Hey team! I wanted to capture some of our day-to-day life, in addition to the travel posts that I’ve already posted. We’ve been living in Berlin for about a year and a half now, and I want to document some of the smaller day-to-day things that we do. Starting with an overview of what we did in October.
Germany and COVID
Generally, October would have the tail end of Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest isn’t very big in Berlin – it’s celebrated heavily in Munich, about a 5-hour train ride away. But there are a handful of squares scattered across the city that had beer gardens and trinket booths set up last year. With COVID-19 measures restricting large gatherings, we didn’t see any pop up this year.
Happily, a friend tipped us off to a farmers market in Boxhanger Platz (not too far from our apartment), so we spent a couple Saturday mornings wandering. We found kale, which is surprisingly rare to see in Berlin supermarkets, so I was JAZZED to see it. (I love kale. Ask me about it sometime.) We also picked up a piece of art by a local artist, which I will share as soon as I get it framed.
Gärten der Welt
After our travel-heavy August, I returned to Berlin determined to play tourist in my home city. I figured I could go to every tourist stop that sounded remotely interesting so that when you all come to visit, I know where to send you!
One of the Saturdays we didn’t spend at the farmers market, we went to Gärten der Welt. Literally translating to “Gardens of the World”, it’s a collection of, well, gardens. From various parts of the world. I won’t go into detail about my feelings about it, but if you go, maybe skip the US Garden Cabinet. The rest of the park was pretty, but Berlin has so many public parks that I wouldn’t recommend spending time there as a tourist unless you were an Asian garden enthusiast.
Crew!
Zack’s main pastime in Seattle was rowing crew. When we were discussing moving, one of the requirements for the destination city was that it had available amateur crew teams. Zack joined a team back in February, but then the country locked down in March, so he really only started with any regularity over the summer.
The second weekend of October, he was in a race on the Spree, which runs through the center of Berlin. Compared to most of the race locations in Seattle, this location was incredibly convenient to go spectate – and the weather was gorgeous.
That’s Zack, with the number on his back!
Zack claims they didn’t look great in the video I took, but they looked fine to me!
Shopping
Adjusting to the food here wasn’t particularly difficult. The grocery stores stock produce VERY seasonally, so you can’t expect to be able to find most things year-round. Packaged food is also really different (I miss Smartfood popcorn like WHOA). Happily, this month, we found a bagel shop! For East-Coast-Jewish Zack, the hardest part of living in Seattle was the dearth of good bagels. And the shop we found here has seriously good bagels. Like, Zack-approved bagels. We started dressing up in our nice office-worthy clothes and going first thing on Thursday mornings to get ourselves a “business breakfast”. It made for a nice change of pace.
I’m also adjusting to the climate. The weather isn’t too different from Seattle – clearer and a bit colder in the winter, and more humid in the summer. But in Seattle, I was going into an office daily, so the extent of dressing for the weather was making sure my jacket was waterproof and had a hood. Here, I’m home all day. Our apartment is on the ground floor and doesn’t budget from 64 degrees year-round. Awesome in the summer, but a bit chilly in the winter.
To aid in building a more fall-appropriate wardrobe, we’ve taken a couple trips to a nearby location of a German thrift store chain – Humana. The one closest to us is 4 stories tall and has an incredible selection of gently-used clothing. After a couple more trips, we’ll shop new to fill any gaps in our wardrobes, but thrifting is a great way to get clothes on the cheap.
Summary
Well, that’s about all we did in October. I’ve been hard at work getting content on the blog – including building a storage bench and prepping for NaNoWriMo. I’ll probably put up a blog post soon on what I’ve been reading lately – stay tuned for that!
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