Friday, November 19, 2010

Kartoffekeller = HEAVEN! (11.3.10)

Finally, I am blogging in the same month as we currently are in. Maybe I will get caught up soon after all. Oh, I am currently waiting for my host parents to get home so we can leave for our weekend getaway to Lubeck, where they have a vacation home.

This week was pretty uneventful. After class Malia & I decided to venture away from school to find lunch. Usually, we don't have enough time to go farther away, but we were both done for the day. So we went to Friedrichstrasse. Just by chance did we stumble upon the Kartoffelkeller. For all you non-German speakers, so pretty much everyone, it means potato cellar. I had been to a restaurant with the same name in Lubeck last time with my host family, and it was amazing! So Malia & I thought we'd give this one a try.

I was adorable inside! It truly felt homey! We both got a large Fanta...which is like gold in a glass. I know we have Fanta in the US, BUT it is nothing like German's. They actually use real sugar here still. Not like that aspartame crap or whatever we use. I am contemplating bringing a suitcase full of Haribo and Fanta home with me, as a checked bag of course! Ok, back to the restaurant. I ordered a potato skillet with mushrooms, cheese, and bacon. OH MY GOODNESS!! It was one of the best things I've ever tasted in my life!! It was amazing!! It was ginormous too! Malia ordered a baked potato. The baked potato was huge, but you couldn't even see the potato. It was drowning under a bath of sour cream. My gosh, my heart was spasming just looking at that potato!

I couldn't finish all my pan of potatoes. It was so large! I contemplated asking for a to go box, but I don't think they do that here. At least I've never heard or saw anyone have leftovers to take along. And besides I didn't think doggie bag would translate too well. So I left it on my plate. Like every other time, they assume something wasn't good, but I assured them it was just too much food.

Malia practically had to roll be out of there. I was so full. I'm surprised the buttons didn't pop off my pants and take the waiter's eye out. I went to Hauptbahnhof, the main train station, to book our tickets to Hamburg, for this weekend. Yes, we are extremely last minute! Kind of true to my usual form, deciding at the last minute to do something. I hate having everything planned out. Although, this probably would have been something good to have decided a few weeks ago. Tickets would have been a lot cheaper. Now that I think about it, probably everything related to travel....you should 'plan' before the week of, even though I hate it.

Once I found the ticket office, I was horrified to see the line. It was nearing the door! Ugh! I was going to be there forever. It seemed that people just came to the train station with their bags packed and asked the ticket salesman where the cheap deals were to, because they were taking forever! I picked a bad day to wear a long sleeve. Ugh! I was sweating - probably because of that and having my tummy full of all those potatoes. After nearly an hour, I got to the front of the line and bought our tickets to Hamburg. It was only about 1.5 hour train ride from Berlin, but it cost about 79 Euros per person! Crazy, since it's about a 2-3 hour drive. We took the ICE train, which is the fast train. Oh and it was another fantastic day in Berlin....with a beautiful forecast of.....rain, nothing but rain. All it does here in the fall is rain!

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