Stammtisch

Bars and restaurants often have tables with a sign saying “Reserviert” or “Stammtisch”, reserved for regulars. The Goethe Institut has a Stammtisch every Wednesday evening at a local bar where students meet up to socialise and practice German. We have seen Stammtisches in restaurants where groups of friends get together, say weekly or monthly, for a meal. On Saturday evening we were invited to a particularly nice Stammtisch. This one has been going for twenty years in a local (Lokal!) pub. At 9 or 10 p.m.invited people come to discuss all sorts of subjects from their different perspectives as artists, scientists, architects and critics. One of the ten people there that night around the large round  table was an art critic. When we asked what she’d recommend to see she joked that the best exhibition was always the one that has just finished, and that she would have recommended the Hokusai, which luckily we had seen. Interestingly she saw it twice, the second time going back with a magnifying glass to see the tiny detail. Another current exhibition she recommended was that of Faces of the Renaissance, so I’m off there this week.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stammtisch

The first signs of Christmas

One of the things I am enjoying about Germany is seasonality and that Christmas hype doesn’t start in September. (Milton Keynes shopping centre was full of Christmas decorations and other forms of landfill tat in early September.) When we arrived, restaurants had special Pfefferlinge menus with dishes based on local mushrooms (chanterelles). Now the menus have a lot of pumpkin.

On Saturday 5 November, we noticed the first signs of Christmas marketing: a lego window display complete with sound effects.

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Inverted snobbery and beer

These posters advertising a very cheap beer were in the U-bahn. I love the parody and paradoxical humour. I think the beer is 99 cents a bottle.

I couldn't possibly buy it if it's that cheap

East Beer. Are they allowed to do something like that?
I would drink it if it was more expensive.
No, they always make trouble.
What would the neighbours think of us?

Dahlem Dorf Museum

Old food tins

 

The museum at Dahlem Dorf shows domestic objects like these lovely old food tins. The numerous flea markets in Berlin usually have pretty old tins for sale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where's the bath?

I liked this roll-away bath under the kitchen sink, manufactured in the 1970s. My Auntie had a bath in her kitchen in her small retirement flat in Eastbourne in the 1960s. It had a hinged wooden lid which on it which was usually closed, and when open hooked up on the wall. I remember kitchens like that in Tyneside flats in Sandyford, Newcastle, in the late 1970s, which also had an outside loo (netty) in the yard downstairs. With homes getting smaller in the UK, I wonder imaginative baths will make a comeback?

 

Here is a photo of the local midwife in 1936, with her certificate for forty years’ service

 

If she’d said push, I would definitely have pushed.

 

The Midwife herself with certificate commemorating forty years' delivering babies

 

Her set of midwife’s instruments are complete with instructions.

The Midwife's instruments and instructions!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More at Domäne Dahlem

Domäne Dahlem has a farm and sells its produce on site. There are pumpkins everywhere in Berlin at the moment, and they feature on a lot of restaurant menus. They are also used to decorate every kind of establishment, from a high class jewellers to a bar.

Note the curly pumpkin and the blue potatoes

Of course we had to eat with such a lot of good food to choose from. I had been wanting to try Kartoffelpuffer mit Apfelmus (an unlikely combination of potato cakes with apple puree. As usual, the serving was enormous. One of the kitchens was selling Goose leg with red cabbage and dumplings in honour of St Martin whose day it is on 11 November. I don’t know how people could move after the size of portion they had. There was a wood-burning brazier with benches round it, and lots of tables and benches where you could sit.

Kartofellpuffer mit Apfelmus, which went down very nicely with a steaming mug of Glühwein

 

A barn where a band entertained

One of the fields

 

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Textil-Handwerksmarkt at Dahlem Dorf

Craft stalls in Berlin often have interesting work of high quality. I had seen an advert for a craft market in Dahlem Dorf for this weekend only, so today we took the U-bahn down there. It’s on line U7 which has many interesting stations built in the1920s, and all decorated differently. The U-bahn stationat Dahlem Dorf is thatched with folksy decoration, great wall tiles and very cute!

Here’s the entrance hall to the station.

