skipped beer and wine. Gesund & sündig is definitively not just for hippies, but dinner there was delicious, interesting and filling. If only it was a little closer to home: I'm certain we'd visit again and bring tons of adventurous friends with us!

LebensfRoh 

This homely café opened next to Görlizer Park in August. They're not very busy on the Tuesday morning when we've decided to have breakfast there. The café is filled with sunlight and the lonely voice of Kurt Cobain singing from the Unplugged album – I had the song "Jesus don't want me for a Sunbeam" stuck in my head all day afterwards. For breakfast the choice is between raw müsli (€4) and chestnut porridge (€3), but a plate of raw food crackers with assorted spreads, olives and veggies sounds like Berlin breakfast to me (small plate, €5). The porridge is nice: slightly sweet, sticky and a little grainy. For another euro it comes with fresh fruit or warm fruit puree. The Hertzhafter Teller is simple: two crackers piled with different spreads, a salad, olives and some grapes. They're out of many items, and so I'm asked if it's ok to use a milk-based spread, too, rather than vegan. The plate is nice, but not exactly as filling as a Berliner might expect after having paid €5. If I'm around the area, I might want to pop by again to try their raw courgette pasta or one of their daily dinner specials to really make up my mind about LebensfRoh.

Vote!

 

Today I woke up to the sound of rain pattering outside the window. We were supposed to go to our friend's house for a leaving-Berlin-sale at 11.30, but there was no way we could muster up strength to hurry to Rosenthaler Platz. Instead we gave ourselves more time to go voting in the local elections. I'm so impressed that we foreigners get to vote here, even if limitedly: just for the party and only for the district we live in – and it didn't require any special effort besides showing up. This probably only applies to us lucky EU citizens, I think. After proudly registering our vote, we strolled over to pick out breakfast supplies at the bakery.

Now A and S are in the bedroom/studio working on a pitch for a coffee commercial tune and I'm on my way to have election day cake at S and L's. A perfect Sunday will be topped off at the Indian vegetarian/vegan restaurant Satyam in Charlottenburg, where the brunch buffet is available until 8pm and we get to enjoy the ever so interesting company of K, with whom the conversation is always on a pretty intelligent level, but the laughs are constant.

Betahaus

Two weeks ago, at the Screen Print Festival 2011 in Stattbad Wedding, our new friend R told E and me about Open Design City, a space in Kreuzberg where you can rent tools and appliances and get help for your more ambitious design projects. We were particularly interested in screen printing possibilities, but also curious to know what other things can be made there, like with laser cutters or soldering equipment.

The ODC is a part of Betahaus, so to familiarise with ODC you have to go on a tour of Betahaus, a shared office space where you can rent a desk by the day or by the month. Tours are available twice a week and are free of charge. I now know three people who work there, so I was curious to see what it's like.

E and I were on time like proper Finns tend to be – R was nowhere to be seen. Later I saw her message on Facebook, saying she'd been held back at the office.

Betahaus is very impressive: it's big, it's airy, it's light. If it wouldn't sound so corny, I'd describe it as an inspiring environment. The Open Design City space, on the other hand, seemed small. There was no one there to explain precisely what tools are available and what the possibilities there are, so that part of the tour was very disappointing.

As we sat down in the downstairs café afterwards, an American girl who'd also been on the tour asked to join us. We had a nice chat among graphic designers and as we were leaving AS wanted us to reveal which guy from the guided tour we would date if we HAD to. She was quite taken with the amount of cute guys she spotted at the premises. We made diffuse plans to meet up at an art gallery later in the week – so if nothing else, I made another friend today!

HBC party for rich people

You're Only Massive

On Friday we were invited to see our friends from Berlin band You're Only Massive perform as a warm-up for, and later on with, Hanin Elias for her record release party at .HBC on Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse. To my great surprise my rock'n'roll/metal/hard core brother was really excited to see Hanin – I think he had a little mini-crush on her. She was insanely charismatic on stage, so no surprise. The gigs were good, but the room got insanely warm and everyone was sweating and smelly. There was not much comfort in drink, because a small Pilsner Urquell cost €3, and to a Friedrichshainer that is just unforgivable. A vodka mix drink cost €7. We won't be going there for a drink any time soon!

