~the moon over the metroline~

Wednesday, 30th May 2007

4 days ago ~

i was walking through the streets of Berlin in a summer dress. this morning, i am wearing a sweater and just turned on the heating here, as temperatures have dropped to March / April again: 10-18°. there even is snow falling in the Black Forest.


Sunset at the Museum island

we really were lucky in Berlin, to catch the warmth before it left in huge thunderstorms. it really feels like the goddess of travel was on our side during this trip – we had sunny warm weather, had a lovely apartment with wooden floors and windows to a green inner courtyard, ran into good restaurants, even could meet up with Sivan, a friend of Efrat who is tour guide and gave us a private tour, including insights and views into places we otherwise would have missed.

meeting Sivan also added to the special mood of this journey, and included Hebrew to the already international mix of English, German and Denglish: “deutsch-englisch / german-english” – as Inge simply used the german word when she didn't know the English one, and thus Efrat received a crash course in German, combined with a good piece of humour.

i just put a photo page together, and also added some links already – the most impressive string of external links is probably the one at the Potsdamer Platz, a photo series that leads through the past. here the link:
Berlin - a short trip through history

my favourite photo so far is the one with the moon over the metroline:

Metroline Hackescher Markt

going through the photos, i had to smile again, remembering how on the first day, we had no real clues of how things work, where the s-train and u-trains connect, how the metro-line looks, where to find a bakery, what timing to take for which sights – the Funkturm in the afternoon? the Bundestag dome in the morning or evening?

and with every day, we found out more things and ways, until on Saturday morning we declared, half joking: “now that we figured it all out, we can leave.”

~

yet, Berlin seems to accompany me. yesterday evening, i zapped into a tv film that wasn't that great, but set in Berlin. it was funny to see some of the sights so soon again, from a different angle.

Tiergarten seen from the Reichstag Glass Dome

and this morning, i received a mail from the East that started with the line "Dear Back from Berliner", and included an encounter with Berlin that happened in China, via.. Malaysia.

Von: Smitha
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 30. Mai 2007 5:00
An: doro
Betreff: I was in Berlin, too...

Ah, I was in Berlin too!! Smile. Of all the things, I saw a German movie on Sunday. Tornado, it was called in English, and the audio dubbing in English was quite pathetic but the entire film was based in Berlin. Smile. I saw the same streets, the massive dome from which you can see the skyline of Berlin, the little cafes by the streets - all this and more.
Oh my gosh!! I just clicked the link you sent. There! You have seen it! Seen that dome that was the centre of the movie! What is that dome called? Bundestag I see. My my, this is amazing. You know, I wonder, all these synchronizations, coincidences that jangle - with all these distances vast from Germany to China - I really wonder if church bells will start to jingle with this sort of synchrony!
See, here is the link to the movie I saw: Malaysia.Movies: Tornado

and more Berlin connections: i returned to the biography of Alfred Döblin that i brought from the library - and now i know which book i will borrow next: Berlin, Alexanderplatz. written by Döblin in 1928. ah, time - and journeys.

~~~~~
Do

- Berlin page