My sister doesn’t really eat breakfast. On vacation she’ll brunch or eat an early lunch, but she doesn’t eat when she first gets up. I do. I do because I know that it could be hours before we eat, and my body needs energy to do all the walking we’ll no doubt have to do to get to the place we’ll be eating at. This is why I travel with granola bars, so that I can eat something when I wake up and tide myself over until food time.

On our first full day in Berlin we planned to brunch/lunch at Fassbender & Rausch’s Chocolate Café, which is a wonderful magical place of deliciousness with chocolate and cakes and marzipan and it is simply the best thing ever.

What it is not is a typical café with croissants and muffins and breads. You’d think that they’d carry a chocolate croissant or chocolate muffins or chocolate chip loaf, but they’re all about pralines and tortes and ice creams – delicious, but not exactly breakfast material. Then again, they don’t open up until 11am, so breakfast is probably not their concern.

Since we couldn’t have pastries we settled for bourbon vanilla ice cream with dark chocolate and strawberries. Strawberries are a breakfast food, so it’s healthy. Besides, we were on vacation – you can eat what you like without judgement when you’re on vacation.

We also got hot chocolate – well, Mom got a pepsi, but Rayna and I got hot chocolate – and that drink has forever changed my life. I liked hot chocolate before, but this was pure love. I have never had a hot chocolate as amazing as this. It was a milk chocolate/chili combination and it was so perfectly balanced with just enough heat… Also, the mug it came in kept it warm to the very last drop. I seriously cannot talk enough about this drink.  Compared to it, all other hot chocolates are just ‘okay’.

It also came with a small glass of water and a small piece of chocolate, which was neat. I can’t remember what Rayna had (was it orange? mint? something else?) because I was so into my own drink that nothing else mattered.

After our amazing not-quite-brunch we went to the store downstairs and took photos of all the chocolate sculptures. We didn’t buy anything because we still had lots to do that day and we knew that we would be back – oh yes, we would be back.