After the gig we hung out with our friends for a few hours, using up their drink tickets. My party-fit brother and I agreed that we still wanted to go somewhere else for drinks, and arranged to meet up with a few guys in Friedrichshain; they'd go by taxi, we'd come by bike. This was at maybe 5 am. On the way M and K got really tired and I could see that they just wanted to go to sleep – but on Frankfurter Tor the two guys were waiting. We ended up in Paule's Metal Eck on Simon-Dach-Strasse and as the sun was coming up we forced ourselves to drink one more beer... We were home at about 7am.

Easter Sunday brunch

Our first ever Easter Sunday brunch was yesterday, and we had such a great time. Today we keep having a great time by doing absolutely nothing, ignoring the sunshine and eating leftovers: rhubarb pie for breakfast, chocolate biscotti and mac'n'cheese for dinner :) What else can you do on a Monday, when everything is closed? Maybe plan next year's brunch! Or what we're going to do the next time it's sunny again, and we have nothing to do... Maybe go to Teufelsberg or Müggelsee... One day.

The shoestring budget

After a trip to London we decided to tighten our belts and spend less money. On Monday we went to our local Bio Company branch and bought ingredients for pita breads (with hummous, tomato, avocado and smoked tofu), a miso soup, a potato salad with salmon, and a bulgur salad. No more shopping needed this week, we decided. But what happened budget-wise? On Wednesday I went for a coffee, that turned into beers, with S. On Thursday I drank posh blueberry smoothies over a Sprachtandem in Prenzlauer Berg. On Friday we had invited friends over for dinner, and as the last two girls standing, M and I spontaneously decided to go clubbing at 4am! I suspect that it's not the occasional sushi from downstairs, or midnight pizzas that use up the money. But a good social life is worth paying for :)

Kaffee und Tee on Frankfurter Allee.

Party monster (spring in the air)

This past week I have been celebrating way too much. I've had good reasons, of course: Friday was R's dissertation party at my favourite crazy bar, Zyankali (home at 4am). On Saturday we celebrated S' 30th birthday (home at 6am). On Tuesday we had deadline drinks with colleagues (home at 10pm), and on Wednesday we had a work party – that got seriously weird and crazy with English writers proposing and with friends hooking up with male nannies (home at 6am). On the bright side, I now know that spring is so far along now that at 6 am it's bright and the birds are chirping! This has meant that I have been eating mostly crap, sleeping at odd hours and not checking my emails. Sorry.

Today I was a nice between-parties-day, and A and I got some veggie hang-over food at Vöner – a vegan döner restaurant on Boxhagenerstraße 56. Best french fries in Berlin!!! Good seitan döner, too, really fresh and with great sauces, but slightly let down by the dry dürum bread.

K arrives to Berlin for a weekend of fun tomorrow: she's getting divorced and needs to be cheered up – and Finnish girls like to drink. So after Sunday I can finally try to say: 'I'm never drinking alcohol again!' and pretend to mean it.

A night at the theatre

Yesterday we felt very adult as we were going to the theatre. Schaubühne in Charlottenburg is hosting an international theatre festival, F.I.N.D (Festival Internationale Neue Dramatik), until the 13th. By chance I came about a press ticket for Hilda, a play by a French writer and performed by a Finnish cast.

Since we're rarely in Charlottenburg, we wanted to go for dinner in the area. Just across the street from Schaubühne is a traditional Italian restaurant, Frantucci (Kufürstendamm 90), known for their big pizzas and great atmosphere. The first thing we saw when we walked in was a huge display filled with different kinds of home made pastas. Frantucci's is also a wine bar. For a Friedrichshainer the prices were on the higher side, but I bet that for Ku'damm €37 for a meal for two isn't too bad. I had a focaccia with mascarpone, mozzarella, scampini and pine nuts, A had a pasta with mozzarella, spicy tomatoes, garlic and pine nuts. Both were excellent. For dessert we shared a panna cotta with fresh fruit and I had an espresso, so that I'd stay awake in case the theatre piece was boring.

