Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Less internet, less blogging...
As most of you know I still don't have internet access on my laptop, so I'm afraid the blogging is going to take a bit of a knock. Suffice to say that I am LOVING my new job, and amsterdam looks like it's going to be a great city! I've put a link to my map on the right...
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Life is so much better than good!
It's been a while and from now on I have no apologies for not sitting in front of a computer and blogging, life is happening!
I've just got back to Berlin's first snowfall from Prenzlau. Prenzlau is a small town (about 20 000 peeps and probably loads of cool animals, some rather aggressive...) near the Polish border, my digsmate (flatmate for our american friends) Torsten comes from Prenzlau and he took me back there for a day and night yesterday. It was awesome. On the car drive there I spoke a lot with his folks about life in the DDR times (Torsten took the train to take his bike). When we got there we went to visit Torsten's grandparents who were celebrating their 51st wedding anniversary. We helped Torsten's grandpa load some large strawbales onto a trailer and played a bit with Barny, the (very beautiful) dog. I WANT A DOG! I also played with a very aggressive Kaninchen (rabbit) and got properly scratched. Also saw the buck rabbit - frikkin huge! We ate kartoffel puffer mmmh. Then we went to visit some other relatives who were renovating an absolutely traumhaft (from a dream) old manor house. The Germans use of coloured glass bricks needs to be addressed though, but otherwise beautiful with strawberry fields and horses. We had a celebratory supper at a beer garden for Torsten's grandparents. It was great, but they did have horse on the menu, which seemed kinda strange to me, but I guess sometimes when I have these moments of clarity, having any animal on the menu seems totally barbaric, even if some of them scratch... My german is pretty much fluent now although my grammar leaves much to be desired. It was great to be able to participate in conversation and understand everything that was being said.
It's funny to hear some German people complaining about how unsightly wind turbines are, but in the same sentence how beautiful the scenery is (which is all fields for agriculture). I think both are a necessary evil if we want to live the high-tech power hungry lives we do and try and feed everybody (or produce sweetened highly processed food - most of the fields were for sugar beet which is made into sugar). We've gotten used to the fields which are essentially biodiversity deserts because they are essential for our way of life, I wonder if my children will have gotten used to wind turbines in the same way? I think it would be great if we could live a bit more in step with gaia. I guess if we don't she'll reject us anyway...
So I'm about to leave for work which will be the start of my last week in Berlin. It has been an amazing time. Berlin is now securely my second favourite city, edging out Istanbul. CT first of course. I'm really going to miss a lot about my time here, and probably most of all the amazing variety of people I've met and friends I've made. I'm sure I'll stay in touch with many of them (facebook has to have some use!) and can't wait to introduce some of them to Cape Town and South Africa.
I'm looking forward to Amsterdam, and getting going at Greenpeace, I think it's going to be a really good feeling to be putting my energy into something I really believe in! And of course there will be new friends to be made there, as well as deer hunting flatmates to deal with!
Life is beautiful!
I've just got back to Berlin's first snowfall from Prenzlau. Prenzlau is a small town (about 20 000 peeps and probably loads of cool animals, some rather aggressive...) near the Polish border, my digsmate (flatmate for our american friends) Torsten comes from Prenzlau and he took me back there for a day and night yesterday. It was awesome. On the car drive there I spoke a lot with his folks about life in the DDR times (Torsten took the train to take his bike). When we got there we went to visit Torsten's grandparents who were celebrating their 51st wedding anniversary. We helped Torsten's grandpa load some large strawbales onto a trailer and played a bit with Barny, the (very beautiful) dog. I WANT A DOG! I also played with a very aggressive Kaninchen (rabbit) and got properly scratched. Also saw the buck rabbit - frikkin huge! We ate kartoffel puffer mmmh. Then we went to visit some other relatives who were renovating an absolutely traumhaft (from a dream) old manor house. The Germans use of coloured glass bricks needs to be addressed though, but otherwise beautiful with strawberry fields and horses. We had a celebratory supper at a beer garden for Torsten's grandparents. It was great, but they did have horse on the menu, which seemed kinda strange to me, but I guess sometimes when I have these moments of clarity, having any animal on the menu seems totally barbaric, even if some of them scratch... My german is pretty much fluent now although my grammar leaves much to be desired. It was great to be able to participate in conversation and understand everything that was being said.
It's funny to hear some German people complaining about how unsightly wind turbines are, but in the same sentence how beautiful the scenery is (which is all fields for agriculture). I think both are a necessary evil if we want to live the high-tech power hungry lives we do and try and feed everybody (or produce sweetened highly processed food - most of the fields were for sugar beet which is made into sugar). We've gotten used to the fields which are essentially biodiversity deserts because they are essential for our way of life, I wonder if my children will have gotten used to wind turbines in the same way? I think it would be great if we could live a bit more in step with gaia. I guess if we don't she'll reject us anyway...
So I'm about to leave for work which will be the start of my last week in Berlin. It has been an amazing time. Berlin is now securely my second favourite city, edging out Istanbul. CT first of course. I'm really going to miss a lot about my time here, and probably most of all the amazing variety of people I've met and friends I've made. I'm sure I'll stay in touch with many of them (facebook has to have some use!) and can't wait to introduce some of them to Cape Town and South Africa.
I'm looking forward to Amsterdam, and getting going at Greenpeace, I think it's going to be a really good feeling to be putting my energy into something I really believe in! And of course there will be new friends to be made there, as well as deer hunting flatmates to deal with!
Life is beautiful!
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