au revoir lake!

Entering the forest, you ride through this treescape/Einfahrt in den Wald
Einige Birken winken freundlich/a few birch trees wave friendly...
Over the river /über den Fluss
Eine niedliche Brücke / a cute pedestrian bridge
Getting closer to the lake now
Finally I've arrived/ Endlich am See angekommen
Some of the last braver sunworshipers
The view to the south toward Markkleeberg
Autumn is arriving in eastern Germany, sort of, that is. The last weekend in September I went to my lake for the last time this year. They sun is getting weaker by the day, and the water is getting much cooler. At this latitude you understand why the ancient Europeans worshiped the sun as a deity: the sun moves radically across the sky from above you in the summer to low over the southern horizon in the winter, and the sunlight has a different quality. Now it is a soft golden light you never see in Texas, because we are too far south.
For my last trip to the lake I took my digital camera along for some farewell photos for this year. Here you see the view of the lake and the path I take on my bike to get there, all in all about 10 minutes by bike from my apartment. It is so peaceful to lie in the sun, go swimming, and then just read for several hours. Oh, Aggie, concerning drinking customs, water is standard, of course, but many also bring along good German beer to drink. Since alcohol is a diuretic, I avoid it at the lake. If the temperature isn’t too high, I bring coffee along and have afternoon coffee on the lake. In the heat I only drink water and eat fresh fruit and maybe some walnuts.
Now concerning my last two weeks: it has been busy. I’ve translated subtitles for a documentary film on schizophrenia. Sunday I was in a concert in a small baroque castle in north Leipzig; solo piano playing Mozart and Liszt. Today, Tuesday, is a federal holiday in Germany, day of German unity, so I have time to blog (!).
Finally, I got a call from my mother last week. She told me she was home from the hospital now. Of course, I knew nothing about anything. It seems she was having very irregular heart beats (atrial fibrillation), so she spent several days in ICU and then two days in a normal hospital room. As of today she’s been home for a whole week, and she is slowly getting better, but she has a big variety of medication to take every day. This is harrowing, of course, since over here on the other side of the world I can’t do much for her other than call her every day. Thankfully my brother is there, so that helps, but I still know the moral imperative on me to do my part. Looks like my next visit to Texas may be filled with much work in her home. What do you listen to in such situations? Right now it’s the violin concerto of Tschaikovsky in a CD of the London Symphony Orchestra with Vadim Repin on the violin. It’s Erato CD # 4509-98537-2, and I recommend it. Please think about me as you listen.