Thoughts on Berlin in February:
It’s a hell of a lot colder than London. It’s a kind of dry cold that sinks right into you and makes you short-tempered and irritable (unlike the English coldness that’s damp and easily reversible). This coldness explains our ski-suits (we found them in a second-hand shop near Zoologischer Garten).
Every morning we went to Caras Gourmet Coffee on Kurfurstendamm. We loved the Chai Tee and the Americanos mit Sojamilch, and our favourite breakfast was the gorgeously thick natural yoghurt pots with big chunks of hazelnut and walnut sprinkled over it and little pots of honey. Never had yoghurt this good anywhere else.
It was a city of extremes: the people we met were either unbelievably rude or extraordinarily nice, the food was either the best we’ve ever eaten (a restaurant on Bleibtreustrasse served fantastic mussels that completely dicked on Cafe Rouge) or something we wouldn’t feed our enemies (an awful restaurant that claimed to be Thai in Prenzlauerberg, what we were given was equivocal to bad takeaway food).
We’re planning to go back in summer and do some proper exploring (the problem with going in February is that it is far too cold to walk for any extended length of time) but this time we’ll stay in Mitte or Friedrichshain or Kreuzberg or something, not Wilmersdorf/Charlottenburg where we were (it’s lovely but a bit boring).
Also we felt that Berlin boys were much hungrier for us, even in ski suits. Just sayin’.
