currywurst and living rooms

Easter is a four-day weekend in Germany. Taking advantage of this magical fact, I went to Berlin for the fourth time in my life. The first time, on my high school exchange trip, I wasn't a huge fan (except for the döner kebab place where a bunch of us ate twice a day). The second and third times I visited, during the year I studied in Freiburg, I was pleasantly surprised by the city. This time, on my fourth visit, I knew enough about the city's layout and tourist attractions to be dangerous, and to lead us all on a nighttime venture up to Wohnzimmer, where I'd been with a bunch of IES-ers on Berlin Visit #2 (the accidental thirty hours in Berlin after Cheryl and I missed our flight to Munich due to spending too long trying (ultimately successfully) to find the Leaning Tower of Pisa). The verdict on Wohnzimmer, three and a half years later: still excellent.

We also went on a boat tour around Berlin Mitte, ate Currywurst at Metzer Eck and KuDamm 195 (which links to a page full of cult Currywurst stands -- it's a good thing we did not discover that website while we were in Berlin), discovered the joys of Georgian food at Genazvale thanks to Megan's Rick Steves guide (our BFF Rick Steves did not steer us wrong once!), and generally enjoyed the ambiance of Prenzlauer Berg and Hackescher Markt. There was plenty of sightseeing too, of course, but nicely broken up between coffee breaks and Easter brunch feasts -- we wouldn't have wanted to over-exert ourselves by going more than a couple hours without sustenance. All in all, an excellent prequel for Amanda's and my sure-to-be-epic Food Tour of Paris in May.