tanzfabrik berlin

Just North of Victoria Park in Kreuzberg on Möckernstraße 68 you can find the dance school Tanzfabrik Berlin. It is in an old brick building and the studios are spread on different floors and 'apartments'. The studios have mirrors in all walls that aren't windows and they have beams and everything needed.

I've tried caporeira and contemporary ballet, which were great classes - quite difficult though... I'll have to explore more classes before I settle on one I think.

Every day there are more than ten different classes with incredibly skilled instructors; the instructor for my contemporary ballet class has been dancing and working with Pina Bausch (you know, the one with the documentary). 

Cool and inspiring place!

kiezeklein

This nice little café in Mariannenstraße in Kreuzberg is a nice hangout spot. I was there the other day after the morning swim to have a flat white and celebrating the Berlin Coffee festival. Kiezeklein is good for people watching, cake eating (the pieces are so big, that they automatically give you to forks) and of course coffee enjoying! They already open at 8 am which means it is a good place for early birds to get their first on the go coffee fix. And they have nice looking couscous salads and the like - which I still have left to experience.

Hey - the blog is 1 week old now!

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world press photo exhibition

These days - from the 1st to the 11th of September - the World Press Photo collection is exhibited at the Hauptbahnhof. It is a cool setting for an exhibition like that; people all around, doing there business and travelling from A-B. They stop briefly to look at a few of the pictures or maybe they have time to watch them all. And then there are people like me who go there with the one intention to check the exhibition out.

The pictures are beautiful and horrifying as every year. Showing some part of the truth about crisis we have heard much about and people in situations most people do not know exists. Worth every second of watching! If you're not in Berlin, then check out when it is in your city - the exhibition travels around!

kreuzberg schwimmenbad // prinzesinnenbad

Where Gitchinerstraße meets Prinzenstraße is a little summer's paradise, where you can escape the heat during summer - the Prinzessinnenbad. The 10 tours card was my first 'I moved to Berlin for good'-purchase - and now I've been there 11 times for the frühschwim from 7am - 8am and swum 22 lanes in the 50 metres pool.

You can meet every kind of swimmer or bathing type here. From pro, fit ones, who swim crawl like someone where chasing them to rather big old men swimming almost vertically in the water. There might not me so much space, since surprisingly many Berliners go for a morning swim, but it's a nice spot and the feeling when I bike home is worth it all!

Frühschwim is 3.5€ for one ticket and 35€ for 10 tours (and then you don't need to wait in the line). Normal tickets are a bit more expensive, but then you can stay there all day.

berlin coffee festival 04.09 - 06.09

From tomorrow the Berlin Coffee Festival - mostly based in Markthalle Neun - is starting and it has a full programme of coffee enjoyment for coffee lovers and enthusiasts with coffee cake tastings, open roasteries, the possibility of watching a cupping and of course a party (it is Berlin after all).

Even my favourite Copenhagen coffee pusher; The Coffee Collective is coming!

I went and watched the documentary Caffeinated in Kino Moviemento yesterday evening, which was kind of a pre-festival event. They gave out cold brewed coffee and the movie itself was interesting and you could almost smell the coffee when they showed the cool roasting geeks in action (and taste those beautiful cups of perfectly brewed espresso.......).

If in Berlin - I suggest you join!

türkenmarkt on maybachufer

Every Tuesday and Friday there is a bustling Turkish market along Maybachufer in Neukölln from noon until early evening. There is a nice and quite easy-going atmosphere - except for the Turkish women with their shopping trollies pushing past you to get her shopping done before the best vegetables has been sold. It is a nice place to roam around for a while and also a good spot to do your grocery shopping!

Vendors sell blankets like the ones they sell in Khao San Road in Bangkok and jewellery similar to those being sold in Thamel-area in the capital of Nepal; Kathmandu. You can find everything (I even thought I saw Robert Downey Jr.) from good, cheap fruits and vegetables and evil looking knives to strawberry/chili honey and lamps for your bike (which was what I was searching for).

Of course you can buy good coffee to go and falafel wraps, which you can enjoy while listening to the musicians playing on a small terrace on the Landwehrkanal.

Definitely worth the visit and an easy thing to plot in to your 'Berlin itinerary'!

 

the kreuzberg

Up the steep hill in Victoria Park is the 'mountain' that gave Kreuzberg its name - so I have been told! I went by the other evening just before my dance class and walked around the hilly park. It was sunset and people were spread out all the grassy fields on blankets; sleeping, picnicking, talking on the phone or talking with their family or friends. Seems like a cool place to go and hang out in the late afternoon, when it is possible to be out doors. Berlin is so hot these days and there is no wind at all, so the second you step outside you start sweating. You feel like you are in the exhaust from a gigantic truck all the time!

Under the trees in Victoria Park you can breathe a big cooler air and if you are the sporty, biking og running type the hill it self is a good one to mount to get the pulse up and make the legs burn. The view from the top is worth the effort as you see all the way to Mitte along Großberenstraße. Quite beautiful. And there is a waterfall, on which many young people sit and drink a beer.