Winter days in Berlin and beyond.

Wednesday was a cold day and we decided to walk to Aldi so I could get the tissues that are no longer sold in Australia. We browsed the aisles but we were not tempted to purchase any other items.

I was surprised to see tobacco cigarette packets at the counter.

Chicken soup and Bloody Mary’s were consumed for the evening meal.

Thursday morning brought snow to Berlin! What lovely sight although it was only short lived and not very heavy.

Firstly Scott ordered some supplies for salmon and caviar omelettes and another version of a chicken soup since the weather was really cold.

After the soup was made we went out into the inclement weather. It was a bit drizzly and after a few blocks we stopped in a little bar for some refreshments.

For some reason this year, Optus roaming has been unreliable. Luckily I have been with Scott who can access data in Europe.

I contacted Optus a few times and they tried to explain to turn the phone off, put it in aeroplane mode and then out so the phone finds the best source. This only worked intermittently and frustratingly I complained to Optus. Scott found a Reddit thread of other people complaining about the same issues.

To Optus’ credit they did reimburse me $75 ($5 a day) for the trouble I have had since I have been a loyal customer for over 8 years.

We then braved the weather and walked to the shopping precinct. Scott took me to his gym which looked like a nice place. Then we went to the hardware store to collect supplies to try to fix the wall in Scott’s bathroom.

We caught a taxi home because now the sleet was falling fast. When we got home it turned into snow!

It was time to enjoy a Graham’s Port, a taste acquired in Portugal.

Sixt car hire now do car share as well. It costs a little more to cross borders as we planned to drive to Leipzig to see Scott’s unit and then onto Zary in Poland, a town where I spent the most time in 1970. The Peugeot e-208 was new, clean and ready for us to do the planned trip.

Once on the autobahns the speed suggestions are 120kph but Scott was hurtling along when he could at speeds up to over 170kph. There was rain and snow which made Teresa anxious.

We stopped at a McDonalds in Linthe. This was obviously a truck stop with the food outlets, sex-shop and Spielhalle (gambling hall). There was lots of snow around us. The lovely lady who served us in McDonalds commented that I spoke very good English! Ha ha!

Once in Leipzig, we met with the builder and viewed the progress of refurbishing the unit. Germany offers financial incentives for people to invest in and renovate old buildings that were damaged during the war. The builder explained that there is a medical university nearby and many young doctors are interested in living in the new units. He told Scott that the building should be finished in April.

We got onto the road again, this time aiming for Zary, Poland – a two and a half hour journey from Leipzig. We stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant in Grimma, Germany. The sun came out for a while as we continued on our way. As we were driving, I realised that we wouldn’t get to Zary until after 3:30pm. It gets dark around 4pm and I thought about the fact that Scott would have another 2 hour drive to get to Berlin after we explored Zary. So we decided to just drive back to Berlin which was still a two hour trip from our location. The weather became inclement and we were driving through sleet and snow storms so we were happy with the decision to shorten the trip. At one point near Dresden we saw what looked like a traffic accident in the opposite direction. Traffic was banking up and it looked like a slow journey for those people. What surprised us was the number of Police vans we saw travelling to that location which made us wonder what was really going on …. I counted over 80 police vans!