My eyes pop open before six thirty. No problem, my mom’s awake as well, so we decide to get up. We have an early breakfast (fruit/yoghurt again) because Mom needs to go get a shipping box at a nearby store. The trick is to ship most of the bike and camping gear home with a DHL Freight order, that’s 17 kilos or so you don’t have to drag around on the way home! It’s not super easy to organize and you need a business account, but we’re super grateful every year that we can do this. Main issue is that you have to find a shipping box yourself and since we’re talking about a freight service, it should be pretty sturdy. The bike is coming with us on the train this year, just to test how easy it is, evaluate if we can do that again in the future.
Once mom is back with the 70 by 45 by 45 box and a roll of packing tape, we spend a fun ten minutes stacking all the gear into it, minutely fitting it together to minimise jostling and scraping. I work in logistics, I appreciate a good packing job. We’re all set around nine, drop off the box at the reception and then walk to the U-bahn for our thirty min ride to the Kurfürstendamm.
Today is shopping day! Not that we want to buy specific items (except souvenirs), but we do enjoy strolling down a shopping district, ogling the wares in the shop windows and visiting some stores we don’t have in Antwerp. A nice surprise is that we walk out the U-bahn station and see the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche, a to see item we had talked about but hadn’t gotten around to locating yet. It was heavily damaged during the war, then secured against further decay but left in its half demolished state as a memorial against war.
We also find the exact location of a 1992 picture that my mom took of my sisters and me, when we stopped in Berlin on the way home from the Baltic. She swore it should be in this area of town and we stumbled on the exact spot by accident! We take a moment to recreate the picture to surprise my sisters.
Now on to the business of the day! We enter the Bikini mall as a warm up exercise, the name apparently derived from the ladies apparel industry previously sited here, as well as from the bikini resembling design of building facade. We’re not expecting to find local or fancy stores here, but we see a shop window with cool black t-shirts with German language prints and pop in for a closer look. Turns out this is a Berlin specific store Hauptstadt Rocker (or ‘capital city rock person’) and their t-shirts have remarkable sensible mottos, as well as skulls and pandas. Mom buys some for my nephews and I acquire two for my own wardrobe.
Next we move out onto the Kurfürstendamm itself. It’s 3,5 km of wide, tree lined avenue with fancy hotels, bars and stores, many of them much too expensive for me. Its width of 50 m or so makes it a relaxing space to walk, with plenty of room for pedestrians, advertisement and terraces. We spot an M&M store but resolve to return on the way back. We pass shops by all major fashion designers like Chanel, Boss, Gucci, .. as well as Bulgari, Rolex, Cartier and so on. We decide on Scirocco for lunch, simply because the menu looks good and the maitre is friendly. We order Suprême de Poulet Rôti with a side order of fries, it’s delicious.
It’s almost two when we continue our exploration. We discover a Taschen store, they specialise in art and architecture publications, often in very large hard cover format, difficult to find in Belgium. I’d want to take all of the books home, but select just one in the end: Contemporary Concrete Buildings. What can I say, I love the style.
We’re getting tired, but still have a goal further down the avenue: a Y3 concept store. It’s a bit off the main track and something of a disappointment. Turns out they have only men’s apparel. Time to turn back and get a bit of rest. We take the S-Bahn back to the start of the avenue and finally get our M&M fix. It’s a huge store, with an overpowering smell of chocolate candy and an overload of merchandising. I never knew this existed! On the top floor we discover the giant wall of tubes, each with a different flavour or colour. We each take a reusable cup and go crazy, mixing up a quantity that should last us days and days – I’ll keep you informed.
Back at home around five for an hour of rest for our poor feet. A quick excursion to the organic grocery store yields healthy dips, tomatoes and a some fine meats and cheeses. We have a relaxed dinner at home and then veg out on the couch with a book. We’ll try to stay awake until ten, but I’m not making any promises..
Funny note about the S-Bahn here in Berlin. Every time the doors are about to close there is a short jingle. This soundbyte was sampled for a track for the 2008 film Berlin Calling, which has a simply amazing soundtrack by Paul Kalkbrenner. Look up ‘Train’ and have a taste of Berlin techno music.
Febe writes 