Berlin II

The new Berlin:

The new Hauptbahnhof

Hauptbahnhof

House of Parliament

Berlin

It is interesting to see my home town after three years. Some places are still exactly the same, others changed completely. There is the former west part of the city where time seemed to stay still. Tempelhof, Steglitz, Spandau, Neukölln. Some areas seem neclected like the former eastern parts which are advancing now. The city is still divided but now just the other way round. There is still more than one Berlin. That is exciting and frightening at the same time.

The old Berlin:

Our bedroom in my mother in law’s apartement in Schöneberg

View from the window

The sandpit at nearby park Viktoria-Louise-Platz

The fountain at Viktoria-Louise-Platz

Bis Gleich

This morning at 8 I had a root canal done. Was für eine Reisevorbereitung.

Today I learned the difference between a prick (Scheißkerl) and a prig (Erbsenzähler).

We will leave tomorrow at 3 o clock in the morning in a white City Golf.
We will arrive at 21.30 in Berlin Tegel with a suitcase full of biltong, droe worse and water babies.

I am exhausted of being excited. I had a terrible night with bad dreams.
Wheather is windy and cold again.

I decided to take only one pair of shoes with me!

Bis gleich!

Fotos

Hot summer afternoon

Rainy window

Anton mowing clover

The river a few months ago. Unsere Badestelle.

Same spot yesterday. Steg unter Wasser.

Svens turn in ingle-angle

Coming Back

On our walk yesterday, Luzie, Sven and I talked about all the things we were looking forward to.
One of the things Luzie said was: coming back. We all agreed on that. Looking forward to come back makes it even more exciting to go!

Restless

I was trying to post some pictures for the last days but it didn’t happen. Pictures just don’t upload for unknown reason.

I am short of words at the moment. Too excited, can’t wait to go. A time of waiting and preparing and planmaking. That’s the best. Everything just falls into place. I have to stop myself making a plan for every day of our journey. There are only a few free days left anyway.

After last weekends hot summer days another coldfront. I spend most of the time with a hot waterbottle under the blanket. Sven and Anton got into blind garden activity. Cutting bushes (five days before we leave) and mowing clover, (leaving a big mess). Antons muscles were jerking for the next two days.

The sun came out today and we went for a walk, late afternoon. Luzie brought her elastic along and we played Gummitwist (ingle-angle) on the big field. I showed her how we did it when I was a girl and I only got to knee and almost collapsed afterwards. Jumping is incredibly exhausting! I am sooo unfit! Luzie laughed at me.
The other day Luzie came out of her room all sweaty and red in her face. She had practiced ingle-angle by herself because all the girls in school are so good at it and she ended up standing the whole time. I laughed at her.

I love the fact that the kids still play the same games as we did. After 30 years and even across the world! Another thing they did at my school during brake was the “mass-handstand”. One starts a handstand against the wall, another one against the first girl and so on. Up to 10 girls. I could never do that. Too scared.

I wish I could show you my pictures!

Sick in Bed

Luzie and Hamsti

We all spent the last days more or less sick in bed. We had a strange headache flu. The weather was grey and stormy with occasional rain-showers. But the sun made a short appearance every day. The best place to be is in bed anyway so we all were quite happy.

We will leave for Germany in exactly two weeks. That was quite a surprising change of plans, which makes everything much easier. But it also came fast. I am not fully recovered yet and I fret the long flight, especially now, not feeling my best.

I talked to Debbie yesterday and she said, how she loves long flights, to look out of the window, to go somewhere far away and I thought, that is the right way to look at it. I always fret flights and maybe that is why they always were fretful. From now on I will look forward to this journey!

The kids and Sven haven’t been to Germany since three years. Anton is almost double his size now. They hardly speak a sentence without using an English word. I wonder how they will feel. Whether they see it as a familiar or a foreign place. They are very excited.

Both were born in Berlin, but they only lived there permanently for two years, since they can remember. A woman told me about her grand children who live in America. She said, they are so American now. When she visited them, they told her to let them do all the talking in the shops, because people might not understand her ( South African English). That made me think whether my children are more South African than German now. For me they are German with no doubt, but I wonder how they will see it.

Luzie asked me where we are going to stay. I said, we will stay with Axel in Kreuzberg. She looked at me disappointed and said: But I want to stay in Berlin. (Kreuzberg is one of the most famous parts of town). It is definitely time to take them for a city tour and make them get to know every part of their city of birth. Otherwise they might take away our German passports.

I am excited too, but I have mixed feelings. I always had; longing to go back to a place that used to be my home knowing it is not my home anymore. A place I love but where I don’t want to live. I have to change my attitude. I have to look at it as going to my most favorite holiday destination

I love to live in South Africa but I don’t like to think I will live here for the rest of my life. But I think it is more the thought that I don’t like, spending the rest of my life at one place.

Mr. Duplisted

Luzie told me a funny story yesterday, which might explain how new words come to life. The children in her school frequently ask them for German words or sentences. They want to know what is I love you in German: Ich liebe dich or: you are stupid = Du bist blöd.

The sentence will be passed on to other children and like in the game broken telephone (stille Post), where a word is whispered from ear to ear, the words get twisted from child to child.

Ich liebe dich became one word: Ischlibbedisch and Du bist blöd also became one word: duplisted. They say I ischlibbedisch and you are duplisted (dubistblöd)

Now duplisted is the new word for stupid. You are duplisted. And Mr. Duplessies, the not so popular math, history, afrikaans and geographie teacher became Mr. Duplisted.

Water Babies

Water Babies are a big thing at school. Some girls sell single balls because they say they will reproduce. There are many rumours about them. You buy them in a little pack, they are not bigger than a pinhead. You put them into water and they will grow within 8 hours to a size of a marble. They are gel-like and break easily. Some say, they have babies in different colours in them, others say you must feed them sugar every day or they will die. Actually they are used for flowers as a nutritient.

Wild Sea

The sea was BIG, yesterday. Everybody came to watch and to take pictures with cameras and cellphones. I have never seen it this big.

What this man obviously doesn’t know is the first and most important rule: Never turn your back to the sea. Years ago a German couple had been washed off the cliffs right here, while they were watching whales.
The woman could be rescued after hours and died in the hospital, the man’s body was found three days day later at the new harbour.