Lets go for a walk in my neighborhood

My river - I can look out my living room window down onto this little river.
Lets cross the bridge - at least three times a week I do this to go running in the forest.
Another river - in the forest - where I spend one hour running several times a week.
I think this majestic house is abandoned.
Gohlis Schlößchen - the little castle in Gohlis - about 20 minutes by foot from my place.
It is a little castle - compared to others in Europe.
The zoo - about 10 minutes by foot from my place.
The meadow in the Rosental.
Here I am back in my immediate neighborhood.

Here are a few impressions of the surroundings where I live. I'm so fortunate to have found an apartment in such a beautiful historic part of town, and so central. When I took these photos I was on a rare walk through the forest. Normally I am running, to stay in shape, so I can't stop to take pictures. But it was such a beautiful Fall day, I had to make time for a few photos. Some day when I am back on the other side of the world, these will be cherished memories. Now if I could only let you hear the church bells that ring every day.

And the Walls Came Tumbling Down

No pictures are in this entry - check October or September of previous years for the fotos for this topic. I posted this on Sunday on another internet forum, but I think it needs airing here too. Memory is a very important function that we are losing with the digital age and Twitter, FB, and other forums that mainly encourage us to only live in the immediate moment. Forgetting many indeed be the most dangerous thing that can happen to a person and a society.

Right now Germany is basking in twenty years of unity - in November 1989 the wall came down, and on October 3, 1990 German unity was officially completed.
But for me and my family, these events move to the back burners. It was on September 20 and October 4 of that same year of tumbling walls that my life tumbled down - my grandmother died on September 20 and my father on October 4. My grandmother had lived with my parents - my mother took care of her - for over seven years. I often played the piano while grandmother sat at the table and listened, almost going to sleep, and mother prepared the food for the family meal. So grandmother listened to Mozart, Chopin, Lizst, or Debussy from her grandson while her daughter prepared the meal. She often said she was the luckiest woman in the world.
About a year after their deaths I was back at the that same grand piano playing the same Debussy Ballade. Then I noticed my mother was gone for a long time. Thinking she might be sick, I went and saw she was in the bathroom. She was crying quite a bit, so sad because that piece reminded her of how we all were together with grandmother and my father eating together. All of those times had become memories.
And now my dear mother has rejoined them, and she gets to eat with them at God's table and listen to music much more beautiful than anything I could ever bang out on a piano.

But maybe I have found the real reason in Fall - everything falls - political walls, leaves on growing trees, and it would seem death and destruction can make life utterly bitter. But only a few months later Easter comes - really the most important holiday for Christians, because it reminds us of what seems impossible - that someone could really die and be buried, and then several days later really rise from the dead and walk around showing those who loved him the still present wounds in his body that would immediately tell you this person should be dead.
So for me, as each year goes by and I keep memories alive, I remember two important commands from God: do not be afraid, and be patient. What began at Easter is still continuing to unfold, if backstage, until someday the last wall will fall and death, the last enemy, will vanish forever.

Voilà my new apartment from the inside

Looking out the kitchen window to the west
Kitchen window view to the east - nice courtyard we have...

Looking down from the kitchen window to my very own garden.
Looking straight ahead from my bedroom window into the back courtyard.
The breakfast table in the kitchen - rubber tree wood....
The icon wall in the hallway
The bathroom
Another view of the kitchen
The kitchen seen from the hallway.
The view looking north out the living room window.
The living room
The living room from the other side
And the hallway seen from the living room.
The hallway seen from the entry.
My bedroom.
My bedroom from the other side.
The view from the living room window looking east - here is where I go running now.
The view from the living room window looking west.
Perhaps a better view looking west....

Above you see the interior of my new apartment. Please excuse some of the clutter - when I took the pictures there was still some unpacking and sorting to do. I really love the new apartment and the section of town I now live in - I am only 4 tram stops from the main train station, so I am very central, yet it is very quiet here - I can finally sleep with my window open - wonderful.

Moving On...

The new garden

another corner of the new garden

the stairwell with stained glass and wooden steps

an intersection about 10 seconds from my new front door

the street view from the front door

a front view of the house - the windows on the fourth floor (third for Europeans) are mine.

The house from the back

In one week my moving day arrives. The current apartment has two main shortcomings: very noisy outside, and mold on the east wall. And the management company is like a typical east German socialist "business" - do nothing fast and try to blame the tenant for everything.

The new apartment fits my personality much better - in an art nouveau house built 1902. Leipzig and Prague are the two cities with the most art nouveau architecture. If you remember much of the design of the Lord of the Rings movies, art nouveau elements played a central rôle there.

