May 2015 Things

Tomorrow starts the 'Merry Month of May', which is also the title of a Middle Ages Volkslied/Folksong. It is a public holiday in Germany - and the rest of the EU. A la Thatcher it is not in the UK. About time you Brits changed that decision. Wake up!

I have already packed half of my rucksack ready for the journey to Ostbahnhof/East Station. There I shall pick up a regional train going to the German/Polish border. I shall find the bicycle section and discover Waldamir and Nene who are part of my 'Muggelsee Gang'. Together we shall travel to a suburb of Berlin called Erkner.

Ulli is 'The Boss' tomorrow so we shall all follow him as we explore the local scenery. As usual we shall stop for a picnic. I always enjoy this. I do not bring any food for my task was long ago determined as a provider of something liquid. I am sure they will like what I take along tomorrow.

I have settled back into life in Berlin and weekly routine but I still miss being in Australia. I never thought it would affect me like this. News is that Jan is now working off the coast of Australia. To be exact north of Perth. It is not his first time there. I can now truly sympathize with him about the long hours spent on a plane. Take care of yourself Jan!

Yesterday was my SPD day. It started in the afternoon by distributing leaflets/information about the party and the head of my local party. He is Dr. Gregor Költzsch and was recently elevated to sit in the Berlin Parliament. He is a very likeable person and speaks excellent English. It was very pleasant to meet and talk to so many local people who dropped into the opening of his new office.

Who has a birthday in May?
 Max starts the month with his 32nd on the 2nd of May. A person called Marcel Mester has his 21st on the 6th May. Shortly after is the birthday on the 8th May of a VIP who shall be nameless :-)))   Hans will be 64 on the 11th, Trish in Turkey will be 62 on the 13th - I wish I could be there to celebrate - and Heike D. in Berlin will celebrate the big day with her family in Berlin on the 16th. Moving to the 21st May we find Sylvia in Brighton celebrating her 59th with Micheal and daughters. This is a day she shares with my wonderful cousin Barbara in Silsden, and for whom I write this blog together with my 'little' sister Frances, who also lives in Silsden. Happy Birthday to each and all!!!

NRW

NRW is the short form of Nordrhein-Westfallen. It is a state in the west of Germany. It contains the industrial cities/towns making up the Ruhrpott = Ruhr Valley or area. Belgium lies on its east border and it contains old towns such as Dusseldorf, Köln and Bonn. The latter was the federal capital until the move to Berlin in 1998/9.

 NRW is one of 16 states making up the Federal Republic of German. Each state has a Vertretung in Berlin. This translates as representative/representation/delegation/agent. The official title is
Vertretung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfallen beim Bund which I translate as Representative of the State of Nordrhein-Westfallen in the Federal Government.

About 50 people work in the building which houses the Vertretung. Many are locals but the main functionaries are from NRW and were appointed be the government there. The Prime Minister of NRW is Hannelore Kraft (SPD). She heads a SPD/CDU coalition government. When she or members of her cabinet are in Berlin on business they stay in one of the eight flats in the building.

The Vertretung is in a quiet street with about 8 other Vertretung or Embassies. For example, next to the NRW building is the Japanese Embassy and on the other side is the Vertretung for the State of Bremen. All are just south of a central park called Tiergarten. In this park area you will find the President's residence, The Chancellor's (Federal Prime Minister) office, the Reichstag = The Federal Parliament, which is just around the corner from the Brandenburger Tor = Gate.

Those who work in the NRW Vertretung clean it, look after the garden, cook for the restaurant, communicate with the two houses of parliament, the EU officials in Brussels and welcome Frau Kraft when she arrives on business. I went there yesterday morning to see around the place!

I went with the Lichtenberg SPD oldies. Here is a photo of those who went with me. There are more but for different reasons stayed at home. The building was started in 1998 and completed in 2001. It is a cube of steel and glass from the outside. When inside you notice the interior is made of wood and you see less steel.

We were met by a tour guide who spoke wonderful clear German - she didn't come from Berlin! Coffee and cakes were offered followed by a presentation about the work of the Vertretung. A really interesting time and I got to learn more about an important division of power in how this country operates.

Bernau bei Berlin

I went to Bernau bei Berlin today. I went with Oldie H. who was bored with staring out of his window and seeing the same trees/wood. The weather was fine and typical for early Spring so we met at a station called Ostkreuz on the Berlin S-Bahn Ring.

I used to work in Bernau. I have happy memories of teaching courses three days a week there and getting well paid. As I wandered around I did not see any of my old students. No big surprise for all of the higher level ones got jobs in other states so left the area.

It was interesting to see the mix of old town and not so nice DDR buildings. Yes, plain boxes but then the same happened in the 'capitalist' West! I think both systems shared the same architectural teacher! I only took photos of the surviving bits of the 'old' town with its protective walls and gates.

I also took a photo of war memorials on the northern part of the town wall. I found the memorial to the Red Army
interesting. It has a list of all the men/women who were killed in April 1945 when Bernau was taken. There is also a very nice garden adjoining the memorial. It is well worth a visit when you next visit Berlin.

