This week’s weather felt very in line with the ‘Berlin Winter’ I have heard so much about. While the sun has gone away for the time being, another giant orange sphere has come out to play… the pumpkin! Similar to walking through Trader Joe’s in Fall, Kürbis based foods are all the rage in Berlin. I decided to fill my first grey winter week in Berlin with colorful flowers, twinkly Christmas markets and colorful food!
GOODBYE GREY, HALLO COLORFUL FOODS AND FLOWERS
I made Monday Matcha to start off the week and reused my BobaQ bottle and straw for a cute little photoshoot. I love the center piece of the dining room table in our living room. It changes frequently, but it’s currently a giant glass vase on top of a piece of wood that I bought from a lovely man at Markthalle Neun when I first moved to Berlin. To combat the dreary weather this week I also bought flowers to fill the apartment with some fresh color.
THE RETURN OF THE DUMP
It only took 2 months, but I finally ventured back into the world of dumplings. I haven’t made dumplings at home since I ate 30 Dumpling Man dumplings on my last day in NYC, but it was time. I have been seeing a trend on TikTok of making dumplings using rice paper and after the 100th video I decided to give it a go. I decided to fill my dumplings with onion, garlic, carrots, mushrooms, cauliflower and fake meat. I chopped, sliced and diced up my ingredients and then seasoned the filling with soy sauce (duh), Worcestershire sauce, ginger paste, more garlic and a little bit of paprika. After making the filling the next steps are super easy. All you have to do is prep the rice paper, throw the filling inside, wrap it up and then fry. It was the perfect warm dinner to accompany the chilly dark nights and lunch time breaks and random snacks throughout the week. I honestly made so much of the filling that there is still some in the fridge right now….
BACK ON MY BABBEL game
Before I moved to Germany I was pretty religious about practicing German through Babbel, but the final month before my move and the two months after were packed with non stop activities. All of my goodbyes and final NYC moments were more important to me than studying, so unfortunately my language practice fell to the wayside. I’ve still been practicing German in Berlin by simply existing in Germany, but my diligence around grammar and vocabulary wasn’t anything to boast about. But, NOT ANY MORE! My passion for grasping the language has been reignited. I’ve even set a new goal more myself. I want to pass my A1 German language exam before my summer travels in 2022. Specifically before May 1! That’s my new goal and I’m sticking to it 🙂
Sprachen lernen at the neue schule
To help with achieving my A1 goal I have also signed up for my first German class! I decided to go with the beginner course at The Neue Schule because I’ve heard they’re one of the best language schools in Berlin. They also offer a night course, so I can add in this hobby without skipping a beat. I’m going to try and complete all of the Babbel courses before I start the Neue Schule class, but we’ll see how that actually goes.
NO CAVITIES FOR ME
One of the big reasons I focused on finding a dentist as soon as I moved to Berlin was because I knew I needed a cavity filled. I really really really don’t like going to the dentist, but this experience was amazing. The doctor and his assistant were super professional the entire time and made me feel relaxed (which is not easy for me in a dentist chair). The cavity also wasn’t as bad as they expected, so the whole ordeal took half the time I had anticipated and I was off and cavity free!
Gym MINNOW
Two weeks ago I started my new hobby of weight lifting and in week 3 I am excited to report that I actually feel stronger. I’ve been a runner my entire life, but I’ve never spent much time focusing on specific muscles and building up strength in any particular area. Now that I am actually trying to stay consistent with a training plan, this whole gym thing is awesome. I see why people get addicted to the gym now! I know this won’t be impressive to my weight lifting friends, but…I can bench row 30lbs and lat pull 77lbs. Those are really the highest numbers I’ve touched because I’m trying to ease myself into everything, but I’m pretty sure I could bench press more than 44lbs if I actually tried. Regardless, I can do lots of push ups now and that makes me happy.
WINTER WORLD POSTDAMER PLATZ
I have been balancing my extended gym hours with Christmas pastries, chocolate and glühwein. It’s still early in the season, but Postdamer Platz has had their Winter World Christmas market up since the end of October. I decided to check it out this week and it was really cute. It’s definitely on the small side when it comes to Christmas markets, but I’m not going to complain when it’s also the only Christmas market open. I’m excited for next week when all the other markets begin to open up!
