Hello, Galeries Lafayette!

Macarons at Galeries Lafayette

My heart went 'ping!' today. I can't believe I've been here for 2 years and *not* visited Galeries Lafayette before now. It's not that I haven't been in the area; it's not that my loyalty to the lovely KaDeWe has prevented me from passing through a different store; it's just that about a decade ago I visited Galeries Lafayette in Paris and was a little underwhelmed. (Though I'm not sure why, probably my taste was just different)


Today though I had some time, and I thought 'why not?'. I was passing and I suddenly remembered a French guy in my German class saying that a lot of the French expats go there to buy really expensive yoghurt. What? Food hall? Expensive yoghurt? Why, doesn't that sound like it might be just like the KaDeWe?

Oh. My. God. It's lovely! It's smaller than the food hall in the KaDeWe, but it's beautifully, darkly lit, and it's like all the products you could ever need but in lovely French packaging! Oh to be a French expat with lots & lots of money! Not that they aren't catering for the Germans and the Brits. There are a selection of Cadbury's biscuits for the Brits and 5KG jars of Nutella for the Germans. (Why would you buy so much that you can barely lift it?). Oh and of course, the Americans haven't been forgotten: yup, they've shipped in more of that Fluff for you guys, ha, ha, ha! (scroll down for the photos)

Pretty cakes: I want to roll around in there with you with my mouth open.

I have very little use for these, but I just want to take them home, line them up and look at them anyway.

These can stay on the shelf though...

I want my peas to have a gold lid!

Beluga Linsen: One of life's essentials, surely???

I can't even imagine trying to explain to Stevie that I spent 40 euros on a tub of Nutella. 

Nuts: I've run out of photos.

You can find Galeries Lafayette at Friedrichstrasse 76-78 and online.

Adventures in Groupon: the Panoramapunkt, Potsdamer Platz

Did you know that the higher up in the air a building goes, the more expensive the drinks in the cafe at the top? That's a made up fact from me to you, but it's probably true. I don't mind too much paying 3 Euros for a coffee (though I'd rather not), but 3 Euros for 200ml of Diet Coke seems exceptionally steep. Which is quite appropriate really, give that yesterday we celebrated (belatedly) our 2 year anniversary in Berlin with a trip up to the top of Kollhof Tower in Potsdamer Platz.

Happy 2 year anniversary to us! Forget an additional child-free visit to a museum. Look below! It's the Legoland giraffe! (we renewed our Jahreskarten instead...pah! But great price- only 15 euros!)

I bought the tickets as a little trip out for me, Stevie, and my camera. We had intended using the voucher in May, while Orla was in school and Hamish was in Kita, so that we could maybe squeeze in a trip to the Checkpoint Charlie museum, but you know how it is. Things get in the way, and the time just seems to fly by. So we had the pleasure of Hamish's company who has now officially finished with Kita. On that subject I am wondering if I made a bad move there as he is now pestering me every day with "Do I start school today?".

The top of the Sony Center, close-up, & the Ritz (which has lots of greenery on its roofs)

Anyway, back to the Panoramapunkt. I was quite excited at the thought of this little trip. I had read that the building has Europe's fastest elevator, and it makes your ears pop on the way down, but really, they want to make it a glass elevator so you can actually *see* that you're shooting up in the air at the same rate as Charlie & the Great Glass Elevator. Otherwise it kind of doesn't feel like much. Get in a box with some other folk and Europe's boredest tour guide/lift operator, listen to him tell you how many floors there are and what speed you are going, and ping!, you're at the top. No! Let's have it in glass, and let's all cling to the sides screaming that we're going to die.

