(Sonntag, 21. Sept., 2008)
I got up at 10:30 this morning and drank some coffee. Then I went for a thirty minute run. I can run to the nearby trail in six minutes. When I got back I had a long, wonderful breakfast.
I also watched some Oktoberfest broadcast from München. It was insanity. Picture The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade held at Dollywood, but without the parade. Oh yeah, and with 12 grown men skipping around in a circle wearing short leather shorts, suspenders, and knee socks, slapping their thighs in time with accordion music.
There were some wonderful songs though. Truly. Here are the titles of some of my favorites: “Oh, It’s Beer Time, Baby”, “Bayrisches Cowgirl”, and “Wohl, Jawohl, Jawohl!”
Again I walked around my neighborhood. So langweilig (boring)!
One of the most prominent features of Lichterfelde Süd is the Heizkraftwerk.
It’s a collection of three large Chernobyl-looking things with three tall towers behind them. It sits right on the canal, about a fifteen-minute walk from my house.
The weirdest thing about it is that just southwest of it, directly in its shadow, is this weird quaint neighborhood.
This neighborhood totally weirds me out.
First of all, all the houses are so tiny that at first I thought they were only garden sheds.
Second, each is completely fenced in and sits on a very small lot. Third, they are all completely dwarfed by their gardens.
Put that together with the fact that they sit under the Kraftwerk, as if in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius, and it’s just a surreal experience to be walk around them. Oh yeah, and even on a Sunday afternoon I saw very, very few people. Well, I saw these people:
And the old lady really disturbed me because I thought I might be trespassing, and that she was, like, the neighborhood enforcer or something come to kick me out. But I think all she wanted was to see these other old people.
After I wandered around in that bizarre labyrinth for a while I finally found my way to the canal, where I saw this guy with a Mohawk fishing.
Which is kind of sick.
I'm assuming what you found was a Schrebergarten. Since most people in Berlin live in Appartments, they can't have a garden. If they desperately want one, but can't afford a house in the outskirts, the get a lot in a Schrebergarten. Since people just go there to hang out and not to live, the houses are more like glorified RVs ;)
AntwortenLöschenA Schrebergarten! Oh mein Gott! Thanks for clarifying--it explains a lot.
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