Blue skies, tummy no longer rumbling, maybe this was it? Maybe I’m better! I went brave this morning at breakfast and had marmalade on my toast, but still kept it pretty light. I was itching to get outside, feeling better than I had in days. We ended up rushing out the door to get Sabrina to her 10am doctor’s appointment on time. Alex and I dropped her off, then continued on to the Classic Remise.
Before I saw a single headlight or body panel, I was impressed with the place. The building is an old railway depot, with red brick walls and tall archways fitted with massive glass doors. Outside, the carpark is small cobblestones and there are remnants of the old railway tracks in every corner. Still not inside the building, the carpark was full of projects in all states of disrepair and cars from a few different eras that gave a taste of what was to come. We walked through a set of the tall arched doors into the foyer where there were cars lined up before us.
The Classic Remise not only houses historic cars for storage and sale (some of them in glass boxes), around the outside of the building are a number of specialised workshops and part shops to service the great machinery. I was astounded that all of this was freely open to the public, no catch. Unfortunately all of the car descriptions were in German so I couldn’t learn the stories behind each set of wheels, but I didn’t really have to, I was satisfied enough just looking at them. They pretty much had the history of car-making covered apart from steam-engines, I didn’t see any of those. They had classic motorbikes, vintage cars in both mint condition and not, Formula 1 replicas, service vehicles from the war age, and the more recent right up to a McLaren MP1 roadcar (in a glass box obviously).
Alex and I both drooled over everything. I cannot express how much a contrast it is what we do/did at Tesla to build cars and how the classics were manufactured. I was happy to find a mini tucked away in a corner, I knew there had to be at least one. It made me miss my red and white pocket rocket.
We spent a good two hours wandering every isle and mezzanine, doing two rounds on some cars because they deserved it. We did another round of the carpark before we left, finding mysterious beasts under covers and others left out in the weather with a thin layer of frost coating their bonnets.
Happy with our adventure, we drove back home for a huge lunch. My tummy had been behaving all day, so I went really adventurous and dug into the cooked spinach, steamed potates and beautifully spiced pork. I think all people become supercooks in the kitchen once they have grandchildren. There is something about the “grandparent” status that results in amazing home-cooked food.
Oma and Opa went out for the afternoon so the kids were left at home. We had plans to have dinner with another pair of Alex’s mates but I was keen to go outside again beforehand. Sabrina offered me her train ticket from the morning, so I was off. Alex was preoccupied on his computer and had said a few times that he was coming with me but made no movement, so I stepped out on my own towards the train station, but he soon caught up five minutes later. Yay for strategy. Sabrina stayed home to study.
Alex took me to a downtown shopping area around the corner from the grandparents’ place and we struggled with the cold on our faces as we window-shopped. We went into a cheap outdoors shop where I tried out a longboard in preparation for Florida and found it was something I could probably learn to do if I exercised patience. When we were in a more expensive outdoors store, Alex found a good riding jacket, thrilled to have found something that has long enough sleeves to fit him (sound familiar Dad?). He didn’t buy it, resolving to find a cheaper price online like the gen-Y that he is.
After Alex bought me a Berliner (essentially a jam doughnut, but he’d be mad at me for calling it that), we caught a train to a busy part of town by the William Memorial Church. I’d seen this briefly during Opa’s car tour, but it was impressive up close. The church was destroyed during the war and was left in its demolished state instead of being restored. The two churches built next to it were the new places of worship and didn’t really take my fancy, but the half-destroyed tower that rose above the street was definitely something to look at. I was happy to read a bit of history inside the church and marvel at the mosaics that covered both the floors and the ceilings.
We wandered the Christmas markets, stopping at the numerous memorials that had been created for the people that lost their lives and were injured during the terror attack of a week before when a truck driver ploughed through the crowds for the sole purpose of wreaking havoc. It was touching to see the mounds of flowers, glowing candles and written signs nearby the concrete bollards that had been put in place since the attack. The world is full of assholes and what did they achieve?
The cold was wearing us down a bit, but we soldiered on, deciding not to go home before heading to Alex’s mates’ place. We went into a nearby shopping centre to find the tourist information, but they were out for a short break so we had half an hour to kill. After finding a section of the Berlin wall on display in the shopping centre, we ventured back outside and navigated ourselves to the Tesla store we’d driven past a few nights ago. It was very well set up, with a single white Model X front and centre with its doors up, there were people milling all around. Alex tested one of the salesmen by asking questions about the drive units, none of which he could answer and some of the questions he got wrong. When Alex told the salesman that he works at Tesla, the guy explained that no one cares about the technology. Everyone asks what the range is, how much power, how much torque, but in terms of where all that comes from, no one gives a hoot. Not everyone can be an engineer.
After running across the road to miss a bus, Alex planned a public transport route to take us to Chris and Juja’s place which wasn’t too far. I was chilled to the bone by the time we’d got there. I’d obviously become accustomed to being warm underneath a blanket indoors. Chris and Juja are close friends of Alex and they hadn’t seen each other in a while, so there were big smiles when we walked through the door. Juja was halfway through making a creamy avocado pasta which smelled devine. After spending a bit of time cleaning, Chris let us in to the main living space, which was a gorgeous space with heavy timber floors and mood lighting. Alex and the guys caught up on old times, I got to know them and they got to know me. We had heaps in common so were talking non-stop all night, only pausing for mouthfuls of food.
We called it a night around 10:30pm since we were relying on someone being awake back at base to let us back in. Despite the cold that faced us outside, I was sorry to leave, I’d had such a good time being able to talk to people again in a relaxed setting. Alex did a superb job getting us on a bus, then a train back home where despite no response from Sabrina via phone, when we rang the bell at the building entrance, we were buzzed in. We both went straight to bed, me with a bit of a hoarse throat having exercised my voice box thoroughly for the first time in a while.
Terror Attack Fact: The reason twelve people were killed and not more is because the truck’s automatic braking system detected an impact and so prevented the vehicle from moving much further.