Last night was very productive. I mapped common sports for Oma on my map and Skyped mom for some help with the discrepancies between the maps I brought with me and what Oma writes in the letters. With mom's help I finally figures out where both of the houses are (or where) located!!!
As soon as I woke up this morning and realized it was 20 degrees outside, I decided I would take my time getting ready. I didn't hear any creaking next door, so I figured my mystery neighbor Tobias was gone to work. That being said, my tasks for the morning involved showering, reading, and writing/answering emails. The shower situation is kind of a pain in this apartment. It is one of the few things that I really am having issues getting used to. So picture this.... a tub... no shower curtain and one of those phone like shower head things.... So... how does one do this without getting the entire bathroom soaked??? I still haven't figured it out, but i'm working on it.
As soon as my hair was dry enough to enter the frigid world waiting outside my window, I headed to meet Colby at our usual spot. We quickly headed to a bookstore that he had read about. All of the books in there were actually in English, which was a surprise to both of us.
Since the bookstore was on Woerther Strasse, our next stop was finding my grandmother's TRUE place of birth. Since I had actually assumed incorrectly that the numbers were the same, I went back and used a prior map to find the true location. By doing this, I have discovered that both buildings seem to have been destroyed. In the Woerther Strasse location (where she lived until she moved to Uruguay) there is now a school/daycare. In the location where she was born, the is now an outdoors, super precious, hands on, kid museum. I am not sure about this one, because the location could be a bit off... If the yellow building is the red dot on the map, then that is where she was born, if not... It is the museum and her building was knocked down. You can make up your minds by looking at her map (the red dot is her house) and looking at the picture of this intersection today.
At this intersection, we stopped at a little place and had lunch/coffee/tea. I had a delicious red lentil soup and some hot tea, and I was ready to go! (Side note, 2 months ago you would have had to pay me a million bucks to drink tea or soup..) Our walk continued down Kollwitzstrasse until we reached Schoenhauser Allee (the street where I live). We followed this street all the way to Alexanderplatz, where we walked around and then headed off our original route. After seeing a few cute boutiques, Colby decided to browse. We found great shops and then took a new route.
We didn't really know in which direction we were heading, but it was perfect. The sun was going down very slowly and the slow was still falling. The buildings, the snow, the people, and even the slippery ground made the entire picture idyllic.
After a few minutes we found our way to this historic church Zionskirche, click on it to find out more. From there, we were able to find our way to our usual streets.
After visiting and perusing around some more boutiques, we headed back to Kaiser's to get some food. With cucumber and rice cakes in hand, I headed back upstairs to my comfy and warm room. Now, I am planning on resting up for tomorrow, since I will be visiting the archives at the Prenzlauer Berg museum in the morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment