! September

So the remainder of September was the last month of my trip. There was a fair bit of time spent on that Family project again, so I can’t really write about that.  But there were a few nice other events, so here’s a whirlwind tour!  I had been telling Manja about the Königliche Gartenakademie (The kings Garden Academy) which Klaus took me to for my birthday.  I might have said this before, but it’s basically a cafe inside a plant shop which is maintained by trainees from the Botanical gardens. Being an avid gardener Manja had been keen to go there, so we met up to check it out for a beautiful breakfast.  After WAAAAAY too much food, we strolled around the whole center – it took us about 2.5 hours to see it all!  As we were getting ready to leave Manja mentioned that there was another cool place she’d been wanting to check out nearby – a public park which used to be a translation.  It’s now called the Naturpark Südegelände, and it’s pretty cool.  Basically an abandoned translation which has been taken over by nature, with walking paths and artwork put back around the place.  At night time it also doubles as a Venue for events, concerts and theatre.   The more avid readers of my families blogs may know that a few years back a lady called Heidi Hetzer came by and visited us on her trip around the world in an old-timer.  Well, she wrote a book about her travels and the book launch happened to be while I was there, and Gabi invited me. It would be a small affair, they said. When we got there, we found ourselves part of a approx 2000 people crowd, and Gabi let the moderator know that I’d come by as a bit of a ‘surprise guest’. Well, because of some miscommunication he thought I was a co-driver so I ended up getting pulled on stage and clarifying who I was in front of a massive crowd. Both funny and stressful! On Wednesday night Manja and I caught up with Stefan. I met him on the trip to Remagen a few weeks ago, and he was in Berlin for business. We had a nice dinner and walked around town for a bit, and as he had some time the next day we arranged to do an escape room which he’d never done before. Turns out he quite enjoyed it and we managed to finish another awesome room at House of Tales. After that we had a drink at the river and strolled past the DDR museum, which I hadn’t been to in a few years. On a whim we decided to stop by, and I have to say that it’s quite a good museum! There’s lots of interactive exhibits to explore, including a DDR Trabi driving simulator. We both crashed that car plenty of times to our mutual amusement! When we finished there we went off to grab some food for dinner – which ended up making it a bit of a later night than originally planned, but it was a great night! The next Saturday Manja and I did a bit of a Simons history of Berlin tour – which was a lot of fun. We basically visited a bunch of the places I grew up in…  I could write a LOT about this, but it’s probably a bit boring for anyone else reading 😉  BUT! We did start the day at a fantastic little cafe – ABC – Allans Breakfast club – which was advertised as having “Australian Kitchen”.  I’m not sure about strictly Australian (though they did habe beetroot with most things!) but it was amazing food. Suddenly it was the second to last weekend in Berlin already. On Saturday night Manja had arranged a group of us to head down to the Mond Fest (Moon Festival) at the Gardens of the World. It was basically a celebration of Asian culture, and the whole park was lit up beautifully. It was a bit cold, so we did find some inside spaces to warm up every now and then.  The grand finale, which even had a dragon dance with a dragon run by adults and a dragon run by children, finished with a sight and sound extravaganza – basically lasers to Chinese music, with fireworks set off above the stage…. It was all good, until the fireworks on top of the stage set the roof on fire a bit!  Luckily it was reasonably cold and the roof was covered in grass, so the fire was easy to control. About 3-4 broke out throughout the show and the fire safety guy did a FANTASTIC job – he extinguished them with bursts of Co2 in time to the music, making it look like big clouds of smoke were planned at those points!  On the last weekend in Berlin, we met up with Manjas Mother, Brother and Nephew to do a tree-top adventure climb in the Spreewald. It was Amazing! Super simple clip and gear handling made it fun for everyone as we all tested our balance and climbing skills. The ride back was a bit colder, but we were lucky to be invited to some of Manjas friends, where we were greeted by a really fantastic home-cooked butter chicken and home-made lassie.  We spent the whole nights chatting and having really delicious food, it was a truly excellent night!  The next week it was already time to pack up the bike, and prepare for one last short trip to London. At this point the weather was really turning, and for the first time in my trip here I had to contend with riding the bike through rain and cold, dropping it back off to Freyas place and gently cleaning the last 4 months of dirt of it for a few hours. It’s amazing how quickly it accumulates, and how painful it is to get a bike properly clean.