I'd been told that Berlin's equivalent of Harrods was not far from the hotel and that they had an amazing food floor. We decided to head down there for a bit of shopping and some grub. After being attacked by a bear, Guy and I went up to the 7th floor to indulge ourselves in the buffet. There were different sections (seafood, pasta, salads, etc.) and each was priced differently. I wasn't sure how they would calculate what you had at the til and it took us a good 10 minutes to realise that the plates in each section were different colours and you were supposed to take a different plate for each section. After realising this was the case Guy added his matchbox sized slice of mackerel to my seafood deciding that a whole plate for that was a bit of overkill. The seafood was 9.95 Euros per 100g and the salad was 2.55 Euros for 100g.
I've been stung with this kind of thing before. In New York I thought the Whole Foods salad buffet looked fantastic. There were small, medium and large salad containers. I just went ahead and put a bit of everything in there not realising that I was being charged by weight. I got to the check out and nearly fainted when they weighed it. Not only did it cost a small fortune but once I sat down to eat it I realised that I wasn't even that hungry.
Guy and I got to the till and the girl at the checkout put my dish of salad on the scale....... 16 Euros!!! 16 EUROS!!!! For a bowl of salad. It was at this point that I wished I'd learned to cook - only so I'd have a better idea of what 100g was. I thought for a minute that she hadn't spotted the seafood plate. Unfortunately I was wrong. She weighed that and it's subtotal didn't show up on the screen, I just saw the final tally of 50 Euros! I don't think I've ever paid that much for a meal in my life. Certainly not for a bowl of salad and a few pieces of salmon.
The Pick'n'mix rule is as many flying saucers as you want but no fudge. In this case I'd have been laughing if I'd stuck with the lettuce but fish cakes and salmon burn a hole in your wallet. You've been warned!
J
I've also been slave driving Bob and Guy to learn German. I had a book with the 100 most used English words in German. Today we reached 100. It seems that's only the tip of the iceberg though. They have genders and weird ways that words change. I'm sure it's no more difficult than English and I'm sure I learned some of this stuff at school but I really wasn't interested then. I learned yesterday that in German a toilet is female when you're going to it and male when you leave. What's the deal with that?
