Food, Glorious Food!

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Just a little glimpse into my foody week!  What an eclectic mix:

* introducing my friend Helen to some very German delicacies

* enjoying brunch at one of my favourite cafes with some of my favourite Berlin friends

* Afghan food – wow! Some things reminded me of my many visits to Balti houses across Birmingham.  Others of sitting in Rima’s house and eating her amazing food.  And of my favourite Iranian restaurant in Brum.  Makes sense I guess.  They are all neighbours, after all.

* exploring the (mostly Turkish) market at Maybachufer.  The sights, smells and flavours are something else!  In a good way!

* spring was in town for a few days, my local ice cream place is open again – what a perfect excuse (as if I needed one…) for my first ice cream of the season.  Cantaloupe melon and green tea.

My life on my wall

I finally got round to putting up pictures in my hallway.  Hunting down just the right frame for each of the cards took ages.  But it was so worth it!

These images bring back so many memories and they make me smile each time I walk past.  Which is quite often, as all the rooms in my apartment are off this hallway!

Unsurprisingly, there are Union Jacks galore!  I just love that crazy country and am so thankful I got to spend 16 years of my life there!

Russia.  One year of living there, and a number of shorter trips.  Not very long, but I still seem to have left a bit of my heart there.  What a place!

Then there are the gorgeous  Indian shoes.  What a riot of colour!  I have never actually been to India but have spent many hours in Sparkhill, the “Little India/Pakistan/Bangladesh” of Birmingham.  Colour is what stands out, especially on a grey November day!  Amazing!

And then there is a fairly generic African picture.  I have only spent a few weeks on that continent but this picture does conjure up some of the atmosphere I remember.

And in between a world map – so I can dream about all the places I have yet to see!  I love maps 🙂

Butterflies, wildebeest and humans

Unexpected pleasure: randomly came across this amazing exhibition of wildlife photography today (in a car showroom of all places).  I even had  a few spare minutes on the way to team meeting to enjoy them!

Check this out for details: http://www.volkswagenag.com/vwag/afb/content/de/veranstaltungen/tierreich.html

If you’re in Berlin, go and see it, and spot the most random picture of all.

For those of you not in Berlin: in with all the pictures of herds/groups/whatever of animals of different kinds, there is one of a bunch of people at a music festival. It gives this whole spiel about humans, similar to the explanations they had for the animal photos.  So funny!

Foto: Ingo Arndt

Great Little Berlin Moment #2

I was walking down a fairly ordinary, quiet, residential street in leafy Schöneberg earlier, when suddenly, for a brief moment, I thought I was in Russia.  Someone was playing  an unmistakeably Eastern European tune on the accordion.

Why this older man was walking down the street playing his accordion, I’ll never know.  But he did make me smile, as I remembered street parties for Victory Day in Russia, with lots of accordion music and dancing in the streets.

Berlin-on-Don?!?!