We are here. We are finally in Berlin. We've been here over two weeks, in fact, but infrastructure issues (computer access and connectivity) have prevented me from updating the site until now.

This isn't an entry, by the way. It's a placeholder, an "I'm alive" message, not a new start for the old journal. Though I may continue to write here until I decide what else to do. Things have been a little unsettled since our arrival, and I need time to think.

Rather than write at great length, I'm just going to reproduce a few emails sent to friends and family during the preceding weeks. This would be in keeping with the spirit of not writing an actual entry.

19.09.99

Life is pretty good. I'm watching bike racing on Eurosport, the cats are being relatively nice to each other, and with enough zinc and echinacea I'll probably fight off my traditional post-flight cold.

We're happy to be back in Berlin. We like it here. It's not home, certainly, but we feel at home. As soon as we drove into the city, at five o'clock Saturday morning, we rolled down the windows and the air was familiar. We didn't feel very tired so instead of waking P too early we drove around in search of breakfast (no success) and without realizing where we were going found ourselves back in our old neighbourhood, Schöneberg.

Vita is doing quite well. Better than us, in fact - cats are immune to jet lag. It took 24 hours but now she's perfectly happy hanging out with her old housemates, and she may even rekindle her once great love affair with Damiel, P's large, placid male cat.

[later now, after skating and dinner]

Okay, I probably won't fight off the post-flight cold, but I can certainly minimize its effects. And although we slept well last night, I'm still not over the jet lag.

The trip was longer than expected. About an hour into the flight the pilot announced that we were diverting to Calgary because of an engine problem - only a warning light, but it had to be checked. We were on the ground in Calgary for two or three hours - I don't really remember, I fell asleep in the terminal - before leaving for Edmonton to pick up the rest of the passengers. Then we got stuck in Edmonton because we couldn't refuel during a thunderstorm.... In the end we were five hours late, for a sixteen hour flight.

Vita was very unhappy at the beginning, but calmed down by the time we left Edmonton and barely made a peep for the rest of the trip. We think that she was upset by the effects of the tranquilizer and the new carrying bag, which had a strong plastic smell and was more claustrophobic than her old cage. She was fine once the drug wore off, a model traveler. After almost twenty hours in confinement, she was released into the relative luxury of our rental car, where she immediately used the temporary litter box we had prepared. Good cat!

We were both so exhausted that we slept through most of the flight. This is very unusual for me. Consequently we were almost refreshed when we landed in Frankfurt. We collected the car and drove to Air Canada Cargo, where we had no trouble collecting our shipment and clearing customs. It all went very smoothly. We loaded everything into the car with not a cubic foot to spare.

At this point we decided to call P and drive straight through to Berlin, rather than go to a hotel for the night. I was completely awake. It was only afternoon according to our body clocks and we'd had more sleep on the plane that we'd had at home the previous few nights. It was probably a good move, as there is a great deal of construction on the autobahn and during the day it's one long traffic jam.

Driving was very pleasant. I had the station wagon (an Opel Vectra) up to 160 km/h and Vita never complained once. She spent the whole trip in Annette's lap, struggling to stay awake. If I held the gear lever she would rest her chin on my hand and sleep (at least until the next stretch of construction, when I would shift into fourth and pull out her support, then sock her in the jaw when I shifted back into fifth).

We arrived at P's a little after six and had a small breakfast after doing all the introductions, feline and human. Vita was so exhausted and disoriented that after hissing at the other cats, she hissed at her own reflection. At eight o'clock the three of us went to bed, some sixty-four hours after our last proper sleep.

Since then we've been relaxing, organizing our stuff, checking apartment ads and trying to figure out where to stay next. We'll probably hop from friend to friend for a week or so until we can find a place to live. Vita will stay here - she is quite content, and if she isn't exactly best friends with her old housemates yet, at least they are not enemies. We are quite impressed with how well she travels (and we will never try the tranquilizers again). An added bonus - all the commotion seems to have broken the cycle of wet food dependency. No more cans of fancy feast.

Last night we saw P & C's new apartment in Kreuzberg - very cool with huge high ceilings but a lot of work to fix up - and had dinner around the corner at Milagro. Today I nursed my possibly-imaginary cold and then went for a short skate in the Grünewald with a guy I'd been emailing for the past few months (the same guy who might be able to fix me up with a job). I didn't feel too rusty. Some of the fast boys were out, getting ready for next week's race.

Having the car has been fun but alas I must return it tomorrow. We can't afford the gas, so it's just as well. Driving is actually quite easy here, not stressful at all. Parking is from hell, but otherwise the autobahn is damn fun.

I think I'm running out of things to say. Basically, the trip went very well: we moved an entire station wagon full of crap from Vancouver to Berlin at minimal cost thanks to good luck and timely favours. The cat has forgiven us (I think she still remembers because occasionally she kicks the crap out of me). So all is well. We're happy to be here and glad that we brought the beast along. She's better-traveled than many of our friends.

Next week, more visiting with friends, apartment-hunting, job-hustling, training for the marathon. And one more thing - my German is better than I remembered. I've a long way to go, but I can communicated without too much grief.

