BerlinBerlin
From Amsterdam, we rented a car and began the 6 hour journey to Berlin. We drove for two hours to the border of the Netherlands & Germany where we stumbled upon two restaurants. We entered the first one which was empty, our fist sign. We approached the hostess, Helga, who when asked if she spoke English replied, "yes". That was it. We stood there in that moment that you could drive 12 trucks through and proceeded onto the next question, "Is the kitchen open?" She replied ever so eloquently, "yes". That was it. I looked at Tom and he looked at me (another train of trucks seemed to have driven through that moment as well). We sat down, waited 5 minutes for a menu, received the menu, waited 5 minutes and got up and left. We proceeded to the second restaurant where we had one of the most amazing meals of our travels. The Brie Soup was one of the most unbelievable dish I have ever tasted.
We proceeded to the city of Hanover where we managed to find a little hotel in the middle of the city. We checked in, unpacked, freshened up and left to do what we do best - SHOP. We bought all of our favorite Euro-gadgets for the kitchen and found a cute little place for dinner.
Through the course of this trip, we've felt that through shear luck, we stumbled upon one amazing cafe or restaurant, one after another. Check your local bookstores for our upcoming Culinary Tour of Northern Europe book.
After finding our friend's Irena & Rafael's flat in the Tiergarten, we visited with them for a few hours and then headed out for a beer with Rafael at a local pub. German beer puts Redhook to shame. I'll leave it at that.
Tom and I headed to East Berlin where we found one of our many favorite restaurants. Kafeteria - of all things we dined on margerhita pizza and gnocchi - go figure. It was great though, long tables shared with strangers, wine flowing, laughter and a lot of smoke.
Berlin, although covered in grafitti, is a beautiful city. As we took the train from the Tiergarten to East Berlin, there was one stretch of the city where cranes filled the skyline. Most of them lit up in lights for the season.
Our daytime explorations were limited as everything was closing for the New Year celebrations. We did managed to find our way to the KDW (the store of the west). A shoppers paradise with six floors of European wares to peruse. We delighted ourselves on the
