Ah, Berlin– some days you feel like home, and other days, we’re back to square one. Whether fishing around in my bag for one of the no value coins to borrow a shopping cart at the grocery store, or reconciling the fact that food shopping will invariably result in several items on my list being out of stock (we’re talking basics like tangerines or spinach), some routine consumerist elements of life here definitely lack the ease of the US. The reliable stock of standard items at any given Trader Joe’s or Safeway is just not the norm here. Nor is the organization of items in the stores, which seem to vary by the week at our local Lidl.  Another odd bit of grocery shopping today was my attempt to find any type of ground meat without pork in it. This was a project fail. I mean, who puts hackfleisch in with the ground puten (turkey)? The hackfleisch was also in the beef and the chicken– I mean, give a Jewish girl a break already. Then there is the fact that you have to be home and literally answer the door in order to receive an Amazon box. So many oddities exist here that I definitely won’t miss– basic conveniences that I previously took for granted!

On the flip side, I am starting to get pre-nostalgic about things I will miss here once our stay comes to its natural conclusion. Top on the list is Forest– she continues to be a perfect companion to cycle around on the well-kept bicycle paths around town. I will miss her a lot. And then there are the people we’ve met here.

I even went so far as to book a reservation for 12 at a hip local restaurant for the week before our flight home, with a plan to  invite the wonderful people we’ve spent time with this year for a farewell dinner. When I think back to last summer and our early weeks here, I was anxious to make some local friends. Little did I know what incredible new women I would meet, who have inspired me and provided the most wonderful company for coffee dates, walks and adventures around the city. Many of my new friends here are writers and teachers, which I guess isn’t terribly surprising! It has been such a joy to get to know them and explore Berlin together.

Meanwhile, last week I signed up for a tour of a historic villa in Potsdam. La de dah, just another day on sabbatical… touring villas and such. So posh, right? As it goes, tours organized on weekday mornings are designed for a particular demographic of ladies who lunch. I am not one to consider myself part of said demographic, but this year, I suppose I am masquerading in that world. At least some days I am. Fortunately, I knew several women attending this tour from the American Women’s Club of Berlin, so when the art at the villa was predominated by esoteric nude paintings, it was easy enough to peel off and hit the cafe.

Visiting this particular site, the Villa Schöningen in Potsdam, was fortunately on an unseasonably warm day. This was fortuitous as my journey there ended up being a 45-minute bike ride each way, as I just missed the bus in that direction and didn’t want to miss the tour. So I kept chugging along in my moderately dressy villa-touring clothes that were luckily still bike-friendly (yoga pants for the win!), up the hill along the four-lane highway in the tidy bike lane. Along the way, I admired the little purple wildflower in the grass, some early white plum blossoms starting to poke out of otherwise dormant trees, and fresh moss in a more blue-ish shade gently affixed to the tree trunks. 

After crossing the famed Gleinicke Bridge of Spies and passing by yet another graffiti-laden slab of the former Berlin Wall, I parked my bike and walked into the main entrance to the villa. I quickly joined the group in the back of what was once a large, ornate dining room and settled into a chartreuse velvet chair. A woman named Christine was addressing the group as the villa had belonged to her great- grandparents. While she told her family’s story of the villa that was absolutely a Jewish experience, Christine was clearly very uninterested in Jewish identity. If anything, she seemed a bit abhorrent of it. Her great-grandfather was born Jewish and hunted down by the Nazis despite being baptized as a teenager, and baptizing his own children, who he and his wife had wisely sent off to boarding school in England once the Nazis came to power in the early 1930s. When asked if any of her family members had reclaimed their Jewish identity in later generations, she furrowed her brow and seemed to wonder why anyone would want to do that. 

In the interim, one of the more compelling pieces of the villa’s story was the period of Russian ownership of the villa after the defeat of the Nazis. Since all women were required to work in East Germany, the villa was converted into a live-in kindergarten for young children to attend school Monday-Friday while their mothers attended to their jobs. Linoleum floors were installed for easy clean-up, a large cafeteria-style kitchen was added,  and the upstairs bedrooms were fitted with 48 bunk beds and bathrooms with child-sized toilets and sinks to accommodate all of the weekday villa residents. That’s one way to get women integrated into the workplace! 

