ADVENTURES IN BERLIN::DAY 14, FLEA MARKETS ON A COLD RAINY SUNDAY

After breakfast at Oma's, I accompanied my husband to east Berlin to peruse a couple flea markets. I've never been so I was curious as to the popularity of them. We took the S-Bahn for a long while it seemed. This city is enormous. I'm still amazed at the size of Berlin.

There were many interesting items being sold at both of the flea markets we visited. The first one was at the place where the Wall used to be. It started to rain at one point, but it wasn't too bad. There were old dishes and baking pans which interested me. My first purchase was a dessert plate with cup and saucer set for only 5€.

My husband was eyeing an old manual calculator but decided it was too heavy to take on the plane. I also bought an authentic East German bundt pan and a dress and skirts for the girls. Sagey's gift was an old toy with three wind up cars on a track.

ADVENTURES IN BERLIN::DAY 13, A LESSON IN GERMAN CULTURE AND A CAKE

I talk a walk every morning before breakfast and before the family awakens. This morning as I was leaving the apartment, I noticed the beautiful coral colour of the outside hall wall as it nicely complimented the gray pattern of the floor. So, I took a photo of it with my iPad.

Every morning on the way to Thürman's to buy brötchen, I pass a Turkish store. Today I decided to walk in and see what interesting foods they sold. There were many nicely stacked shelves with beans, couscous, rice, pasta, and lots of red lentils. I bought pita read for the children, a small package of Turkish coffee for my husband and me, cow's milk feta, and a large bundle of thyme - lemon thyme to be exact (which I didn't realize until I used it to make Greek salad.

Back at the apartment, I cooked a small pot of Croatian coffee - the one I brought from home. I was determined to eat breakfast outside in the tiny backyard. I buttered one of the sesame brötchen with butter and spread a spoonful of sour cherry jam on top of the butter. My children were awake at this time but not yet out of their pajamas. They wanted to eat breakfast with me in the "garden" but we're not quick enough to get ready...except for Saffron. She had enough time to eat a quarter of her brötchen with me before we needed to walk across the street to Oma's house.

After breakfast, I managed to talk my husband into accompanying me to the farmer's market. I took my DSLR in the hopes of taking photos with something other than my iPad. After taking photos of eggs at the first stand, a lady came after us yelling at us to not photograph her eggs without asking. Ok...

We then passed by the booth of the "resident" farmer's market photographer - the one I've seen every time I've been to the market since we've been in Berlin. The same one who noticed me "playing" with my iPad the first Wednesday. The same one whom I saw walking around with his little almost point-and-shoot on a monopod the following Wednesday.

My husband decided to ask the guy about the rules of photographing at the farmer's market. The guy (I believe his name was Mr. Jones) thought he was asking about how to photograph food. He started talking about lighting and lenses (as much as I understood in German) until we clarified that we wanted simply to know if we need to ask the vendors' permission before photographing.

At one point, I started to show him a couple of my food photos - the first one being the cookie stack photo of the Amethyst Chocolate Chunk Cookies. He didn't like the lighting and then went on to criticize other aspects of the photo - such as the lack of blur and such. After my husband explained to him that we were from Texas visiting Berlin (and not competing with him), he switched to speaking English and tried to get us to leave. Yeah, whatever. Not sure how successful he is in selling his farmer's market photographs for €15 at the farmer's market.

After spending most of yesterday walking, I wanted to stay at the apartment. I did a little housecleaning and baked a chocolate mint cake. It was my fourth experimental "rustic" cake I've made since we've been in Berlin.

At one point, soon after I put the cake into the oven, I noticed a younger man outside the front window light up a cigarette and make a great effort to stare into our apartment through the bars. He kept staring and I thought "what the hell?!". My husband told me that he most likely was not German, but an immigrant. Germans are protective of their space and would not normally invade the space of others. In any case, the guy and situation was creepy.

ADVENTURES IN BERLIN::DAY 12, DINOSAURS AND STONES

We spent the afternoon at the Natural History Museum. Walking around too long.

ADVENTURES IN BERLIN::DAY 11, AT HOME IN A KITCHEN

Despite the smallness of the kitchen in our rented apartment here in Berlin, I still find comfort in spending time cooking and baking. The "kitchen" used to be a hallway and I am seeing that it's not impossible to turn out a meal in even the smallest of kitchens. That said, it works for a short time but I think I'd go crazy if that was the size of my kitchen for longer than a month.

Before baking a cake and cooking beluga lentils with rice for lunch , I spent some time at the Hugeldubel bookstore in the baking/cooking section. Germany seems not to have caught up with the cookbook craze in America. Hardly one wall is devoted to cookbooks.

Today's baking challenge was a rustic banana cake. I wrote up the recipe during my morning cappuccino. I had two very ripe bananas sitting on the counter and needed to use them before they were unusable. Unfortunately, it turned out that only one and a bit of the other was still usable, but the weight of the mashed bananas turned out to be perfect.

I love the results of using baker's percentages and formulas. So far, the three cakes I've made have turned out better than expected. Besides the temperature being a bit high, the cake was awesome. I'm looking forward to having another slice tomorrow for breakfast.

The children spent time with Oma at the playground across the street. My husband and I went to buy a crate of sparkling water and some beer.

I did manage to buy a baking book during my second visit to the store later in the evening when I went with my husband. That's when the hailstorm hit, bringing back memories of the damaging hailstorm back in Texas years ago.

Day 10::Alone in Potsdam

My children got on a train this morning with Papa to ride a couple hours to Hann Münden to visit Opa. I had the day to myself.

I first went to the farmer's market where I bought fresh thyme, chives, basil, mint, strawberries, quail eggs, 1/2 dozen bio chicken eggs, baby tomatoes, a leek, and a small cucumber. After dropping all those items at home, I took the U-Bahn to Wittenbergplatz.

I went to KaDeWe. Walked around for almost an hour until the 6th floor was open. It was closed due to inventory being conducted. Bedding section. Kitchen section. Toys. 6th floor. Didn't eat there.

Walked around a little after leaving KaDeWe. Went home. Dropped off the ricotta cheese, butter, and cream.

Ate lunch at the zgreek restaurant. Greek salad and pommrs.

Went home to gather camera equipment. Took S7 to the end - Potsdam. Walked for hours. Had sour cherry nectar juice at Cafe Lucy on Lindenstraße.