That's all for now. Bed beckons.

24.09.99

I've had a pretty horrible cold these past few days but I turned the corner last night and now am on the mend. I'll be fine for the race and - more importantly - Annette didn't catch it.

Vita is having a grand old time at P's (we're crashing at the same place we borrowed last year, then tomorrow will prevail upon a series of friends). She and Damiel chase each other around the apartment and sleep a few feet apart. Who would have believed it? Vita really did quite well once those damn drugs wore off - never again. We should have trusted her.

Apartment-hunting is quite interesting. On Monday we saw two places, one absolutely huge (125 qm) near our old haunt in Schöneberg, but alas heated with coal ovens. The second was a crumbling old building in Mitte/Prenzlauer Berg full of students/artists/bohemians of various description. The place was a bit of a mess, and coal heating again, but very cheap (550 DM) and not too ugly. The building is wired with a 1 mbps internet connection by the "computer freaks" downstairs, an added bonus. Today we're looking at some slightly more orthodox 2-zimmer flats in Kreuzberg and Moabit. Rents are very reasonable here: we'll be able to find something quite decent for 1000 DM warm.

Today's chore: off to the Volkshochschule to find out about German classes...

Shower time - I need to blow out the last chunks of this awful post-flight cold.

26.09.99

It's the night before the marathon and Annette and I are both feeling nervous and sickly. I trained this morning for the first time since last weekend and felt terrible at first - completely normal when you take time off for a cold. It wasn't great timing getting sick like that but I think I'll be okay for the race. Now I just hope it doesn't rain.

Meanwhile, we've sorted out our living situation, sort of. Nothing is 100% but it looks like we'll be staying with friends until October 6th (they are going away for a week) then moving to a nice little apartment near the university for one or two months and then hopefully we'll take over an incredibly cool artist studio in Kreuzberg. It's the Berlin version of our Vancouver loft - two big workrooms and smaller living quarters in a 100-year old industrial building in a very funky neigbhourhood. Lots of space, lots of light, an industrial elevator, but still that Berlin Altbauwohnung experience. There are various issues with the current occupant, an artist who doesn't make plans very well, but we think it will work out fine.

So, on to work. I will buy a monitor as soon as possible and set something up here. Connectivity is a bit of a hassle because this place has ISDN (it's very common here) but the next place won't so I'll probably have to buy two bloody modems but I'm sure I will earn it back soon enough. They opened the phone system to competition last year so consequently there are about 8 zillion different phone/internet options and you need a Ph.D. (or maybe an M.B.A.) to sort them all out.

PS my first novel note/scene from Berlin: "...as trustworthy as a well-dressed Russian"

PPS The post-marathon report: Annette finished just under four hours, nothing special. She didn't crash like last time, just didn't feel great and when she realized she wasn't going to make 3:40 she cruised in. Fair enough - it's been a busy month. As she said, packing up an apartment, finishing a dissertation, moving to Berlin, writing a conference paper and running a marathon is a lot to accomplish in four weeks. My race went okay, I didn't feel 100% after being sick and my training was for shit this month. I came in at the back of a big pack at 1:17:30, more or less. Not great (I'd hoped for 1:15) but enough to get me in with a decent club next year.

Writing on a laptop in bed is an excellent idea....

30.09.99

We're only doing email once every day or two, as the modem doesn't seem to work with the phones in this apartment, and we're stuck with dragging the laptop over to a friend's place. I'm getting my computer set up soon but won't have full connectivity until we move next week. Computers are actually cheaper here, which I find hard to believe. I'm still glad I bought mine in Vancouver - English software, English keyboard - but I would have saved a few bucks by waiting. Today I'll buy a monitor; on Monday I bought a very simple IKEA desk (also cheaper than in Vancouver, amazingly).

Otherwise, we're settling in. This is the week of bureaucracy: register with the police (you have to do this before you can do anything else - even a library card); open a bank account; get the money from the university; sign up for health insurance; etc., etc., etc. We need to have all this done before Annette leaves for Chicago to defend the dissertation, in less than two weeks. (She's going to need a vacation when this is all over.) I've started a German class at the local equivalent of a community center - again, very cheap. I'm not having much trouble with the language. To my great surprise, I now have enough to function and I'm strangely confident so I can do everything myself. I think the Goethe Institute courses I took this summer really helped. We speak mostly German with our friends, so I'm getting some decent immersion.

And I think that's about the extent of the update. Hope you're all doing well.

01.10.99

So I bought a monitor and set up my new computer this week. Things ran okay initially but then I tried to set up the NT networking stuff (needed to do web things) and something fucked up and one thing led to another and finally I was at a terminal blue screen of death. The next morning I had to use the BIOS to set the CD as a boot drive and completely re-install NT. It was fucking stressful being an ocean away from tech support, but eventually I figured everything out and now it's running fine.

Annette is giving me that "are you finished yet?" look so it's her turn to answer her email...

We went to see Vita the other night and she was very happy wrestling with her boyfriend. It's too cute for words.

Okay, gotta run…

Reasons to be unhappy:

• the damn toilets
• cigarettes
• hot U-Bahns
• bureaucracy