I wake up around 9:30 in the most perfect neighborhood on the planet, the Graefekiez (Graefe = the main street in the hood, kiez = hood) in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. I leave Kreuzberg about twice a year, grudgingly.

I take my morning coffee out to the shared terrace outside my front door, then bring in the barbecue from last night. I live on the top floor of a Grunderzeit building with its facade still largely in tact – the Graefekiez is graced with a good number of Berlin-standard, six floor houses which survived World War II. Birds are already going nuts, but it’s still too early for the honking horns of Turkish wedding caravans and the left-hand-and-right-hand-are-doing-totally-different-things, stylings of the cursed Gypsy accordion players.

{Photo: ///Sarah}

I bump into a few of my neighbors as I go downstairs to run errands: the old 68er next door who makes me water her flowers 10x a year when she goes on yoga retreats in Corsica; the Bosnian lesbian; the 250 pound Ur-Berlinerin on the first floor whose punked out husband I occasionally have to step over when she makes him sleep in the stairway.

I hit the street, and the spring scene is already in full force. The corner Kneipe in my building – as old school as they come – is already setting up for the big Hertha Berlin game later today. A few doors down, the sidewalk in front of the Matilde cafe is already bursting to capacity. Next door, I say hi to the son of the owner of the Turkish kiosk where I buy my after work beer and single cigarettes in moments of weakness – he updates me on his latest weight loss attempt.

{Photo: Offshore}

I turn onto the tree-lined Dieffenbachstrasse, the prettiest street in the neighborhood. I drop off a case of empty water bottles at Getraenke Hoffmann and talk to the half Sardinian woman who grew up in the neighborhood and is friends with the aforementioned 250 pounder – she is super friendly and has a great raspy chain smoker’s voice.

A few doors down, I get a pastry from the bio (i.e. organic) bakery. Since it’s a perfect day, both adorable sales girls are working today. I pick up a bottle of wine from the wine store next door and chat a bit with the chin-stroking owner.

{Photo: Ciaron}

Then I leave the cozy side streets and head for the serious grocery shopping on Kottbusser Damm, the beating heart of Turkish Kreuzberg. Cries of “Ein Euro! Ein Euro! Ein Euro!”, Turkish girls in veils and skintight pants, pushy old babushkas, old men in blazers, hipsters, students, strange apparitions that only come out after the weather turns, having been paid by the German government to stay home all winter and drink. I drop into the Turkish seed store – a gorgeous establishment, with tiles on the walls, signs in bronze, and mouthwatering vitrines full of nuts, candies, and Turkish delight -  to get some walnuts and toasted pumpkin seeds.

{Photo: Amyslysly}

I drop off my groceries, resist my overwhelming sense of inertia, gear up, and head back downstairs for a jog. I kick up my feet like a show pony on Admiralsbrücke in case anyone I know is hanging out among the students, hippies, and young lovers sitting on the bridge. I downshift into my normal plodding gait. I jog past the ghastly 70s hospital Urbankrankenhaus; dodge geese; try not to inhale too deeply as I past the joint-smoking high school kids, end up with a lungful of exhaust from a passing tour boat; I pass the the miniature golf course, the beer garden, the floating restaurants.

Now it’s time to meet friends and start relaxing. First stop: the tables set up outside in front of Ankerklause. We drink Hefeweizens and look out onto the intersection on Kottbusserbrücke. You couldn’t ask for a finer freak show. We get a call from friends at Club der Visionaire, a 10-minute bike ride away, and we don’t have to leave the canal once. About halfway there, we bump into a friend hanging out at the bocce courts, which are always packed on a day like today, another exquisite cross section of Kreuzberg.

Before heading into CdV, we stop next door at the Heinz Minki beer garden for a spicy merguez from the grill. Then, we set up shop on one of the rafts under the weeping willows and complain good naturedly about the minimal house soundtrack that hasn’t varied once in all the years I’ve been coming here. And then I go back home and end the daylight hours with a nap on the couch, all the windows open, the sounds of the city wafting through my apartment. Even the accordion players don’t sound too bad today.

Pepé is a San Francisco native who has lived in Berlin since 2001. He works at the Botanical Garden, building software for friendly EU biologists. Every winter he vows to leave Berlin, every summer he vows to stay forever.

{My Perfect Day is a weekly Tidepooler series that reveals the most wonderful and interesting places in cities and towns around the world, as shared by the people who live there}