Date: Friday, January 21, 2000 11:57
Subject: Friday morning
Everyone,
It's just after eleven on Friday morning and I am gradually working myself up to do a little work. Yes, I realize that sounds bad. Normally we roll out of bed at around nine-thirty and listen to the news over breakfast. I check email to see if anything interesting came in overnight. Then I putter around for a bit, cleaning the kitchen or attending to any chores that might need attending to. The bed remains unmade lest we disturb the cat, who looks annoyed if you even threaten to straighten the covers:
Today we awoke to sunshine and a light dusting of snow. It was raining heavily when we went to sleep last night; at some point near morning the temperature must have dropped enough for it to turn solid. Most of the snow is gone now, thanks to bright sunshine. We are very grateful that it has been a such mild winter in Berlin. The scene out the window, artistically rendered:
It's been a quiet week at home, for the most part. Annette has been busy preparing a lecture for her interview; I've slowly begun working. Yesterday we only left the house for our respective workouts. Late in the afternoon, I endured a less painful set of dryland skating exercises in the park, then jogged down to the Markthalle to pick up groceries; Annette and C ran in the early evening while I made a hasty but edible dinner - gnocchi with pesto, cucumber salad. Then back to work for an hour or two after lingering a while at the table, chatting.
I am beginning to feel employed. I won't feel truly employed until somebody pays me, but until then I can at least console myself by doing some actual work. We had a conference call last night to discuss the various items on my plate. It looks like I'll be fairly busy between now and early February, working on three separate projects. I enjoy the flexibility of working at home, though sometimes it is difficult to stay motivated. I rarely sit down for eight hours at a stretch, but fit the work into my day in little chunks, leaving enough time for cycling, skating, reading, writing, shopping, sitting in cafés and the many other diversions of life in Berlin. These loose, unscheduled days suit my tendency towards intense bursts of productivity separated by long periods of seeming idleness - or, less charitably, the endless cycle of procrastination and panic.
Today I need to type up a few pages of notes from last night's phone call and formulate some thoughts and ideas and write a few long emails to people to make sure that I'm not starting off in the wrong direction with these jobs. Later, we will putter about "in town" - our expression for any excursion to Bergmannstraße or beyond - and possibly look for a few parental birthday gifts. I'm skating tonight, then will come home to offer outfit advice when Annette packs for the trip. She leaves for Halifax early tomorrow morning, returning Wednesday. Alone, I'm expecting a moderately active weekend, as there is skating both days (club championship races) and then C and I plan to meet for a running-workout at the Teufelsberg on Sunday. Beyond that, we'll probably get together with another Berlin Program friend who complains of being cooped up and set off for either an afternoon or evening excursion of some description.
An enormous gray cloud just appeared, and it has begun to snow. My cue to stop writing this email. Lightning, even! A winter thunderstorm, how strange. Note the difference:
And in the time it's taken me to do these pictures, the squall passed and the sun came back out and the view out the window looks like the first one again. Weird. I guess we will go for that walk after all.
Regards,
Scott
Date: Saturday, January 22, 2000 18:33
Subject: Saturday skating report
I am getting very tired of these pre-dawn trips to the airport. Four times now I have dragged myself onto the U7 at five-thirty in the morning for the half-hour trip to Tegel. Only once have I actually flown myself, the other times I was schlepping bags for someone else with a seven-thirty flight. It's going to happen at least once more in February. After that, Annette can either fly out of Tempelhof or call a cab. What's worse, in March my flight to Mallorca supposedly leaves at six AM. God. I'll have to take a taxi, the buses don't run that early. Ugh. (I think they schedule the vacation charters that early so that the passengers can come directly from a disco or bar.)
So I left Annette at the gate and wished her farewell and good luck for her interview. Then I came home and had some breakfast and slept until eleven-thirty, at which point I stumbled about groggily, tidied up and eventually threw my skating gear into a bag and left for the oval. It was a miserable morning, cold and snowing. Two days running I've had to take U- and S-Bahn to the oval, the roads have been too icy to ride. When I arrived at the track one of the organizers smiled and said it was good to remind ourselves that speedskating is a winter sport. Right.
On to the racing... After a very brief warm-up I skated a 500 m sprint. My goal - not to crash. I succeeded. My time - 52 seconds, only 17 seconds off the world record! An hour later I skated a 1500, which went much better. I think the time was around 2:40, though we're not really sure because the organizers goofed and made the first four pairs skate an extra lap, myself among them - many ill-tempered jokes afterward about the 1900 m race being a new club championship event. Again, I did not crash.
Despite the weather and slight fatigue caused by my dreadfully early start this morning, I enjoyed myself. Tomorrow morning we do 1000 m and 3000 m races, then somehow they add up the results and come up with an overall club champion. Given that there are only ten of us in the "Herren" (adult male) category, it's not much of an honour. But I'm having fun and the people are great. The announcer (our club president) makes a great show of calling me "unser sportlichen Kamerad aus Kanada" or something like that, only with the correct adjective endings.
Anyway, a few pictures. Bear in mind that (cheap) digital cameras aren't the best thing to use for sports photography, particularly when you give them to a friend and have to explain things very hastily in bad German.
Me warming up. I look reasonably authentic.
Me racing the 1500.