But Christine was much more interested in talking about how she and her cousins had reclaimed ownership of the villa after the wall came down in 1989. Her most poignant recollection was during the villa’s Russian occupation, when the family’s prized possessions were collected from the home. Christine’s uncle in the Royal Air Force had been stationed across the Havel River in the British occupied zone. He successfully persuaded his comrades to back a moving truck halfway across the Bridge of Spies to load up all of the silver, china, artwork, rugs and furnishings in the villa, which she now enjoys in her London home. Very posh indeed.

Speaking of posh, Julian and I had a sublime weekend getaway to London last week– his first time in the UK, and my second visit in the last six months! We flew into the adorable little London City Airport on an itty bitty Ember Air. I think we were the only passengers on the plane *not* wearing business suits. We definitely felt underdressed for that crowd. “Why is everyone all dressed up?” Julian asked. “They are probably bankers or lawyers who flew to Berlin for a day of meetings, “ I surmised. Since I had bought our plane tickets back in the fall, the fares were very reasonable, but clearly we were the only ones on that plane who were traveling for leisure. 

I booked us a centrally located hotel for easy sightseeing, and since it was an off-peak time to travel (pre-Spring Break rush), and the price was right. Little did I know that the hotel we picked was literally right across the street from a Rolls-Royce dealership! We also happened upon a Bentley showroom and even a Bugatti dealer. Talk about posh.

The cars circling past our hotel were like a luxury automobile show, but in real life. I’ve literally never seen so many sparkly top-tier cars made by Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Porsche and Ferrari. Julian was like a kid in a candy store as we stopped multiple times on the sidewalk to catch a better view of whatever shiny object was peeling down the street. All of that was an added bonus– not on the itinerary, but very memorable indeed.

Our weekend was filled with posh activities to soak up a bit of traditional British pomp and circumstance– we toured the Tower of London where we oohed and aahed over the crown jewels and shining armor worn by knights of kingdoms past. We also enjoyed views of a rather lovely bridge I used to loathe– the picturesque Tower Bridge, over which I would trudge every morning (30 years ago) from my student flat at Butler’s Wharf to get to my classes at the London School of Economics. It looks much better from a distance, and with a pretty fresh coat of light blue paint!

While clouds lingered in the sky, clearly there had been enough warmth and sun for spring’s first trees to start bursting with fresh blooms. Fields of freshly bloomed yellow and white daffodils delighted our senses like an appetizer for the main course– the bold pink bright pink cherry blossom trees bursting with joy!

These beautiful signs of spring lined the paths as we wandered through the iconic Hyde Park en route to catch glimpses of major local sights, even walking past the famed 10 Downing Street. And of course there were plenty of red phone booths in perfect spots for photo ops.

Afternoon high tea at Brown’s Hotel was also a highlight, although the posh nature of that tradition felt a bit overkill, even if its traditional nature was truly charming.

We caught a glimpse of the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, the grandiose structure of Westminster Abbey, and perused the galleries of fine Persian and Turkish art at the glorious Victoria and Albert Museum. We sampled cologne at Harrods and made our way around the vast troves of gourmet delights in the food halls. French patisserie treats were on deck for breakfasts, and we sampled gourmet chocolates at the shops along the galleries filled with all manner of fancy goods from glittery diamonds to fine cashmere dresses. It was all very posh.

The exceptions to this rule were the outings to the south and northern neighborhoods, where “dodgy” was the best word to describe the areas in which we sought out two essentials for the weekend: live jazz at the Vortex in Dalston, and a curly girl haircut in Deptford by the ever-talented Elaine, who I hope to see again someday as she worked serious wonders on my hair.

All in all, London delighted all of our senses, and beckoned for us to return for more fun on future trips. It was a quick 90-minute direct flight back to Berlin, so a perfect weekend getaway!