Craving the sun

We're back to the usual here in Berlin. Cold, rain, even some snow. Last weekend though was completely different. Warm and sunny and I really hoped it would last.

On Tuesday my friend Erika and I decided to take advantage of the sun. We met for lunch and a quick walk at the park. We went to a nice italian place and enjoyed some very tasty pizzas.

Say hi to Erika!

Look how nice she organized her pizza leftovers :)
They are even sort by color too! Super cute!

This is what I had. Yummy :)

After our lunch we went to a nearby park.

I really like when we meet. Even if it's only for a quick lunch. We don't know each other that long but somehow our conversations are always long and meaningful. It's good to have that...

Happy Easter!

Yesterday was the Orthodox Easter. Living in Greece for so many years I got to celebrate a lot of Easters. I really love how it is celebrated there. The food, as always, is very important on the Easter Day. On Saturday evening, after the midnight Divine Liturgy, the family gathers together for the traditional Magiritsa. In the beginning I couldn't stand it at all, but that changed after a few years.

Being away from home I decided to try and make my own Easter dinner. It would be the first time for me so the stress was high. I'm not that really talented when it comes to cooking. We wanted to celebrate it with our new friends and the fact that they are vegetarians didn't help my stress, because the traditional Magiritsa is made with meat. I was wondering what to do when one of my friends suggested that in stead of meat I could use mushrooms. What a great idea!!! But then to make things even more difficult I decided to make both of them. So I just went form never cooking a Magiritsa in my entire live, to making two of them at the same time!! Even though I used only half of the ingredients required for both of them, we ended up with too much food just for 4 persons. Yeap, that sounds like the Greek Easter in deed :)

Also there were red peppers filled with feta cheese, baked Hallumi and for dessert my friends had brought with them some chocolate cakes wich had liquid chocolade in the middle! The cakes were gone within seconds so there was no time for taking any photos. I can assure you though that they were a m a z i n g !!

We had a really great time and that made us feel a little bit better about being away from family and friends.

          

Lazy Sunday

For me Sundays are the ultimate lazy days. On Saturday you're still under the week's rush, but on Sunday I feel like everything slows down and one can really relax. What can be better than doing just that in a lovely, quiet place. With a good cup of coffee and a nice breakfast. Surrounded by books, flowers and a peaceful atmosphere. 

Yesterday Mr G. and I spent our day in a place like that. It wasn't intended or planned. We went to a house viewing and the agent informed us that there were more houses to be seen on this day if we were interested. Since the one we had just seen wasn't good, we agreed. The only issue was that the next viewing was at 3 o'clock. So we found ourselves with 3 hours to kill. Going home wasn't a good idea since the next apartment wasn't that far from where we were. We decided to have a coffee and pass the time in this nice cafe that we spotted on our way.

Inside the coffee place was nicely decorated. With a "glance to the past" furniture, candles or flowers on the tables and full of books. Having all this I knew that those three hours would pass really nice. To my surprise among all those books was a copy of M. Connelly's "The Black Echo" which as it happens I'm listening to for the past few days. Therefore I just picked it up from where I had left it. That was so cool! Of course after reading a few pages I needed to have this book, so I could continue it at home. I like audio books and how practical they can be when I knit or exercise, but for me there's no comparison to a printed copy and how it feels in my hands. As it turned out this was a BookCrossing place so the book came home with me! yaay!!! I can just return it when I'm finished or leave them another book. BookSrossing is the newest favorite thing of mine :)

   

Unfortunately the apartments that we viewed later on (2 of them in a total) were even worst than the first one. By then it was 4.30 in the afternoon, we were cold and starving so the last stop before going home was a lovely Indian restaurant. 

Beautiful decoration.

A yummy vegetable soup and some curry chicken made us forget about the bad apartments that we saw. I'll be visiting again both of those places discovered today for sure.