Archive for March, 2009
The little orange VW down the street
Thursday, March 19th, 2009
This old VW bus (here pronounced “fow-veh”) has been parked in the same place for as long as I’ve been here. I suppose it’s possible that it was moved and then put back exactly where it was before, but I never saw it happen. Anyway, I walk past it every day as I’m going to my German class, and I like the color of the thing so I decided to immortalize it in watercolor. (Imagine it even more orange than here pictured. The lighting in the apartment is not great for photographic endeavors.)
Mandelhörnchen
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
I was going to post about something completely different today, but my pictures ended up a little blurry so I am going to write about another German food instead. I have so far only written about unusual meat products, so here is something a little different.
May I present:
the Mandelhörnchen!
The name here means “little almond horn” (or perhaps “almond horn-let” is more apt.) These are really quite almond flavored inside, so they must use almond extract or almond flour in addition to the crispy sliced almonds on the outside. The bakery somehow manages to make them soft in the middle, while the chocoalte-coated ends get almost crispy.
Paris, part 2
Monday, March 9th, 2009
In the evening we hiked up Montmartre. As it turns out, Paris is quite hilly. Not San Francisco hilly, but certainly compared with Berlin. Montmartre is the highest region, and from its heights you can look out at Paris stretching into the distance. It’s so perfect that it’s almost cheesy. The hill seems to restrict traffic flow, especially because many of the streets are so steep that they have steps. This makes for nice, quiet back streets like the one above. There are moments when you feel like you might be in a small village somewhere. As we wandered, we came across this:
My first glimpse of Sacré-Cœur, the beautiful white basilica on the top of the hill. It is not as old as I assumed; it seems that the building was completed in 1914, although it was started about 50 years earlier. I found another interesting factoid on Wikipedia:
Sacré-Cœur is built of travertine stone quarried in Château-Landon (Seine-et-Marne), France. This stone constantly exudes calcite, which ensures that the basilica remains white even with weathering and pollution.
It looked kind of spooky at night. I felt lucky because it was a cold, windy Wednesday night in March and almost had the place to myself. I almost never feel lucky on cold, windy Wednesday nights in March.
The next day I had the morning free, but my friend/guide had to run off to see if she had grad school classes that day or not. They’ve been having a strike for at least four weeks now. Possibly five; it’s been so long she can’t remember. (It turned out that there was a blockade preventing her from reaching the building. But since we didn’t know beforehand I had already struck out on my own.)
Exploring a new city wonderful, but becomes less so when you start to realize that you have to go to the bathroom and you have no idea where to go. The classic problem. I won’t bore you with the details of how I solved this problem. Use your imagination!
Some people say that Parisians are snobby. I have heard such rumors. I don’t know where they come from, because everyone I interacted with was not just polite but downright friendly and kind. My friend and I had dinner Wednesday night at a small crêpe restaurant and the lone employee was cracking jokes and chatting with us and made me wish I could go back every day just to give the place my business. (Ok, I admit I didn’t understand his French, but I understood the old man’s smiles.) Maybe I’m just lucky, but here’s a good word for Parisians!
My last night I decided to walk to the Tower for a nighttime photo-op. It turned out to be a lot further away than it looked, and I ended up being stressed out about whether or not I would miss the last train back to my friend’s place. (I made it, but only after half an hour of wandering around and cursing because I assumed a Metro station near the Eiffel tower would be “easy to find”.) The long hike was worth it, though, for this obligatory photograph. The tower started sparkling as I approached. Apparently it does this on the hour.
The next morning, after breakfasting on an array of croissants and fruit tarts, it was goodbye to my friend and host and back to the airport and Berlin.
I arrived at Orly airport about an hour before my flight, and began to panic when I realized it wasn’t going to be clear or straightforward at all. There were no big signs saying “Easy Jet” or “Air France” anywhere: just dark desks hiding behind long mazes of people waiting to check in. No boards with information on which counter to go to. Or at least, none that I could find or read. I started racing around the terminal, wondering if I was even at the right one. Was it really Orly Sud, or was I supposed to be at Orly Ouest and nobody told me? Finally I took an educated guess and joined one of the depressingly long lines.
After five minutes of looking at the clock warily and thinking about how I was going to be stuck in Paris, I realized that occasionally people were passing by without waiting in the row to my right. I had assumed it was for first-class passengers, but when a guy with dreadlocks, dirty clothes and a backpack walked through, I began to question this. Hippies who go first-class? Maybe the line was for people like me who did not arrive three hours before their flight. Maybe I would not miss my flight after all.
There was a guard standing by, and I decided to take the plunge and ask him if he spoke English. He looked horrified. I pressed on: “Is this line for Berlin? 2:20?”
“Bahlennn?” (or something) he asked, as though I were the one misprounouncing the name of the city.
“Oui.” (Now you see, my French skills were coming out in force.)
