Mar 17, 2014

Double decker buses, BW photobooths and worldwide candies

The time is flying by so fast (too fast) and I will be back home already in 3 weeks!! That means not much more time left to explore Berlin :( The plans for this weekend were to explore Berlin with Aimee (like the past few weeks), but the forecast was not really nice - cold and rainy. That means no outside exploring, but I didn't want to spend one of my last weekends at my room! We were thinking and thinking about alternative. The place should be inside and interesting, something where we can go for the whole day (and where we can bring our own food!). And then I remembered ... a BUS! In Berlin you can take a double decker bus on some regular lines all over the city and I had this on my 'Things to do list' anyway - to sit in the front on the top and just drive around the city, with view on the streets. The decision was made - a bus tour!

Well, afterall, when I got up on saturday morning, the weather was not so bad as they predicted. It was cloudy with strong wind, but no rain! And no rain means walks between rides are still possible! So we took a bus to Prenzlaur Berg where we planned to explore the streets on this part of the city for a while.

Driving with a double decker bus is kind of a special experience. Sitting in the front of the top floor it feels almost virtual. You sit so close to the window and you can see on the street and where the bus is moving, but you don't have a steering wheel, of course and you are not manipulate with the vehicle - kind of strange feeling!



If you are wondering what famous sightseeings we saw from the bus, I can't tell you much. We passes Victory Column and Reichstag (government building) on our way, but that's pretty much all. There is a special tourist city tour with double decker buses with a guide (for which you have to pay of course), arranged to drive you past all of the most known buildings and statues and  parks ... And also a lot of regular buses (which are for free if you have a montly/year ticket) passes most of this things on their lines. We could check the lines on the internet before and arrange our trip to see some of the sightseeings. But we didn't plan a true touristic tour and it is much more fun not knowing where are you driving and just watch the life going on under you on the street. There is still so much interesting going on, even without lots of famous statues ;)

Reichstag
Big Bike aka Bar on wheels :)

Riding with a double decker bus is fun! Even if you end up in the big parking lot (the end station of the bus!) somewhere in the middle of nowhere. And the timetable says you have to wait 20 minutes for the next bus to get you somewhere pretty clode to where you want to go. And when it passes more than 20 minutes and the bus still didn't show, you realize that the timetable is for weekdays and there is NO bus on saturday! Yes, it's fun, waiting for nothing! :)

At the end we found another bus station close to there and took the bus to our choosen destination - Prenzlauer Berg. I must say this part of the city is also nice. A lot of tall, beautiful old buildings and a lot of young families (and hipsters). And a pretty spot with a bench in the middle of the street, where we drink our cute sparkling wine :)


We bought this sparkling wine in Lidl earlier that day, just to try it. 
The taste is not really yummy, but it's also not bad - exceptable for the price. 
Plus the cans are really cute, that's why we bought them in the first place :)

One more cool thing you can find in this part of Berlin (and also in a lot of other parts) are black & white Photobooths! That was also on our 'Things to do list', so we said: "Let's do it now, why not!?" 2€ for 4 pictures or 2€ for unforgettable BW memory. The important part of this is to make those pictures funny as possible. If we would plan this before, we would probablly bring some accessories to make the pictures even more funnier, but just making funny faces is good as well :)

Photobooth ...
... and our pictures :)

But our number one destination in Prenzlauer Berg, the reason why we choose this neighborhood, was Sugafari (a candy shop)! I checked their website before to get the idea how the shop looks like and where is it, but of course I forgot to write down the adress (and of course I didn't remember it). And not having the adress of the building you are looking for in the big city is not very smart. So I must thank to my mom, who checked on the internet and sent me a text message and saved us from wandering around probablly for hours :)

So, what is Sugafari? A shop that specialises in importing sweets from all over the world. I just heard about it about a week ago and I really wanted to check it out. I like trying new things and a shop with candies from every part of the world sounded like something just for me (for us)!

Aimee infront of the Sugafari before the shopping ...
... and me after the shopping!

What can you buy in Sugafari? Everything from classic American sweets to weird Asian stuff. You can buy 5 different flavores of M&M's or Gummy body parts in liquid. And extra spicy Mexican candies, cute Singapore Panda cookies, Camel Balls gums, Chupa Chups lollipops with taste of Blue Heaven and Red Hell and more and more ...



"American sector"
... don't ask ...

The shop is kind of expencive, though, but that is kind of expected with imported sweets. We didn't want to buy the big, expensive packages of sweet, especially not classic American things (like mint Oreos, for which I am sure that are good, but 9€ for a (big) box is a bit too much). So our tactis was to choose some cheaper single packed candies, preferablly weird looking, just enough to try them. Altough the shop is small, they have a lot of stuff and it took us quite a long time to finnish our "little" shopping, but at the end we came out with a bag full of sweets from every continent.
Then we found a bench to sit, took all the food out of the bag and started tasting it. I must say this is a real fun, especially if you record (almost) the whole thing! Then you can have fun again later, watching your face while you've been eating an extra sour Pilule du Diable candy :D

Things from our shopping bag :)

We both prefered the cute Hello Panda cookies from Singapore (biscuits with a creamy strawberry filling). Aimee liked Szkloki, Polish (hard) candy, with rabarbar flavour. Argentinian Serenata de Amor (nut cream filled bombon with crunchy wafer) and New Zealandian Buzz (milk chocolate covered marshmallow) were also not bad for my taste. Far most gross was Mexican exxxtra spicy Atomic fire ball. I think the only thing we didn't finnish and trew away, because it was too much spicy for a candy (who would eat that as a sweet??). And Camel Balls gums (Spanish) were also one weird thing - strange looking and without any real taste (who would eat that also?). I coul try to list all of the things we bought, but I would definitely forget something. And you should try them by yourself, so let it be a surprise :)

If it ever happen that you pass the Sugafari on your walk in Prenzlauer Berg, you should go in and try some stuff - just be careful what you put in your basket! ;)

Blue Heaven - Red Hell

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