Not much of a close-up, but even at this distance I can see a major technical flaw - I'm gliding on the inside edge. (Look at my right foot, the one on the ice - the ankle is collapsing inwards.) To do this properly I should glide on the outside edge, then roll across to the inside edge as I begin the push. It's all about balance and weight transfer. I have a much tougher time skating the straights than I do skating the corners. With a crossover you don't need to make the transition from edge to edge, which is what gives me trouble.
Skating alone in the wind isn't much fun - I think I'll have a better time racing the mass-start marathon next month. 110 laps, in a pack. Cool.
Finally, a cold, snowy S-Bahn station, on my way home.
Hopefully I'll have some better pictures tomorrow. C might come down to watch, and I'll see if I can rope her into taking a few more, particularly some shots in the corner.
Otherwise, what's up? I'm alone but busy this weekend. C and I are going to see the South Park movie (in English, not dubbed) tonight. We figure this is a good thing to do when Annette isn't here, as she loathes cartoons. Might do something else tomorrow. Might even do a little work.
Regards,
Scott
Date: Monday, January 24, 2000 12:23
Subject: compilation
For your reading pleasure, bits of messages to various folks, sent previously.
Annette likes Halifax. She says it's like Vancouver but before Vancouver became a "big" city - sort of like New Westminster. I'm not sure about this analysis, but whatever. We'll see how she likes it after the interview today.
Regards,
Scott
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[to the parents-in-law, in response to whether I'm enjoying being a temporary bachelor]
Hi. Normally when I'm a temporary bachelor I make a big mess, stay up late watching TV, and generally wallow in my own filth for a while. Then I clean everything up before Annette gets home. But this weekend I was so busy that I barely came home long enough to drop a few pairs of socks and underwear on the floor, and I was too tired to stay up late. How disappointing.
It's going to be a cold week. It dropped to minus ten on Saturday evening so the snow isn't going anywhere. It's only a few centimetres but enough to make the bike paths treacherous, although it's very pretty. I skated again Sunday morning - oh how I did not enjoy heading for the oval that early, that cold - then trooped around with C later in the afternoon. It was such a beautiful day, bright sunshine and snow everywhere, that I didn't want to be inside.
I didn't race particularly well on Sunday. The ice was very hard after a cold night and my edges were slipping a little, plus I was tired. I wanted to do well in the 3000 m, since I prefer longer events, but I was fighting for control all the time. I looked more like a six-year-old hockey player than a speedskater, or at least that's how I felt. After the races we had the awards and the usual reception with buffet. Very casual - the "skating moms" brought the usual fare. But it was nice, everyone very friendly. Some people use me to practice English, others respect my wish to practice German and only switch when making a point becomes particularly exasperating. I think skating has been much better than a language class.
Vita has been grumpy in Annette's absence - first we both leave with a suitcase, then one of us comes back, ignores her and goes to bed for a few hours, leaves, comes back and sits at the computer for a few hours, ignoring her, then leaves again. And the same the next day. However, all was forgiven when I found some wet food that she actually likes - she was on another hunger strike, which always scares me because she doesn't get her medicine if she won't touch the wet food - and after she devoured a big bowl she quite pointedly crawled onto the couch with me for a nap. And when I said all this to Annette later that night she woke up and gave me a very penetrating "you're talking about me, aren't you?" look, which was almost disturbing. (I suspect that she recognizes my tone of voice when I'm speaking to Annette, and was therefore suddenly interested in the conversation.)
Today, the usual. Some housework. Laundry. Groceries, as is normal after a weekend. Skating again tonight. After a cloudy morning, the sun is out, so I might hook up with C to run hills in the late afternoon, but on the other hand I really need to do some work-work. Deadlines loom. So I should stop writing emails and get off my ass...
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[to the brother-in-law, on the subject of his impending first visit to Germany, and why having to pay to use the toilet doesn't necessarily mean that life is too expensive here]
Actually you only have to pay in certain large, high-traffic public bathrooms: train stations, big department stores, the McDonalds at Bahnhof Zoo. And then, when you think about it, how great is the pleasure that you receive for only 35 cents, if you really, really need to pee? You get something for this of course, you get little old ladies who keep the bathroom clean when they're not collecting your money. That's not insignificant in a big train station. If you're especially lucky, one will be mopping the floor as you pee, and you will have to lift first one foot and then the other to let her mop underneath you. They have very different attitudes towards public nudity over here.
As for the cost of living, it really depends on how you define the "basket of goods," as the professionals call it. The key to living cheaply here is to avoid anything that is pitched towards tourists or business travelers. Also to not live like a North American (smaller apartment, no car, etc.). The economics of daily life are quite interesting. Some things are cheaper, some more expensive, but almost nothing is actually free. Which makes a certain kind of sense, though not much if you are either very thirsty and have to pay several dollars for a small glass of mineral water (restaurants are legally required to serve you tap water for free, but you will likely die of thirst before the waiter actually brings it) or you need to pee and you don't have any money with you. Another key to understanding daily economics is to realize that there is more price variation for the same good, depending on various factors: location, social class of customer, level of service, etc. The price range for a cup of coffee, between a ratty little streetside stand and a fussy hotel lobby, is much greater here than at home. It makes sense culturally and historically, there's less sense of democratic equality, a longer history of social stratification. Nevertheless, even the ratty little streetside stand still sells good coffee.
