It was a strawberry, at the canal, with the Brötchen

Spring is here! Spring is here!
The past few days have been all sun, open windows, and fresh breezes. My second semester at Humboldt also started on Tuesday, so I have spent less time in the kitchen. Across the street from a couple of my classes, however, is a BioMarkt which has just begun its sidewalk display of gorgeous, glistening produce. Thus, in the past three days, I have eaten three 500g baskets of strawberries. That's breakfast, lunch, and dinner, folks (supplemented, of course), and I couldn't be happier.

The somewhat mutant berries here were my lunch today, as I sat on a concrete pedestal, my back against a tree, along the bank of a canal in Kreuzberg (near Kottbusser Tor). I had expected there to be a huge produce market, but as it turned out, I was a day early, so I got to spend some time sitting in the sun and making sketches of passerby.

Here is a strawberry innards shot, inspired by Robyn's Flicker group and the juiciness of this particular specimen:

The free-with-purchase of this photograph are the shimmering canal waters and my right hand (anyone else here left handed?). I am still figuring out the new camera, and it is a lot of fun, even without a manual.
These berries aren't quite at their peak yet, but really, each 500g package is a whole €-.75, or less than a dollar! Considering what it costs for a much less colorful, transportable, fresh, organic meal in the cafeteria, the BioMarkt gods are offering up an amazing deal. The produce man there even knows me by now (how many people spend five minutes picking a basket of berries at 12:30 three days in a row?), and today put together a basket of the best just for me.
I love making friends with people who provide me food. The woman who runs the BioLaden right by my apartment consistently lets my roommate and I know what we need at home:

"Has Bernhard bought milk yet today?"
"Not yet, but he did say that he brought home bread from work so you don't need any right now."
"Great. Did you get any more of that yogurt in? That's the kind he likes, right?"
"Oh yes, you two should try..."

It makes this city that much smaller, not to mention our relationships with the floury baker and his soft-spoken wife down the road, or the enthusiastic bartender and tattooed cook from the pub across the corner.

Incidentally, right next to the strawberry-laden BioMarkt is a little bakery (called Tuna Bäckerei, I believe, for no discernable reason), where I stopped in to round out my lunch with--what else?-- bread! This kind of brötchen is called Kraftmeier Brötchen, which is like a Weltmeister except there is carrot in the dough, which sweetens and lightens the whole-grain experience a bit. My favorite part is tearing off the first crusty corner piece. Mmm.

This photograph also marks the first time I received spoken comments on taking pictures of a 50 cent piece of food in a (bustling) public place. And when I say "comments" I mean "criticism," and when I say "received," I mean "overheard," and "overheard" in a way that I was no doubt intended to. But really. This is a city of four millionpeople. I think there are stranger things happening on these streets.