Itchy

I got covered in dust last night sitting in a park. But the dust didn't prevent the moscitoes from eating me up alive... Today is just crazy, I am covered in not less than 30 bites.. but it was a nice sit in with lightnings and music..

Berlin's still pretty hot.
I still got that bunny.
I still workworkwork :)....
I want to be more productive though... turn up the engine.
And swim the lakes of Berlin at night!

Currently, Berlin and I are in a love-hate relationship. Either I love it. The people, the many hellos we get on a morning round, the chit chat, the sun on Tempelhof, the space, the faces on the trains, the very random encounters day after day, my messy appartment, my strange and changing life, my friends, the closeness to people I very often feel here, the possibility to literally do WHATEVER and not to be judged. The bars opening around my area, the fact that the World Cup is finally over, no more silvester "bombs" at night, no more puke the morning after on the streets... The fact that three thirds of the "really" stylish people aren't even Berlin, they are from Barcelona or Brasil, the girls wearing the layers and the sun glasses... The Berliner is actually very much conservative, possibly chucks, but that's it. (Unless a Turkish or Arabian background)... I love the fact that Aussi and I had an excursion into enemy's country (Prenzlauer Berg, couple with children...) & came home with two free cages and really interesting bunny supplies. Is the enemy not the enemy after all? Check out your favorite Feindbild http://www.zitty.de/magazin-berlin/16849/ in Berlin... (Love that article, too)

I hate the heat that stays like a soup, makes you drown in it, doesn't let you go. Soup comes with the smell of the puke, the dog shit, the sweat of the millions of people who gather on this little piece of earth... People abuse people, children... animals. Life. They stay, they waste, they are rude.. they say "they" :).. Sometimes I have enough of it all, I want silence, the smell of a forest, space. Peace. Good thing that I got an excuse to leave the house and wonder off into the greens 3 times a day... Otherwise I'd go crazy.

But then again. I love you Berlin. I like what this city is doing with me.

Monday morning encounters

This morning the three of us had a million gazillion encounters with humans and canines, fine spirired and not so fine.
One was pretty bad as Zora barked at some person (homeless? unemployed for sure...) sitting on the ground on a public walking path, leaning against a tree, reading the newspaper. What can I say she had never seen something like that before :). Zora sniffed at him and he yelled. So she ran around the tree a few times barking until I finally catch her. (not attacking obviously, being Zora, and the guy had definitely heard us coming along beforehand, so his reaction that made her bark in the first place, was... well... hmm.. I know she's not supposed to that... anyway) So he screams, "Come here once more, someone will get hit on the head with a stick!" I wondered if that was referring to me or her, it was a rather open comment. And I waited for Barnie (who had deciced to poop in the bush right next to the guy, what a statement...), held Zo on the collar, apologized and left. He bitched something after me, that I didn't really understand. Either me or Zora were considered "psychologically ill". I contemplated about walking back, starting a conversation, but I thought it's not really worth it.
Mind you that was the path where on sunday morning during our tour, we had walked past a parking taxi, windows open, music playing and two naked people in the backseat. On sunday around 8am!!! I guess I am still a town girl after all..
Back to work...