The play was not boring, but in fact really good: experienced actress Minna Haapkylä portraid a desperately unhappy Madame Lemarchand who manipulates her handyman, Franck, into giving his wife, Hilda, to her employment as a housemaid. Franck squanders all the advance payments Madame Lemarchand gives him, he looses his job and so his family is in the hands of the domineering housewife who has a greedy, unhealthy obsession with Hilda. I really liked the visual aspect of the play: the colours were slightly surreal and plastic and the actors movements were jumpy and doll-like. I'd love to see this play again, to get another chance to understand the complicated nature of Madame Lemarchand.

Making friends

Kaufbar, in Friedrichshain, where everything is for sale. Their breakfasts are fairly priced and their waffles home-made and delicious.

Yesterday I made a new friend.

I had a coffee at Kaufbar on Gärtnerstraße with bubbly A. We keep meeting at our mutual friends' occasional parties and have always gotten on really well. When she sent me a message on Facebook and we said we'd go for coffee I was really scared that it would be awkward and that we would sit in silence for an hour before thinking of polite excuses to leave. To my surprise we could have chatted away the whole day: films, food, friends-with-babies, jobs, gossip... I hope we get around to meeting up more often! Sometimes it's worth getting out of your comfort zone to make strangers into friends.

And then last night we celebrated K's visa. (She has had to cry, beg, jump through hoops and wait forever to get it. In a year she'll have to go through the same process again. It's difficult to remember how easy things in Germany are for us EU-citizens!) She'd invited the most random mix of people to her flat in Wedding, and we had a great time. I ate a half a bowl of guacamole with carrot sticks, and was overjoyed that K had invited the woman who makes cinnamon rolls again! I also got a lesson in not judging people by their looks: K's new flatmate-to-be was invited – he looks like the biggest, most annoying nerd ever. You know the type of arrogant nerd who is insecure and is rude to make himself feel smart and good? J comes from the former Soviet Union and speaks with a Russian accent and has a lisp. He wears big but un-hip glasses. His dancing was so bad, it wasn't even funny. And he's really nice and interesting and got along with everyone at the party. I can't wait to get to know him better. Slap on the wrists to me for judging people by how they look! Shame on me!

Cocooning

On Friday we visited Exberliner magazines 24 hour bed-in party in the Noodles Noodles & Noodles shop on Schönhauser Allee. It was really cool: really cheap drinks and people lounging in bed. Unfortunately we missed the stand-up comedy, but we did get to see a few minutes of "political trash burlesque". Maybe the most memorable part was the mass pillow fight that broke loose just before we left: the whole bar was slinging pillows across the room at each other!

After that the whole weekend has been quite the hibernation. Today we haven't even left the house, but instead have been eating tons of Finnish candy and watched a bunch of CSI episodes... and I don't even feel guilty. Hooray to winter!

The office Christmas party

This week I have mostly been eating out and curing hangovers. I have not done any significant Christmas shopping and have not been resting for the long work week ahead... Sigh.

Our company Christmas party was on Tuesday. We ate a three course meal at Gugelhof, a pretty fancy restaurant on Kollwitzplatz, and then we took the party to White Trash, and when they closed, to Kaffee Burger. I was home at 8 o'clock in the morning – and it wasn't even an extraordinary fun night... There was some drama though: unrequited love, juicy gossip, over-sharing and some boy-on-boy / girl-on-girl kissing. None by me, thank god! Still I was too hung over to go to work the next day :P

Christmas, shopping, Berlin

My mother is in Berlin again for the weekend, and I've kept her busy. We have ignored the snowy sidewalks and been shopping and eating well, mostly.

We started off on Friday by designing my mom a custom made perfume at Frau Tonis Parfum in Mitte, a scent of roses and lily of the valley (€65 for 50ml, €22 for 15ml). Then we dropped in to my fave clothing shop, Cyroline, on Alte Schönhauser Straße (they also have shops in Prenzlauer Berg and Friedrichshain). I always find cool and comfy clothes there and this time both mom and I bought tops. This all accidentally happened on our way to check out a friends' exhibition at the very interesting Haus Schwartzenberg on Hackescher Markt.

