Today was a busy city day! Mark and I got up around 8 (after having slept much better), went to the bakery for rolls, had breakfast and then, when Kai was up and ready as well, walked downtown with him (it’s about 2 kilometers / 1.5 miles), and went shopping. Kai had birthday money to spend and wanted to by art supplies for sketching and loose-leaf tea. We also needed to get more cash and sort out some ticketing issues for future trips at the train station. Again, it was very nice weather, and Kai clearly enjoyed walking around with us and visiting old haunts from the year he, Kati and I spent living here–including the comic/card shop and his favorite outdoor lunch place, “Bottled,” where we had salad and french fries for lunch. We walked all over the downtown area, visited many different shops, and finished off our day with fancy ice cream at an Italian gelato store that was also one of our favorites back in 2009/10. We walked back home, so that we’d probably walked about 5 miles, and we were pretty tired out when we got home. We took a brief nap, and then had coffee and some lovely pastries with Imke and a neighborhood couple, whom we won’t be able to see again while we are here. Then we packed a suitcase for a week up north that starts tomorrow, and had dinner (food seems to be a central focus of our holiday existence), followed by some basic art lessons for Kai and a slightly earlier bedtime than the last few days.