The heat of soccer

Berlin is about 100° hot these days. Today Germany kicked Argentina out of the World Cup. 4:0. What a game it must have been. I stayed hidden behind curtains, windows closed, working at my desk. Might have gone out and celebrated my German soccer heritage if it hadn't been for my friend sitting at my dining table studying herself. But fleeing my appartment wouldn't have been possible even to abandon my love-hate work because of my guest for the weekend, Barnie, my sister's dog (she went sailing... she went sailing... like a boat... cross the seas...). He's 11, almost fully blind, pretty deaf - but not deaf enough not to hear and be terrified by the fireworks that went off at every occasion Germany could have or actually did score a goal. There were many. Down here in neukoelln, sometimes I think this is what war must sound like.
Just before the game a short walk around the block in the blistering sun. Soccer Fans everywhere. Vuvuzela. 3.30pm, 38.5°, 2.4 beer already drunk, 2 schnaps each for good luck and the flags and the megaphones ready. But still saving the fireworks, so we were quite lucky and the old man got to get rid of some of the water he'd been downing the hours before. Feeling strange and disconnected to the German fans. Germany. Remembering soccer matches in Aachen where we always turned them into a party...
The game. A social event for me, no point in watching it if I can't be social about it. Me at the desk, Barnie under the desk, Zora bored. Hoping it would be over soon. A city is a difficult place for dogs at times of soccer world cups (or the europe cup, esp. with Turkey in it...) or new year's if they are scared of the fireworks. I wonder what they think. Or what they hear. Or what they associate with it? needless to say there's no walking the old man if there's only the slightest chance of some thunder. Or during these days some honking... oh boy.
Interesting part was however that Zora is absolutely not impressed by the sounds... So two hours after the glorious German win I have one dog laying down in the middle of Hermannstrasse and one pulling forward excitedly, so happy that we are finally outside after enduring what must have felt like months in the heat locked inside the appartment, no Stevie to play with and stupid nora at the computer... But: mission failed. I got applause from a Turkish family when I managed to get Barnie back onto the sidwalk - heading home, of course.
He stayed at the appartment with my hard working friend while I took out Zora to "tire the bitch out" (famous quote) and lucikily we met her friend. note on the side: I really like this about Berlin that you run into people with dogs all the time, some of them are nice and some of them you develop a friendship with (holds true for both). Sitting in the park, playing with the two bitches, we met another woman and her dog (whom I had met whilst waiting at the vet for 6 hours, but that's a different story) and we were later joined by a man and his dog.
However this was rather interesting as the man had a ball and had this idea about how to teach Zora patience. Haha. Humanfriend & I had so much fun watching our dogs being not so patient and "the man" saying, "I have taught plenty of dogs before. This will make them calm down". For sure it didn't. But it was hilarious watching a (continuously warned) man trying to lay down a ball in front of him and have 4 dogs wait to get it. What a day! At one point Zora actually wriggled up to the ball and completely didn't understand why that was wrong. (Towards the end I suggested he try the command "Stay", which she has at least heart of)... Men!!!
Brought home human & dog friend, just to find my home study friend still here (another note on the side: I think it is wonderful that my place seems to have turned out to be an open house of some sort, people here, eating, taking showers, working :D, dogs... yes. It is good)
So then went and took along ol' Barnie (after the next game was over & the fireworks had cooled down). Basically I did a lot of dog walking today, no soccer watching, lots of eating and cooking, but also working and I am really happy about it. If I can do it in this heat, I can do it anytime :).
And I am so glad I have friends who seem to like me and Zora and who cheer me up and help me get on track being aware of it or most likely not... but thanks, guys, I know some of you might actually read this :) and I love my 4 musketeers ;), you are the foundation of Berlin to me... ;) yay! Yesterday I was terrified and thought of being completely anti-social for the next 3 weeks. Today I think I might be able to level it out, yet focussing on my work. And my bitch who as soon as the weather reached a point of 27.8° just can't hear me anymore (poor girl).
Oh I'll post pics soon, but right now I am too tired. I like writing into the orbit that's out there. This is completely random, but I like it. And it is too hot to sleep anyways. Time to shower.
Over & out.

:-)

By the way, I am okay, too. And thanks for the inspiration to continue writing (this). I wish all this writing was as easy stream-of-consciousness-like as this. The next weeks will be so busy and I am bit scared and sceptical of myself.

Oh and if the time comes, Zo & I might move to a flatshare, leave our little ivory tower and see what's out there. For now, we won't though. I like my space. And even though there is no visitors at my house and I vowed not to take in anybody for the next month facing my workload - there will be another dog (Barnie) visiting for the weekend.

How many Berlins does it take to raise two dogs?

How many Berlins does it take to raise me?

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.