My First Typical German Lunch!

Here is the first of many food-related posts to come! Berlin is similar to Montreal when it comes to food: you can eat very cheaply here. Almost every cuisine can be found, from Italian to Vietnamese, Turkish to French, and of course German. You can find an Imbiss (snack/lunch counter) at almost every street corner, where they serve many different kinds of sausages (Bratwurst, Bockwurst, Currywurst), Schnitzel, fries, potato salad, coffee, tea and soft drinks, as well as beer of course! Everything is extremely decently priced and these little snack counters are very popular. You can either eat at one of the tables provided, or you can bring your food, and your beer, to a park and eat there. The Germans are very liberal when it comes to drinking alcohol in public spaces. You can walk on the street drinking your beer at any time of the day, without it being a problem. No need for brown paper bags! Beer comes in either a 0,33 L format or a 0,5 L format (that's half a liter, just to be clear!!!!). Germans drink a lot of beer, but you would to, because beer, and alcohol in general, is so cheap here. A 0,5 L beer costs only 1,5o euros- can you believe it??!?!?!? All this to say that my 0,5 L beer made me a little tipsy yesterday! The red stuff on the sausage/fries is ketchup, but nothing like the ketchup we know. It's seasoned with many different spices, which make it slightly hot. You can also get mayo, but here again, it is quite different from what we are used to, and I don't much care for the German mayo! After this big lunch, and because my head was spinning a little, I had nap in front of the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral). The cathedral was built between 1895 and 1905. It was severely damaged during the second World War and it took 9 years to reconstruct it, during which time it was closed. It is a very impressive cathedral situated in the center of town, on the Museum Insel (Island of Museums). In front of the cathedral you can find the Lustgarten (Pleasure garden) where I had my nice little nap!

Today I am joining my friend Anja in her hometown called Lübbenau. Lübbenau is situated in the Spreewald, 100 km south-east from Berlin. The Spreewald region is referred to as the Venice of Germany, as the Spree consists of more than 200 small channels, totaling 1,300 km of water way. More to come on this in my next post!

Have a great week-end!