Wo ist die bibliothek?

Yesterday was our first day of our life together in Berlin. And the first port of call was the library*. Thanks to google, I was able to find out that our closest library was: Ingeborg-Drewitz-Bibliothek and I have a handy mapbook of Berlin (1:15000) which is perfect for working out how to get places.

We were able to walk there, and took a rather scenic route through a memorial garden (grave yard).

The library itself is on the third floor of a shopping centre called “Das Schloss”. It is well stocked with books in both German and English, sheet music (arranged in sections that include “Kammermusik mit Klavier” and “Kammermusik ohne Klavier”), audiobooks, DVDs, and board games.

It has an electronic piano for trying things out, and a Grand Piano for… well I think it is probably for recitals, but this is a question that needs an answer!

The joining fee is 10 euros a year for adults – this gives you a card that allows you take out 60 media items and can be used in any public library in Berlin. The card for children is free. To get the cards we needed our passports and some sort of proof of address.

Here is a photograph of some of the stuff that I took out:

Here is a photograph of the relevant page in my handy Cityatlas.

*There was obviously some discussion about what we should do first, but my suggestion won this time: Alain’s vote was “swimming pool”, and Little wanted to go to the zoo. We went to swimming pool later in the afternoon, and the zoo is planned for today. Hopefully it will stop raining.