On our last full day in Berlin, 27 June, we looked, as we had done in Lithuania, to get gifts to bring home. That evening, we celebrated a special birthday with new friends.
Julia and I first split up to do shopping, and I headed to the Porsche Zentrum. I was looking for a gift from Porsche that would be perhaps Germany-only for my son-in-law, and Isabel’s son, Lars, had suggested this location. (My son-in-law had just started working for Charlie’s Foreign Car in Encinitas, which focuses on German cars.)
Porsche’s headquarters are in Stuttgart, but it and other German automakers have zentren (centers) in Berlin, most of them in the same general area, in Charlottenburg along the Franklinstraße. Here’s a gallery of some of them.
I also went by a building with a sign saying “talk about race.” Wow, was it a “woke” organization working to foster conversation about an important issue in Germany? Wondered for maybe a second. Then remembered where I was . . . in the middle of automobile companies. “Race” meant “racing.”
The Porsche Zentrum offered displays of cars and a small section called “Drivers’ Selections” containing hats, shirts, key fobs, etc. I was able to get my son-in-law a Porsche Motorsports shirt. In the process of buying the shirt, I had to sign a form acknowledging that I had received the item. The sales clerk then stamped the form with two different stamps. Then there was a second transaction charging my debit card. It all seemed somehow “German.” Here’s a gallery of cars on display and other scenes of the zentrum.
We also spent time on Kurfürstendamm, the street just north of our hotel. It’s one of the premier shopping areas in Berlin. I mean, the Apple Store is there, for crying out loud. 🙂 Here’s a gallery of some of the stores there.
One building on the street was especially interesting to me, a resident of California. Here’s the Berlin version of Hotel California. You can tell by the ersatz palm trees.
In addition to the high-end shopping opportunities, there were also a ton of souvenir shops, including one that offered a new use of the iconic Trabant.
That evening, our last in Berlin, we had been invited to join a group at the Café am Neuen See, a classic biergarten on the “new lake” in Tiergarten. The reason: Julia’s 30th birthday. Our hosts were Michael and Connie Günther, as well as Isabel Traenckner-Probst and her son, Lars. (Lars, 17, had just returned to Berlin from competing in the national four-man, under 19, rowing competition. His team finished second, in a photo finish. His pride at the accomplishment was diminished greatly by the close loss. If his team had won, they would have competed in the world under-19 championships in Japan.)
We enjoyed traditional beer garden fare and the company of friends so far away. It was a great way to end our trip.
We had talked earlier with Michael and Connie about the television series Berlin Babylon, a “neo-noir” crime series set in Berlin in 1929, during the Weimar Republic. The series debuted in Germany on the Sky network in October 2017 and in the U.S. on Netflix in January 2018. The show is based on the first in a series of four books by German author Volker Kutscher, which depict Germany 1929-31. Michael and Connie gave Julia those four books for her birthday.