Erste Mai 2015

1 May 2015 once again, just crazy with hoards of people flooding the streets of Kreuzberg for a day of fun and political protests. It's an unbelievable event, people taking over the streets, parks crowded, clandestine beer selling, food and drink stalls along the main streets and more police than you can poke a stick at.

This year we spent most of our time in Görlitzer Park and also Weiner Straße. Top fun :)

Photo essay!

Bea visits

At the end of March, start of April 2015, Mama Bea came to visit us.

We went to pick her up at Tegel Airport. It got off to a shaky start when her bags went missing and we had to go to the 'Baggage Tracking' office. The bags were left behind in Dusseldorf and couriered to our house the next day. No probs.

We went 'hiking' in Plotzensee,

At at our favorite restaurant a couple of times,

Went sightseeing,

East Side Gallery,

Tiergarten,

A bit of shopping,

More sightseeing - Rathaus Schoneberg where JFK made his 'I am a donut' speech,

Bea loved the Bears all over the city,

We checked out the Berlin Half Marathon,

Had a steak dinner,

Sightseeing at Tempelhof,

Tempelhof community garden,

Soviet Memorial Treptower Park,

Playing with the bread cutting machine at Lidl,

Hiking in the towns and forest near Müggelsee, here admiring an owl sanctury,

Taking the 'Bus 100' past the major sights on the way to Kurfürstendamm,

Confronting Berlin's ugly history with the Stolpersteine,

And Gleis 17 at Grunewald,

And before we knew it, the two week visit was up and we were back on our way to the airport,

To say goodbye, we all look happy to see each other go. Barney is confused.

And once back at home, Barney passed out. Too much excitement.

Northern Hemisphere Solar Eclipse

So in the Northern Hemisphere today we had a solar eclipse.

I went to check it out as it peaked around 10:45am in Berlin. It wasn't a total eclipse, but an eclipse nevertheless!

I didn't have any special equipment so I put on some sunglasses, walked outside and looked into the sun. Rookie mistake.

Pro Tip: Sunglasses are not sufficient.

I got some retina burn and I think I will be seeing the eclipse for quite a few more days every time I blink.

Despite the lack of proper equipment, I could see a nice filtered view of the eclipse through the awning of a nearby building which was very convenient.

Ta Da!

*update, my eyes are fine :)

Fabrikarbeiter und die Rote Karte

When you achieve your goal to retire, a funny thing happens. You feel like you should go back to work. Well that's what happened to me...

In all the options available to me, I decided to follow my misguided fantasy of working in a factory.

Think of the Industrial Revolution, the mighty World War I & II factories, the East German workers uprising of 17 June 1953, Germany's Wirtschaftwunder, Laverne & Shirley, Industrie Mädchen, Livin' on a Prayer, An Officer and a Gentleman, Unions, Demontage and Treuhand.

I wanted to work with Germans and I also wanted to work for a Berlin startup company.

I managed to combine that all in one with a part-time job as a production worker in the 'culinary area'.

As a food handler, before I could even start work I had to do some 'training' to get a 'Rote Karte' (Lebensmittelpersonalhygiene). This cost me 20 Euros (had to pay it myself), at a state of the art training facility, the Gesundheitsamt in Lichtenberg. That's irony by the way, Lichtenberg is a bit of a dump and the Gesundheitsamt didn't look so gesund (healthy).

To get the pass you just roll up during their odd opening times (varies depending on the day), register with a lady through a small cut out in a door and hand over your passport, then wait in a room.

Then another lady comes and instructs you in German for about 10 minutes. Telling you about the legalities of handling food, that you can be fined, you can make other people sick if you are sick, that you should go to the doctor if you are sick. The biggie is you are legally not allowed to work with food if you are sick.

Then you have to watch a poxy 20 minute video which dramatizes what she just said. We are told the story of a food worker who became ill and went to the doctor. The doctor told him to stay home. He did until he was well again. The he returned to work when he was healthy. It was fascinating.

