After moving to Berlin, I went through five stages of grief when I painfully discovered that boneless chicken thighs are not available in the supermarkets here (things you get used to living in the Bay Area/US).
1/9 @BerlinStation showed up on a random search for “Berlin” on Netflix, and it turned out to be an amazing spy thriller (spinning stories around CIA station based out of Berlin)!
2/9 @sandipb and I are ecstatic that even with our short time in this city, we were able to identify so many now-familiar places and understand references to ‘the meeting is at so and so’ street (strasse) and neighborhood.
3/9 We’ve just been lucky to have lived close to first the Alexanderplatz (with the famous Berlin TV Tower (Fernsehturm)), then the Landwehrkanal (spotted a lunch scene on the Van Loon Restaurant Boat), and now the Berlin Central Station (Haupbahnhof/Hbf).
4/9 Hbf – being at the center of the city, at least in terms of public transport connections – is close to a lot of prime buildings and attractions in Berlin. Like the Parliament (Reichstag) Building. And the Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburger Tor).
5/9 The Pariser Platz at the Brandenburg Gate houses a lot of embassies and so is very important in the show to depict cross-country diplomatic relations.
6/9 The Museum Island (Museumsinsel), Berlin Cathedral (Berliner Dom), and the Victory Column (Siegessäule) are pretty accessible and close to us – all landmarks that provide picturesque backdrops in the show and add the quintessential Berlin identity.
7/9 The river Spree happens to run close to Hbf, ensuring a lot of prime shots. We practically go to Hbf every weekend, either to walk across to Spree or to commute or to just grab a coffee/bite.
8/9 The best freakish moment in the show was when I identified a grocery store in the adjoining neighborhood Moabit from their vegetable lineup outside! I had just been at the store two weeks back!!
9/9 Also spotted in the show – Oberbaumbrücke, Molecule Man, Invaliden Park, Moabit, Arminius Markthalle, Moabit Prison Historical Park, Bode Museum, Humboldthain Park, and the murals on building facades all over the city
After visiting Decathalon and a few local bike stores (only one had a good stock of new and used bikes, others mostly focused on maintenance and repairs), we had an amazing experience at @Zweirad_Stadler, Charlottenburg. #Berlin
Stadler is a really big warehouse’ish store, just outside the S-Bahn ring; unlike Decathalon, it is a two-wheeler-only store for new bikes. It has a huge selection of different kinds of bicycles (city, trekking, mountain bikes, folding bikes) and related accessories.
What we liked the most is that they have an indoor bike test track, where you can really get a good feel of the bike and test its features.
Figured out yesterday that we can use our apartment intercom to call the lift/elevator as well as choose the destination floor before leaving!! (It will save us literally 10 seconds in the lobby, waiting for the lift 😅)
Not to mention that we first had to get used to the elevator not having any floor buttons to press. We always needed to select the floor from the digital display ‘outside’ the elevator before getting in.
All the delivery guys have been equally stumped by this feature. 🙂
Are all apartments in Berlin/Germany designed for tall people or those with min height 160 cm?
A short thread from a short person:
1> At 155 cm, I need a step stool to comfortably reach the lowest cabinet shelf in the wall cabinet in the kitchen, and obviously a ladder to reach the remaining top ones.
All I now wish is for a ladder with wheels that I can operate using a remote control 😀.
2> The bath tub wall is too high so again I need a step stool to climb into the bath tub…the height of the tub wall definitely seems like that for a default tall person.
3> The bathroom door is so so high that even if I somehow fit the over-the-door hook hangar, I will not be able to reach the hooks without assistance. The over-door-hook hangar now hangs on the rails of the towel warmer 🤦🏻♀️
It was a bit disorienting when I used a public restroom after so many months. It probably felt odd also because it was the first time I used one in a country/city where I’ve been living for the last five months.
Having relocated in the middle of a lockdown (and the city has been under one for last so many months), we have yet to see Berlin in it’s real form. So many things are going to seem so different when places open up and more people are out and about.
Pedalogue 