Our traditional Berlin Weekend

My husband's cousin is almost the same age as my husband. He lives in Berlin, and the guys have started a "tradition" to visit him once a year. He is married to beautiful H from Japan.

 A speedy journey to our capitol! The train rode at 125 m/h. The further east, the more snow was on the ground. This weekend was milder most of the time, the snow was melting.

 We were picked up by our cousin and wife and we had lunch in a typical old Berlin pub. Then, we walked to the hotel and dropped our luggage. We had tea with our cousin and then walked to the Xmas market on the "Gendarmenmarkt", a very beautiful square in 1800 style.

It is a very famous market, you even have to pay 1,35$ to get in. There are many  shops with food and drinks, and a sweet hot wine, often with a big sip of rum in it, is a very popular drink on these markets. "Gluehwein trinken" has become a kind of party.

 I was very fond of a shop for shawls and scarves and especially admired the self-grown shawl of the seller who looked very oriental indeed. The shawls were quite expensive, one was there to die for, but it was 73$.

 There was a little craft shop of a jeweller and I saw ceramics, candles, porcellaine, German fairy story glass ornaments for the Xmas tree -- close to kitsch -- and tea shops, spice shops, and so on.

Brushes of all kinds, very nice to look at.
It was incredibly crowded, no place to sit and rest, and the boys had one Gluehwein after another.

 We moved on to a café with a tower made of scrap metal, a piece of art. It was nice to sit for a change!
Then we "travelled" through Berlin once more to reach the place where we wanted to have dinner together.  We did not ride a car the whole day, but walked or took suburban trains or busses.

We had a great meal in the restaurant "Highway 66" -- very tasty and abundant. I was careful not to eat too fat and took a vegetarian noodle dish with extra jalapenos plus fresh mint tea. What a treat! One more drink in another place. I was knocked out when we reached our hotel!

Next morning, we had brunch together and then took a taxi to a remote museum for German expressionist art. There was an exhibition of Erich Heckel, a painter who had been banned by the Nazis as "entartet" -- degenerate art. He was a member of the artists' group "Die Bruecke" -- "The Bridge". A great afternoon!
Then we got on the train back to Hamburg. I had taken a strip of the reptile quilt along and did some stitching during the ride.