A Journal Of The Under-The-Weather Week

My week off is almost past! Real life starts in 3 days! Better blog while the bloggin’s good!

I am a little bit sick, and I have been so for about 4 days now; not full-blown, sleep-all-day, get-me-a-young-priest-and-an-old-priest sick, but sick enough to put like a hazy damper on everything. Also food tastes funny. Every morning I wake up with a sore throat and tell myself, “Okay, gonna take it easy today. Walk slowly, don’t do any pull-ups, eat soft things so I don’t strain myself chewing.” Then I go for a run, because exercise is good for your immune system (I know this because I heard it from a friend, who heard it from her mom, who is a NURSE), and then I hop on my bike because I have things to do and my primary public transit is out of service due to construction, and suddenly it’s 2230 (10:30 pm for all of you left-of-the-Atlantic types) and I’m alone and lost on my bike in the dark, somewhere in Berlin. I have been underdressed, underfed, and riding my bike for several hours straight. And, shock of shocks, I feel a little sick. Then I wake up the next morning and do it over again.

Stern Subway Bart Simpson does not approve of my behavior. But today, today will be different! I will dress warm, and neither run nor swim, and ride my bike only as far as an ATM (for stamp money), the post office (for stamps), and my classrooms (to ease anxiety). Outside of that I will sit in warm rooms, wear sweaters, and eat hearty things. The real winner in all this is you folks—I’ve been taking pretty photos of neat things when I should have been taking care of myself, and now that I’m immobilized I have nothing better to do than describe those things to you.

So: Wednesday was a very pleasant day here in the Hauptstadt (capital city), sunny and windy, not hot but certainly not cold—a brisk, clean, early spring warmth. I was fine in a t-shirt because I tend to run hot, and I was constantly biking, and I was probably a little feverish.

I spent the first half of the day writing postcards, making to-do lists, running errands, swimming, and not eating nearly enough food. Thanks to an unusually quick post-swim shower/dry/dress turnaround time, I made it to Mensa Nord just in time to still get lunch. A Mensa is a student cafeteria, and Mensa Nord is Humboldt University’s most northerly (hence “Nord” [north]) and delicious student dining facility. I sprinted up the steps, spun past a couple of slow, bearded philosophy major-types contemplating the menu in long coats, and served myself up large, relatively nutritious meal. Check it: I got a big plate full of gnocchi with beef and mushrooms, a second big plate full of rice, baked zuchinni, and this spicy beef cutlet, a Brötchen (roll) for post-meal plate mopping purposes, and pair of beverages, all for a mere 6 euros. I am going to eat a lot of food at Mensa Nord.

My food disappeared into my mouth before I could photograph it, but I did get a picture of this bizarre mutant vegetarian polar bear poster:The text reads “Strong as a bear—Vegetarian!” However, I have to say: Vegibearian here is not looking too healthy. The green ears and snout are bad enough, but I’m really more concerned about the overall shriveled and twisted facial structure, and those tiny teardrop eyes. He looks like an Ood.

Then, this brief internal dialogue took place:
Meta-consciousness: Are you hungry?
Consciousness: No
M: Real tired?
C: No
M: Do you have to do anything for the next 4 hours or so?
C: Not really
M: Bicycle adventure?
C: BICYCLE ADVENTURE.

For my first trick, I coasted over to Tiergarten and found the memorial to the homosexuals persecuted under National-Socialism. I had noticed a sign for it at the Holocaust Memorial last week and was curious to see what it would look like. It turned out to be a big black slightly askew rectangular prism with a window in the side and a film of two dudes kissing forever projected inside. Actually, I suppose there is probably an equal time allotted to footage of women kissing women—I couldn’t find a schedule, so I guess it is just luck of the draw.

Turned south, biked in the sun when I could, came to a new place: Potsdamer Platz.

This ludicrous billboard was stretched across the façade of a building with a Canadian flag on it—hopefully it is the Canadian Embassy, and some bumbling Canuck official accidentally signed off on this hideous thing obscuring 90% of his country’s windows in Germany.Look at how crazy it is. I think the concept is, this pink rabbit, who I guess I named Tally, has decided that flying inside the airplane—with its pressurized cabin, habitable temperatures, breathable air, etc—is for common losers, and that true jet set players fly outside, reclining on towels on the wing. His statuesque blonde girlfriend is wearing her best black leather dress and has slipped off her pink platform pumps to let that 400 mph sub-zero breeze play between her toes.

I like the pink boots/white shorts/tuxedo jacket ensemble:And all the jealous wannabe suckers looking longingly out the windows:I took these photos from the median portion of large crosswalk, and I kept getting distracted from this lovely monument to capitalist inanity by a bunch of musicians trying to make a living from their art. GET A JOB.Actually this band, despite their stupid name—Drew’s Soul Kitchen, or something equally dumb—was pretty entertaining, and very devoted to their performance for people staring at the streetlights at this busy intersection.

