Today was sunny. At breakfast we sat outside again, choosing a nice shady spot. But I noticed that everyone else sitting outside had chosen seats in direct sunlight. And what’s more, they were all facing the same direction, into the sun, with the sun shining straight into their face and eyes. And none of them had hats on. Europeans are very weird…
I checked for some local markets within walking distance and found that there was a market at Wittenbergplatz on Thursdays, just a block from our hotel. This gave my wife her plan for the day, although she also had the option of walking half an hour to the art museums in the Kulturforum museum district.
The ISO meeting today began with a technical session on machine vision, a relatively new project to standardise industry methods for applications in robotic vision applications. After that we began the winding-down administrative sections of the Working Group, going over action items, future work, future meetings, and so on. I had a break of a couple of hours in the afternoon, before the Chair Advisory Group meeting in the evening from 17:00-18:30.
The break began just after 14:30 and I went back to the hotel to meet up with M. It was very warm outside, but we used the time to go on a walk to explore more of the surrounding areas of Berlin. We walked east along Kleiststraße to Nollendorfplatz, then southwest through the Nollendorfkiez district of Schöneberg to Viktoria-Luise-Platz. Nollendorfkiez was clearly a gay neighbourhood, with plenty of colourful establishments and eye-catching sights. Viktoria-Luise-Platz was a nice plaza with a fountain and grassy areas cut by paths. A group of people were filming something in one corner. As we left to cosine a helpful man asked us if we needed any help navigating, but we said we were fine, happy to explore at random. From here we continued west through a very nice looking neighbourhood, with well-kept old apartment buildings with nice gardens. We eventually turned north to head back to our hotel.
Once near the hotel, we stopped in at a cafe for my wife to get an iced latte. It had been a very warm walk. After this we went back to the hotel, where I picked up my meeting bag and headed back to the DIN office for the Chair Advisory Group meeting. My wife waited in the hotel until I was done. During the meeting, Dietmar warned everyone that there would be a thunderstorm hitting Berlin soon. I kept an eye on the weather radar on my laptop and thought it might interrupt our walk to our dinner booking tonight, and possibly my walk back from the meeting to the hotel.
The meeting ended a bit early, with the storm bearing down on Berlin and the skies going pitch black. I rushed out and ran the two blocks back to the hotel, with skaters of rain beginning. Partway there the wind picked up tremendously and I had to lean right into it to make headway. I managed to get back to the hotel with only a few fat drops of rain on my clothes. By the time I got upstairs to our room and looked out the window, it was raining heavily. So I was very lucky to have made it.
And then within ten or fifteen minutes it was over. I knew it wouldn’t last long and suggested we wait it out before walking out to dinner. Fortunately we had some extra time because of the early finish to the meeting. We headed out with a very light sprinkle still in effect, but it stopped after a few minutes and the clouds blew away as fast as they arrived. The storm had cooled down the temperature considerably, which was good as it was a hot day.
We walked east back towards Nollendorfplatz and then turned south down a different street until we found Bonvivant Cocktail Bistro. This is a high end vegan restaurant and bar, which does a five or six course tasting menu, with optional cocktail pairings for each course. We chose the five course meal, but added the extra chef’s specialty dish, and just had separate drinks rather than the full pairing set.
The meal was amazing. Each course had incredible flavours and textures combined in unusual ways to make something that was a delight to the senses. And our waiter was extremely friendly and gave us just the right amount of attention, and was very patient with our questions about the food, the drinks, the restaurant in general.
The whole meal took almost three hours, and we left just after 22:00 for the walk back to our hotel. The weather had cooled down and was a bit breezy, but I found it pleasant and refreshing after the heat of the day. We got back to our hotel and had showers to freshen up before bed. (No photos today because I don’t want to stay up even later uploading and labelling them…)