Day 165: Prenzlauer Berg is Awesome — Biergarten with Americans we Met Yesterday
Margaret and I both started our day with a workout.
I jogged over to an outdoor “Freeletics” space for body weight exercises. It was busy with CrossFit types doing their pull-ups and handstands and such.
I was home by 7:45am so Margaret could head off to Becycle, Berlin’s SoulCycle knockoff. She reported that everyone was speaking English — even the instructor. We joked that it’s targeted at American ex-pats and tourists because Germans ride *actual bikes* that efficiently provide both exercise and transportation at the same time.
On her way home Margaret noticed these engraved plaques posted outside the homes of Jews who were killed during the Holocaust.
The kids were still asleep when I got home so I got a few minutes of peace with my coffee and iPad before James wandered out of his room.
We did breakfast followed by the morning lice shampoo and comb out routine — at this point just a peace-of-mind precaution we’ll keep up for a bit.
We decided that we had to get out of the small, hot and not so super clean apartment for school.
So we took the Tram to Prenzlauer Berg and walked to Cafe Anna Blume. We posted up at a table for 4 to do school plus lunch at the same time.
It actually worked pretty well. The kids weren’t too distracted and it was nice for Margaret and I do be able to do some people watching while the kids were doing their work.
Looking around it seemed like all the locals had ordered a tiered mixture of food so we did the same thing. It had scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, olives, cream cheese, regular sliced cheese, fruit jams and various other things. Random but actually pretty good. I had my first ice coffee in months.
It’s worth noting the service at Cafe Anna Blume was, well, very European. Most Americans would call it terrible. There were servers there, you just have to flag them down when you want them to actually do their job: we need a menu; we want to place an order; have had empty / dirty plates on our table and haven’t taken a bite for 20 minutes so you can clear them now, we want the check. This wasn’t unique to this place.
After lunch we walked around Prenzlauer Berg. It’s a beautiful, family friendly, quiet (by our NYC standards at least) neighborhood and felt so livable. We went to a shoe store and refreshed Willa’s footwear and got a pair of socks for James.
We stopped into a quirky little toy store and picked up a couple sticker books, then did some mental shoplifting at Saint Georges English Bookshop. We bought two mysteries for Willa and had a nice chat with the Brit owner.
When the kids got antsy I took them to the Spielplatz am Wasserturm, an awesome construction-themed playground Margaret did some more wandering. I’m surprised she didn’t sign a lease for an apartment on one of these lovely tree-lined blocks.
We stayed at the playground for a couple hours at least. The kids had a blast on the mechanical digger and the little two person spinner. Before even playing with the digger James crowned it, “the funnest thing I’ve ever seen at a playground.”
We had no evening plans so Margaret reached out to a new American mom friend she had met at the playground near our Airbnb yesterday. Elika and her husband Michael and their two girls Lila (8) and Soraya (3 years old today!) met us for dinner and beers at Prater Biergarten. Michael works at the UPenn Libraries and was in town for a conference on search technology that they turned into a vacation.
Prater claims to be the oldest Biergarten in Berlin. It’s a big open space with 600 seats partially shaded by tall chestnut trees. It was a beautiful night and was pretty packed when we arrived at 6pm. We were lucky to grab a table right by the kids sandbox / play space.
The downside of Biergartens in my opinion is the lack of table service. We were there for 90 minutes or so and I spent about 45 of them waiting in three different lives for beers (twice) and food. It made it a litle tough to have a conversation with new friends. The beers aren’t huge so if you are going to have a couple you either have to be in line twice or get two per person and drink one that isn’t really cold.
Being at an actual German biergarten made me think of this classic scene from European Vacation.
We Ubered home, showered the sand off the kids and went to bed.
Late kid bedtimes
Most readers will know that our kids have always had a pretty strict bedtime routine at home with lights off around 7pm or 7:30. There are so many great reasons for this, one of which is that it gives parents to relax and either spend time together or have personal time.
We intentionally extended kid bedtime later once we arrived in Europe for a couple primary reasons: we were going to be meeting a bunch of American kid friends / cousins who would want to stay sorta close to east coast time. Also while we are certainly not engaging with European “nightlife”we didn’t want to miss out on even normal dinner time. Aiding this plan was the fact that it doesn’t get dark until close to 10pm here. So
Anyway, the downside of this plan is that if the kids are going to bed at 10pm the grownups have two choices: stay up really late so you get your own individual time to read, write, chill, watch a show, whatever. Or go to bed right after the kids and get none of that time.
We’ll see how things evolve as the year goes on. But I have no idea how parents of late-bedtime kids don’t go insane without having some time to themselves at the end of the day.
Airbnb Lesson
When doing a family holiday, don’t book in a central location close to sights. Instead, research to find the neighborhood where you would move if you lived there. Hipster? Upscale? Kid-friendly? Arty? Find your corner and actually get to experience life as a wannabe local. We did that well in Bogota and Madrid, but not really here. Would’ve been perfect to stay in Prenzlauer Berg!
Willa Maturing
Willa is suddenly 14. She’s maturing physically and emotionally. She’s reading like crazy, blazing through chapter books in bed every night and morning.
She loves walking around and shopping with Margaret. We got her new sneaks and they seemed so big! We adore our growing girl.
