Secret Gardens

On Pannierstraße, amidst the chaos and concrete of inner-city berlin, there lies a little Garden of Eden. The high fences and shrubbery prevent you from getting a good look inside, which only increases the sense of mystery. What you can see are little wooden houses, well-tended vegetable patches and flower beds. The bizarre incongruity of this little garden community (Kleingartencolonie) against its city surroundings gives it a slightly creepy edge, particularly when they play medieval music. However, I've since come to realise that this is very much a foreigners response, as there seem to be quite a few of these garden communities in Berlin, and Germany at large. On a brief visit to the Ost-See I found myself a resident of once such community. It had the sweet little houses, blossoming flowers and abundant vegetable patches, I half expected to turn the corner and see a Hobbit pulling out potatoes. It was peaceful and idyllic, the anti-thesis of a big city. I think this stark opposition is totally intentional. The inhabitants seemed to want to return to a time of self-sufficiency and simple living, without the toxicity and distractions of the modern world. I admire the effort and the idea behind the effort. Yet it remains a strange concept to me. It seems like a wilful act of ignorance, to block out reality and the world around you and create one to your taste. But then, I suppose to a certain extent this is really a necessity, and something everyone does in their own particular way.

Pics from Ost-See garden community: 

                            

The grass is most definitely NOT always greener

After a tumultuous ten days I am back in my comfortable corner of Berlin, Kreuzköln. For various reasons, I had decided to leave her for a situation and location I thought more conducive for learning German. Before this (mis)adventure, I was beginning to be severely annoyed by a few traits of the area. Firstly, it seems to be the number one destination for expats, and you are just as likely to hear English spoken on the street as German. For someone whose key motive in coming to Berlin is to learn German, this became fairly frustrating. Secondly, for a nation supposedly fond of rules and regulations, Berliners (at least in this area) seem to have no policy for picking up their pet pooch's poo. They stand by, totally nonchalant, while the act is executed and then calmly walk away leaving the stinking mess behind. Riding my bike or going for a jog is a regular obstacle course, dodging all the droppings. The excessive number of beggars was also beginning to grate on my nerves. Particularly conspicuous is the group with horrific injuries, missing limbs, hunched backs or terrible stoops who cluster around Kottbusser Damm and compete against each other for your pity. I sound callous, but faced with it everyday you soon become desensitised and a little suspicious of the legitimacy of some of the deformities. There are also those who put in less effort, for a while a youngish man with a purple mohawk set himself up outside my local discount supermarket. That the mohawk was perfectly maintained made it difficulty to believe that he really had no other option but to beg for money. These and a few other aspects of the area were beginning to get under my skin. The perfect cure, of course, was to be plunged into a situation in which everything was unfamiliar and uncomfortable, ultimately producing too little good for the price it extracted. Now I am back in Kreuzköln, amongst the poo, beggars and multilingualism, and entirely relieved to be so.

Fußball

Fußball. Its fun to say but not to watch. During the recent Europameisterschaf, held in Poland and the Ukraine, I got a taste of the extent of Europe's addiction to this sport. Television sets and screens appeared in every bar and most restaurants across Berlin. Crowds would huddle around them, eyes glued to the screen, reacting to every close call like it was truly a matter of life and death. I don't understand this fervour, but I do wonder what all these fans would be doing without Fußball. Where would they be directing all this energy? My general attitude to sport is one of personal disinterest but acknowledgement of its necessity. Fight it out on the football field, not the battle field. It might be a simplistic view, but sport creates a common world for nations with often very different cultures and/or political tensions, i.e. Greece and Germany. They might disagree on everything else, but they are all convinced of the absolute importance of football. While I still can't sit through a match, I did enjoy the general atmosphere of excitement and watching the dramatic reactions of people so absorbed in a game with a ball and two nets.