A chilly May first

I've suffered another spell of unwillingness to write. From the beginning I wanted to keep a blog about how we are settling in Berlin and what new, lovely things we discover about life here. When we moved to Ireland five years ago I never jotted down a single thought or epiphany I experienced in my new country. But lately it has felt like I'm not stumbling across new things in Berlin anymore, but rather like I'm happy with what I have already discovered. This is my life now.

Still, life has not stopped. Since Easter, when I last updated the blog, summer has arrived. At least for a Finn this is summer – it has been over +20°C most days and we haven't seen rain in weeks.

First of May was chilly and the riots were sparse. I guess all the commotion around closing down Liebig14 and Kunsthaus Tacheles has kept the activists busy and when May came around, they too wanted to take it easy. For the first time we dared venture to the annual MyFest in Kreuzberg, but the icy wind and the hoards of people put a damper on our spirits. We went home and waited for warmer weather!

Boxhagener Platz prepared for rioters on April 29th.

MyFest is not about rioting, it's about eating and drinking in the streets of Kreuzberg!

Happy Martinstag!

All of a sudden there was a terrible racket outside the office today. I thought it was one of those post-teenage guys with a "cool" car and playing his music loudly – but as my colleagues ran out to the balcony, I realised it was something else. Our little street was taken over by a parade of children and parents, carrying colourful paper lanterns and singing.

Happy St Martin's Day, apparently!

Tag der Deutschen Einheit

Today the weather was iiiiincredibly nice for October: +18 and warm sunshine. It's so unpredictable here in Berlin! We celebrated the German Unity Day by visiting the annual "Riesenflohmarkt zum Tag der Deutschen Einheit": a giant market/flea market just north of Ostbahnhof in Friedrichshain. The market wasn't super interesting, we enjoyed the sunshine, the dog watching and the food. The weather is meant to keep nice at least until Wednesday, so fingers crossed!

Making the most of it

At least some signs of early summer are here: rhubarb, asparagus and new potatoes.

The plan for today was to make asparagus pizza and drink rhubarb beer, but to celebrate the bizarre German men's day, Männer-Tag, and the official holiday, Christi Himmelfahrt, we're going to Wok Show with L and S instead.

Berliner Weiße mit Rhabarber, €2,80.

And rhubarb beer? Yesterday I met S for a language tandem in St Oberholz, on Rosenthaler Platz. I had been raving about the delicious Berliner Weiße mit Rhabarber they serve, and so we got ourselves a little afternoon buzz going, like proper Berliners. We realised that they mix the beer with home made juice, rather than with an additive-filled syrup like most bars use for the red and green beers. I have a pot full of rhubarb simmering on the stove as I write, to make rhubarb juice and try to mix it with beer myself. All I need to serve my concoction is some sunshine!


Rhubarb juice (Makes about a litre of juice and jar of rhubarb sauce)
1.5 litre chopped rhubarb, the reddest ones you find (roughly 10 skinnier stalks of rhubarb)
1.5 litre water
½ lemon
about 150 ml Fairtrade raw cane sugar

Rinse the rhubarb stalks well. Don’t peel them, just chop to small pieces. Measure the water into a pot, bring to a boil, then toss in the rhubarb and let simmer for 30 minutes. Sieve the juice and pour it back in the pot. (Spoon the soft, sieved rhubarbs into a bowl, purée them if you want, and add sugar to taste – voilá; home made rhubarb sauce!) Pour the sugar into the pot and let it dissolve before you lift the pot to the side, stir in the lemon juice and let the concoction cool. I added a bit of water to the juice later, as it can be quite strong. Chill and serve!

Fasching and friends

NOT fashion, fasching – the German carnival celebrations are culminating right around now. We are invited to (and kind of co-hosting) a fasching party next Saturday and have had to think of low budget costumes for the occasion. I haven't been to a costume party in over ten years, so I'm a bit clueless. I hope everyone embraces their inner German, dresses up and has fun with it!

Tomorrow our friends L&U are coming from Finland to visit us for three nights. We almost never see them, and because they have kids, it's not so easy for them to get away. I am really happy to show them around Berlin! It's both of their birthdays this month, so as a surprise we booked them a night at Michelberger Hotel, a mega-cool new hotel in Freidrichshain. I hope they will love it!

Photos from www.michelbergerhotel.com

The fall of the wall

So, that was that then. The 20th anniversary of the wall falling. It was rainy and miserable out, no way was I going out anywhere to hold hands with strangers. I know, I'm no team player. Instead a bunch of us Finns sat in our apartment and watched it all happen on tv. Drinking sparkling wine and eating quiche. I have to say, it could not have been a nicer evening – and we had a great view of the Brandenburger Tor event on the small screen. I bet the only thing we would have seen there in person were the insides of hundreds of umbrellas.

Tomorrow I get my better half back from Dublin again, and after a few nights of rest, we will take the train to Warsaw. I am very excited about that, I have not been there before. I wonder if you get any veggie food there? :)

Halloween – all year round!

I think I have written about Zyankali before. It's a tiny little cellar bar in Kreuzberg and we got accidentally very, very drunk there once, forgetting that the tasty house brew, Zyankalibräu, is 8,5% strong... We were there on Halloween and had a great time – the owner even played us some Finnish music :D But the thing is, the bar looks the same all year long; like the set for a horror film. There are skeletons and skulls everywhere, it's dark and gloomy and even our table was a coffin with a glass lid, so we could see the "mummified body" in it – can you see it in the photo? Very cool. Not to every ones taste, I can imagine.

Winter tip

I have signed up for most the newsletters I have run into here in Berlin, and sometimes it pays off. Look what they have done to Badeshiff, the outdoors swimming pool that sits in the Spree, to prepare for winter:


Isn't it beautiful? And inside are (Finnish) saunas, the swimming pool and a bar. It opens tomorrow, 30.10. and until 5.11. the entry fee is 2 for 1 (€12 for three hours).

If you are looking for something to do for Halloween, this sounds really nice; a candle-lit audio presentation of the classic radio play ‘Dracula‘ narrated by Orson Welles at newly opened Café Hilda in Prenzlberg. None of that commercial plastic-pumpkin-crap, thank you very much :)