On Saturday we had a date with S to go check out TK Maxx in Charlottenburg together – I had heard that the shop there was a lot bigger and a lot better then the one in Neukölln. Other people had clearly heard that too: it was super crowded! We did manage to find some Christmas presents and I bought a hoodie. S had a very successful shopping day and declared that she'd found "her shopping paradise" :) Everyone loves TK Maxx <3

Since we were in Charlottenburg – possibly for the first time – we decided to go see Schloss Charlottenburg and the Christmas market there. Sure, it was big, pretty and had free entrance, but it was also a bit kitchy and crowded for our liking.

When we found ourselves in Neukölln today, we decided to take advantage of the shopping Sunday (the shops in Berlin are closed on most Sundays of the year), and check out the TK Maxx there, too. It was a lot less crowded, so we could really engage in rummaging around and two hours later we walked out with more Christmas presents and two sweaters for A. Dangerous place, that is!

Karma

We had a really nice bye-to-P'berg barbecue in Mauerpark last night. We were around 10 people, ate veggie-skewers, halloumi sandwiches, cakes and strawberries hand-picked by S.


After some left over Schrippen for lunch this afternoon, we headed to Mauerpark to find cutlery for our new home. We pretty much only own clothes, some books, our bikes and our laptops. We were in a hurry to see the Germany-England football game and by the time we had left the house, queued at the worlds slowest Berliner Bank cash machine, S and D were already at the kneipe fending for a table, so we skipped the Flohmarkt. After the game (Germany won 4-1) we picked up the broken, crazy-pink bike that our Spanish friend S is semi-permanently lending us. A promised to fix it so that my mom will have a bike to zoom around on when she's here. On the last stretch home, cycling with three bikes, we found a pile of "zum verschenken" (give-away) stuff, with basically everything we wanted to find in Mauerpark today! Cutlery, a mirror, a big floor-pillow and a coat hanger. Pretty good karma, huh?

(We immidiately paid back by helping a guy who lost his keys outside our door. There is a hole in our doorstep, covered with metal bars, that looks into the cellar of the building. I've lost my keys there once, and we figured out that our cellar key works to that cellar, too.)

Possible new home

Today we viewed an apartment in Friedrichshain that I really, really liked. It wasn't flashy and white, but comfortable and homey with a big balcony. We have to wait until at least Monday to hear if we have been short-listed for an application interview with the owners.

We have seen 18 apartments and now have two and a half weeks to find somewhere to move. Panic.

O brother, the weather just got nice

Ironically, just after my brother's visit is over, when it was about +13 every day and rained most of the time, it seems like summer has arrived. We did have some fun without the sun and we got hold of a third bicycle, so we could zoom around the city together. I'd say we did about 25-30 kilometres in four days. We also ate a lot to make up for it :) We took M to our favourite pizza place, we had sushi twice and some middle-of-the-night-falafels (kebab for him) and of course, in proper Berlin-style, we ate breakfast out every morning. The most glamorous breakfast was the Sunday brunch at Pasternak on Knaackstraße, the most random one a traditional German flammkuchen in Café Sibylle on Karl-Marx-allee. I think his favourite things were chilling in Mauerpark, playing Kicker (foosball) in bars and seeing the prices of food and beer. It was sad to let my little brother travel on on Wednesday morning – now he's at Rock im Park in Nürnberg. We haven't heard from him since he left, and I'm a little worried that his "Mitfahrgelegenheit" car-share turned out to be with an axe-murderer... But then again, the men in my family suck at keeping in touch.

Other than that, we are looking for an apartment. I'm starting to panic a little. We just came home after seeing a cute 55 square metre apartment on Gubenerstraße in Friedrichshain, but there were about 30 other people there to see it too... Yesterday we sent an application for an almost perfect apartment on Weidenweg, also F'hain, only to hear back that the realtor isn't sure we make enough money between us, and asking us if we would consider getting a guarantor for our lease... And we're in our thirties, for god's sake! So we keep searching.

Apartment in a distant corner of Prenzlauer Berg, 74 m2, 600 euro: too child friendly, thus too far away from all other forms of life.

