What a fun, different day we had today! We were dragging a bit from yesterday's long walking tour of Berlin, so we thought we'd try to stay off of our feet a little more than we have. David decided he needed a haircut and I decided I needed a manicure. He also wanted to go to Zinn Figuren, a store he had read about where they make and paint their own metal toy soldiers. We had also read about a department store there, Kaufhaus des Westens, more widely known as KaDeWe and we wanted to see how it compared to Harrod's. It was built in 1905 and opened in 1907.
After breakfast we headed out to check out a nail shop just one street over from the hotel. We found it easily but they had no openings for appointments for the entire week! We walked a few more blocks to a place where David was told he could get his haircut and it was a walk in place so he decided to get a haircut then and there. I walked back to the hotel and called the nail salon at KaDeWe and was able to get an appointment for 6:30 that evening.
When David returned, we headed out to do a little shopping. David was able to navigate the subway to get us to KaDeWe, located in southwestern Berlin. First off we decided to have something to eat. When we entered the store a security guard greeted us and David asked him where we could have lunch. He named like five restaurants in the store!!! We went to the chocolate cafe (of course) and you know we both loved that. I had an ice cream sundae with chocolate ice cream and vanilla sauce which was wonderful and David had warm rice pudding with cinnamon. He said it was the best dessert of the trip! Really???
We then decided to part ways for awhile and David left me there while he went to Zinn Figuren to shop. We set a time to meet later at the department store. I carefully walked around each and every floor. It was chock full of designer shops and designer shoes but I really didn't find anything I wanted to buy. The store itself was much more friendly and welcoming than Harrod's in London, that's for sure!
I finished shopping before the set time to meet David so I went outside to enjoy the nice weather and people watch. I walked across the plaza to a bank and withdrew more euro. I still had a little while to wait so I sat down on the steps on the side of the department store. I sat there for quite a while watching the world go by and then . . . up walks a security guard!!! I wasn't allowed to sit on the steps because it was posted "no loitering." Of course David happened to walk up right when I was being scolded by the security guard.
He was surprised I didn't buy anything -- he had better luck at Zinn Figuren. He purchased six marching German soldiers manufactured sometime between the two world wars; some were made from a material called Lineol and others were made from something called Elastolin. He also purchased another collectible soldier, metal, that was made and painted there that was a Wehrmacht soldier from 1944 in Winter dress with an MG 42 machine gun.
We still had awhile to wait until my nail appointment so we sat in the plaza and had coke lights and then walked up and down the street in front of KaDeWe where there were many more stores. We ducked into some of these stores and marveled at the cool and hip clothes.
While I got my nails done, David wandered around the toy department at KaDeWe. He said it was the biggest collection of die cast cars, trucks, farm equipment, airplanes, and motorcycles he had ever seen. He described it as die cast heaven! He said just think of a car old or new and they had it in 1/24 or 1/18 scale in die cast.
We took the subway back to our hotel offloaded our shopping bags and decided because we had been out shopping all day and were tired, we would just eat at the hotel. We had a couple of gin and tonics first, of course! I don't really remember what I had for dinner so it must not have been great. David had "pasta pockets" which were large raviolis stuffed with spinach and cheese. He really liked his dinner. Then it was bedtime for us!
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