Most German businesses are closed on Sundays. That left our cold and sunny Sunday with only the touristy options open most days of the weeks such as the Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag Building, Siegessäule (Victory Column), and Tiergarten, and the Holocaust Memorial. We had €5 unlimited über rides around the city all weekend thanks to our helpful über driver from the night before who had given us a “Heyber” promotional code! We called an über and headed out.
We didn’t plan far enough in advance to visit the Reichstag dome (which requires registering for tickets early in the day) so instead, we went to visit Brandenberg Gate and then walked to the nearby Holocaust Memorial (which I will blog about in another post). After that sobering experience, we needed some Frühlingsgefühle and Geborgenheit. We decided to spend the rest of our Sunday in the flea market at Maurerpark. To our surprise, the über dropped us right in front of the photobooth from the night before. The empty lot and park across the street had been transformed overnight into the largest flea market we’d ever seen. It was teaming with hoards of humanity and countless treasures waiting to be discovered.
We spent our afternoon rummaging through bins of artifacts, tables of bric-a-brac, endless record collections and exploring local arts and crafts booths. This was punctuated by several trips to the Schönwetter* Biergarten to drink, eat pizza and fill up on currywurst before hitting more bins, sorting through more vinyl and hiking a short hill to explore an old section of the Berlin Wall and watch local graffiti artists applying their skills.
From the hill, we could hear artists performing below and we walked amongst beatboxers, brass bands, street performers, and pick-up basketball games as we made our way back into the flea market for another round of shopping.
As we sat at the Biergarten a woman approached us and asked if West had ever modeled before. West had bought a new vintage jacket (one Clara had found and insisted he buy) and he was looking very cool. She introduced herself at Valeria, a casting scout working for photographer Mark Peckmezian (instagram) (webberrepresents). She insisted Mark would like his look and would probably like to photograph him for a new portrait series he was doing for n-o-o-n (a UK publication) with stylist Brian Molloy. We told her we were heading out of town on Tuesday and would only be back to Berlin breifly in about a week. She told us the photo shoot would be on April 3 and 4th and as luck would have it, that is when we’ll be returning. She emailed us later that evening and put us in contact with the agency to make arrangements. We are planning on taking an earlier train back from Prague to make it in time for the shoot.
As Valeria left us and long shadows emerged from vendor booths of weary buyers and sellers and the air settled in a chill around us, we turned ourselves towards Prenzlauer Berg in search of dinner.
Tawny found a great restaurant nearby called Montraw listed as one of Berlin’s Top Ten where enjoyed a fantastically innovative meal.
It was a perfect meal to end a perfect day in Berlin. One could see how easy it could be to become a Berliner.
Sabbatikos 
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