Bike Adventure!

I wake up on Wednesday morning, and decide that it’s a good idea to go for a bike ride. As the sole aim of this excursion is “ride my bike for a long time,” and “see things,” I figure it’ll be easy enough to find my way. Riding off at about 9:30, I think,clearly awash in morningtime sentimentalism, keep the sun over your left shoulder, and ride till you run out of road.

I didn’t really know where I was going. I knew that Leipzig was to the south, but far off. I briefly entertained the thought of going to Poland (we’re close), but decided that East was probably not the best direction.

Other obstacles: German towns have excellent bike paths everywhere, German countryside and dorfchen (probably 100 houses clustered in the middle of a field, aka a town) do not. They’ve got roads which, although populated by old people puttering around on bikes, are also populated by cars. (Not that I haven’t put up with them before, but, still, unappealing).

I found signs for a bike path, which quickly turned in to a gravel path, which quickly turned into a forest path. No! said the skinny tires, No! said the carbon frame, You’re in for it now, said the sandy soil.

yes! I said, feeling brave – and slightly rhetorically melodramatic, as though I’d read too much Churchill.

I believe you can see sheep in one of the pictures above. or, I believe I saw sheep as I took the picture, and I’d hate to think that cameras don’t capture reality.

This is Pentheselia, called sometimes Princess (although, to go by the books, she is actually Princess II). Besides the usual (keys-wallet-phone-pen), I also brought a bathing suit & towel, journal & colored pencils, and the collected Yeats which I bought on a whim two summers ago. I’ve been reading it.

As you can see, the soil around Berlin is truly awful.

This is interesting stuff.

Wheat on the right hand,

and sunflowers on the left, which giant windmills up in the sky (I’d never seen a real one before? it startled me).

It’s aggressively idyllic. Love me, it said, I’m charming, wholesome, bountiful!

I want to get back to Berlin, I thought, maybe even more familiar pastures: the Appalachian meadows?

I ended up in Ludwigsfelde, then to Seemund, through a dozen tiny towns (what does everyone do, living out in the middle of nowhere like this!?), then to Potsdam, back to Berlin, then back to Potsdam again – I’m decisive, you can tell – for lunch, an unexpected rainstorm, and an incomplete spin through the old Prussian gardens and palaces. I was going to try and make it around Wannsee, but the weather was a little questionable.

Confidence in myself: I can go anywhere! I can go far and fast (provided I eat prodigiously)!

Confidence in the German roads: not so good. Bike lanes inexplicably end, or turn into dirt paths through the woods. Sign-age is really good (waldweg, it’ll say, forest path. As though you were perhaps confused), and I couldn’t have gotten lost if I’d tried (I didn’t really. Except to think, “wouldn’t it be great if I accidentally went West and ended up in Poland?” A: No, not at all!).

Self-flattering conclusions: figure out where you’re going next time, and then you’ll be wonderful.

___________________________________

Otherwise:

going to Prague this weekend, which should be a good time.

will write more later.

25 Pages, 1 Afternoon, 10 Euros, and a writing callous

If you are:

- my parents

- Irma Goldberg

- Lindsay Haslebacher

- Nicole Anthony

- Victor Yamaykin

then the standard amount of 5 pp. letter are winging their way to you, right this minute, via Deutsch LuftPost.

Get excited, y’all.

[if you want one, ask!]

new york times addiction.

Again.

I don’t think, however, that I’m living quite the life the article describes, out here, quiet in the suburbs. The museums in the middle of the city, check. Tiergarten, check. Fancy shopping, only of late (I had to; I’ll never do it again; it was a necessity, a birthday present, and what I’ve wanted the most of quite a while). Art galleries and fancy restaurants, not so much.

Although I am proud that the city I’ve come to – well, maybe not love. not yet. have great affection for? – can be called “the most cultured in Europe.”

My Idol.

It’s a sad day, everyone.

Knockout.

Unglaublich.

Also

I’ve been listening to music (like, normal music) a lot more appreciatively lately, and I don’t know why that is. It’s not really a thank God it’s English, but, perhaps, a vestige of homesickness, in a that song – that time when way. Perhaps.

____________________________________

IMPORTANT: FIRST GERMAN BIKE ACCIDENT (TRUE FACT).

Setting: Biking from Prenzlauer Berg south through Mitte to Friedrichshein, have just realized, “whoa, here I am at Hackescher Markt!”

First-Person Mental Narrative: whoa, here I am at Hakescher Markt – light’s changing green – a taxi’s trying to turn around – don’t hit the kid – get on the right side, and, good, you’re safe – it’s the East, watch out, remember, there’s tram tracks!

switch to first-person non-mental: so, as I think about the danger of my bike wheel getting caught in one of the tram tracks, it does. and then, really, there’s nothing left to do but fall – you can’t swerve – over the handlebars and into a parked car.

germans all around: Brauchst du Hilfe? Brauchst du Hilfe?

me: ah… nein… aber, mein Fahrrad, es ist jetzt ein bisschen…

german paterfamilias: dein Hand, und deine Hose…

me: assess total damages (Total Damages: a bit dirty, bleeding scratch on wrist from watch, chest-bruise from shifters), ich denke ich wird okay sein, alles gute fur mich.

german taxidriver: Ist alles in Ordnung? (lit: Is everything in order, trans: Is everything okay? – the classically German mindset), then offers me a ride somewhere to get help, I think

Paterfamilias: wrenches my bike’s head tube straight, then the handlebars straight, for a full 360 degree rotation of alles in Ordnung.

me: als gut als neu! vielen dank!

familias von paterfamilias: looks on approvingly, smiles.

germans: viel gluck!

me: danke! and ride away to explore the south with Jake, to end at a coffeeshop watching the (Europa Meister) game (Deutschland v. Osterreich, we won).

THE END.

(dear family: you said it would happen, and it did. here’s hoping it was the only time).

Things

I need to read, cont.

- more Nietzsche

- more Hesse

(ie, the writers of the German 1920’s, who were favored by American protesters of the 1960’s. I’m a little behind.)

I found an English Language bookshop (my God, what a thing to find! German bookshops are attractive and repulsive (they’re books! – you can’t read them! – I could try! – that’s not enough! – true…), nevermind the fact that their Foreign Language sections really only consist of Good Old American Authors, who I’m less interested in, believe it or not, than the Germans who’ve written about the place I am now), St. George’s, in Prenzlauer Berg, and have vowed to return (finish what you start, says the conscience, or don’t you have about 6 books to read already?).

I covet:

- the leather shoulder bags / briefcase / messenger bags that Germans, mostly boys, have. Where do you buy them? How can I even walk into a boutique-of-cool-things, when I’m afraid to do that even in English?

To remember:

- bike with Marie at 9, breakfast first

- bike/explore with Chris Thursday afternoon

- keep abreast of everything else

- Weimar this weekend

___________________

Pictures forthcoming but the connection here, outside, is too slow.

progress!

Two socks, and, although you can’t see it, one is 1″ shorter than the other.

Charming.

(this means, now: a trip to the gentrified east, and its trendy yarn shops! among other things, Prenzlauer Berg)

yesterday, sunday

it rained, hard. I read.

SOZIALISMUS

we went walking around the city, Thursday. this mural, painted on porcelain, is on the side of the former Nazi air ministry + former site of the division/consumption of East German farms and factories + current Finance ministry.

the whole aesthetic is pretty Nazi-looking.