Summer in the City

Hello all and happy Friday :)

It's raining again here in Berlin but this time I am happy, we had a week of scorching hot weather and I thought I was going to melt! Being in a dingy archive in a small room on the fourth floor with no windows nearly got the better of me on Tuesday... Now it's cooler and I no longer resemble a sweaty tomato ;)

I had a wonderful time with C, thanks for all your wishes. It was very hot so we did, well, not a lot to be honest! And it was bliss, just what we needed. We've been married two months now, and a sizeable chunk of that has been apart - I'm looking forward to heading back to Blighty now :)

As we didn't become the wonder tourists my camera didn't see much action, I thought I'd share some snippets with you though...

When he got here we pretty much spent the whole afternoon in a beer garden...

 I love German beer. As does C - you can see he doesn't want to let go! It was the perfect afternoon, we drank, chilled and caught up properly :)

We wandered on Satrurday aimlessly, it's really nice being able to do that. We walked to the center from my flat and found our usual landmarks.

This is the famous Fernsehturm (television tower) along with the spire of the Marienkirche on Alexanderplatz. I always love the view of the two towers.

 Here we are in the Nikolaiviertel, (Nicholas Quarter) which is the oldest part of the city. What you see there today is however buildings which have been heavily restored, by the former GDR government in the late 1980s. THe inside of the cathedral is fascinating as it is more of a museum than a church but they have painstakingly research the paint colours etc etc. It's one of the things I love about Berlin, it's an onion with so many layers of history... (you can read about the quarter more here)

 This is the Berlin Cathedral (Berliner Dom) which is probably one of my favourite cathedrals in the world. I just love it for some reason. It was badly damaged during the war, with restoration starting in 1975.

 The last snaps are just wandering around. Berlin is quite famous for its graffiti, and I just liked the top one (rough translation: Money is the worst curse of mankind, quite apt I feel - as you can see it's Sophocoles).

The next day we had brunch at my favourite place, Szimpla, a Hungarian cafe, which is on Boxhagener Platz in Friedrichshain, there's a flea market there as well so we indulged ourselves at that. After a massive brunch and in the heat I was too hot to take pictures sadly!

Then we just chilled until C left on Monday. It was really lovely.... and really sad to see him go. I've been emersing myself in PhD work ever since, apart from last night and the night before when I hit the town with some friends. I love this city! I was going to add some crafty activity as well, but I shall save that for another day. I found another wool shop up the road with the most gorgeous cotton blend that is on sale and I have been fighting myself not to buy any. Will I stay strong? Watch this space....