Head to toe

We got up uncharacteristically early this bright, sunny day to go to Treptowerpark on the Spree and rent a pedal-boat, after an energetic Leia cooked us a nice breakfast. We'd planned to meet our friends N. and I. there but they were still having breakfast when we got there at noon. We walked through the park to the boat rental and pedaled for an hour.

The pedal-boat we got had cloth sun-chairs on it to recline in, but they must have been designed for a smaller person than me to drive. There was no room for my legs in the pedal well and I had my knees sharply bent at all times, even if I was sitting back at the very top of the chair, which made it very strenuous to propel the boat for long. Whenever I got distracted I'd bang my toes into the top of the well, and as I was wearing sandals, I broke both of my big toe nails badly.

Aside from that it was fun and relaxing. We went up and down the Spree, removed our shirts and took breaks to recline in the sun while the water nudged our boat along. Tour boats passed us and we waved because we were part of the scenery for them. One of them shouted if we couldn't go "schneller" and to oblige them I pedaled us forward so quickly Leia took her feet off the pedals in fright.

Today Leia found an a cappella and choir music street event on the same "gratis in Berlin" website where she found the free concert day, so after a stop at home we went there. It was not far by the double-decker bus that provides a high view, but I always bump my head on the handrail when I go to sit down in the upper deck. I complained that I got hurt from head to toe today. The first few performances were by children's choirs so we only went after 1700. They were all singing in the inner courtyards of buildings in the area. We heard a woman's a cappella troupe, a Brazilian (music) women's choir, a much less professional but very fun choir group of international origins who sang pop and folk songs in English, and a professional choir that sang old Italian songs, to a large audience. For this last one we sat on the exterior staircase of a building to listen, and briefly saw a woman smoking and watching from her neighboring rooftop.

When we left the choir event we ran into another little hole-in-the-wall sushi place on a corner of Oranienstr. and Adalbertstr. I noticed it because they have "happy hour" 50% off all sushi from noon until 2300... and they are open until midnight. Interesting marketing scheme. We planned to go out to dinner at an Indian restaurant on Leia's street but I insisted we stop in for a snack. They had a wide variety of fish and the prices really were good (about half off a cheap sushi restaurant in Israel according to my famous "salmon maki rate".) Our "snack" consisted of six pieces of nigiri and a maki to share, and amounted to less than 12 euros. The funny thing is they give you a menu, a piece of paper, and a pen, and make you take your own order.

From there we did go directly to the Indian-Pakistani restaurant we chose, across the street from Leia's apartment. With our menus, they served us flat bread like crackers with tiny bowls of flavor essence: a very spicy green thing, chopped pickled vegetables, some red sauce... I went directly for the green thing once the waiter warned me it was spicy. Most of their food was based on yoghurt or cream cheese, but I found something that wasn't and had that; it came with a balloon of bread. The food was very good. I also had a hefeweizen and Leia had chai with honey, but after the meal the waiter offered us coffee or tea, gratis. Leia could not fit anything else so only I drank the chai but she insisted on leaving a big tip.