einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr

This list of Some Things I Will Miss About Berlin was drawn up hastily on June 26, 2013, and revised, NYE-style, December 31, 2015. Evidently in my barely-employed Hausfrau years I only ate, drank, and bicycled the hugeness of Berlin...

21. Lunches at Primo Maggio




20. Brunches at Mayor

19. One never waits for a table anywhere (except that one evening, a Good Friday).

18. Our first farewell was with R's kindly pediatrician on Hauptstraße in Schöneberg. I am not looking forward to reentering the American healthcare "system."

17. A culture of repair: jackets restitched, shoes resoled, furniture mended

16. The fishmonger on Dieffenbachstraße always greets me with a cheery Moinmoin! no matter what the time of day. The shine of his shaved head matches his smile.

15. Also Mo's Falafel

14. On market days, weighed down by purchases from the Maybachufer Wochenmarkt, I always pass by an overcoated honey dealer, plying his box of wares just outside the Edeka/BioMarkt on Kottbusser Damm.

13. Crunch, crunch. A sprinkling of gravel over the snow instead of bike-corroding chemical melt that liquifies everything just enough to ensure that the sidewalk becomes a sheet of ice when in the dark hours everything refreezes

12. And your bike is not already stolen, most of the time anyway.

11. Buildings with proper courtyards, yes, and hallway and stairway lights that must be switched on manually and that, on a timer, ruthlessly extinguish themselves before you've reached your apartment door

10. Space: enough broken glass and dog shit for everyone

9. Drinking Kristall from a big glass beer glass, while standing on top of a giant pile of dirt, watching my child play in a construction site

8. Bakeries. Everywhere. Auch Bier.

7. Laugenstangen mit Butter und Schnittlauch

6. Everyday people on everyday bicycles

5. Das Tempelhofer Feld

4. Spielplatztopia

3. Kita-Gutschein

2. Fish Truck

1. Silvester

0. Der Flughafen Berlin-Tegel