Checking in

After returning from the UK last Monday it made a change to only have a four day work week so that the weekend come around around a bit quicker than usual! After the UK trip one of us was keen on picking up some Scott's porridge oats. Unfortunately that is not available in our regular grocery store but someone in work told us of a 'top' store in Berlin where we could buy some. The store is known as KaDeWe and is likened by some to Harrods. So after leisurely getting ready, we jumped on the trains to get to the Zoo stop and walked a little way down the Ku'Damm to the store. The magical sixth floor is the food hall although it seems to be more a collection of wine bars in many nooks and crannies with partitions of food shelves separating them. The number of people sipping wine and enjoying a light meal at 11am on a Saturday morning was quite surprising.
We seemed to explore every nook and cranny but could find no porridge
:-o(

though we did buy an English (Saturday) tabloid.
Resourceful as ever, we didn't give up but headed over to Dunkin Donuts! We knew they didn't sell porridge but we did know that as well as coffee and donuts (and a very nice bagel - well, it was now lunchtime) they also had an Internet cafe in the same donut store. After knocking back our coffees,donut and bagel, we invested in an hour of Internet time at a spare PC. We quickly tracked down the street address of the "English" shops in Berlin. We entered our current location and the shop addresses into http://www.bvg.de/ (the local transit website) and that gave us all the details we needed to get to the shop efficiently! We called the shop before setting off and confirmed that they were still open (a previous experience saw us at one of these shop locations that had actually closed a couple of YEARS before!) and they did sell the porridge. A little over thirty minutes later and we were in the store buying porridge, Fray Bentos pies, crisps and 'dead fly' biscuits to name just some of the goodies on offer!
Then it was back to base and nap time!
Sunday was somewhat deflated with a trip to church and a lack of knowing what else to do with the rest of the day except watch the Turkey F1 grand prix in which even Lewis Hamilton didn't have a spectacular day, finishing fifth after a tyre blow out.
Suddenly it was Monday morning and back to the routine cycle of five days works. Speaking of cycle, that is how I get to work some days recently. I 'invested' in a 21 speed city bike, pictured here.







It takes me a little under half an hour to cycle the 7km (4.5miles) to work without arriving too sweaty, at least no one has complained yet!
Now we look forward to our trip back to Canada in just a few short weeks...maybe we'll see you then.