love affairs & schnitzel stephan

apologies for the long silence: as aforementioned, the demise of my camera has left me quite hobbled as a media blogger, and also i have been away on a holiday. i did bring with me a disposable camera, and it seems common to get that sort of film developed into digital format as well, so hopefully a few photos will be on their way.
meanwhile, i have extracted the last of the lincoln photos from nick and posted them online, so do have a looksee.
i was away first to london, making my last strides through that center of cultural energy and muchness, and spent the day happily exploring new parts of the city and visiting new and old museums. following a sleepless night in stansted airport (famous for its cold marble floors and night-long announcements), i made my way to the fascinatingly unbeautiful city of berlin. at first it was formidable, overwhelming, unwelcoming: i cannot speak german a bit, and encountered the omnipresent graffiti and construction and half-abandoned structures as abrupt and disorienting. yet soon, as seems to be the general mode of its residents, i no longer noticed any of it, or was perhaps simply charmed, and came to feel so strongly for this place, for its funky and fashionable and highly outspoken & aware berliners, for its cornucopia of museums, for its honesty of history. by the end of my three nights i wished i could stay, and had to leave a whole half of the city relatively unexplored. i stayed well in the eastern part, an area called friedrichshain, which meant that each morning as i left the hostel i walked along the much-decorated remains of the Wall along the Spree River - a ritual to which i grew quickly attached. i wrote the following to my friend walt about the trip:
my favorite moments were probably: walking by a park full of schoolchildren as they lifted a multi-coloured parachute, just like i did in elementary school, in their atmospheric chatter; giving directions to a german girl on a bike, and an aristocratic italian couple who'd stopped me with "italiano?"; hangin' on top of the reichstag roof terrace (click to see an image) on a rainy night; visiting the courts of justice (stadtgericht) to see the fairytale foyers from art nouveau whimsy, where i had an appropriately kafka + fairytale series of interactions:
i walk through the curly leaves of the indoor iron gates, and stand, smiling to myself at it all. the place is totally empty and quiet, serene, except two guards over behind a window who are eyeing me passively.
then suddenly a man in a business suit materializes and calls through the other side of the gates:
"entschuldigen, adlkghaiedgagdnd?"
to which i respond, as i am doing constantly "sprechen sie englisch?"
he replies, laughingly in impeccable british accent, "why yes, i do speak english. what time is it?"
"almost 11.15"
"11.15? okay, thanks."
he walks through another gate and makes toward a cinderella stairway, but looks back - " 11.15, you said?"
"yes-- almost." (it was 11:12 and some)
then i went over to the window behind which sat those entry guards because i needed the toilette, and began with my "guten tag, sprechen sie englisch?"
the man looked flustered (all berliners were humble about their english) and says "yes, a little..."
i ask if there is a WC for the public to use, he doesn't understand so i try 'to-ah-letter' like my book says, and the other guard says cheerily "oh yes, a restroom! we have those"
the first man opens the door to his cabinet and beckons me over toward a hallway, pointing "go straight, then right, yes right, and then the first--door (he points to the one behind him, as if reminding himself, because i obviously know the word), right, door..."
i thank him and make my way. as soon as i return through the hallway the other chipper guard opens the cabinet door again and says "stop! where do you come from?" i start to explain about the loo but he says no no, and i realize he means by origin. i tell him the u.s. and he is so excited.
"i was in u.s., two months ago, new york, washington, san fransisco - in bus around!"
"oh! and how did you like it?"
"oh yes, very much"
"...i've actually never been to the west coast myself, i've always been on the east coast."
"yes, a big land."
he asks what i am doing in berlin, and i tell him just visiting for the first time ("for tourism?") and that i am something of an amateur student of architecture, so i wanted to see the interior of the stadtgericht. he gets all excited again and insists on giving me some pamphlets (two copies of the same) with information about the building, in german, checking first that i will have a friend who can read it to me.
then he says how it was nice to see me there! and i skip down the stairs and out into the sunshine still smiling at it all.
i will hopefully have further reports on this short romance with berlin, but lastly, please enjoy this bit of news i stumbled upon in the newspaper i picked up absently at heathrow airport on friday (almost as worthy as russia claiming the north pole as its territory and planting their flag via pressure-sensitive capsule on the unexplored ocean floor): schnitzel stephan, let me count the ways....