Summer and bureaucracy

My head is spinning whenever I step outside because all the trees are blooming and it smells incredible; like summer and childhood. Today the weather is fab, +24°C, which for a Finn definitively is summer – compared to Ireland, I don't even know what to call this. We enjoyed breakfast/lunch at the corner bakery, sitting outside, then took a walk around Falkplatz and Mauerpark. I love working part-time!


A signed a lease for his very own studio space today! He's really excited and I really hope it will be great.

We're also looking for a new apartment and we're seeing our first one today, here in Prenzl'berg. I don't think we'll take the first one we view, but it feels exciting to actually go out there and see something. This one is 62m2 and the warm rent (includes heating, water and so on) is only €462. But it would make a lot of sense for us to try to find an apartment near Volkspark Freidrichshain, since it would be close to the studio, and an equal distance from both our jobs. I emailed four other places today, so hopefully we will find our gem in a few weeks!

Another weight was lifted off my shoulders: I finally have German health insurance! I got my employers to put me on pay roll and now I don't have to worry about hardly any bureaucracy at all. I only needed to get my Lohnsteuerkarte at the Bürgeramt and to go to a Krankenkasse to sign up, which was all fairly painless. Because we want to move, we will face more bureaucracy: we need a Schufa paper (credit rating), a Mietschuldenfreiheitsbescheinigung (statement from our current landlord that we don't owe on rent) and copies of our passports and bank statements...

Probearbeit stress

Tomorrow begins my week of Probearbeit. In Germany it's customary to first invite job applicants for interviews, then select a few to do a work trial for a day or longer. Usually you get paid, but it's not a given: I'm lucky that both my Probearbeits so far will be compensated for. I'm a little stressed, because I have a feeling that tomorrow I am entering a very artistic and disorganised environment and will have to work really hard to get my share done. I also did a trial with a photographer on Friday, and she wants me to help her out next week, too – not a chance! Why does everything always happen at once?

Luckily we got to relax a bit on the weekend and had a very successful fasching party yesterday. I ended up dressing as Alice in Wonderland, because I had everything I needed for that at home. A dressed up as Finnish rocker Ville Valo, from the band HIM. The best costume award was won by K, who came dressed as the Fernseherturm!

Looking for work

I am seriously trying to find a job now, no more horsing around. We've both had interviews and we are both doing a trial: I will do a trial issue of a well known Berlin-mag next month, and next week A is doing a two day trial at an IT company. Apparently that's how it works here; you will be tested first. In a way that's good, then you will know what the job is like and if you like it. Both of us will still keep looking, but at least we can feel good about ourselves; we were picked for something!

Here's a a few links that I have found useful while looking for work – they are leaning towards media and the creative fields a little, but there's a few more general sites, too:

The Local's ads
Exberliner ads
A collection of adverts via Toytown
Jobs in Berlin
Work for the EU
International development jobs
Film and TV industry jobs
Design jobs
Creative jobs

More good tips are welcome!

Wine o'clock in Berlin

Yesterday we had our first own house party in Berlin, and I think it was a success. Today I have not bothered to do anything except eat leftovers and Finnish chocolate (from the Kollwitzplatz market). We invited pretty much everyone we know in Berlin, and I counted that only six people were missing. If you add the 12 people that did make it, you get the size of our circle of friends here :) Everyone seemed to get along really well and it was a very international evening with seven nationalities using four languages throughout the night. We served home-made dips, A's awesome home-made bread and chocolate cookies. A few lovely guests brought cakes and more wine with them, so we had more provisions than guests. I hope the neighbours don't hate us today; we played loud-ish music from 8pm to 3.30am...

Working it

I had my first job interview of 2010 today, with a magazine here in Berlin. The situation seems to be tough, they told me they had 60 replies in two days. The meeting went well, but I don't know if I should be excited or not – to be honest, I'm not sure what happened: I was in and out in 15 minutes! They are testing one designer for the January issue, then apparently me for February. It could be the perfect job; it comes with responsibility and seniority, it's part-time and it's not far from where I live. It could be a disaster; I would manage three people I didn't meet, I would work with the owners (which I have wowed not to do again...) and the pay might not be great. So I will go on like before: take things one day at the time and look out for more opportunities that will come my way.

P.s. How cool would it be to be able to get by on just a part-time job?! I would have half of the month free to take holidays and to sleep in!