der neue we

I am considering if I should change the name of my blog to 'coffeeinberlin' og 'wheretogetadamngoodcake' since most of my posts are about cafés.... But not yet! And isn't sitting on a café with a good cup of coffee and looking at people walking by or talking to a good friend one of the great things about living in a big city?

This one - Der Neue WE - is in Mitte (see, a new kiez!) in the corner of Arkonaplatz, where something else happens on a weekly basis that I will tell you more about later, surrounded by trees and beautiful old houses. The coffee is great and the carrot cake and cheese cake aer absolutely sublime. I heard one say that it was the best carrot cake, she ever had.

nordic embassies

If at some point during your Berlin visit you find yourself being caught between too many people, tourist busses and street musicians around KaDeWe and all the shops, which can be quite the overwhelming experience, I suggest you head North East and walk for about 10 minutes in towards Tiergarten - but before you actually get there, you will see a lot of embassies. The other day I went in to the Nordic Embassies to watch a Sami exhibition. It was a bad ass exhibition, which sadly is over now, but (and this is the reason with this post) the house is really cool architecture wise and they always have a free exhibition there. And a small coffee shop - Oslo Café. 

A nice spot for a different Berlin experience and some Scandinavian vibes.

reality

mendelssohn-bartholdy-park

On a bikeride intented to end up in Park am Gleisdreieck in saw this green patch in the corner of my eye and decided to go there in stead. I had a pending facetime-date so I did not have much time in there but the park - Mendelssohn-Bartholdy-Park - is quite small. It is a place where people talk on the phone, train their dogs in groups or go to the playground. At least that was what was going on, when I was there! I found a tree I could climb (my first one in Berlin so far) so I got up there and spend some time wondering about life. Quite nice. 

The park is between Hallesches Ufer and Hafenplatz, which makes it a good stop if you are strolling along the Landwehrkanal.

b-movie

Some time ago I went to cinema - Babylon cinema on Dresdener Str - and watched B-Movie: Lust und Sound in West-Berlin 1979-1989. It is by the Manchester born musician Mike Reeder, who lived in Berlin in a number of years at the time of the wall. It portrays the underground music, punk and pop venue in West Berlin during that time. And Nick Cave and Tilda Swinton (among other) appear all of a sudden.

The movie is called an essayfilm but since it contains original footage it seems like a documentary. It is one of those movies, where you are not sure what is fiktion and what is reality. 

If you are somehow interested in Berlin: watch it! It is still in some cinemas in Berlin and I believe the CPH:DOX festival in Copenhagen will show it as well.

the barn

The Berlin based coffee roastery The Barn is an other nice spot to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee in Berlin. They have two cafés; The Barn Roastery and The Barn Coffeeshop - I was at the roastery on Schönhauser Allee.

    They use different brewing techniques and different roasts, so you can almost design your cup if coffee. Also the interior design is cool and urban (and Scandinavian). AND they have pastel de nata - which I was excited about after just being in Portugal......!

Merrcado do Livramento

The room we had our training in on the previouslt mentioned Erasmus+ training course was situated at the fresh food morning market in Setúbal. So in our coffee breaks we could dive into the bustling atmosphere and find some local fruits, perhaps a pastel de nata and then me and a couple of friends headed to our usual espresso bar, where at the end of the course the knew what we wanted - we became regular costumers!

If you ever find your self in Setúbal - do yourself the favour of visiting the market (before noon!).

open up to learn

Last week I joined a Erasmus+ training course with the Portuguese NGO Ananda in Setúbal, Portugal. I did not have so many expectations to the course in general but it ended up being a most inspiring experience with interesting training - and super cool trainer - and wonderful people, where many turned out to become friendships I believe will keep strong for many, many years.

We were sharing and learning practices concerning healthy behaviour, ways of engaging people and projects we were working on or could be created. The sort of over all topic was unemployment among young people - with Portugal as a case, but we also learned about the situations on the 12 participating countries. We were to representatives from each country; from Denmark to Egypt, Ukraine and Armenia. Also we had to - on the last day - create and implement a project in the city of Setúbal, which in the beginning seemed like a huge and impossible task but all groups created something that spread smiles and wonder among the citizens of Setúbal.

In addition to all that; our group had quite special well-functioning dynamics and every day was worth waking up for. I and three others got up every morning at 6.30 am, walked bleary-eyed to a nearby park and did yoga and meditation the next almost two hours. We changed who were leading the practice every morning, which I also learned a lot from - now I am more confident in leading a yoga practice!

d'espresso

The café D'espresso on the corner of Waldemarsstraße and Manteuffelstraße serves amazing coffee. And their cakes looks super tasty as well (I haven't tried them yet...). There is a perfect atmosphere to sit and work and the wifi is fast! 

As a bonus they sell coffee in these beautiful red bags - not even that expensive.

music for lunch

The other day when I was doing my grocery shopping at the Turkish market, I sat down with a 'Zucchinipuffer' in pita and listened to this british guy - Pete the Temp says his sign - performing some electronic-rap-reggae music. Nice and chill Berlin atmosphere!

There is always some musicians at the Turkish market and it is usually pretty good.

technical problems

I am struggling with some technical problems these days... My good ol' MacBook has decided to not want to cooperate with the photo programme, which means I can't upload any photos (except for this one...strangely enough). The thing is that I have material enough to cover more than a week of blogging, so I am about to throw this machine out the window every time I have gathered enough strength to try and upload new photos and it fails to work again...

Stay tuned anyway! I am working on fixing it.....

back home

I am back in Berlin - back home - after some beautiful ten days of travelling a bit in Denmark and mostly in Portugal. It is funny to suddenly feel home in Berlin. Shuffling confidently around in busses, U-bahn and on bike. I have a few days all by myself in the apartment to get things done and sorted out before I go back to Denmark for a few days. Changing country have made me pendle a lot. I like it.  

window watching

When I was waiting for my dance class to begin I was sitting in the changing room's window; looking at the building in front of me and I realised it was housing several art studios. It was funny in a strange way to observe the artists working - and how they did differently. And decorated their ateliers differently.