KaDeVe & Wittenburg Platz Trip

        Our second Saturday was our P-day but Berlin was blustery. Nancy stayed at the apartment as I walked after breakfast and cleanup to the Gottfried-Benn Bibliothek. It has become a daily walk when we have the time. The library provides a one-hour internet card free of charge each time we go and that hour has given us opportunities to communicate with home and carry on some business without interfering with our work at the Tiergarten YTE center.

        Tomorrow is Mütters Tag (mother’s day) in German. I bought a very small bundle of flowers on the way home from the library. It wasn’t much at all, but Nancy was grateful and put them into one of our kitchen glasses. She had suggested that we do a little sightseeing today since there was nothing going on at the center. It was cold enough so that we chose to go into Berlin Mitte (Middle) and see KaDeWe and other sites nearby rather than a boat ride on the Spree which we had talked about the day before.

        When we arrived, we heard yelling in unison even before we were completely out of the S-Bahn station. That was our first indication that this was not an ordinary Saturday in Berlin. Over the next couple of hours we were in the midst of masses who were in town that day for the final soccer game of the year for the German leagues. Dortmund and Bayern were playing for what one man told me was the “super bowl” of soccer in Germany. It was incredible. Dortmund fans wearing yellow and black were everywhere when we first arrived. Many of the them were singing in unison and more than I cared to see were already in a pretty good mood with bottles and cans of bear in their hands walking along the streets.

        Our goal was KaDeWe and when we got out at Wittenburg Platz, it lie dead ahead of us. So too were many of the Dortmunders who were also headed to KaDeWe with their friends and families. This huge seven story department store was crammed with people. Nancy and I had been there in the ‘80s, but the interior seemed nothing like what we had seen before. On the other hand, the huge number of products were just what we remembered. Anything and everything you might want was somewhere in that store. The first flour was filled with Tiffany, Rolex, Omega, Bulgari, and every other designer name in jewelry, watches, and cosmetics. They were housed in their own designer rooms. Nancy walked into Tiffany’s to see if there was anything she liked. There wasn’t anything she didn’t like but nothing we could ever afford. From that floor all the way up to the top floor we found beautiful clothing, bags, everything imaginable and all designer brands.

        

We ended on the top floor with gourmet foods, baked goods, meats, candies, and even eateries. After sampling a bit, we took a few pictures, bought some wonderful chocolate and headed outside.

        At that point, we noticed more of the Bayern fans in Red and White who seemed a bit more subdued until we heard a sidewalk band of theirs working the fans into a pre-game frenzy. We were tired at this point. I had asked a few young Dortmund guys where the game would be held. They told me the Olympic Stadium. Then noticing my American accent and I’m sure my age they suggested that they had a couple of extra tickets that looked nothing like real tickets to me and said they would sell them to me. Going to a soccer game with these guys would not be in the spirit of our missionary calling even if the tickets had been real. Besides that, my companion would never have allowed me get near that beer-fevered crowd of “fußballrowdys” (hooligans). She was ready to go back right then.

        We ended our day doing the right things. We read scriptures together. Ironically, it involved Alma the younger in his wild days. We did get to his conversion, however, so all ended well.