Catfood spotting
Posted: November 26, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Berlin, cats, trains, video Leave a comment »I am so proud. Our little girl all grown up and acting in her first arthouse film.
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Cat-feeding and train-watching
Posted: November 13, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »
Lucy gets a plate of vittles twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening.
The trains–city, local, regional and freight–whiz past, of course, all day , but mornings and evenings are especially busy.
When Lucy’s mother is out of town, I take the perfect opportunity of feeding the cat, to sit on the balcony, drink a coffee and watch what rolls past, maybe listen to the church bells ring.
Occasionally loading a machine or folding my laundry. Read the rest of this entry »
East-West exchange
Posted: November 5, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Berlin, Berlin Wall, culture shock, Deutsches Demokratisches Republik, Die Berliner Mauer, German Democratic Republic, Germany, Kreuzberg, neukölln, Ossis and Wessis, photos, travel writing Leave a comment »
I’m only on the other side of the river and up the street from where I used to live–maybe a mile and a half away from the old place–of course, twenty some years ago that would have been quite an extreme move.
I’d have had to dig a tunnel out of a fake wall in my cellar, or rig a special compartment under the back seat of an automobile and get an innocent old lady to drive me, or sew together a hot air balloon out of bedsheets, or something.
It would have been epic…if my plot didn’t get exposed and I got shot.
Nowadays, I just hired three Iraqis lads to hump it down the old 4 flights of stairs, load it up in their truck, drive it a few kilometers and hump it up the new 4 flights of stairs. Read the rest of this entry »
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Situated
Posted: November 2, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: apartment hunting, Berlin, Germany, photos, Political fiction, travel writing Leave a comment »
Steamed my first sticky rice in the new Wohnung last night.
Listened to my first news and paced the floor for the first time.
My drawers and shelves are full. I’ve flushed the toilet a few times now, taken two showers.
The cubboards are screwed to the wall. I mean that more like a ‘cup board:’ a board with cups.
I even nailed up a few pictures.
I’m getting situated. Read the rest of this entry »
Commuting in the Dark and Getting Moved
Posted: November 1, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Berlin, Germany, moving abroad, neukölln, photos, travel writing Leave a comment »
Got my assed kick, my ass kicked and my assed kicked at work.
All week.
And then we got up and cried together…then we got moved.
Got student movers–three Iraqi guys–to do the heavy lifting and we still got our butts kicked.
But the time change gave us an hour extra to play with and the weather was on our side and I sawed some wood and got my sink attached and my shelves hung, and she got her fridge moved and brought me the table that wouldn’t fit in her place…and we got it done.
Well…we still have to get the old place cleaned and painted, but we’re mostly there.
And now I’m tired. Whupped. Read the rest of this entry »
Save the community gardens of Berlin!
Posted: October 25, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Berlin, community garden, dieoasepankow, gartenfreunde, Kleingarten, overdevelopment, pankow, photos, Ulli Maaßlos Leave a comment »
So Nadja just signed a lease on a place in Pankow.
A beautiful place with a balcony that looks out over one of the community gardens that Berlin is famous for. Nadja heaven, really.
Come to find out the community garden is 90 years old, founded in 1921.
90 freaking years!
Beautiful gardens, they are, with tangled slews of veggies, amazing flowers, old gnarled orchard trees and a crazy amount of birds that have obviously come to call this garden home now for hundreds of bird-generations, except there’s one problem. Read the rest of this entry »
Colorful night homage on my old hood and more scribbles from summer
Posted: October 24, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Berlin, culture shock, English teaching, Germany, photos Leave a comment »
Franko looked a bit rough today.
I had arrived at his office five minutes early and was walking around the block, utilizing the extra time, as I always do, for further Berlin exploration.
My first time here I discovered the Berlin Wall ran down the street, and I was excited to look around some more.
Alas, upon reaching the first corner my phone rang. Read the rest of this entry »
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Berlin Graffiti: Bald Buzzards, Boomers and humanity as a kindergarten
Posted: October 22, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: American dream, baby boomers, Berlin, economic crisis, egypt, Graffiti, photos, politics, sarcasm, satire 6 Comments »
The symbol of America’s Bald Eagle has been replaced by a Greedy Grey Buzzard, an aged vulture feeding on the already stripped carcass of the country’s dead dream.
There is no meat left for the children this winter. And that, now, world-wide. Politics aside…business is running the show anyway.
But what do I know? Who am I? If I have a cold day in hell’s chance of figuring this all out, I ain’t aware of it. It’s all very complicated.
I just notice that a few have all the apples…and the rest of us, none. Read the rest of this entry »
keys to the place
Posted: October 19, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: apartment hunting, Berlin, neukölln, neukoelln, photos, travel writing 1 Comment »
Got me the keys to the new pad.
Now I just need a lightbulb or five. And fixtures in which to screw ‘em. Not a light in the whole place…just bare wires…typical for Germany.
I was lucky the place came with a stove and a kitchens sink. In Germany, the old ’everything-but’ saying goes: you get nothing, not even the kitchen sink.
The irony of that luck is that I already have a stove and a kitchen sink. Now I am the proud owner of two sinks and two electric stoves…but all I really want is a gas stove. Read the rest of this entry »
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Scenes from a summer gone bye
Posted: October 18, 2011 Filed under: Fiction | Tags: Berlin, culture shock, disease fiction, English teaching, Germany, photos, sarcasm, satire, travel writing Leave a comment »
My afternoon student, Magdalena, was apparently some princess of Prussia. Sorry, The Princess of Prussia.
The next in line to the German throne, after her brother, were something to happen to him. If.
“Can I, with thee, talk?” my boss asked. My eyebrows raised, instantly wondering how I had fucked up. “It goes around thine single-student.”
“Sure…one moment,” I answered.
Not that I had ever fucked up, or ever gotten a complaint, at least not yet, but due to reasons concerning my nature, I always feared the worst when anyone said ‘let’s talk.’ Read the rest of this entry »
