A little bit of sunshine

So last week it finally got to be summer and super hot and sunny here in Berlin. I think it was in the 90's most of the week and it is a good thing there are so many eis cafes around or I would have melted. It was a nice week - picnics in the park, eating lots of ice cream, cooling off in our apt. We were going to go swimming on Sat at one of the lakes, but then Sat was supposed to be overcast and thunderstorms so maybe this weekend. Sat we got up and went down to this veggie french bakery for a vegan brunch - I was told there would be croissants and crepes and such all vegan and all you can eat so I was pretty excited. We got there...and no croissants! There were crepes with jelly for filling and a few other things but nothing very exciting. I was very disappointed. Though since it was supposed to rain we took the subway down and on the way I noticed lots of markets so we had lot of adventures exploring on the way home.

There were markets everywhere, but most of them are just so so. There are a lot of stands with old things, records, and maybe some clothing but it is still fun to look. My favorite market though was the one pictured above along the river - this was like a craft fair with lots of artists selling their works and I loved most of them. A lot of them were not very expensive either and I got a cute robot print to hang up. Soon our house will be filled with robot pictures! It is a lot of fun exploring and finding all my cute shops and such. We have only really explored Friedrichshain so far and just a portion of that area (but there are is one street with a ton of crafty places on it that have super cute things so...). We will slowly work our way through the other neighborhoods and such as we have time. I am glad that we got here over the summer when it is warm out and still nice to walk around exploring. Everyone keeps saying how bad the winters are so we shall see. For now I am happy riding my bike around town.

On Sunday we spent the day at the movies watching the Batman triology! It was pretty amazing and a great way to spend a rainy Sunday. I was iffy on how I would like spending like 9 hours watching movies, but they are such good movies! The movie theaters here are like in New Zealand, you get assigned seats. At first I was like that sucks, which is funny as we went to the movies with some of Raymonds coworkers (saw the Amazing Spiderman which was horrible! I HATED Spiderman...and he is supposed to be the hero so I shouldn't actively wish the bad guy would beat him) and one of his coworkers was like oh yeah in that states they don't have assigned seats. That sucks. After this weekend I realized that it has its benefits. We could have showed up right before the movies started and still get the perfect seats (unlike when I went to movies with the ladies and we were stuck in the first row or had to show up forever in advance!). It is great and I am now a fan of this system. Now for a little section on my thoughts on the Batman movies just cause I have no one else here to talk to about them. I am glad that we went to see all three together as I completely forgot the first movie. I remembered he was training and there was snow in mountains, but that was everything I remembered. I couldn't even remember who the bad guys were, but man did I enjoy that first movie. I loved the bad guys, I love the scarecrow guy, I just loved the movie and thought it was amazing. The second one I really enjoyed as well, but I definitely liked the first one better. The joker was amazing, but I was disappointed again that they killed off Harvey Dent right when he was getting evil. I don't know, I just didn't like the plot as much. Now the new one, the third movie, when I heard Anne Hathaway was in it I was not at all happy. I really don't like her, though I did watch One Day with my mom and I actually liked her in that so that might have softened me up to see her as Catwoman. I mean it is Catwoman....she should be amazing. I though Anne Hathaway did an alright job, though some of her fighting was kind of cheesey. Also when I heard Bane was the bad guy I thought eh. Who cares? Bane is not a favorite. So I wasn't expecting to like the third one as much as the other ones. But I LOVED Bane. Really I loved the movie as a whole. It was so good! I don't want to spoil anything, but man I loved it! I was surprised at how much the movies flowed together. There were things from the first one in the last one and just everything was interconnected which was awesome. I am glad we watched all of them as I would have missed a lot that I had forgotten (not that it would have mattered that much, but still it was nice to see them go as a whole). If you are a fan at all you should go watch the new one. Bane was so much fun!!

Alright enough with my love of the Batman movies. How about other notes on Germany:

1) In the movie theaters besides having assigned seats you can get beer (though it is 4 Euro which is expensive for beer here), and you have a choice of salty or sweet popcorn. We only got the salty this time, next time I will have to try the sweet.

2) Bikes come with lights that have generators. The front and back lights are hooked up to the generator which you engage so it hits the rear tire and when the tire turns it charges the lights. I think it is pretty cool as no need for batteries! Why don't we have that in the states? I approve

3) I'm not sure if it is just that it is summer time or not but people wear a lot of bright colors here. It is awesome. Like black shirt bright blue pants bright pink shoes. It is fun.

4) Also on clothing (and this is probably just a summer thing) women wear a lot of see through clothing. On purpose. Like you wear a white bra with a see through brightly colored "shirt". I have not gotten on board with that trend as....I just don't know why I want see through clothing. It is also making it harder to find summer clothes here as in the shops the fabrics are all sooooo thin they are see through (even if they aren't meant to be). They also wear super duper short skirts and shorts. Raymond tells me I should get behind that trend.....

Alright well since it was so hot last week I didn't get much done in the yard. The yard right now is basically all weeds so I have to pull them all up and we are going to plant grass so we can actually use it. Hopefully it works out well. I started on that and am hoping to have it done this week. I should probably go work on that some more before it rains.