I could chose the colors of this newly renovated apartment: kitchen - apricot with terra cotta tile, my bedroom - sky blue, the hall - vanilla yellow, and the living room - a wine red bleached almost to white. Sebastian's room he just wanted white. The bath has anthracite tiles and old style white tiles. Being older, the ceilings are higher, and the living room has the old double windows and a rustic wood floor. I am on the top floor again, so more light and less noise comes in the windows.

And we have our own nice garden, as you see, with climbing roses, tulips, daffodils, grape vines, and several other local flowers I don't know yet. There is plenty of room for nice garden parties - afternoon tea on the lawn, or evening cooking out with wine or good German beer, and in the Waldstraßenviertel, where this is, there is a high concentration of top-notch restaurants and beer gardens, with the largest park, the Rosenthal, next door, and the zoo around the corner.

And when you move, you sort out and throw away many many things, so this is a purging experience also. Very ambivalent for me. And so a move is often like a transition to a new time in your life. I will see if this is true for me right now.

Red Roses for a Blue Lady

These aren't roses, but they are a beautiful red.

Do dreams tell us much? I think they can, especially if we have the same dream over and over again.

After the death of my father and grandmother within two weeks of each other I was plunged into the most difficult year of my life, but for my mother it was even more difficult; she had lost her own mother and husband of almost 40 years while her youngest son was on the other side of the world.

I saw red, and they were beautiful red roses, and a hand was lovingly arranging them while someone held this bouquet in their hand. As if it were a camera, the view began pulling back, and I saw that a woman was holding this giant bouquet of beautiful red roses, and she was wearing a festive dress - this was indeed a special occasion!

How happy I was for her, as I could then see she was wearing expensive high-heeled shoes like she always wore for special events, and I could hear majestic happy organ music flooding the room.

Now I could see more - it was a big church, and this lady, my mother, was standing at the front at the alter with her lovely bouquet of red roses. But wait, something is wrong..

the church is empty, and no one is standing at the alter - only a giant cross, and my mother is standing their crying buckets of tears flooding those red roses while the festive happy organ music plays on in this empty church.

This dream does not haunt me anymore.

The tears are gone, and now it is my turn to carry the roses and listen to the music.

A Long Holiday Weekend

The theatre where Bertold Brecht put on many of his works.
A view of central Berlin from the boat.
Now on land for that view.
The tv tower surrounded by cherry blossoms.
The Bode Museum on the Museum Island - a UNESCO protected island full of world-class museums.
The reading room in a café.
The Lenbach House - notice the detail on the porch.
The Bode Museum up closer. Astounding collections of art from the first 5 centuries of Christian art are also here.
A repair shop for very old woodwind instruments.

May 1 is a holiday here, so we have a long and sunny weekend ahead of us. I started it last evening with a long get together with the Danish director of a contact lens company I teach English for. After Thai food, a litre of beer, a little cognac, and then two cocktails, I still realize that I was not made for that kind of alcohol consumption. Since the evening started a 6:30 pm. and ended at almost 1 am., all the drinks were well spaced out so I wasn't spaced out. And I am glad I have nothing I have to do today.
I thought I would post a few more photos of the Berlin weekend - in case you never get there, this may give you a taste of the largest city between Paris and Moscow. Have a good weekend.

Photo Essay - a Berlin Weekend

Tram tracks lead to the tv tower in eastern Berlin on the Oranienburger Str.

Here is the view from our hotel room window - the Tempelhof airport.
Sebastian takes the cue from Buddha to meditate before currying...
....the French church at the Gendarmenmarkt
A detail from John chapter 4 of the French church at the Gendarmenmarkt
The impressive Gendarmenmarkt - my favorite square in Berlin
.... and in an inner courtyard you find artwork like this...
my coffee break in the afternoon on Sunday
the beautiful café where I enjoyed this coffee break.
a classic view of west Berlin - the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in the background.
The Berlin Cathedral on the Spree River - here the Hohenzollerns, the royal family of Prussia, went to church...
The Cathedral from the other side with cherry blossoms.
the chancellor's quarters seen from a boat on the Spree River...
Our coffee break at La Fayette in the Friedrich Str. in central Berlin.
a self-photo at the Indian restaurant in Prenzlauer Berg.

Here is a photo update on my life. With wonderful weather, a weekend ago we took a 2-day trip to Berlin - 1 hour on the train and voilà, you're in Berlin. It was a peaceful yet fast-moving time; Berlin is so big that you have to keep moving fast to take anything in. The lemon tart at La Fayette was wonderful, and the boat ride on the Spree River was the first I have taken - worth the money. More details soon, but at the moment I have to get on - and get to bed! Sleep well...