There was also some other additional gems, such as if you go to the toilet you should wash your hands afterwords. Shocker. A Vietnamese guy in our group fell asleep during that presentation due to its gripping story line. Hopefully someone fills him in.

As soon as the video stopped, people rushed to the little lady behind the window to pick up their hard earned Rote Karte - and pay the 20 clams.

And I got mine...

And then I started my work as an 'arbeiter' in an East German factory complex (in plattenbau Lichtenberg) for the Berlin startup.

I even get to wear an 'open all hours' shop coat.

And after my first day of picking, packing, boxing and cleaning, we arbeiters got to take home the leftovers.

After one day of work I think I've had enough of living out my factory fantasy :P

Hausgemacht Cheese Burger

It all started with wondering 'what are frozen burger patties like these days?'

We've been making our own burgers here in Berlin ever since we got here, such as our super taster Blue Burger. We've also eaten a lot of Burgers out and about, with Burgermeister and Burgeramt our faves so far.

But back to these pesky frozen patties. As usual, we had to scour every supermarket chain to find a reasonable pack - that being that Kaufland et al insist on selling the minimum quantity of 14 - 16 patties per box.

Netto was the answer, 8 frozen patties per box, still too many but I can manage...2.49 Euros.

Pre-packaged hamburger buns are atrociously stale in every market I've checked, and I didn't want to eat it our of the normal crunchy Schrippe (small breakfast type rolls). So, we went with an old fashioned option, plain white bread. At least the bread is soft.

To do a cheesburger properly (if its not a blue cheese burger) one needs melty cheese. I am loathe to buy this as every single slice is individually wrapped. At least we recycle.

We had everything else in house.

Removing the patties, they two were semi-individually wrapped, 2 per wrapper. Grr.

These things are 98.8% beef mince, so that's a good start. They looked pretty decent too, albeit a bit thin.

They fried up nicely, much better than the last frozen patty I cooked, maybe 15 years ago. I guess things have changed a bit.

The bread was buttered and toasted on one side, a trick I learnt from the Wendy's burger chain in America. Extra fat..mmm.

When the patties are almost cooked, add melty cheese!

So dirty.

Once melted, assemble with mayo, tomato sauce, pickles, tomato. A double cheese burger and a more modest single cheeseburger. Perfecto.

These things were pretty tasty. The patty, the whole point of the experiment was good enough that I would try them again, but they are not up to the standard of home made of Burgermeister / Burgeramt ones.

After all that we had 4 patties left over. Rinse and repeat for the same dinner two nights in a row.

A funny thing happened on the way to the prüfung

So....

We have been undertaking a language course, which turned into us taking the official 'Integration Course' that some foreigners need. We don't need it, but did it anyway.

We already have had the grammar test, and today was supposed to be the 'Leben in Deutschland' Politics and Culture test.

Our class assembled at the correct place and time, but we couldn't do the test! Why? because DHL had stuffed the language school around.

Apparently our test papers were ordered 2 weeks ago and subsequently delivered by DHL to a depot in Saxony. Umm, we are in Berlin.

The school rang and suggested they send the package to the school in Berlin. DHL apparently delivered the package, but didn't leave a note. The school rang DHL asking where the papers where and DHL was told  the package was with a neighbour - but not which one!! The school went looking for it and none of the neighbours had it.

Then it gets a bit murky, but somehow the package got redelivered today (test day) to the school. But it was delivered early when the office wasn't open. A note on the door from DHL said the package would be available for pickup / redelivery on Monday. The teacher rang and asked if they could redeliver today ASAP, Not possible.

So with all of that, we couldn't do the test!

The teacher then had to ring the Government department responsible for administering the test and arrange something else.

We stood in the stairwell a bit dumbfounded. Everyone was annoyed as we just want this over and are sick of studying!

It was finally clear that nothing could be done about it today and we all could leave. The teacher came out to explain to us what had happened and when he had rescheduled the next test.

So another week to study...which is good for at least one of our lazier classmates who has done no study at all!