It's a material world

Friday! On Fridays the archive reading room closes early, at 4 o'clock, well before the closing hour of most stores. And so today, after wrapping up work, my friend (and archive buddy) E. and I went shopping. We walked up Veteranstraße, past the Zionskirche, a now rather dilapidated church, where Dietrich Bonhoeffer had once preached ( a true Christian, he died in prison for opposition to Nazism, one of the few pastors in Germany who openly resisted the Third Reich), down Konstanienallee, into the Prenzlauerberg district. In this now hip area of the former East, cute cafes, bars, and boutiques flourish. Had one deep wallets, fashion heaven lies thither, the land of ingeniusly designed dresses, skirts, and shoes. As for poor grad students, browsing is free, and gnawing pangs of temptation a cheap price to pay for a glimpse into the materialist world.

Having looked our fill, E. and I turn to Kathie Kollwitz Platz and had dinner at a Italian restaurant manned by actual Italians. This might account for the delightful taglioni I chose- thick noodles with a texture to them. As we ate, the long promised thunder storms arrived, and the rain fell in sheets of water.