Waking up, however, was no fun. Today was the first time since I got here that I slept longer than 7:45, and it was also the day that I was supposed to meet Colby at 9:00 for Sunday brunch and our outing to the flee market. Thankfully, when I woke up at 9:00 and messaged him, I found out he was just now waking up as well. After dragging myself out of bed, I awkwardly snuck out of my room to use the restroom. I say awkward, because I still haven't met the guy renting the room next to me. It has been a week, and I'm starting to feel rude. But I also don't want to awkwardly meet him outside my door as I'm struggling to get out of bed and going to wash my face to wake up. Yesterday I legitimately rushed to the fridge to put my cheese in and then rushed back and shut my door. Is this silly or what??? I don't like barging in to the kitchen when the door is closed, because I feel like the landlady might be enjoying some quiet time in there. At the same time, I hate hiding in my room, because I feel like I'm being rude. Oh well....
Before sneaking out of the apartment I made sure I was ready for the cold. I have woken up the past few days with a bit of a sore throat, so I don't want anything to get worse. Before leaving I made sure I had on :
1. leggings
2. jeans
3. undershirt
4. long sleeve shirt
5. sweater
6. scarf
7. socks
8. woolen socks
9. gloves
10. ear muff thing to keep my ears warm
11. boots
My ensemble proved to be very efficient battling the cold outside. As soon as I got on the sidewalk I knew I would have to watch out or I would slip and end up on the ground. Now THAT would be awkward.
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| Kollwitz Platz |
The sidewalks were full of parents pulling their children on adorable, fairytale looking sleds. I quickly had a flashback to one of Oma's stories. She wrote about Christmastime (yes, Christmas not Hanukkah) in Prenzlauer Berg and how much she loved going to her friend Hannele's house at night. She loved sitting with her brother on the sled at night watching the christmas trees in everyone's windows. She also wrote about how they used boiling water to defrost their feet once at Hannele's house... I quickly found out why.
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| You can kind of see the mother pulling the sled here! |
Once at Helmholz Platz, I met Colby and we settled on the first place we crossed that served Sunday brunch. It was packed. We picked a table and were quickly told that it was reserved, so we were directed to a table in the back, almost on the corner. And that's when the awkwardness started. I have come to the conclusion that "awkwardness" is a very American thing. I've tried to find a good spanish equivalent and the closest I've come to it is "incomodo." However, I don't think that it fully depicts what the word awkward stands for. Awkwardness is a problem of the mind. It is a completely made up state... and my mind makes it up all the time. Today I found out Colby suffers from the same problem.
As we sat, crammed in between two very full tables, we realized the restaurant was a spanish tapas bar. Didn't really matter, because there was a brunch buffet. So.... do we just get up and go help ourselves, or do we wait for a drink order, or... do you get the drinks up there.... And the awkward staring begins. Finally, as we are about to get up to get food, a waiter comes and takes our drink orders and asks if we will be eating at the buffet. YES!
Once in line, I quickly realize that a lot of the stuff is Spanish, some is German that I had heard of, and then a lot is a complete mystery. The place was packed and the line was busy. All eyes were on you as you struggled to reach for the croquette or the "tortilla de papas." Oh and then... some of them didn't have serving utensils... soo.... do we just use our hands? or do we use our fork? Is that jug of water for us? Can we just grab a cup or is that lady helping herself a waitress? Oh wait... all the waiters are speaking spanish... Oh that is a table full of Italians speaking English... Ok, I'm feeling less awkward since we clearly aren't the only ones who are clueless. I start recognizing foods that I know from Uruguay, and at the same time I realize that Colby feels more and more awkward. Poor thing! He kept saying, "how do I eat this?" or "what is that?" or "I mean... you know what all this stuff is, I don't!" Then came the plate situation... Do we use the same plate? Will they come get our plates? We assumed they would come and get them, so when we returned to our table with round two... our plates were still there. So then it was time to try to fit all of it on our tiny table without hitting either of our neighbors next to us. It was a task and I'm sure also a sight to see! I guess I've come to terms this past week that I won't have a clue what I'm doing or saying for a while, so this situation did not affect me as much as it would have on Monday. Still... overall, way too awkward for brunch.
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| Um yes... It's like a Chick Fil A ketchup packet, but Nutella... |
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| Colby enduring the awkwardness.. .notices the amount of plates on the table |
After brunch, it was already 1:00pm, but we needed to walk. This place truly looks like a fairytale with all the snow. As I mentioned that today, Colby tried to persuade me to take a German fairytale class when I return to Ole Miss in the fall, but knowing myself and my horrible relationship with analyzing literature, I think I will have to pass. We slowly headed out through the snow to the flee market, which was also filled with snow. There were a million interesting things, and if I wasn't still scarred by how packed my suitcases were on the way here, I might have bought something.
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| Kids were sledding down this little hill by the flee market |
From there we headed to Kollwitz platz because I wanted to see it in the snow! I have done this before, but couldn't remember it. On the way, we stumbled into these plaques on the stones in front of a building. This is what I will be looking for in front of my grandmother's aunt's house.
At Kollwitz Platz I also found out that the numbers were definitely changed on Kollwitzstrasse, which means the place we found yesterday was not actually where Oma was born. That means that I get to be warm in my apartment this afternoon while I search through my information and try to find the actual apartment. That being said, my clothes kept me warm today until I got back and realized how frozen my feet and body actually were. I'm posting this picture (even though I REALLY hate feet) to prove how discolored my feet actually were when I got back! Enjoy! I'm off to research!
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