An All-Day Birthday Party

On Saturday August 1^st, Marika’s 50^th birthday, about a dozen of her friends and family gathered with her for brunch at the Koenigliche Gartenakademie (Royal Garden Academy).  In order to get to the outdoor café, you go through greenhouses!  We were seated at a large table in the bright sunshine, were asked for our drink preferences (prosecco? coffee?) and were presented with multilevel trays holding cold meats, cheese, fruit, rolls and jelly, from which we could choose what we wanted.  We were soon joined by a number of yellow jacket wasps, but not enough of them to be more than a slight annoyance as we had to keep shooing them off. 

Most of us had gotten there by public transit (tram, underground and bus), and now we continued in the same mode (taking at least one bus, I think) until we arrived at the Wannsee boat docks. 

After a short wait, we boarded a boat for a tour of the lake.  The Grosser Wannsee is a large lake in the River Havel in the southwest part of Berlin.  It is the most important recreational lake in the city, having one of the largest bathing beaches in Europe (behind which we saw The Magic Flute in 2011) and having more sailboats in one place than I’ve ever seen. 

There was a narration in German and English over the ship’s loudspeaker.  We sailed across the lake to Kladow (which we had visited with Marika in 2011), then down the Havel, past the Pfaueninsel (Peacock Island) into the Tiefer See (Deep Lake), and on until we docked in Potsdam.  It had been a very pleasant cruise, in the bright sunshine.

In Potsdam we walked to the Brandenburger Strasse, near the Brandenburg Gate (no, not the famous one in Berlin, but a much smaller one), where we got a large table out on the terrace at Café Babette.  There we had wonderful, gigantic ice cream desserts (I had one involving cherries and, I think, chocolate of some sort) and shared some cakes.

Then, we walked to the other end of the Brandenburger Strasse, where anyone who so wished could join Marika for Saturday evening mass at the Church of Saints Peter and Paul.  The presiding priest, who spoke the most clearly enunciated and understandable German I’ve ever heard, was Italian.  The co-presider, from Cologne, spoke German that even Mary Joy had trouble understanding.  The organ was very good and played very well.

We then met with those who had remained outside and most of us took public transit back to Marika’s neighborhood.  She had spent much of the day before making what she called an “Imbiss,” a snack.  A month later, I have to say that I don’t remember exactly what there was, except that there was a lot of food and it was wonderful. 

So we sat out on the roof terrace until late.  My German wasn’t such that I could understand more than a little of what was said, but it was all interesting anyway.  There was a discussion of various accents and dialects of German, since the people present were from various parts of the country: Schleswig, Rostock, Swabia, etc.  All good things must come to an end, and gradually, we all said our goodnights, until Marika was left to extend her birthday into the next day with her former boss, Gisela—we later heard that they had stayed up talking until two.