New Years Eve!
Huzzah!
Good bye 2014!
But, before that, when I woke up this morning there was still a good 19 hours before the clock would hit midnight and the fireworks would go off. If you can do your math, than you've probably figured out that meant I must've woken up at around 4:00AM. I did. My friend had a bit of an emergency that night that required waking up, cleaning bedsheets, and acquiring from medicine from my parents for stomach pains--I think you can connect the dots. I did manage to fall asleep after that event, and I believe I didn't wake up until 9AM that day, but it was another day where I felt mildly exhausted throughout. For many reasons--but this one being the first reason.
Thankfully, we didn't set out early today. My friend was actually leaving at around 1PM to head back to Heidelburg. The original plan had been to just walk around the downtown Potzdam Platz area with her until we had to leave, but due to the circumstances I don't think she felt like heading out much. Thus, we decided to just head out ourselves and say our farewells at the apartment. They were short, sweet, and honestly, nothing more than a very brief "bye and have a safe trip--I'll see you when I see you". You'd think something more heartfelt would come out of two elementary school friends who honestly didn't know when their next meeting would be, but like I said--we're hardly very sentimental people.
So today, we went exploring the East and the West side of Berlin. Our first stop was Warschauer St. on the U-Bahn, U1 line (which literally goes from the East to the West of the city. We didn't stay here for long. Apparently my mothers aim had been to visit a church, or a museum of some-sort, and to do that we were supposed to get on a bus... but she had failed to note down the actual stop for said bus and so we opted to just not go. We didn't feel like getting lost. At this particular stop though, there were still things to see. Most notably a bride. I'm not sure the name, but I can tell it's famous because a tour group stopped there. Also it stuck out due to the architecture and the tower and it was clear there was history here, but no one to tell me about it (you can tell, I don't even know the name of said bridge, although perhaps a quick google search may create some results--the Oberbaum Bridge apparently). Needless to say, I was quite tempted to just latch on to the tour group to figure out more about the place, but alas, I did not.
Our next stop was same place, just across the street from the bridge, another area that showed remants of the Berlin Wall, but had been turned into a showcase of street art. Some were good, some were bad, some were average, but it was interesting nonetheless. Needless to say, we didn't stay long. We had left the house at 11:30 and I was starting to get antsy about when we would eat lunch (and it was a good thing I got antsy). So, we decided to just move on to the next place my mom wanted to check out, which was on the very other end of the U1 line--Uhlandstrasse.
Uhlandstrasse was clearly the high-end shopping area. When we arrived though, the first thing I wanted was lunch (it was 1:30, getting closer to 2PM). We found an ad for a restaurant that was advertising authentic German pork knuckles and my dad wanted that, so we trooped in to the restaurant that was showing said ad. At first though, I was very confused, because the restaurant we stepped in to was very clearly advertised as a steak house! I hadn't actually seen the ad my parents had seen, so the entire time I was very confused why my parents went to a steak house looking for pork kuckles. Eventually we realized that the ad was for another restaurant--and this on took us a few minutes to find because they hadn't provided an address, and it took me a while to notice the map they had drawn on the window of the steak house.
This restaurant was called Schildkrote and I would absolutely recommend it! Their mascot also seems to be a turtle, which I found super cute. But anyway, upon stepping in to the place you could tell it was very local and very authentic. It had a lot of character. It was dark, rustic, huge large tables, and seemed to mostly act as a bar, but it definitely gave off the atmosphere of a nice place to go with a large group of people for a good beer and a hearty meal.
So we sat down, we ordered. Me and my mom opted to share the regular Pork Knuckle while my dad ordered the Crispy Pork Knuckle, and my brother--who still had a cold--opted for meatballs and a bowl of geese soup. Then we waited. And waited. And waited. ... and it was 3:00 and our food hadn't arrived!
My dad called the waitress over and there was a very amusing moment where my dad asked her if our food was coming and she zoomed by our table, didn't even pause to stop, and exclaimed "yes!" (she wasn't rude though). She did come back a couple minutes later telling us our food would be there shortly (it took another 15-20min). Clearly they had forgotten about our food. That put a damper on things a bit--we had literally seen 3 tables come and go after we had ordered our own food--but to be honest, the pork knuckles made up for me. They were delicious. I devoured my own half of the knuckle, as well as the sausages and the sauerkraute (so good), and ate a good portion of the potatoes. In fact, by the time we were done me and my mom had cleared off a good 3/4 of the plate (leaving about half the potatoes and a meatball) and out of the 3/4 I had pretty much eaten... all of it. The only thing my mom ate was the second pork knuckle and some potatoes.
