Summer in Berlin

East Side Gallery in Berlin

Last week around this time, I was getting ready to visit my friends in Berlin. I am totally and utterly in love with that city and would move there if the British Boy hadn't just taken a job in a new company recently and probably needs to stay there for a while. In fairness, he did raise the topic whether he should take the job a few months back and the thought of organizing anything, taking the ball off of my recovery was so scary, that I shut that conversation down pretty quickly.

I digress - Berlin. I loved it. The girls - I feel I need to explain that. To me, having friends is part of what makes my life worth living. Sharing parts of our lives, our hopes, troubles and challenging one another on finding ways to live life more fully sounds oh so pretentious, but that's basically what we do. 'We', that's a group of 5 girls who all, at one point or another, worked together in London. We're four Germans and one Italian. My former boss Sandra is the connector. She was leading a German team in a digital advertising company in London and hired Irene. During Irene's employment, Sonja was hired. I followed in 2005, when Irene had already left but joined us on social outings. Simona, the sole Italian, was working side by side with us and actually lived with Sandra. Sonja, who had been living in Germany (but was on our team), moved to London to be with her then boyfriend, now husband and father of her gorgeous little boy. Before moving in with the British Boy, Irene and I shared a flat and whilst all the Germans have now gone back to the fatherland, Simo is in London with me after several years in India. Still following me?

Anyway, we were quite a close bunch when we were all in the UK - from girly brunches in the neighbourhood, come dine with me-esque dinner parties (there's still an outstanding debate if me, Irene or Simo won), to day trips to Bath and longer holidays to Istanbul, New York and as of late Berlin. As time went on, some of us got engaged, married, moved countries, lost jobs, had babies and keeping in touch, whilst no longer doable on a weekly basis, is a priority for us. We make a point to meet at least once a year and this time it was in Berlin.

Sadly, Simo was unable to join as her 9 month old baby got sick and Sonja, whilst living in Berlin, was facing double trouble with moving house and dealing with her injured husband as well as new-born.

So, it was just Sandra, Irene and myself, and for most of the time, Irene's adorable 3 year old. We came together to celebrate Sandra's pregnancy (also a boy, it seems our coven can only crank out little wieners) and to catch up on life.

We spent hours sitting and having glorious German breakfast. If you are unfamiliar with a German breakfast, behold, for it is a thing of sheer beauty. Fresh bread rolls, a plethora of cold cuts, cheese, smoked salmon, fresh fruit, jams, honey, nutella and fresh coffee - all these things just scream 'leisurely lazy weekend morning'. 



German Breakfast Day1

I could totally go overboard with so much food in front of me! However, being honest with my friends about my food issues, openly asking for their support and texting my food plan to my sponsor helped me stay present and enjoy their company rather than fretting about calories. 

German Breakfast Day2

 

Saturday, we just spent at Irene's before going to a lake for the afternoon and swim. Dinner was a BBQ which I didn't take any pics of. The day went by so quickly and all of a sudden it was Sunday and we had packed our bags and were spending the last few hours touring through a hot and sunny Berlin:


I can only recommend visiting the East Side Gallery which is a part of the preserved Berlin Wall.

After a quick walk along the Wall, we headed over to Treptower Park, which was calm, shady, quiet with tons of space to sit down and rest. I kept telling the girls, had we been in London, we would not have been able to swing a cat in a park with the kind of weather we had. That's what I love about Berlin - it just seems so much more wider, calmer, less crowded.


Insel Berlin in Treptower Park.

For our last meal before we all jetted off again (oh well, that's a complete lie: Sandra actually took the train and Irene just had to drive back to her house for 20 mins), we sat down in a lovely restaurant by the river Spree and ordered salads. 30 degrees was simply too hot for anything other than a cool salad. Mine came with filets of salmon and ocean perch. It was yummy and tied me over until the flight at 7pm.

Fresh crispy salad with juicy, protein packed fish - yum!