Berlin snow is never virginal for long. Gathering coal dust on its decent it often boasts a yellowy hue long before hitting the ground. But adaptable as only city folk are, we have come to value the many shades of Berlin snow as white, bright white – with an afterglow. So when it falls and before it’s had time to dissolve into a slush of tyre tracks, dogs’ dinners and gravel, here is were to go and legally enjoy the fluffy, toboggany whiteness of winter:

http://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/umwelt/stadtgruen/gruenanlagen/de/
nutzungsmoeglichkeiten/rodeln/index.shtml

Note: There’s a place in Berlin called Coca-cola hill!

Yes, I know I keep blogging about food, but - who cares?!! I do. I care about food and here is another tasty source! Prinz, Tip and Zitty are unified in laudations, but also the Food & Wine magazine found this little place amongst 40 cities around the world.

Leo Bettini is specialised on dumplings and pasta in all different variations (and colours!). This beautiful dumpling picture is picked from their website www.leobettini.de.

Leo Bettini, Mulackstrasse 33, 10119 Berlin, Tel. (030) 60 50 74 49, mail@leobettini.de. Opening Hours Mo - Thurs 9:30 - 18:00, Fr 9:30 - 20:00, Sa 12:00 - 20:00.

He did it again! There is this pile of garbage and you walk by one day. And you walk by the other day and there it is: the mysterious “6″ or “6de” or “1kg.de” or “4rtist.com”, painted right on the waste - on an old mattress, a pile of bulk rubbish, building material along road works or even a tire of the big Volksbühne truck trailer parked in Linienstrasse. Have a look at the artist’s website www.6de.de and find a lot more lovely and funny street art paintings. Whenever you walk around in Mitte / Prenzlauer Berg, keep your eyes open and you definitely will find a piece of work!

Of course Greece is not known for pearls, so forget about the headline. But this is a very tiny place (a little bigger than a pearl, though) with very good greek food - to go and to have there. The restaurant in the back part of the location looks just like you were on a greek island with the fisherboats bobbing up and down along the waterside. Well, there is no water, but there are the little chairs and all the stuff on the walls and in the shelves that spread this relaxing taverna atmosphere.

I went there with Holger Volland (one of the other authors of this blog) and he took the picture, that’s why I am ON the picture paying my lunch - and Holger’s, too, because it was his birthday!

Kaliva, Wielandstrasse 37, 10629 Berlin (Charlottenburg), Tel. 3100 4550.

Open Mon - Fr (I believe!).

There is more than one reason to go to Pony Bar. First - it is in the middle of Mitte, so you will be important and extremely cool, as soon as you go there. Then - it is next to Monsieur Vuong, the famous Asian restaurant (more important people). Then - there is this convenient piece of furniture at the outside which is shaped like stairs. Great to sit on and look at everybody walking by (even in winter - dress appropriately). Then - there is friendly staff, listening to their music and talking to each other and occasionally looking up (your chance to place an order). Then - there are pony photos up on the wall and pony stickers inside the toilet rooms (see picture). And - the final reason to go there: it is a non smoking place and they put a message at their window: “Think of our neighbours” (they really are nice people at Pony Bar!!), “please smoke silently”.

Alte Schönhauser Allee, Mitte, U-Bahn Weinmeister Strasse.

Ian Whalley, English trainer and translator from the English midlands, tells us why he lives in Berlin.

Skating in Scandinavia and Berlin

Wiki, I love you! With winter on its way and the bleak and smoggy city sky closing in on us… I thought it would be nice to highlight some of the happier pastimes of these shortening days. Childhood memories and X-mas cards soon confirm ice skating as the season activity. A quick google for ice-rink addresses lands me on a wiki link to Lidwina of Schiedman, patron saint of skaters. Bedridden after a skating accident back in the late 14th century, Lidwina developed a series of saintly qualities such as paralysis, anorexia, spontaneous bleeding and loss of limbs. I quote; “…great pieces of her body fell off… she shed skin, bones and parts of her intestines, which her parents kept in a vase and which gave off a sweet odour”.

But, wiki tells me, ice-skating wasn’t always this much fun. According to scientists, bone skates found in Scandinavia and Russia dating back to 3000BC, were invented for not for frolicking but purely for survival! Indeed -current studies confirm that “people traveling across the region’s frozen lakes reduced their physical energy cost by 10 percent”. (Perhaps this was the initial attraction for Lidwina)

Inspired? Learn how to make your own bone skates at:

http://www.valhs.org/history/articles/daily_living/text/ice_skates.htm

Or don’t make your own skates and just hire some at an ice-rink of your choice. Here some choice ice-rinks in Berlin:

Die Ungewöhnliche Eislaufschule
Ringstr. 67b , 12205 Berlin
http://www.eislaufschule.de

Eisstadion Wilmersdorf
Fritz-Wildung-Straße 9, 14199 Berlin
http://www.horst-dohm-eisstadion.de

Erika Hess Eisstadion Wedding
Müllerstraße 185, 13353 Berlin
http://www.eislaufen-berlin.de/index.php?id=login.php&gast=gast/eisbahnen.php&eisbahn=2

Eisstadion Neukölln
Oderstraße 182, 12051 Berlin
http://www.sport-in-neukoelln.de/

Eisbahn Lankwitz
Leonorenstraße 37, 12247 Berlin
http://www.eisbahn-lankwitz.de

Kenneth MacLeod tells us why he lives Berlin…

Some say style is a matter of posture and posture a sign of all sorts of preconceptions –a bit like shoes. Forget it. Here is an establishment that will inspire you to unfold your spine what ever your background, it is the drinking hall of ballerinas: the Würgeengel – which is German for “your life is not complete until you have see this film by Bruñel” which is English for “El ángel exterminador”. Here you can quite happily enjoy your own company or else meet with a friend or two – and five at the most –, enjoy a good glass of wine and delight in the dark-red velvet interior and the handsomely well-groomed bar staff, flaunting serving skills long since perfected. The atmosphere is electric, time seeps away unnoticed as the people of the night fill the long, dimly lit room. And many hours after the thought of moving on has arisen, you will find yourself still hovering by the door, postponing your goodbyes, locked in excuses and unable to leave, for this bar uncannily lives up to its name. Which is a bummer if you fancy a Radler, cos the hot waiters gently refuse to serve beer cocktails. Snobbery? Surely not.

Würgeengel, Dresdner Str. 122, Kreuzberg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_ángel_exterminador

…on a sunny day in October.
Please click on the images.