Like magic, he opened up the divider and let me into the “express” lane, affording me scowls from other people still stuck in the long line. In another two minutes, I was on my way to security and back to Germany again!
Paris, part 1
Sunday, March 8th, 2009
It started off as a rainy, gray day in Paris. There were high winds on the runway, and landing was a white-knuckle event. Judging from the screams of the other passengers as our plane touched down, I wasn’t the only one imagining that the next strong gust might send us to oblivion, but we arrived safely and our pilot earned a round of applause. The weather didn’t improve for the better part of the day, but that didn’t stop me and my wonderful, conveniently Paris-dwelling friend (who was good enough to let me stay for the two nights I was there) from heading out to see some of the cutesy neighborhoods of the city. And eventually, the sun even came out for a bit.
At first we tried to pretend that we were not enamored with the place, because everyone is enamored with Paris. (According to an unverified rumor that I have chosen to believe, the city sees more tourists per year than any other city in the world.) And yet, we could not resist its charms… no wonder so many people decide to come here on their honeymoons, or worse, to wander the little back streets in an aimless, romantic fashion and then blog about the pastries that they eat.
*ahem*
Like these:
This window display begs the question: does “divorce” mean the same thing in French as in English? It was a kind of two-part cream puff thing, so I can only assume that the name is descriptive rather than accidental. I particularly enjoy the “Mac Caron.” After snapping this photo I went in this shop and bought some regular macarons (not the cheeky McCaron versions because as you can see they are pricey cookies. €3.20!) Here is what the ordinary ones looked like, for those who (like me) may be relatively unfamiliar with the little cookies:
They are made with almond flour and actually much softer than they look. I have looked at them with interest on food blogs, and always assumed it was some sort of hard, meringue-like item. No siree.
But enough about cookies! You probably don’t want to read about the cookies that someone else ate. Here are more pictures of Paris, in no particular order, and oddities like three-wheeled motorcycles:
I can’t decide if that vehicle looks fun, dangerous, or both. Scooters are much more plentiful in Paris than in Berlin, and they like to drive fast. Distracted tourists, beware!
Above: The tip of the “Isle de la Cité,” where Notre Dame is located. There were some ships passing by on the Seine while I stood on this bridge, including a big barge filled with coal. I wasn’t the only tourist:
There are lots of interesting architectural details in Paris. Look at the fire escapes on this building:
Here is the Louvre, as night was falling. I remember coming here in 2001. What a different experience. Tour buses. High school drama. I had no concept of what Paris was really like. These two days didn’t give me too accurate a perspective either, I’m sure, but everything is different when you’re riding 16 and being rushed around by a tour guide.
The city looked especially great at twilight when all the street lights were coming on. Many buildings were lit up, like the one in the background of the metro sign here. I wanted to frame this better, I really did, but that would have meant stepping out into a dangerously busy intersection, so I decided to stick with bad photography.
This post is starting to get long, and it’s time for bed so I shall stop for now. More tomorrow!
Paris
Friday, March 6th, 2009
As some of you know, I went to Paris for a couple of days this week. It was for so-called “work” purposes, which might explain this trip to those of you who are thinking, “wait, wasn’t Jessie broke?” Paid to go to Paris, though: I understand that this is not a bad deal. I was really only there for 48 hours, but had a chance to wander around and see some sights anyhow. More pictures and stories to follow! Here is a photo from this morning just to make you wish for a baguette:
How did I miss this?
Sunday, March 1st, 2009
It’s always interesting when you find something right around the corner that you somehow never noticed before. Maybe the location of the nearest subway station is to blame, because it keeps me walking south rather than north. My German class is also to the southwest. The whole rest of Berlin (ok, my apologies to the rest of the Pankow sububrs) is also to the South. The few times I do go walk north along the main street, Schönhauser Allee, my view of the other side is effectively blocked by the U-bahn tracks, which run right up the middle and are busy descending from being overhead to underground.
But all excuses aside, a few days ago I went exploring in the hinterland to the northeast, on streets I had never really been to despite their being only a few blocks away, and I found an interesting old market.
It’s an outdoor junk and antique market in a run-down brick building complex that looks like it was once an old factory. There are plenty of mysterious rusted old pipes and networks of small, cavernous rooms filled with furniture, odds and ends and fascinating knicknacks. There certainly does seem to be a lot of weird and wonderful old stuff lingering around in Berlin.
We were hoping to snag a chair but they were twenty-five Euro. Does anyone else think this is a bit excessive? I mean, they weren’t in pristine condition. This one seems to be missing a crucial part. Perhaps I’m just cheap?
There’s something wonderful about old, run-down factory buildings, unique and mysterious gadgets and peeling paint. It’s nice to know this quirky place is nearby, and unlike the Flohmarkt I wrote about in a previous post, free of tourists!
