I flew to Berlin for the weekend with Lufthansa which charges an arm and a leg and if you´re lucky you´ll get a bun tossed to you mid flight. The good thing is that the flight is only about 40 minutes long. I would like to comment on in flight snacks. You eat them so its relevant. Yes it is.Why do they call these little snacks on airlines ´light refreshments´? Because I mean there isn´t the least little thing about them that refreshes you. On the contrary. You feel more bloated and thirsty and uncomfortable than before you consumed them. Have you ever felt refreshed after downing the little bag of peanuts and a coke trapped in your seat between the fat man and the smoker with as much leg room as you have in the toilet? You wouldn´t pay for a seat in the toilet for forty minutes now would you? As a matter of fact I think there was more leg room in the toilet. Perhaps it would be better just booking the men´s room. At least you wouldn´t need to get up when you need to pee, smashing your shins on the briefcases disguised as carry on that they`ve snuck down out of the overheads now that the flight´s airbourne and the stews don´t care.
The flight behind us, even after 17 years in Germany I find Berlin to be the unchallenged center of great food and service in Germany - and it's still beautiful but you have to see it before it's competely built upon so hurry. Now off to the Hachescher Höfe for lunch!
with the exchange rate climbing in our favour more and more each day, i have a heavy heart packing the suitcases this afternoon. there is still the cloud of vodka in the air and the gifts we thought we had all packed and accounted for - except for the terracota bison that is - have been added to by an enormous rocking rabbit with a bell at its base. traditional and fun but it will require another hand which we no longer have. sigh - well it will have to come with us somehow. i awoke this morning early to get us first class tickets on the train which has already left moscow and heading this way fast. from there warsaw and berlin. and finally home to bremen where dinner and friends await. as does alot of laundry and the hope that some of the chocolate remains intact lodged within all the packages and boxes. a happy troup however. now why is my husband frying cutlets at this ungodly hour? poka poka! katrin
the problems at passport control pale in comparison with the complications of baptism for our smallest. but those of you from ex soviet states know what i'm talking about ... exhausted from our trek through countless dusty offices we were bundled into the car without seatbelts or childseats and driven to the outskirts of the city to relax at grandfather's dacha. bouncing along the country roads round potholes large enough to be tank traps to the end of a lane we reached a small two story house set inside a camouflage of apple and apricot trees, rows of freshly planted strawberry and leek plants, and a pond filled with excited frogs splashing in the light rainfall. up the rickety stairs, filling the small kitchen with our numbers and lighting the metal wood burning stove set into the stone fireplace. a large frosted bottle of vodka, fresh polish sausage from down the border road, bread from the market that morning, green onions and garlic pulled from the garden edges and still wet from the grass. the plastic oilcloth spread over the wooden table and small glasses slapped down onto its surface, the bread cut thick by a heavy hand and toasted on the metal plate on the now hot iron stove top. dripping from the recent thundershower apples are brought in through the upstairs window. after lunch we sleep where we sit and when we awake from this dream we happily find ourselves still in the dacha at the end of the lane.