Move into the country....

Zora and I travelled the world in the past weeks. We met a felt million people and are happy to be back home now.

Travelling by ICE with a dog can be so much easier (and quieter!) than with a child. Actually travelling in an ICE with a child in the same waggon that is constantly crying & screaming at a high pitch voice might inspire some people to have some really bad thoughts. Oh well.
When we were on a very small train from one little town to another somewhere in north rine westfalia, we met this guy. He was wearing big sneakers, all white shorts and shirts and a cup... a very stylish young person.. not really the type I generally chat to on the train as most of the small town boys wanna beat you up for looking strangely at their girlfriends or they give their girlfriends the task (as guys don't hit girls).
So that lad was chatting up to Zora (it is a general feeling of mine that Zora is much often hit on than I am. I wonder. And no, she won't get her own facebook profile), wondering what type of dog she was (here it was my turn to answer), making assumptions... I always find it very funny that people interpret the types of dogs they like / own into Zora. And I still can't tell, but my usual answer "Berlin street breed" couldn't be applied here as I was 700km away from Berlin.
So when he asked me where we and our enormous luggage were heading to and I named the little town, which he didn't know, I felt oblige to be cool myself and claimed, "Actually, we are from Berlin". Sounded very exotic in that tiny train and I felt really good about it. Funny enough, they guy looked at me and asked "Where??" and I said "neukoelln" and he replied "Pankow!". Apparently he had only moved to the little town a couple of weeks ago and we ended up chatting quite nicely about life out in the country. There was this instant feeling of connection - and none of us would have ever guessed if it hadn't been for Zora...

This happens to me all the time. Sometimes I don't feel like chatting though. But most of the time it is very rewarding. After the 4.5 hour ICE ride everyone knew us when we got off the train in Duesseldorf (not too sure if that was a good thing though).
On the little trains that we took travelling within north rine westfalia we also met many people who came and chatted to us. Or very very young ones who were super brave and pettet Zora. (Yet she barked at them when they were pushed past her in their prams).

I did find it quite appalling that out in the country surrounding the little towns there was lots of space, but people were very uptight about their dogs. Leashes shortened as soon as they spotted us on the horizon. Little dogs lifted up into safe arms, being rescued from my bloodthirsting beast... I liked the smell of the forest so much. It is very different from Berlin's parks or forest, it is so fresh and real and... true. But having a dog is so much easier in a city, where canines meet four times a day, get to run and play - and the owners chat away over a bottle of beer. I was a bit insecure whether it was actually appropriate for a rather medium sized dog (who even keeps growing, think about it!) to live in the middle of Berlin. If it wasn't nicer to have fields and forests to play and run in. But I think a dog's life here isn't that bad after all.

And now we're gonna bike off to Tempelhof, bike around it for 8km and then stop at one of the three dog running areas to meet the dog friends. It is freaking hot here these days, so we need to do it eeeearly in the morning (uhum) or late in the evening (my preferred choice). Life is not that bad after all.