European Diary - 2

"Catwalk" and "A-list" were some of the words in the German gossip magazine at the salon. Somehow the 13 Euro shampoo and blow dry turned into a 25 Euro expense with the additions of only a couple of styling products. Hmmm. Even an English-only person can read at least half of the ads in Germany and even France in spite of the French horror of losing the purity of the language. American celebrities are in all the French/German mags and papers and the Germans are very fond of Heidi Plum who is an international super-model. Grapeshot had to admit she wasn't exactly au courant on super-models.

In Berlin, we had lunch with Significant Other's neice, who trains flight attendants for an airline that flies mostly within Germany. She did the family proud with a pink shrug over a white shirt untucked comme il faut. Rolled-up jeans, brown boots and a pink coat and scarf. We were the best dressed trio in the Silver room of the KaDeWe, because her flawless attire more than compensated for any fashion flaws that S.O. and Grapeshot may have been guilty of.

The food halls of the KaDeWe, Berlin's premier dept. store rival Harrods in London. This is no small feat. Every delicacy that one might eat is there, in triplicate or more. It's totally over-whelming, to see maybe thousands of cheeses and every kind of ham in the universe, so we only bought tea and a Stollen, a Christmas bread with nuts and raisins.

One evening we trekked in the cold rain thru Alexanderplatz, the former East German show place. Found a convival student hangout in the Nikolai Viertel where the food was cheap and plentiful and the good beer flowed in generous glasses. The trees in the squares contained thousands of crows, roosting in the bare branches. It was unbelievable. I don't know if they were preparing to migrate, or just hanging out, but they were a strange black presence lurking in the Linden trees.

The Berlin subway system is easy to navigate, but the first day we couldn't figure out how to buy the tourist passes, so we bought day passes. Unfortunately, Grapeshot pushed the wrong button and bought a somewhat cheaper pass for two zones, the wrong two zones. The subway police came along checking for tickets, and yikes, worst nightmare, we were asked to leave the train. No amount of explaining convinced the overly-diligent young man that this had been an honest mistake and that Significant Other can actually bought a too expensive pass which sort of evened things out and we were fined 40 Euros on the spot. For a 10 cent mistake. Give me a break.

I had forgotten how the cobblestones do a number on one's feet and shoes, and was foot-weary by the end of each day. On Sunday morning (after following the cop's instructions on how to buy the tourist pass from the kiosk--buried three levels down) we hied ourselves to Friedrichstrasse to see what had changed since 1992. Lots! There is a Dunkin Donuts on every corner, but the BIG THING was Starbucks. The line must have had 50 people. Dunkin' Donuts had interesting flavors such as plum butter filling, but no pumpkin as that is an ingredient only found in soup in these parts.

Vive la difference!

And more anon!