Berlin, 09.01.01 Thought for the day: imagine if Dachshunds were drawn inexorably to the sea, millions of sausagy little brown-black bodies streaming lemming-like over the cliffs, dashing themselves to bits on the rocks below. So I'm back in town. Been back over a week, actually, just haven't had time/energy to write. Christmas was okay - I received shirts. It felt kind of weird being back in Vancouver for the first time in sixteen months, but I dealt. Madeleine was a hit, behaved impeccably, charmed her grandparents, etc. I returned to Berlin on the 31st, New Years' Eve; Annette and the small person are staying in Vancouver until early February on account of the former having job interviews with a couple of Canadian universities. We could conceivably be moving back at the end of the summer (Vancouver or Ottawa or possibly Toronto). I have mixed feelings about this. Positives and negatives both ways, but in the end I suppose it's better to have multiple good options than none. The trip back was pretty weird. My flight from Vancouver to Amsterdam was delayed so I missed my connection to Berlin, which entailed being sent to Frankfurt and catching a Lufthansa flight. The downside was that I was seven hours late, missed having dinner with friends, and was too tired to go out for New Years' Eve. The upside was that we were the last flight of the night (of the year, in fact) into Berlin, at about quarter to eleven, so the pilot came in low over the city and did a huge 360 right over the Brandenburg Gate just as the festivities were beginning to wind up. Fireworks were exploding all over the city. It was absolutely amazing. Probably worth it in the end. I'll remember the view out the airplane window much longer than I'll remember how bloody tired I was. After that, jet lag. I slept fourteen hours the first night, four the night after, then two the night after that. Not good considering I had to go back to work. Don't know why I had such a difficult time readjusting, perhaps it was only seeing about three hours of daylight in two full days. My luggage didn't show up for two days. Then I came down with the inevitable cold, which hasn't been too severe. It is now well into the disgusting expectoration phase. Living alone is a bit odd. It's much simpler not having an infant about. I don't notice as much during the week, I'm simply too busy: off to work in the morning, training for two or three hours after, then home to a lonely, hungry cat sometime between eight and nine, at which point I'm so exhausted that I fall asleep immediately after eating. But the weekends drag a bit without Annette. I only miss Madeleine in an abstract sense; I quite enjoy not having to live on baby time. I'm training my ass of right now, taking advantage of the free time while I have it. I'd planned to have this five week boot camp all along, but the disturbing discovery that I'd put on a few pounds over Christmas has made it all the more urgent. So I'm riding every day and am on the ice most nights after work, plus the gym. I was able to continue training through the cold, though at lower intensities. I'm a little sore from it all but glad to be working my way back into shape. Last night I did indoor inline training at a gym that the club has rented. My observations (extracted from a conjugal email) on German hydration practices: Why are Germans so fucked up about drinking? Coming into the Sporthalle I ask the Pfortner guy if there's a tap somewhere, or a bathroom. I need some water. Well we have a fridge with mineral water in it, but that's privat, he says. No, I just want to fill up my bottle. You can't drink tap water, he naturally replies. Oh yes I can, I say, I'm Canadian, we do it all the time back home, it's a curious North American practice, drinking tap water. He just shakes his head as I clomp off to the can, bottle in hand. Then in the hall everyone is complaining, oh the dry air in here, the horrible dry air, it's making us thirsty. No it's not, you idiots, you've been sweating for an hour and you haven't had a thing to drink. Of course you're fucking thirsty. So after much schimpfing about the "trockene luft" they finally call a water break (I've been skating over to the bench and sipping from my bottle every ten or fifteen minutes) and everyone hauls out their glass bottles of carbonated mineral water. Jesus H. Christ. I think this is probably getting to be enough of an update. I am halfway serious about doing this site up in another format, but I need to be finished with a few domestic chores before I can devote a chunk of time to piddling about on the computer. The month ahead: work, train, eat, sleep. Repeat thirty times. That's really about it. I might try to get out and do a few evening things while I can enjoy myself without a baby-sitter. (Hooked up with Carla and friends at SO36 on Sunday night but was a little to into my cold to really enjoy myself. The last (and first) time I was there was just after Christmas a year ago. How the world has changed over these past twelve months! And that's about all the reflection I'm capable of, parked here between these parentheses, tacked onto the end of an entry.)