Author Archives: ancholino

Turkish supermarkets in Berlin

I hope that you have already remarked that in Berlin lot of people coming from Turkey and everywhere you can see famous Doner kebabs and Borek! There’s also many Turkish supermarkets, so if you are adventurist and like to cook, I would like to propose what to try to make.
I have one recipe for you if you want to make something with sour cabbage. Actually, this recipe is from the origin Turkish Sarma-lahana rulo, and after was turned in Serbian way by adding the meet and sour cabbage. I call them cabbage sushi. My advice is to eat them with Turkish yogurt Ayran.

What I also like is Turkish bread, different from the toast bread from the supermarket, and here’s the reason: original Turkish bread is backed in a Turkish furnace, constructed from the bricks with small fire inside, so the taste is more like Italian pizza.
There’s one good mixed sour salad called Tursija: sauerkraut, pickles, pickled carrots and pickled cauliflower that you can buy in pots.
Turkish sweets are also very good. I like Kadayıf. Almost all Turkish sweets are dressed with about 1kg of sugar cooked in water so, the taste is really sweet, but easy to make! Turkish sweets are of course the best with Turkish thee and Turkish coffee.

Karneval der Kulturen

Was one very interesting event which brought one very positive and vibrating atmosphere in Berlin. It was organized in the last week of May. Festival took 4 days in overcrowded streets of Kreuzberg, when almost all quarter was blocked!! The main street for column of dancers from all world was Gneisenaustrasse.
On the top of one troupe was a boy with a board with the name of the country, and behind him was a music box and girls in traditional costumes who were dancing.
Everywhere apart were stands with drinks, beers, cocktails, loud music and other people were also dancing. It was one spring-summer atmosphere which mixed Brazilian carnival mood and positive mood of crowds of people from summer Ibiza’s parties, and all that in the middle of capital city of Germany!!
In one square were stands with a lot of exotic food from all over the world, so we had opportunity to taste dried coco- chips, to drink from coconuts with a pipe, to eat African’s specialties and a lot of others tasty dishes.

Trabi

Trabi Or Trabant was one of the most popular cars in Eastern Germany and in other communist countries. His name means Satellite and was inspired by Soviet space ship Sputnik. Today, this car is trendy and one of the symbols of Berlin. We can frequently see it rolling on the streets, in Berlin Mitte.
First model – Trabant 500- was made in 1957, model Trabant 601 has been modified as a limousine. The last model that was built is Trabant 1.1, was popular in 1990-1991.
Times magazine 2008 rated it between 50 the worst cars ever made. One of the reason for such a bad rating is the pollution he produces which is about 10 times more than the eco- limits today. This sweetie is made from organic materials: cotton and soft plastic, and the funny thing about it is we can see a pig eating Trabi in one of the Emir Kusturica’s film.
But, anyway people in Berlin like it so much, so you can easily book it, and make one city tour  and be prepared it is not so cheep!

Zoo in Berlin

One thing that you should definitely visit in Berlin is Zoo. He is ranged among top 10 zoos in the world. The most famous zoos in the world are located in Toronto, Singapore, San Diego. The biggest in Europe is Berlin’s and after comes Vienna’s Schonbrunner and French Beauval Zoo. Today in Berlin zoo lives about 17 727 animals (1571 sorts) and 7.629 animals (865 sorts) in Tierpark.
Berlin Zoo is located near the west side of Tiergarten, the biggest and the most famous park in Berlin, close to Zoologischegarten U-bahn station.
First grand opening was in 1844, and during the Second World War, Zoo was completely destroyed, just 91 animals survived… After that is reconstructed and today it is one of the most beautiful attractions in town.
This place is also famous his endangered species: Giant Panda Bao Bao who firstly came in East part of Berlin in 1980 as a 2 years old gift from Chinese government. You can see him rolling down on the ground on his back and eating bamboo. This amazing scene you can see just in 3 zoo in Europe, and in few more in the world.
During the last years, in Zoo were born after 30 years the first polar bears, and this was a big attraction! His name was Knut, he was like a toy, completely white with his eyes like small buttons, but he was sick, and he died when he was 5 years old.
There’s also too many others animals: gorila, anteater, rhino, also red-legged seriema (bird) king vulture, grey wolf, tayra and lot of others.

European NY

Hello my dear new friends and welcome to Berlin!  I hope that you are having a good time here, that everything is going well!! I hope that you have already done your first city tour and that you like the city!! If not, I’m giving you advice to look in any Starbucks for a free city map.This map is actually advertizing free city tour, so all info regarding the tour you can find on this map.I took this tour and guide was awesome so I can really recommended it.
As you can see, Berlin is city full of different vibrations- old Western and Eastern, and today city of freedom, city of hipsters, city where the fashion is out of rules and orders!! I was shocked with too many people with dirty clothes and hair like there’s no bathrooms and hairdressers, drinking beer on the streets and U-bahns, and walking with the street’s dogs I was like: ‘’Mama mia, save me’’!!
Later on, actually after 6 months living here, I feel better now, but I still repeat the sentence: ‘’… and all this cultural schock that can attack you when you go down in the Berlin’s subway…. ‘’ Actually, the last photo I saw on facebook was a 50 years old naked guy with a beer in his hand, seating in the u-bahn so relaxed like he was just going home after working day. This was very bizarre.
The most representative places where you can see this unique spirit of modern Berlin are around U-bahn Warsauerstrasse, Squats all painted in graffiti, with strange people with heavily pierced on their bodies or people with three different haircoulours wearing two different shoes!
There’s some people who don’t like them at all, and there’s no hope that they will change their opinion

My advices

As a professor of French and Latin and also student auf Deutcsh, I have already developed some methods of learning one language, so I can give you some advices:
The most important is to learn and practice by yourself, on the first place this means to take a look on your notes few hours every day after class and to do homework. Good grammar base is important for speak language properly, so when you finish your homework, go online and find free grammar exercises, and be in a rush for a higher score.
Also you need to be motivated, to find the text in German that you are interested in: articles, books and newspapers, and even if you don’t understand it’s important just to try. Internet is a gold treasure for learning foreign languages.
Good idea is to make your own vocabulary, take a look around you, find the first theme and then write all the words coming to your mind in that moment- for example let’s take food as a theme, and start writing all associating words: drinks, fruits… continue with the recepies- cooking, baking, than in the restaurant- how to order, menu… Also you need to know that the best method of learning words is by repeating, so after writing, you cover your list and try to repeat.
Finally, most important is to be free in conversation, not to get scared that you will be wrong, it’s better to say even if that is wrong than not to say and not to practice.

Welcome to DeutschAkademie!!

Hello! My name is Ana and I’m your new blogger. I speak 5 languages and I’ve started to learn German this year. I’ve finished at the Faculty of Philology so I would like to share my experience with you. I have passed through a lot of language schools and seen different methods of teaching and different profiles of students, so I think that I can tell you that we all have chosen a good one.
Firstly, Deutschakademie has a good price 205e for 4 weeks intensive course. Location is also good.
DeutschAkademie has a reputation of school attracting usually motivated students. Studyng with these young people is always interesting, nevertheless the atmosphere is balanced between work and relaxation.
The professor is well organized and serious when we are working but doesn’t have the profile of one of those who the students are afraid of, so this is an ideal mix of quiet relaxed atmosphere and hard work. She gives good explanations, so we are making a good gramatic base with lots of examples, and that’s really important to speak a language properly. The books that we use are a good choice, and the vocabulary that we are passing is according with languages standards for one level.