Look, the saxophonist is pretending his sax is guitar! GIVE THIS MAN A RECORDING CONTRACT. I’m sorry these are so blurry, I had to be quick to get in shots between the constant flow of peds. On the plus side, we do get an excellent, crisp view of some woman’s left ear.

The saxophonist danced around a lot, and he sang on some songs. He didn’t have any sort of microphone, so he really had to belt it out to be even half-way audible on top of the traffic, drums, and amplified guitars. Notice the guitarist’s amp, elevated on the back of his bike:
I tossed 50 euro-cents in the sax case and kept heading south. This strange, steeply angled, uh, grass-covered 3D meadow thing stretches for about a kilometer between heavy development and stopped at a river.
This bridge spans the river and a pair of busy streets, connecting a train station with a parking structure. That blonde was in ten kinds of a hurry to get to her car and wore some serious shoes that I could hear Clack Clack Clacking all the way across the walkway. Enough to make a fellow nervous.

I stopped to let her pass, and a quick scan of the opposite bank revealed some things that were apparently giant rose sculptures?Yes. Yes they are giant rose sculptures.Alllll over the place:Just lousy with giant roses:This line of elephantine blossoms runs between the parking garage and a big, inexplicable vacant lot. For what I’m sure are historical and political and environmental and financial reasons that would take years to investigate fully, Berlin, for all its density and constant construction, can feel very empty sometimes. See, just across the river is that heavy development I rode here through:But turn 180 degrees and it’s trash-strewn meadow as far as you can see. That yellow train on the left side of the rear bridge is an U-Bahn. Tens of thousands of people ride it over this huge empty space every day, and not one of them has come up with anything better to do with it.

Ah well. I’ll worry about encouraging commercial development in Berlin just as soon as I am elected to the City Council and not a moment before. At this moment I embraced it as a huge grassy space in the sun, sat down with an apple and watched some young men fly a truly enormous kite:
Today’s Pink Lady was especially pink. Not quite the same shade as the nearest titanic rose, but close.
Onward! Look at this cool mural:The nude girl on the right was the obvious focal point here, so I moved in for a close-up that revealed two things: this girl is part tree, and this artist likes butts. Really, look that lovingly rendered rear:

This building has an airplane on the outside, which suggests to me that it contains more airplanes on the inside. The sign reads German Technology Museum, and I have got to visit this thing on some rainy summer day. For today I just rode around it to this footbridge back across the river.I climbed a few stairs and was about to turn right onto the bridge when I looked left and saw this mysterious path winding off between the trees. What I had assumed to be an independent structure was in fact the logical continuation of some longer trail. Sensing a possible metaphorical journey of the soul, I set off towards my destiny, looking for some parables of human frailty, or a spirit animal, or at least like a talking shrub or something.

Aaaaand about 50 meters later the mysterious path ended in a less mysterious road and my hopes were dashed:Hoping to get at least a little adventure out of what had been a bust of a diversion so far, I pedaled down the less mysterious road. At first I thought it was just an abandoned railyard or something, what with the rusty old steel constructionsAnd “Attention! Biting Dog” signs.But the things behind the fence got stranger and stranger, and by the time I hit the fully intact windmill I had figured out that this was in fact the outdoor storage facility for the Technikmuseum. So that was cool.

The airplane brace from behind:
I crossed the bridge and rode through another park and spotted this weird temple-type thing. “Supervillain lair” was obviously my first thought, and this mysterious box fed my hope: doesn’t “Liquidrom Therme” sound like a doomsday device?BUT my irrational dreams were once again dashed when I discovered that this structure, despite possessing the menacing name of Tempodrom, is just a music venue. It will host Jack Johnson next month though, so that’s, uh, that’s kind of mildly evil, right?

Just across the plaza from the Tempodrom a bunch of kids played soccer in front of a church ruin. In Berlin, if your soccer field ain't next to a church ruin you ain't nobody.At this point I remembered I was sick and hungry and cold, so I checked my map and discovered I was several klicks from home. See: this is why I’m sick.

I was too focused on getting home to take a lot of pictures on the way, but I did manage to photograph this fairly comical stretch of road construction. Traffic had been redirected in the opposite direction, so to minimize confusion some traffic engineers put very thin yellow Xs over all the arrows pointing the wrong way. I found it v confusing and was glad I could just ride on the sidewalk.
Picked up some groceries on the way home:I eat a lot of pork.

And finally, I went to a jazz club that night, and on the long, cold, ensickening walk home (I foolishly did not bring my bike, and forgot that my stupid tram is stupid not stupid running), I took a picture of this cool car.Yeah man. Yeah. This is worth walking 5 km home in the cold.

Okay! This ended up being a pretty long post—I think I have typed out all of my morning coffee and need a nap. Then: make flashcards, pull on a sweater for a brief and sunny bike ride to the post office and classroom buildings, come home and do some reading/work/generally take care of myself. I’ll get better, I promise.