A little over a week ago one of the Circus team got married. Indeed, for Konny and his lovely bride Cami it was their 3rd wedding…and Jared went along to the Dorfkirche Blankenfelde to celebrate with them…
A few of us ventured out to see be part of this very special day. Toga and I made our plans on Friday of where to meet and I put Reiseleiter Lorenz in charge of the directions. We both met in front of the Burger King on Saturday morning, and both dressed to impress in our suits. Toga had his google directions and off we went on a two hour and fourty five minute journey to the bowels of Pankow.
I thought we would just jump on a S-Bahn and then need to catch a bus but little did I know that we were jumping on the U-6 to the very end Alt-Tegel. It all started off pretty calm but the further we got on the U-6 line the more Toga and I were highly over dressed compared to the locals going about their normal Saturday business.
We arrived at Alt-Tegel and I was dying for a beer but Toga told me not before a wedding. I held out and had a look around at a part of the city that I had never really seen and admired that this was still Berlin and an undiscovered part of the city. We jumped on the bus 205 – a nice double decker – and made ourselves comfortable since we had a 35 minute ride through the city. Toga was so convinced that we would be on the public transport for so long that we would leave the zone B so we both bought ABC tickets. On the way home we found out that we never left zone B.
The bus got away from busy city and ended up on extremely narrow streets most of which were still paved of stone. There were actually little houses and again was a real eye opener to a different part of Berlin. Toga and I kept looking at each other thinking we felt sorry for the people that had to make this commute everyday.
We neared our stop Toga hit the stop button but being in foreign land we noticed the next stop was one beyond where we were to meet our connecting bus.
Toga and I hopped off cursing the bus driver since it was only one bus stop but the distance between the two stops was about 3ks. Toga rolled a ciggy but had no time to smoke it since the next bus back was arriving quick. We both ran out little hearts off and made it back to the stop we were originally intended to get off at.
Of course we had a twenty minute wait so we watited hoping that someone in the middle of a two way road in the middle of no where would recognize that two guys dressed in suits were not waiting to take a bus ride but that we desperately needed to get to the church for a wedding.
The bus arrived we jumped on with only minutes to spare till the wedding was about to start. We saw Julia and were very happy to see someone that we knew and she also had her own story about her journey. This would not be the last one either.
We made it to the church a little nervours that we would not know where it was but there was a large gang of other people dressed up and in suits so we knew we were in the right place.
Konny came running out to greet us and ushered everyone into the church. I think he wanted to get the show on the road.
We entered a small very intimate church the organ started kicking some toons and then Konny and Cami came down the isle. We sang some songs listened to a very nice story from the priest about how Konny and Cami met and the rest I have no idea. I know that Steffi from the café snuck in with Matthew. They also encountered some problems with the public transportation.
They did the I dos and I think Cami also wanted to get the party because she I doed before the priest was even finished.
That being done we left the church went outside for some group photos (see photo attached) greeted the newly weds and headed up the road for a bit of sekt, cofffe and cake, beer and dinner.
Walking just 100 meters from the church to Konnys family house we saw the famous restaurant the Blue Duck. Steffi had seen this place on TV. It was one of those shows where a chef comes in and tells them what they need to do to improve the place. The only one that saw the inside was Steffi because there was some sort of goat farm across the road where to goats seemed to be penned in a fence. I personally thought this was some sort of breeding enhancer but everyone insured me this was animal cruelty. After Steffi did her deed of letting the restaurant know people came frantically running out to save the goats.
Once we finally got to Konny’s house we drank some sekt, everyone else had coffee and cake, The place where Konny grew up was an amazing place. He must have had great time as a kid. A huge front lawn to play in and a great back yard with a nice area for grilling, a covered kind of open barn for having partys and I think they might even have had a sauna. What a great place to grow up and have parties at while the parents are away. I drank more sekt, got the Circus crew another bottle of sekt and we had a few glasses more in the sun. We had some good laughs, well Steffi had a lot because she is a cheap drunk and after two sips she couldn’t stop laughing or talking the rest of the day.
There was a little show hosted by Lars with Konny and Cami’s friends doing little skits. After that the keg had been popped we drank some beer and had some dinner. By this time the Circus crew was a bit tipsy, full from dinner and was dreading the long way home. We said our goo byes despite everyone wanting us to stay because they assured us that the real party was going to start.
We had to leave walked by the petting zoo to make sure Steffis goats were ok and jumped on the bus. The bus driver was very nice and complemented us on our attire. We decided to jump off and wait for the tram 1. There were a few more complications but in the end we all made it home in one piece.
It was a great day full of traveling to new places, meeting new people, good laughs, and great food, and I would like to thank Konny and Cami for having me. I wish you all the best of luck in the future.
As you might know, we have our very own Jim at The Circus, who in the spirit of 
(Jared and some friends go to watch the football…or, what the Circus staff do in their spare time…Who’s Who from left to right: Andrew, Toga, Josefine, Sean, Bernie, Konny, Jared and Cami )
Another week, another batch of fun stuff as recommended by Admiral Andrew, head of the Circus Fleet of Fun, who has put together his regular round-up of things going on at the Circus as well as around town. With Live Music, football on the big screen, plus the legendary Carnival of Cultures which is coming to Berlin this weekend, there should be something that you will find amusing…check it out:
A nice picture, and a nice story. Manfred Beier was a teacher and a photographer, who took tens of thousands of photographs during his life of both the two Germanys that emerged following the second world war. When he died in 2002 he left his collection of over 60,000 negatives and slides to his family, who worked with the National Archives in Germany to make this wonderful record of everyday life in the two Germanys available to the general public.
And here he is…unlike his big sister, Thomas James was impatient to join the world, and did so on the 10th April. Mama Willemien is a little bit tired, 
Jim is our man for the more weird and wonderful corners of Berlin, but he also knows how to do Berlin on the cheap. With that in mind he has created a bus tour for those who do not want to pay the money to the commercial tour operators, and would rather hop on and off a genuine Berlin city bus, rubbing shoulders with the type of characters who you only seem to find on big city public tranportation.
