7 May 2006

Breathless in Berlin

Ah - Berlin in the Springtime!

The sun is shining, the trees are in bloom, and a gentle breeze is blowing. Yup – blowing all the pollen into our sinuses so that all of us are suffering from some form of hayfever!

Still, it’s nice to have the sun, and not the cold, wet and sometimes snow that I’ve had on my other visits here.

Yesterday was beautiful. After breakfast down the road at a local café where we sat outside and ate delicious plates of breakfast things, we came home to sit in the garden and commune with nature – pollen, Mata Hari the cat and Ginger the squirrel.



Late afternoon, and we were in the car for my first tour of Berlin, other than what I have seen from the car travelling between the office and J’s house!


It truly is a beautiful city with lots of statues on all the old buildings. It’s quite incredible to see pre-war buildings standing side-by-side with more recent buildings that were constructed on bombsites after WWII.


Observations from being here:

- church bells sound as regularly as the call to prayer in Dubai
- shopping here is great – so much variety and clothes are inexpensive
- living in the middle of a city can be quiet
- there is hardly any traffic
- the pollen is driving us crazy
- everything runs on time


I finally got to go on a river cruise. After seeing these boats travelling past our Berlin office on the River Spree each day, I was actually on one! We motored mainly through the government section, past the house of parliament, the chancellor’s monstrosity down to the new railway station which will soon open to accept long distance trains. The cruise lasted an hour and was only €5.


I won’t be posting regularly for the next few weeks as we’re about to get really busy with product launches, trainings, meetings and travel. See you on the other side!

12 comments:

moryarti said...

that ice cream looks so FINE! :)

nzm said...

Trust me - it was!

Better than JR's cheesecake! lol

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

The weather is finally turning in Europe. yes, even Sweden. we've had real summer weather and I try have all my meals in the balcony by my olive tree :)

Yummy ice cream. Take care and all the best with the launches and meetings etc.

By the way, we must talk more about the launch of our CFMW line. We don't want non muslim women to miss out do we? lol

nzm said...

SS - yes, the weather is gorgeous, and it sounds like heaven on the balcony!

I forgot to mention that the ice cream was actually from New Zealand - can you believe it?! :-)

As for the perfume line, do you think that CFNMW & CFNMM would work for the female and male non-muslim range? lol

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

Well it would probably work, question is: do they wish to recieve the attention that wearing such perfume might entail... lol

Walking on the streets is no longer safe...

nzm said...

That's true.

Do non-muslim women have the confidence to put up with the crowds of adoring fans?

Maybe we have to do a diluted version for them? :-)

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

lol, the eau de parfum can be for CFMW and eau de toilette for CFNMW!

Seriously though...wouldn't wanna wish such attention on anyone, let alone my non muslim sisters.

Razaldo said...

Amazing photographs. Especially the one of the sunset in Dubai from the earlier post.

Mind sharing which camera do you use?

Blogger said...

amazing blog

nzm said...

Hi riddle and moona - welcome to our blog and thanks for the comments.

I mostly use a little Canon Ixus 400 for most of my shooting. I also have a Canon G5 which I mostly shoot with a wide angle adapter lens. The sunset was taken with the Ixus.

The Team said...

Really enjoy your blog! What nice discovery:) And you photographs are fantastic!

nzm said...

thanks snob in the city!

I've been visiting your blog for a few months now, and enjoy reading it too!