When John F. Kennedy famously proclaimed "Ich bin ein Berliner" in 1963, the world cackled in mockery. In German, the president of the United States had just called himself a jelly doughnut. This gaffe(?) is still discussed and quoted today!
Still, walking around Berlin last night, I noticed quite a few stores with the word "Berliner" in their names. Could this be a city of doughnut shops? Beer taps and banks and delicatessens alike bore the mark of the "Berliner". Maybe, just maybe, the word could be used as JFK had intended it - to refer to a citizen of Berlin?
I've found a couple of opinions here and here.
Anyway, later on I was talking to some Irish girls back at the hostel and I mentioned that I'm from the Boston area. They got very excited: "Dunkin' Donuts is in Boston!" Apparently they'd visited Boston once and fallen in love with DD. There are no Dunkin' Donuts stores in Ireland, so this has been a big problem for them. Yesterday they actually tried to go to the Dunkin Donuts in Berlin but it was geschlossen.
On the subject of commerce, it is very difficult to keep clean-shaven when airport security constantly steals your shaving cream. I took a quick walk in the rain this morning to try to find a convenience store, but Sunday is not a great day for business in Berlin. Most of the larger stores aren't open and the smaller ones only sell beer and apples. (I'm not really kidding.)
I found two stores with shaving products. One had a single Gillette Fusion razor, the belle of the ball, stocked proudly on a well-visible shelf. The other had two identical Gillette Fusions and three different types of Nivea after-shave. Neither had shaving cream.
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