The pork knuckle was delicious though. It was soft, chewy, and the collagen really did just melt in your mouth. It had flavour, but not too much. The sausage was nice and strong. The sauerkraute was tasty, and to be honest... I was surprised that I had eaten all of it by the time I was done. I had just been nibbling at it, picking at it, and suddenly it was gone. I also tried my brothers soup and that was very tasty as well. A good hearty soup--good appetizer.
Now let's talk about my dad. Like I said, he ordered the crispy pork knuckle and boy, did he get a knuckle. Maybe it was because they felt bad about forgetting our order, but he got a HUGE knuckle and he didn't even manage to finish 1/4 of it before getting full. Apparently you're not supposed to eat the skin? We looked at other people and every else seemed to take the skin off and eat only the meat, but the skin was the most flavourful part! My dad was very satisfied, bu I think he was slightly traumatized by the sheer size of his meal. In the end, we ended up packing what we couldn't finish as take-out, and then left.
My brother, who was feeling under the weather decided to go home. Me, my mom and my dad though, decided to explore a bit more. All the shops were closed (something we literally did not think about because to be honest, we had forgotten it was New Years Eve), but we did hit upon another market and this one was definitely more focused on food and was more carnival-esque. It had a lot of sweets and a lot more wine, sausages, and a great many other things. Had our lunch not been so late, and so large, I would've gladly stayed here to eat dinner! In fact, part of me wanted to, but I was still terribly stuffed. We wandered around the market for a bit though before heading home... and realising to our dismay that even all the supermarkets were closed! What were we going to do about dinner?!
It turns out that wasn't too much of a problem. Our lunch had been gigantic, and we still had some pasta, some corn, some vegetables, and all the leftovers from lunch. Needless to say though, after that huge lunch, none of us were all that interested in touching the pork knuckles again. As a combined family of four, we barely even finished 1/2 of the leftovers (although we did finish the pasta, the corn, and what-not, just not the meat).
I should say that around this time, we started hearing the tell-tale popping of people releasing fireworks here and there. After dinner, me and my brother took a small break, but at around 9PM, 10PM, we set out with our mom to let our own fireworks fly.
This was a bit of a surreal experience and definitely something I will remember forever. I've never seen a city covered in so much smoke. It was both exhilarating and a bit...a part of me didn't approve. Well, the part of me that didn't approve was the part that wondered why no one was picking up their garbage (after all, in Japan, every in so careful with that). To be honest though, picking up your own rockets after they've flown off is arguably, very hard, and very annoying.
But on to our adventure. So, we stepped out to the shared courtyard that was outside our apartment and there were already 3-4 families out there blowing off their fireworks, so we wandered out trying to find a place nearby that wasn't so crowded. As we walked around, we threw around the little cherry bombs just so get rid of them. They were small tiny things that really just made a snap as soon as it touched the pavement. We also got rid of these weird green fireworks that were green and folded and when you lit them (there were three of four, so we each got one) they just sort of sprayed sparks. These we just lit and threw on the sidewalks, because that is apparently very legal and doable and on one cares. Just before setting off the green fireworks, we had seen someone in front of us shove a rocket in to the ground and just let it go.
We wandered a bit more, couldn't find anywhere and then realized that the parking lot beside our apartment was empty of people, and relatively empty of cars. There we got rid of the rest of our fireworks. There was a hilarious, although kind of terrifying moment, where my mom threw a dynamite and nearly hit someone's car (it rolled VERY close), but thankfully didn't hit or damage it. In her panic though my mom was about to run up and kick the firework away and me and my brother had to yell at her to STOP because you don't just run up to a firework that you threw! Oh mother.
After that, we lit up the roman candles and another one--and these were the usual fare. Then the rockets. We conveniently managed to find a random cinder-block on a patch on soil that allowed us to prop up the rockets and keep them stable in the ground and me and my brother alternated between lighting them and watching them fly. At one point my brother thought about holding on to the stick, but I pointed out that maybe that wasn't so smart because when the rockets flew, the sticks seemed to fly with them. We learned later, that it was possible to hold the stick--darn. I guess we missed out. Th rockets were pretty awesome though--seeing them fly and explode.
With that we were done though. Boom. Boom. Boom. We retreated back to the apartment. The room that me and my brother were sleeping in actually faced the communal courtyard (as well as was in the direction of the Brandenburg gates, so throughout the rest of the night, fireworks were literally appearing right outside my window. Ironically I couldn't see the fireworks set off at the gate because a part of the apartment that was jutting out blocked my view, but I could see various other fireworks set of elsewhere so I didn't mind. Also, the ones being set off in my courtyard were quite spectacular too.
Midnight passed. Boom. Boom. Boom. Flashing lights. A quick "Happy New Years!" and then I was off to sleep. I was getting on a plane tomorrow and after an exhausting two week trip of bouncing from one city to the next, going from location A to location B, I was ready for a real break.
I will say though - this will be a New Years Eve I will never forget!
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