I don’t know how I have managed to live in Berlin for nearly six years and not walk around Schlachtensee. I still have not, but I did go to take a look at it and walk along part of it. I was a little bit pressed for time since I also wanted to take a look at Onkel Toms Ladenstraße and the weekly market there. Meh. Been there, done that.
But I will definitely return to Schlachtensee in order to walk all the way around it and also Krumme Lanke.
The weather was lovely, but the walk around Flakensee for the most part completely uninsteresting. The area around Woltersdorfer Schleuse is quite nice with many cafés and restaurants and an icecream parlor, and from there in the direction back to Erkner, for a couple of kilometers, it is possible to walk through forest along the lake, but the rest is inaccessible to the public, like so many waterfronts in Berlin and Brandenburg, because people living there have fenced off their property all the way. And there is A LOT of waterfronts in Berlin and Brandenburg. The fact that most of them are inaccessible to the public is a disgrace and that it goes unpunished utterly mind-boggling.
Here the link to the route on mapmywalk. Including the walks to and from SBH Jannowitzbrücke, Max and I walked about 13 km. Not our finest result for a Sunday, but not too shabby either :-).
A couple of photos taken with my smartphone. One of them of the quaint old tram still in use between Rahnsdorf and Woltersdorfer Schleuse.
I discovered another dog park within walking distance from home, and since it is in Moabit, I took the opportunity to arrange to meet my friends who live nearby there and then go for an al fresco lunch in one of the many ethnic restaurants around Turmstraße.
The Moabit Hundegarten is probably the smallest I have been to so far, but it has shade, places to sit, and a water tap. Whether those facilities are enough to lure us back there, I don’t know. But perhaps the fact that Ahmed and Omar and many ethnic restaurants are nearby will help ;-). Also, in nice weather, the walk there is lovely. Here is a link to the route om mapmywalk.
Here is an impression of the dog park and of Max perfecting his recall.
And here are a couple of photos I took with my smartphone on the way there and during lunch:
The view of the sky from my balcony this morning, and my contribution to this week’s challenge with 52frames.com – the theme is “Dreamscape”, with extra credit for Nightmare. The title is “The Dingo Ate the Baby”. (The treat is from Natural Treats).
Yesterday, it rained heavily most of the day, but we did manage some shorter walks in the neighbourhood. Caught these two photos at Kottbusser Tor:
We did get caught by torrential rain and a thunderstorm and had to take shelter for a while. The thunder and lightning did not seem to bother Max, but standing still outdoors after having become soaking wet unfortunately made him cold to the point that he was shivering quite badly, so at some point I had to make the decision – stay sheltered from the rain or make a dash for it and at least be moving. Decided on the last option. Also, while towelling him down back home, I discovered two large ticks and at least one smaller one already lodged in his skin, so off I went to the pharmacy to get a tick-removing tweezer. I knew this would happen sooner or later so I had already watched some youtube tutorials on how to remove ticks from a dog. Luckily, Max was patient and stood completely still for the duration, and I was only slightly creeped out. I shall just have to get used to it, but I am glad this years’s tick season will be over soon. Here is the first result (after I submerged them in a glass of water, and before I flushed them down the toilet):
So far today, Max does not seem to have any after-effects of neither getting so cold nor the tick removals.
I have been missing going to the Neue Nationalgalerie during its six-year long renovation and refurbishment by David Chipperfield Architects, and it finally reopened a couple of weeks ago.
This morning, I wasted a considerable amount of time trying to navigate what turned out to be a mysterious ticketing system (once you have chosen a date, they decide on the time slot, which seems to be automatically set to about half an hour from the time of booking (if you are trying to go on the same day), and then you have a window of fifteen minutes to enter), so you had better be ready to print the ticket and be on your way after confirming the booking and paying. This also means that people who live more than 45 minutes away do not stand a chance of visiting. I spent a considerable amount of time verifying that this was indeed the procedure, and when I finally decided to book a ticket and pay, I got the message that there were no more tickets available for that day. I found the whole thing strange. Perhaps it is just a temporary glitch.
Determined to make the best use of my me-time, I then booked a ticket, immediately and seemlessly, for my backyard neighbour – Berlinische Galerie. Always worth a visit. Their current temporary exhibition is Alicja Kwade, and their permanent exhibition upstairs can be re-visited over and over and you will keep discovering new works. There is also a nice café with quite a lot of outdoor tables and chairs.
There are some photos taken with my smartphone in this Facebook post.
Impressions.
Also took these two photos yesterday:
Could be any kind of beans, or just serve with rice or a mash. White cabbage could substitute red cabbage, and spices such as cinnamon, coriander and cumin seeds could substitute the spices listed below. Experiment.
1 kilo wild boar neck, cubed
2 red onions, chopped
6 large garlic cloves, chopped
Knob of ginger, finely chopped
1 cinnamon stick
5 cloves
5 black cardamon, slightly crushed
5 star anise
3 Indian bay leaves
1 tblsp turmeric
A good splash of dry red wine
150 g dark chocolate (80%)
Red cabbage, thinly sliced.
Chickpeas, drained and cooked.
And finally, this would not be my recipe if I did not add some chili, in some shape or form as available, but this is of course optional.
Sauté onions, garlic and ginger in the olive oil in a large casserole dish until golden. Add the spices and cook till fragrant, about a minute.
Increase the heat to high and add the wild boar, brown on all sides (5 minutes). Add the red wine and cook until the liquid has almost evaporated and you can no longer smell the alcohol. Add a dl of the chickpea cooking water and bring to the boil. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Lower the heat to a simmer. Add the red cabbage and continue simmering until the wild boar is tender and the sauce has thickened – about an hour.
Add the chocolate and as many chickpeas as you like, and cook for a further 20 minutes.
The annual excursion with fellow Berlin-based members of AIACE Deutschland took place in Karlshorst. First, a visit to the German-Russian Museum, then lunch in Restaurant Wernesgrüner, followed by a visit to the Amalien-Orgel in the evangelical church.
On the way, I passed the abandoned airport in Karlshorst.
The museum visit made me realise that being in a large-ish group of people indoors is no longer my kind of thing, so when I realised that the lunch was taking place indoors (who eats indoors with 20 people at the same table nowadays?), I skipped the rest of the programme and had lunch (table for one – outdoors :-)) at Restaurant India-House (not worth it – the food was as bland as German and Danish food), and then for a walkabout, past the Karlshorst bunker, on my way back to the station.
Not only was I not in spending-time-with-a-lot-of-people mode (I think Corona has done away with that once and for all), I clearly was also not in photography mode, but here are some impressions anyway:
