In early April it was time to start setting up our balcony and then heading over to Ilkas garden again, as spring was kicking into gear. Manja had managed to raise some nice little chillies over the past few weeks which got to go outside now 🙂
On the weekend we even dropped past Ilkas garden again as Winter was slowly letting go. She was on a trip, so we fed the cats for her 🙂
In the afternoon we headed over to the squash center for a game, before heading over to Katrin and Kilians place for games in the evening. It was a fun night of games, among others we played Whoami 😅. Seriously though, we played a bit less this time and chatted the night away.
After spending Sunday doing the usual housework and chores, we caught up with Kai in the afternoon for an escape room. We had looked up a few different places and decided to give Exit Game a go, which is built into an old Bunker. Pretty amazing setup, once we found the place! The game was good, thematically we had to find a long-lost bomb and disarm it. We succeeded of course 🙂 We grabbed some burgers before calling it a night.
The following Saturday we did a bit of a shopping tour, as I needed a few items of clothing. I didn’t really find what I was looking for, but we did find some tea at a place, Loose tea in german is “Loser Tee”, which I found amusing in the way I chuckle about inter-language humour. Oh, and I found a Koala pillow… Shopping with me is fun!
As we were in the area we also walked through the Monument for the murdered jews, which is still an amazing place to get lost in. On the other side we dropped by the Kulturhaus, which is this amazing three-story bookshop, which had one of my favourite bags…
The Thursday evening before easter we headed over to Ilkas place for a pre-easter cheese Fondue. It was cheesilicious!
We started Good Friday with fish: Poached egg on smashed Avocado toast, topped with Salmon to be specific. Given that we started to look around for places we could live, we decided to spend Friday morning checking out Spandau a bit. It’s an area we lived in when I was a kid, which is a bit out of the CBD but still close enough to get everywhere easily. We walked about the area and checking it out, deciding that we could imagine living here, especially near the river. As it was Good Friday, we had been invited by Gabi for their traditional Good Friday dinner: They invite friends and everybody brings something along. Of course, given that my parents were there, they also joined. Gabi had an ice-cream maker which she had never used, so I brought along everything we would need for a sorbet. Mathias, Gabis partner, picked us up from Spandau in a beautiful vintage Glas sports car, which is his pride and joy. The parents arrived shortly after us, and there was a bit of a reunion as mum met another ex-schoolfriend, the other guests for the party. Before we settled down for dinner Manja and I had a short walk to the local church, and we found this amazing little vet on the way. Only a few of my friends will get why I think it’s funny 🙂
When we returned we were regaled with a range of excellent food! I attempted to make the sorbet, but mis-judged the sugar content meaning that it wouldn’t set. Not to be discouraged, we added some alcohol to it and had it as delicious sour shots! We spent the night chatting before we set off on our voyage home… First walking to the local bus station, where we waited for the bus. The “Bus” turned out to be a 10-seater van, which drove through the area at breakneck speed, depositing us at the train station at the end of the rollercoaster ride. We got home late, but I still had a mission: I still made my traditional easter-bunny cake, to take along to Manjas family. By the time we dropped into bed I was utterly exhausted.
The next day we decided to spend the day with my parents, given that they would head off on their next trip a few days later. We decided to walk around Spandau a bit more in the morning and then meet them at the Ritterfest at the Zitadelle Spandau around midday. It was a pretty cool little festival, around the size of the Adelaide Medieval fair and held in the surroundings of the Renaissance era fortress. We used to live nearby, but rarely visited the Zitadelle, so we used the opportunity to visit some of the museum sections too, eventually heading all the way to the top of the tower.
That evening we were off to Cottbus again, visiting Manjas family. To make it easy we took a driveNow car for the day, which was a bit of fun too. This time we got a Smart, which is a great little city car, but it also felt like a toy car driving on the highway 😂. We arrived pretty late and this Simon was hungry. We decided to head over to the Easter fire, hoping that SOMETHING would be there selling food. 30 minutes later, we arrived at a massive fire and found a place which sold some traditional bread covered in lard, “Schmalzbrot”, and some sausages. At this point I was happy to eat anything, and it felt like a feast. We returned to Manjas Grandparents to spend the night there.
The next day I spent the morning chatting to the family back in Oz for easter, before the rest of Manjas family joined us in the afternoon. Alex even made it from Remagen for easter, as did another of Manjas cousins whom I met for the first time. We spent the day at Manjas Grandparents, where Hagen made a fantastic BBQ. I supported a little bit, but he really is a BBQ master – using charcoal I should note, not just a gas BBQ 🙂
I also shared the bottle of spirits, which Mum and Dad asked us to bring along as a gift from the medieval festival. It had quite a magical potion look to it!
We had way too much food and plenty of drink, but it really was a fund and delicious evening.
Unfortunately we were so many people that we didn’t all fit into one space 😅
We spent one more night before heading back home in the morning.
After breakfast we headed off home, but decided to make use of the beautiful afternoon by stopping at the Orankesee, before briefly stopping at my Uncle Bodos garden for some coffee and cake, including the last remnants of my easter bunny cake. Turned out it was delicious 🙂
The next weekend we’re heading off to Ibiza already for our first trip of the year! After enjoying Mallorca so much last year, I really can’t wait!
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