Date: Saturday, December 18, 1999 18:07 Subject: more pics
It was a blustery winter Saturday, fairly brimming with photo ops. We met ran a few errands (yet more plane tickets for Annette) and met up with friends C & L to tour the Spandau Weinachtsmarkt. Then we went to IKEA and bought a kettle and a shower curtain, and then we came home. The usual sort of day.
It's been a very social week. Dead to the world on Monday, after the flight from hell. Then out for drinks after Annette's seminar on Tuesday. Then out for a binge on Wednesday, consuming Eisbein - boiled, fatty pig knee - schnapps and beer in the infamous "Zum Propellor", an old dive of an Eck-Kneipe in Friedrichshain, deep in the wild east. That was a night. Then, after the hangover, the gals (see above) came over for dinner Thursday. Then a movie last night and a quick drink after. We haven't been to bed before two since recovering from the Chicago trip. Haven't been up before ten either.
We're not going anywhere tonight, though we may finally rent a movie and try to figure out the VCR. Quite by accident we live a block away from Berlin's best video store, with original versions of almost everything. It's like having Black Dog or Videomatica just around the corner.
Next week there's more fun in store: holiday puttering, further social engagements with the friends who've decided to stay behind for the holidays, a trip to the new Jewish Museum - the empty building, an architectural marvel, is open for limited tours before they begin installing the permanent exhibition - and a few other cultural things in town. No fixed plans for New Year's yet, but probably dinner/drinking here with a bunch of friends before setting off on foot for the Brandenburger Tor where we will watch the fireworks with a million or so close acquaintances, then off somewhere else for more drinking. The goal is not to pay admission for anything.
I'm actually looking forward to spending Christmas here, not that I don't miss people at home and all that. It's less overdone, less of an economic obligation, more of a cultural tradition. More tasteful, basically. And there are enough exiles hanging around that we'll have people to celebrate with. Plus we're done shopping, so we have time to enjoy ourselves.
Okay, on to the pictures:
The view from the smudgy S-Bahn window, heading across the new "government quarter" - still a forest of cranes:
A departing S-Bahn (still working on that contrast problem):
Annette, vaguely annoyed by the looks of things, strolling through the Tiergarten flea market on our way to Kilroy Travel, where she is a very good customer (four transatlantic flights and counting):
Some authentic, traditional European cheesiness at the Spandau Weinachtsmarkt. Note the authentic, traditional European Christmas Tinky-Winky dolls:
Berlin at three o'clock on a winter afternoon, seen through a bus window. It really is that dark.
Finally, the obligatory cat pic - Vita in her basket (it came with the apartment) disturbed from a slumber by the intrusion of the paparazzi:
Date: Sunday, December 19, 1999 12:37
Subject: the anticipation of darkness
It's just past noon here in Berlin, Sunday morning, and I realize that if I don't start moving towards the door soon I'm going to finish my regular weekend training ride in total darkness. On an overcast afternoon it's normally dark enough by three-thirty that you need to turn on the headlight. If you sleep late, which we seem to do quite regularly, you will only see about four or five hours of daylight. This is quite depressing. It's all to do with geography (Berlin lies north of Vancouver, and in the eastern half of the Central European time zone) and weather (the skies are often cloudy). We really ought to start getting up a little earlier, but the social life runs late and Annette is fighting off a mild cold/flu thing, so we sleep a great deal.
We stayed in last night, for the first time since returning from Chicago. Spent the evening fixing minor problems around the apartment (installed a new, less disgusting shower curtain; raised the head of the bed a few inches to help keep Annette's acid problem under control; found a spot for the new chairs in the living room). The chairs - back in 1995, on her way home from a party late one night, Annette found two upholstered cocktail chairs sitting out on the street. When you want to get rid of something here, you put it on the sidewalk and someone eventually takes it away. This is a good method of acquiring free furniture and non-functional appliances. The chairs were not overly beautiful, but had a certain ratty charm. Annette dragged them home and we used them in our Schoeneberg apartment for the rest of the year. When she left Berlin they were farmed out to various friends. Now, just recently, their current caretaker moved in with her boyfriend and the chairs were given back to P2, who had no use for them, and they were returned to us. (I collected them both myself because someone still isn't talking to someone, and likely won't be for a long, long time - meow!) Now we have a complete living room: two little chairs, a very strange ersatz couch, and a large oriental carpet delivered last week by our landlord. Vita loves the new rug. She spent an hour on it when it first arrived, writhing, rolling back and forth, stalking the perimeter, hunkering down at each corner, switching her tail possessively, daring anyone to challenge her ownership.
Suddenly my enthusiasm for finishing this email has dwindled to about zero, so I'm going to shut off the computer and do some stretching and go for a ride, despite the forbidding skies and temperatures hovering around zero. On Friday I left for skating in a heavy snow shower (cycling in this weather is not a problem if you are wearing gore-tex and neoprene from head to toe, with clear protective glasses to save your eyes) but by the time I reached the oval the storm had passed, leaving calm, cloudless skies and a thin layer of snow on the track. There were only half a dozen of us out, the others having been scared off by the weather. It was terrible skating - the ice was so slow that my timing was completely off - but strangely beautiful. Christmassy, even.
Okay, time to get my ass out the door.
Regards,
Scott
