about me
“not every day is going to offer us a chance to save somebody’s life, but everyday offers us an opportunity to affect one. so get in the game. save the shoes.”
mark bezos is a volunteer new york firefighter who gave a quick ted talk, on two simple life lessons: don’t wait to be a hero and every little thing counts. it made me smile and it made me think about all the little things that count.
(there are some things left to be said about slovenia, so this is a backtracking post about one of those things, which someday will be moved back to a time that matches our stay there.)
fried cheese with fries. it’s one of those dishes that you can always get in any restaurant in slovenia, like a safe option for vegetarians and picky eaters alike. it’s as common as eggs with fries where i come from, and yet, we had never heard of it before.
when our friends first suggested it on a roadtrip through the slovenian mountains, we couldn’t even imagine how it would be possible. small mozzarella sticks are one thing, but whole slices of cheese? we had our doubts, so we stopped on the first roadside restaurant we could find to correct our ignorance. and of course, they had fried cheese – along with bear goulash and other local specialities.
i think something might have clicked when the first forkful of delicious melted cheese hit our tongues. soft and chewy cheese and crunchy breading… that was a moment when i realised “wow, i could eat this forever and never get bored!” it was so good and irresistible we had it 2 days in a row. :)
yum yum! :D
what do berliners do on weekends, when the sun is out? they go to parks and soak in the sun! the whole day, just laying around, lazily perusing nearby markets, drinking beer and roasting their sausages in makeshift grills.
and for the entertainment? well, they have frisbees and kites and there’s always a nearby radio blasting a tune, or, if you’re in mauerpark in a sunday afternoon… the bearpit karaoke!
this was something we saw on our first weekend in berlin and it blew our minds. a massive outdoor karaoke? hell yeah!
it happens in a stone amphitheater on mauerpark, every sunday afternoon. a guy comes in with a set of amplifiers on a bike, plugs his computer, and lets people sing whatever songs they like while a couple thousand people watch and cheer. the results are often unexpected and hilarious. some examples found on youtube:
i may not know much about berlin yet, but this is definitely something you don’t want to miss :)
it took us a while to settle down in this city – it’s all too big, too foreign, too bureaucratic, and frankly, more than a little intimidating with its omnipresent obsession with cool. but we’re getting the hang of it.
our new home is a sunny ground-floor apartment with wooden floors and windows on every room. it’s on a quiet little street, so little in fact that it has the word kleine on its name. :)
the house came completely empty, a clean sheet that we are slowly filling with ikea goods, ebay treasures and other things we’ve found on nearby second hand shops. every day it feels a little bit more ours, a little bit more home.
the first days in a new city are always exhausting – particularly on a city this huge! we’re not used to the scale of berlin, and often miscalculate the time it takes from a to b, ending up walking kilometers… the days are filled with bureaucracy: bank accounts, credit records, proof of income, proof that previous rents have been paid, registration… so it’s been slow, and so far, we know very little about the real berlin. i can’t wait for us to find a house and start enjoying this new city.
but meanwhile, how about some loose bits of slovenia to take our minds off this? i know just the thing…
…burek! :D
we were introduced to the deliciousness of burek in slovenia, but later discovered they are popular all throughout the balkans and turkey. it consists of layers of flaky pastry filled with cheese, spinach, meat or apple. although this is probably the most popular street food in slovenia, we’re not big fans of the ones that you can buy on the street, because they are usually soggy with grease… but if you can get frozen ones at any supermarket and do them on your oven, they take 40mins or so in medium/high heat. when the outer shell gets brownish, they should be cooked all the way through. the insides will remain soft and melt in your mouth… and the cheese is a sort of cottage cheese that tastes really good with the pastry.
mham! just looking at these photos is making me really hungry! and given the number of turkish people in berlin, we should be able to feed our addiction from here as well :)