Other things you can go up: the Fernsehturm (& in fact there's a viewing platform at the top of the Park Inn behind), the  Siegessäule  (Victory column), & the Die Welt balloon

Once at the top you can have a little wander round, clicking away with your camera, cursing the railings that presumably are meant to stop you throwing yourself off, and you can read all about the history of Postdamer Platz through the past couple of hundred years in the exhibition that also encircles the walls of the building. It's quite good, and I never knew that clock thing that sits in the middle of Potsdamer Platz was actually a pre-war electronic traffic light, but I had wondered about the lights on it. The views from this floor and the viewing platform above are great, although you might struggle to tell that from my photos as I had my camera on the wrong setting and it was a bit of a hazy day. You can see as far as the Funkturm and Teufelsberg in Charlottenburg, and you get some great views of central Berlin.

See the sights! The Brandenburg Gate, the Jewish memorial (& rear of Gehry DZ bank) & the lovely Science Center Medizintechnik (I was surprised at the number of rooftop gardens there are)

I would highly recommend a trip up the Panoramapunkt, though I think I might have preferred the Die Welt hot air balloon a bit better which seems to give you views from as high up. Either way, both seem good value for money if you get them on a Groupon deal. With the Panormapunkt, we got 2 VIP Tickets which allow you to skip the queue (if there is one) and they give you a fold out panorama map showing you what all the important buildings are, and a guide book full of lots of interesting information and vouchers for freebies at other attractions. Not bad for Euros 9.50 for both of us!

Standard tickets cost Euro 5.50
VIP tickets cost Euro 9.50
Children under 5 are free

Panoramapunkt website (where you can book tickets) http://www.panoramapunkt.de/de/willkommen.html


My other Groupon adventures:
Unsicht-bar - eating in the dark restaurant
Die Welt hot air balloon - sightseeing from Berlin's famous hot air balloon
Loxx Miniatur Welten - Mini Berlin with trains in the Alex shopping centre
Like I just stepped out of a salon - getting a Groupon haircut - eek

Strike a pose. Vogue-ing in Erfurt & Leipzig

Since we've been struck down by some kind of family viral lurgy, it's been difficult to blog. Not so much because I have lacked the energy or the mood (though I have in a way), but because with Stevie off work, he's been rather annoying every time I even look at the laptop, in a "Is that you on the internet again?", and I swear, I have barely even logged on. A glance is all it takes to set him off.

The issue has been sparked by Hamish who in earshot of his father clocked me huddled furtively in the corner, and asked innocently enough what I was buying off the internet, and could I get him something. This is the kind of thing that Stevie hates. His feeling is that if a 3 year old (nearly 4 year old actually) knows what you are doing on the internet then it's indicative of oft-seen behaviour by dear old me.

Curse those pesky kids! I'm having to become increasingly careful about all my regular little habits. The ones which seem to drive Stevie nuts in particular relate to (a) the internet CRIME: using from dawn till dusk (supposedly) and (b) photography CRIME: documenting every second of every day. One thing he can't complain about is that he buys me new lenses and then I don't use them; I'm pretty sure that would annoy him too. But while we were away on out regular little Legoland/Playmobil Funpark jaunt he became utterly riled by things like this:

I hear you. "What?" you're saying. The thing that he finds so awful is that the kids when they see things like Der Maus and Bernd Brot in the street they automatically run up and start posing in front of them, which in my mind only looks really embarrassing (for me) when I don't have my camera with me, and they still do it. It happens whenever they see anything which they consider a 'photo opportunity'. Giant strawberries, 4 foot high polar bears holding ice creams, bronze hippos, Berlin Buddy Bears, barely known German tv characters...they spot them, run forward and start blathering on about cheese.

This crime is compounded by things like Stevie saying "Come on Hamish, what's taking you so long?", and him responding "Oh well, you know, Mummy likes to take a few photos". It's like a red rag to a bull. In my defence I have also trained the two of them to stay absolutely stock still by my side when I am taking photos of buildings and things. That way I don't lose them and they don't risk getting run over, so that's something, right?

