The taxi driver taking us to our hotel started to chat as we pulled out of Berlin airport. By the time we had merged into the Autobahn a few minutes later, it was evident he was in no mood to stop. We were his last ride of the day, our destination on the same side of the city as his apartment. The possibility of a quick trip home after drop-
off seemed to have energised him into conversation. He told us a bit about himself, a lifetime cabby interrupted only during Covid lockdown when he retrained as a subway driver, while pausing to point out city sights along the way. After we'd passed a famous kebap stall, Potsdamer Platz and the tunnel under the river, I saw rows of metal poles appear intermittently on the side of the road. Is that where the wall originally stood, I asked. He confirmed and added, the poles were 
installed as an exemplar.
Exemplar. The use of this word triggered a mild fascination I've held for how fluent English speakers in the mainland are drawn to certain turns of phrase. The next few days of walking Berlin's streets offered a leisurely study of other such predilections through a steady 
appearance of cafés and restaurants with English names. The levels of sophistication with word play were a variable mix. Two Trick Pony and Long Story Short were crisp and smart. Journey into the night and A never ever ending love story were too sincere and tedious. Coffee drink your monkey and Go Sally Go were downright unfathomable, although 
the last one made sense once I'd researched it – it was a song by Kevin Coyne, an English singer who moved to Nuremberg before his career took off.
The crosstown walks also cemented my first impression of Berlin as a not conventionally pretty European city. But persist with it, and the sheer variety on offer is proof that this is not a bad thing. The cafés, galleries and street art of Kreuzberg all lived up to their grungy hype, contrasting with the genteel sophistication of the 
buildings and boulevards in Potsdam and Charlottenburg. The Hansaviertel post-war social housing project was an outstanding modernist oasis. Knoblauchhaus Museum, a townhouse owned by a wealthy bourgeois family in the mid-1800s, was a peep into a zeitgeist well before the dark clouds of the 20th century started to gather above the city.
The biggest diamond in the rough was the decommissioned Tempelhof airport, now a playing field for walkers, joggers, rollerbladers and artists. Walking down the length of the runway was the stuff of bucket lists.
Bücherbogen was an art and architecture bookshop 
occupying a large section of the railway arches under the S-Bahn tracks. The limited English language selection left me browsing titles I wouldn't have given a second glance elsewhere – a London photo book, a list of walking tours of Manhattan filming locations, an Elvis FAQ.
A German restaurant near our hotel had senfeier (eggs in mustard sauce) on its menu. The waiting time for a table was longer than we were prepared to expend on our last night in the city. Although I was unable to set the reference point for my effort, the recipe was simple enough for imagination to fill the gap.
I boiled eggs and potatoes. I melted 25g of butter in a saucepan. I added 25g of flour and a pinch of sugar. I stirred on low heat until the roux turned light brown. I added 1 cup each of chicken stock and milk and continued cooking until the sauce had thickened. I took the pan off the heat. I whisked in 4 tablespoons of mustard, then added salt and pepper to taste. I doused the eggs and potatoes with the sauce and served.
The senfeier was gloriously unctuous, an exemplar of a winter warmer. Leckerschmecker!
Krishnan
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