Berlin

so... one of our favourite activities in a new country is to wander round a supermarket picking out the different items and, especially if we're in a self-catering apartment (as we do for cooking fun + cheapness), we load up with a stack of stuff to take back and enjoy... Today we're in Berlin and, after our wonderful 5 hour guided bike ride around the city in the sun, we loaded up at the supermarket with sweet and savoury quark varieties, a few bottles of weissbier to sample, sauerkraut, random sausage cuts and so on. Wonderful! (except for the beer bottle that dropped out of our basket and smashed on the ground in the process...) We get to the check out, scan everything through, struggle to fit it all into two large bags (of course the Germans have been recycling and doing other environmentally-friendly things for decades longer than the rest of us, so bags must be bought everywhere). Then we try to pay. Nup, AMEX doesn't work (no big deal, sometimes that happens), but then they say they also don't take VISA or VISA debit! So, after over 50 euros of food has been carefully selected, scanned and packed, we are embarrassed that we can't pay - after some hunting, we find an ATM, withdraw cash, and back at the supermarket, ALL the goods have to be re-scanned and re-packed before we pay and trek back to our place hugging the large bags to prevent them busting open. hehe - fortunately didn't take too long before we were laughing about it! more on Berlin to follow... : )