About fleas and bikes

I actually had a mission regarding the flea market: a bike. The bike I dragged along from Finland is good and nice and my precious, little, nearly-15-kilo, masculine-to-say-the-least darling baby, but it’s an impossible mission to find mudguards for its 29” tyres, and it isn’t the most practical thing to ride in a skirt. And I must admit I feel a bit nervous with leaving it outside bars and clubs during the most hectic hours in the weekend. So I wanted a bike that was a bit more... let’s say casual.

And a bike I found! It was somewhat a pig in a poke, for Mauerpark is absolutely packed and cobbled, so there really isn’t much of a chance for test driving. But I managed to negotiate the price from 50€ to 35€ (yes yes very special price only for you my friend), noted that the bike had a no-good hand brake but functioning pedal brakes, was big enough for me (I’m quite tall and the majority of the bikes were pygmy-sized!) and had mudguards, so I concluded that I wouldn’t lose too much if the deal turned out a dud.

And I must say I am amazed with how smooth a ride it is! Ahem, I mean, I saw from far that the bike was just a pearl at the bottom of the ocean waiting for that sharp-sighted pearl fisher to collect it... It’s a bit tough to get going, but once in motion, it actually is quite a fast thing! And moving from point A to point B effectively is something I deeply appreciate :)

In Helsinki that bike would be somewhat of a nuisance though, as it feels as if the city is nothing but up- and downhills, uphill especially on the way back home from just about anywhere. My flat is located in Alppila (“alppi-” is “alpine” in Finnish, and “-la” is a “shire”-like suffix in place names (like Hampshire, Yorkshire, Leicestershire), although not meaning anything originally), and it sure lives up to its name. But Berlin is flat like a pancake, which is nice. I’ve now ridden back home from school yesterday and today, about 13 kilometres, and it’s been but a pleasure.

Apart from being flat, Berlin is also quite biker-friendly with its cycle paths. There are quite a lot of them, and when not, just dive in along with the cars. The traffic isn’t especially heavy, despite the city being so big, and more often than not the right lane is half full with parked cars, so half of that lane is unused anyway and thus is safe for bikers. Cars (or their drivers, maybe) are quite considerate, I haven’t had the feeling of having to be scared for my life thanks to road raging drivers. It seems to me overly easy-going drivers that don’t care to fuss about being in a hurry or traffic rules are more of a danger :) Today I was almost bumped into when a car was parking and drove halfway on the pavement (which had a cycle path, along which I was riding), and clearly the driver was just so in his/her thoughts that he/she didn’t pay attention to what he/she was doing. Another car drove 15 km/h straight along for maybe 200 metres with the winker on, until he decided to stop, and one van stopped in the middle of a crossing without winking or giving some other sort of warning sign and started unloading :D It’s amazing how no one gets nervous, they just put on their winkers and drive round whoever is blocking the way.

Oh yeah, in addition to buying a bike and a lock to it, I went a bit crazy with earrings... I bought five pairs of them. But they were all so cute and locally made, so I just had to buy them! Just look at them, can you blame me?

!

The peg and banana earrings I bought at Unikat Kantine’s stand, who had a whole lot of other lovely jewellery. I think I’ll have to visit them again next Sunday, because I want scissor and fork+knife earrings too...

There’s also a new flea market opened in Friedrichshain, Revaler Straße 99. I came so late that it was practically closed/over already, but the location is absolutely magnificent! It’s an old train reparation plant, with lots of ruined former halls and such, and now, in addition to the RAW flea market (RAW = Reichsbahnausbesserungswerk, the Reichsbahn’s (DDR's railway company) reparation plant), there’s an indoor climbing hall, a skate hall and the bar/club Cassiopeia, which seems really nice. I’ll have to visit both the flea market and Cassiopeia at a better time! I tried to take pictures of the place, but I just didn’t manage to capture the atmosphere at all, so I’ll have to leave that to better photographers and their equipment.

Shopping Spree (?)

My mum enjoys wandering in shops just looking around, even if she doesn't need to (or, alternatively, can't afford to) buy anything. I'm not especially fond of shopping and definitely don't like spending my time in shops just for the heck of it, but given the humongous favour my parents did me, the least I could do was to take her (window-)shopping. And after all, it would be nice to see some familiar neighbourhoods for the first time since last fall.

Despite the topic, we weren't especially close to the Spree (the river flowing through the city), but headed North towards the borough of Prenzlauer Berg. First we thought of going to the big flea market at the famous Mauerpark (Bernauer Straße 63–64), which is a park located on the former death strip (the no-man's land area between or/in the middle of the Berlin wall), but it didn't occur to us until at the gates that the flea market is open only on Sundays.

Oh well, shopping possibilities in Berlin aren't limited to one (huge) flea market, so we turned left to Oderberger Straße, where Coeur au ciel (Oderberger Straße 37) pretty much immediately caught our eye. They are selling the most adorable bags, wallets and charms of the brand Ipa Nima. Very cute and yet stylish!

We continued toward Mitte along Kastanienallee, which is full of various kinds of shops, bars and restaurants. I bought a pair of sandals from Giga Berlin (Kastanienallee 27), which I've visited on previous stays in Berlin and bought a jacket and a hoodie. It sells, among others, clothes designed AND manufactured in Berlin (I can't remember the brand but will get back to that), some Skunkfunk clothes, Aces of London shoes etc.

At some point we had turned around and crossed Schönhauser Allee heading back towards Danziger Straße. We walked along Lychener Straße, where besserdresser is selling a bit drippy fifties(ish) dresses, skirts and such, FLY London shoes and Portugese shoes I completely fell in love with but luckily didn't have much cash on me. Once again I can't remember the brand, but something tells me it won't take long until I get my facts updated...

Speaking of shoes, I forgot to mention Ricardo Cartillone, who sell really cute and stylish Italian shoes in several stores here in Berlin. I didn't even know they had a store in Prenzlauer Berg/Mitte (Kastanienallee 101) :) I have one pair of RC shoes and their quality is just excellent, you can really tell that they're hand made in Italy (which doesn't show in the price! I bought mine for <100€ on sale, I think their normal price is around 120–130€)! Picture this, they have padded heel seams; that's what I call design with thought.

On Lychener Straße we also found Encore (?), a really cute and stylish shop with women's clothes. Quite a simple and elegant style (not equalling posh) and a very charming, Hungarian young saleswoman. I didn't find a web site for them, I guess I'll have to step by and pick up their visiting card (and drool at a wonderful coat I laid my eyes on...)

One final mention before I end this marathon post: Erfinderladen (Lychener Straße 8), literal translation is inventor shop. So for a change something else than women's shoes and clothing! As the name suggests, the store sells all kinds of diverse inventions from packets looking like batteries, tins or sealed soda cans to design(ish) cable holders. Kinda kitsch, sort of, but in a good way. The soda cans btw had a plummet so that they also felt unopened! I felt a bit dissipated, when the first thought that occurred to me when I saw the can, was that it would suit perfectly as festival equipment – mum had thought of it as a humorous place to store spices or something...

Phew, enough of blogging for today! There's still more to come, among others a short introduction to the bureaucracy in Berlin (which I've yet had just a small taste of), bike shops, some words about flats etc. and of course restaurants. But for now: gute Nacht, schlaf gut!