Anyway, I won't bore you to death with yet another bunch of Legoland/Playmobil photos, we had a great time at both places though I was coming down with the lurgy at the Playmobil Funpark, and felt like I was getting the flu because everything ached. Apart from the obvious highlights (no wasps, no queues, kids having a fabulous time) we also visited a couple of places we hadn't previously been to. Leipzig was the first. I don't know why, but we both had had a much different picture in our minds of Leipzig. Stevie was somewhat disappointed that it wasn't desperately communist and eastern looking (I know, prettiness is so old hat), and I'm not sure what I thought. I knew about it's role in the fall of the GDR, where the first important demonstrations took place, but not much else.

Leipzig

What I didn't know was that it was the hometown of Bach, or that it would be so pretty, with a different style of architecture to other German cities we've visited. It has previously been on the New York Times list of top ten cities to visit.

Erfurt

The other place we stopped off for a break was Erfurt, which had been recommended to Stevie by his work colleagues, and it was lovely. I would highly recommend a visit to Erfurt. Our prior knowledge of Erfurt was phenomenal: basically we both know it as the place in our very first German book where people like to hitchhike and strangers chat about getting a light for their cigarettes. And certainly there were a lot of people there, and quite a lot of them were smoking. But what we liked about it best were the little narrow streets with utterly gorgeous fachwerk buildings. Not that I got to take photos of them all, because what I realised on this trip was that it's not the kids who inhibit my enjoyment of visiting new places, but my beloved Stevie, who practically races through them, no lingering and lazy wandering allowed. Now what he really needs is a camera in order to slow down and really enjoy the sights...

Jubilation

Funnily enough, I haven't heard of there being that many Jubilee parties at home in Scotland. In fact, of my friends in England that I have spoken to recently, I'm not sure that even one of them was doing *something* for the Jubilee beyond trying to avoid all the news coverage on tv.

And yet, here in Berlin, there has been quite a lot of Jubilee action. Patently abroad is where you need to be in order to muster up the enthusiasm for a party. We were invited to 4 Jubilee parties yesterday. Since we were invited to a staunch republican's party yonks ago, that was the one we went to.

Essentially, I think it was just a good excuse for a lot of us to get together, the kind of get-together that always seems too much of a faff to be bothered with at home. So it was good fun, and the kids (for it was all people from Orla's school) had a great time. We even had imported British weather just for the occasion, which was, um... lovely.

Stevie was feeling a bit tired though, and he's got a sore back, which might have something to do with us just having driven back from Bavaria. For oh yes, we spent the past few days down south visiting Legoland Deutschland & the Playmobil Funpark again. We got back on Saturday evening, and as I was baking for the party, that meant I got to spend last night getting Orla ready to go back to school today. Because of course you can guarantee that if you've been away for the best part of a week, come back and partied then of course it goes without saying that a fancy dress outfit will be required for the following day. Meet my vision of modern monarchy, Princess Orla:

Today they're having a Jubilee party at school and the kids were to come dressed up, ideally incorporating the theme of red, white, and blue. Because they love to make things easy o us parents. I struggled a bit with the royal theme. I would have loved to have dressed her as a corgi (too hard, & I thought (wrongly) too warm for this time of year), or as the Queen (as she is today, but where would I get one of those dress coats and matching hats and handbags in an age 5, and I'd still like to coordinate the look with a couple of corgi puppies on a lead - too hard and beyond my sewing abilities), and then I thought of dressing her up as the Queen as she looked when she was 5 years old, but when I Googled photos of her, she just looked like any other 5 year old in a fancy dress. So I just went for a nice easy solution: Princess Orla, a crown, a sash, and a robe.

I am never sewing with crushed velveteen again. It was quite hard. I could have done with an overlocker to edge it, and I gave up completely on adding an ermine (white fake fur with black marker pen) edge to it. The sash doesn't sit right because by the time I got on to it Orla had been asleep for early 4 hours, so I couldn't fit it on her properly. I also had to sew three ribbons together for that as I couldn't get anything Jubilee themed here. I do wonder whether when we go back to the UK I will continue to make outfits for the kids or whether I shall just go back to using good old Tesco.

Anyway, in other Jubilation news: today we have been in Berlin for exactly 2 years!