On your marks, get set… Celebrating 125 years of the Ku’damm.

Today, in order to celebrate 125 years of the Kurfüstendamm, there was an old-fashioned waiter race!

And depending upon which part of the promotion you read, in German it was either a “Traditioneller Kellnerlauf”, the “DEHOGA Berlin Kellnerlauf-Cup 2011”, or the “Kellnerderby”.

No matter what you call it, with my traditional foil for such events (Snooker in Berlin) unavailable, I asked the best possible alternative, Der Irishe Berliner, if he was interested—fortunately he was and we met near the start-finish line in order to watch the races.

The first race was the Chef’s race that featured five young chefs carrying a pot of water down the 400-meter course. I do believe that the object of the race was to not just be first, but to not spill any of the water. I think that all spilled some, and at the finish line, the first across poured whatever water was left in his pot over his own head while celebrating his victory. Perhaps a clever way to avoid too many questions from the official judges.

From there we wandered around the race course over the next two hours as the waitresses ran (each carrying a latte macchiato), then the pages (bell-hops, really, each with a suitcase), bartenders (stopping to mix a drink at the 200 meter mark), beer delivery men (each lugging a case of beer), and last, but not least, waiters carrying half a glass of beer along with half a bottle of beer.

When examining the photos of the contestants in years past, one cannot help but feel that today’s contestants lacked a certain flair to their clothing. The shoes were mostly sport shoes—not what one would want your modern stuff to be wearing when delivering your food or suitcase at a fine establishment.

All said, it was a lot of fun, and it was fab hanging out with Der Irishe Berliner for a few hours.

Bartenders with their shakers, having mixed the ingredients, shaking the rest of the way to the finish line.

The last waitress -- and I might note that she still had most of the drink in the glass. Other waitresses were wearing their drinks.