It is a short walk from the station to Domäne Dahlem where the craft market was, an open-air museum of agrarian history which includes a working farm and boasts the oldest house in Berlin, built in 1560. http://www.berlin.de/orte/museum/freilichtmuseum-domaene-dahlem/index.en.php?lang=en

Felt (Filz) is a big thing in Germany. There were stalls selling all sorts of things hand-made in felt: hats, skirts, cushions, necklaces, badges, flowers, rings, slippers, bags, toys and vases. Weaving, crochet and knitting also featured, as well as some beautiful yarn. The farm buildings are home to a professional potter and a group of weavers and knitters who keep there ample stock of materials there. (Until now I only thought I needed a shed as a studio, now I’m getting grandieuse ideas about a barn!)

Felted knitting

Gorgeous yarns

 

Fine handweaving

 

There were several weavers and felt makers who used different techiques. Some of the felting was done by hand with a needles, some using a machine.

 

Handknitted socks are very popular here

 

 German bookshops and craft shops sell lots of books with sock patterns and instructions for making felt slippers.

 

 

 

 

 

A Christmas Market is held here on the four weekends of Advent. We’ll be back!

 

One of the delightful things about the event was what a lot of workshops there were for children to have a go at crafts. There were tables where you could learn to paint pottery, paint on silk, make beeswax candles, make felt, make paper lanterns or do French knitting.

 

Sign for a felt workshop

  

  

Painting on silk

 

 

A flower made from autumn leaves

 

 

 

 

 

Kreuzberg, among other things

This afternoon I went for a wander in Kreuzberg to find a button shop that I had read about on the internet, on my way to the Turkish Market. Now for a digression about banks. I didn’t have any cash with me, because yesterday when I went to get some from a machine at Zoo station, before it issued me with my money it said it would charge me 4.95 euros for the priviledge, so I declined their kind offer and went away without. Previously I had “only” been charged 1.95 euros for a withdrawal, and put it down to me stupidly using the wrong card. Today I thought there wouldn’t be the same problem in Kreuzberg as it is a relatively cheap area, but the first machine I went to said it would charge 5.95 euros!!! Again, I declined and went off to find another. This next one threatened to charge 3.95 euros. Off I went again. Finally, I found an ATM which gave me money without apparently charging a fee. I await the bank statement with interest, if not trepidation. I am really confused by our German bank. The account has two cards. One of them is a visa card, and to get cash you have to put money into the visa bit online, then use this card to extract cash from machines. Allegedly this does not incur charges. You can’t use the visa card for purchases, but you use the other (cash) card for such purposes. Confused? You are not the only one. And there there are two new PIN numbers to remember, not to mention the system for logging onto the internet which requires an MBA in financial administration! I’m beginning to think mattresses have a lot to recommend them. End of digression.

So there I was in Kreuzberg, familiarising myself with the charges levied by different ATMs and how banks rip off unwitting customers desperate to get on with their lives without further ado and before their shoes have worn out completely, when what I was really interested in was buttons. Finally I reached Knopf Paul (“Button Paul”), and it is fantastic! It is a small, old-fashioned looking shop with an enormous selection of good quality buttons and buckles piled up to the high ceiling, and a friendly and knowldegable assistant . It has modern and vintage stock. Here are some pictures of Kreuzberg, with Knopf Paul, another great little shop which sells and mends old radios and stereos, and various other scenes that took my fancy.

One of my favourite scenes here is the heap of books with a typewriter on the top, outside a second had book shop. It says so much about Berlin. There is a seat by a little garden which the shop looks after, a whacky installation, a bicycle, recycled stuff and it’s funny. Also, it gives me a idea of how to use those thousands of books clogging up our house. Maybe the Tate would give me so money if…….

As usual, click on any of the small pictures to enlarge them.

Outside a bookshop

Outside a bookshop

Botanic Gardens

We spent a lovely sunny afternoon at the Botanic Gardens a few weekends ago. Here are some of pictures of our trip, including some amusingly labelled litter bins. There was a bird show that weekend which we visited out of curiosity. Apparently keeping exotic birds in cages is very popular. They were all very beautiful and healthy-looking, but it gave me the creeps.

Lost in translation

Here is a shop near us:

“Hell” in German means “light” or bright” in English.

Here’s the café opposite the shop:

A hairdresser in smart Dahlem:

What do you expect to come after “Nice to see you”?

Stalin meets McDonalds

Frankfurter Tor in the former East Berlin has some huge Stalinist buildings, not beautiful but impressive and magnificent. Now there is a McDonalds in one of them. Stalin would be turning in his grave.