‘Am I a Berliner?’ is not a question the duck and I ever ask ourselves, because the simple answer is ‘no’. We have neither lived in this iconic city long enough to declare ourselves true people of Berlin (and there might even be a rule that you need to be born and grow up in Berlin to ever be considered a true Berliner), nor are we jelly donuts. We also didn’t know that jelly donuts aren’t even called Berliner here (as they are in other parts of Germany) until several months into our Berlin (non-)adventure. They are called Pfannkuchen, ‘pancakes’. And this is just one of the many things that we didn’t know about before moving here. In fact, the duck and I still get confused on a regular basis when we hear yet another unknown word, or one that has a completely different meaning outside of Berlin.
Take the jelly donut, for example. Depending on who (and where) you ask, you might even be told that its rightful name is Kreppel, or is it Krapfen? Wait, are Krapfen filled? And didn’t I hear someone call them Faschingsküchle, ‘carnival cakes’, or is that another kind of pastry? If you are looking for answers to those questions, you will probably not find them here. Sorry. The duck and I have another question, though: Continue reading
The Duck in... side 