Nah Am Wasser
I have been trying to explore more coffee shops outside of my favorite (the Croissanterie) and this week my new spot was Nah am Wasser. Nah am Wasser is one of the more popular coffee shops in Kreuzberg/Neukölln and I can see why. It has a huge seating area inside, delicious drinks, a wide variety of bakery items and swings. It was definitely successful venture outside of my normal spot, but I think the Croissanterie is still number one in my eyes.
hamburger bahnhof
Hamburger Bahnhof is one of my favorite museums in Berlin and this week I went for the first time since moving here. The Hamburger Bahnhof is a contemporary art museum and I love visiting this museum because they do a great job at curating their exhibits. I didn’t research the current exhibit before arriving, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was centered around the mutual entanglements of humanity, technology and nature. The exhibit was called ‘Scratching the Surface’ and the first thing that you read when entering the exhibit is a pretty heavy quotation and shocking statistic:
On 9 December 2020, the British Journal Nature published a study whose calculations showed that the total mass of all human made things now exceeds that of the Earth’s biological mass.
The entry into the exhibit continued to go into more shocking stats… All transport infrastructure and buildings worldwide are heavier than the sum of all trees and shrubs… all the plastic produced so far weighs twice as much as all the animals in the world combined…etc. Really shocking information and the perfect set up to enter into a 14 room exhibit on the human impact on the Earth’s structures.
The exhibit explored The Nature of Machines through the works of artist like Bettina von Arnim, Rebecca Horn and Konrad Klapheck. Out of these artists I really enjoyed the geometric space paintings and pictorial planes by Bettina von Arnim. Her pieces try to capture the effects of mechanization on humanity and nature through displaying the wake of self-destructive industrialization, when only the lines of mechanization remain in a cold and hostile world.
The exhibit also focused on “Earth Overshoot Day” and the relationship between supply and demand. Overshoot day is the day each year that marks when humanity has used up all of the natural resources that the Earth can replenish within one year. Basically, everything after Overshoot day has to come from unsustainable materials and for many industrialized countries, like Germany, Earth Overshoot day happens early in the year. The exhibit room focused on Earth’s Overshoot day focused on three main artists: Joseph Beuys, Julian Charriere and Klaus Staeck. Of these three, I really enjoyed Julian Charriere’s piece titled “We are all Astronauts.” The sculpture consists of 11 hanging globes made from varying materials and each globe has been scratched with sandpaper made of mineral samples from every UN recognized country. Underneath each globe there are piles of dust from the sandpaper and it is meant to reflect our erosion of Earth.
Some of the other main rooms in the exhibit were Landscape as Material, which focused on repurposing natural materials to make art through the Arte Povera (poor art) style. The main artists in this section of the exhibit were Diana Barquero Perez, Bill Bollinger, Jeewi Lee, Richard Long, Mario Merz and Roman Singer.
The “Scratching the Surface” exhibit also had a few rooms that were playing films that related to the conversation of humanity’s impact on nature and my favorite film was Underground Orchestra by Tsubasa Kato. This film was only 5:30min long and it was projected onto a white screen above a pile of dirt. The video explained how Tsubasa Kato went to the Dakota Access Pipeline and drew attention to the invisible inhabitants of the land by tying bells to the entrance of Prairie Dog burrows. While it’s difficult to catch the camouflaging creatures on camera, the bells tied to the entry doors rang out as the creatures carried about their day to day lives, create an orchestra throughout the prairie and creating a simple reminder of the bustling life in the seemingly empty field.
I really loved the entire exhibit and conversation that Hamburger Bahnhof was ale to create through contemporary and non-contemporary art pieces. I’m excited for December when the new exhibit is open, I’ve already looked up the topic and I will definitely be going back.
+84 Vietnamese Vegan Kitchen
For my solo dinner this week I chose to go to +84 Vietnamese Vegan Kitchen and stuff my face with Wan-Tan Hoi An and the Tofu Peanut curry special. The meal was delicious and I loved the aesthetic of the restaurant. For my meal I sat behind a cute family with two young kids and it was very entertaining. The little girls loved staring at me and even talking in simple German. Translation, I was called a man because they thought it was funny… Du bist ein mann.
Hallesches Haus and General Store
Hallesches Haus General Store is one of the cutest stores I have been to in Berlin so far. The General Store is relatively small, but the items in it are perfectly my vibe… aka candles, plants, mugs and art. I had to stop myself from buying everything I saw, but I did take pictures of what I wanted so I can come back later when I have a big shopping bag and 4 hands to carry it all.
FROLICKING THROUGH FALL
Despite the rainy week, I to continue to fall in love with Europe.
