At 7:00am the family was on the plane and there I was on my own. I grabbed a chocolate croissant from the bakery in the airport and a coffee from Starbucks and jumped on the bus home. Back at home, I finished a bunch of little projects — getting pictures copied onto the PC, a few posts, started doing insurance reimbursements, getting ready for terrace cleaning project with our cleaning person, etc.
I met another local papa who had come back from an overnight camping party by a lake and needed “hangover help”. While it wasn’t my plan, we ended up going to the Bird for massive burgers. It was well executed — snagging outside seats without much hassle. And I ate the whole burger, which I usually share with Chika. A mistake, as I ended up going home and lying in bed for a while to recover. I think I heard “moo” every time I opened my mouth. Finally I did make it for a short gym workout until my colleague Mark pinged me for our planned dinner (which I was not vaguely hungry for). I proposed we bike down to the canal in Kreuzberg to an asian restaurant, and with the long summer days in Berlin we had a pleasant ride down to Chan. Decent food, not amazing, but pleasant place to sit outside on a summer evening. We decided to do a bit more exploring on the way home riding down the canal searching for one more drink. We didn’t succeed (the sake bar was closed), but ended up stumbling on a pool hall (a serendipitous event, since Mark had just asked 10 minutes earlier if I shot pool). We couldn’t ignore the omen, so went to check it out. My rusty skills magically came back to some extent, and even won the first game. Finally it was time to head home — we decided to be safe papa’s and bring the bikes back on the tram.