Near the market square is a church dating back to the 15th century. Next to it is a cafe/restaurant which was new to me. They sell cakes made on the premises and a limited range of hot meals. They specialise in north France/Netherlands cuisine.

One of the owners told me it was their selling point and what made them different to/from the competition. I shall go there again when I am next in Bernau! After wandering around the rest of the centre we took a regional train back to Berlin which took all of 20 minutes!

Schummeling

As you know from reading my recent post, I did not go to the Photoshop Gang meeting on Friday afternoon. Sometimes we play around with images and create new ones which look real but in fact do not exist.

That did not stop me from 'cheating' and creating a photo that in fact doesn't exist. I found a new programme from Microsoft and played around with it. Here is the result. I stitched two photographs together. See if you can see where they don't join!

Yes, I cheated but what has that got to do with the title of this post? Let me explain. The German verb schummeln has a number of translations in English. One is 'to cheat'. I have always liked the sound of this German verb, so I created another 'Denglish' word.

Denglish is growing here. It is a collection of about 13,000 words that look like English but which in fact are not. For example: Let us take the word schummeln and make it into the equivalent of the First Participle in English (Partizip I in German). That means adding  -ing to the end.

Do this and you get schummel minus -n to make way for -ing and you end up with schummeling! Here is my work of 'schummeling' art :-))

Spring & Music

I didn't go to my Photoshop Gang this afternoon. The reason was that Kerstin and the Oldie Keep Fit Gang decided to go to a restaurant to celebrate Easter - even if rather late!

Normally I would share my latest work of art with you at this time. Given that I don't have any, I decided to write about music and add some photos showing Spring in my garden. I picked three composers from the recent BBC Radio 3 Composer of the Week programme.I think you probably have not heard of them or their music.

First is Ivor Gurney 1890-1937. A rather tragic figure. Born in Gloucester, school there then Royal College of Music in London. In 1913 he had his first mental breakdown and two years later enlisted in the Gloucester Regiment. In April 1917 he was wounded in the shoulder and five months later was gassed and ended up in a hospital in Edinburgh of all places.

The rest of his life was a mixture of composing, gaining recognition and dealing with further breakdowns, suicide attempt, living in a mental hospital. He wrote hundreds of poems, 300 songs and instrumental music. I like the music he wrote for the latter.

Next is Sir Andrzej Panufnik 1914-1991. A Polish born conductor and composer. He defected to the UK in 1954 and took British citizenship in 1961. He died peacefully at his family home in Twickenham. When not conducting all over the UK he was writing music very much in the style of the period. Again a lot of instrumental music worth listening to.

Finally there is Mieczyslaw Weinberg 1919-1996. An obscure Soviet composer of Polish/Jewish origin. I could not even find a reference to him in my musical dictionaries! He was born in Warsaw. His father was a well known conductor and composer and mother an actress. He studied music at the Warsaw Conservatory and graduated in 1939, when he then fled to the Soviet Union. He lost most of his family in the Holocaust.

He was a prolific composer and well known in the Soviet Union. He was considered to be the 3rd greatest composer after Prokofiev and Shostakovich although almost unknown in the West. He left lots of music including 22 symphonies, 17 string quartets, 7 operas, 8 violin concertos and over 40 film and animation scores. He certainly was busy!

Now write down their names and the next time you are in a music shop look for any CDs/listen to anything they wrote. Hope you can look out of a window as you listen and see flowers blooming!

Cottbus

Yesterday I went to Cottbus. I can hear the Silsdeners asking where it is. Take out map of Germany, find Berlin, stick first finger in middle of Berlin then move slowly downwards and to your right. Continue for a bit until you find the Polish border. You found it!

Cottbus now has a population of about 100,000 and is 125 km/78 miles southeast of Berlin on the river Spree.This river flows through Berlin until it joins the River Havel to the west of Berlin and Potsdam. It is a major railway junction and was a centre of the 'brown' coal mining industry in the DDR.

In the 11th century, group of slavic speaking Sorbs settled there and built a castle on a sandy island in the middle of the Spree. Sorbish is still spoken there and in the surrounding areas. German settlers arrived in the 13th century. In 1445, Cottbus was bought by the Margrave of Brandenburg.

Surprising what you could buy in those days! In 1701 it became part of the Kingdom of Prussia. That in turn became part of a new country called Germany in 1871. Cottbus was taken by the Red Army on 22 April 1945 and incorporated into the DDR until re-unification in 1989/90.

I had been to Cottbus before to see its famous Branitz Park and Schloss now divided between Germany and Poland. I had never been to the old town centre. That was my target yesterday. First stop was an incredible theatre built in the 'Jugendstil` in 1905. An amazing idea of architecture.

Next stop was  the centre and there I found an old church. It is now an Evangelical Church with plain white walls inside and simple alter. Perhaps all the valuable stuff was stolen years ago! Around the corner I found the market square.

As you can see, it was full of tourists having a late lunch. I joined them. I drank a beer made on the premises of the restaurant. It was tasty and cool, but then I was thirsty. Later I dined on Zanderfilet served in a cream/cheese/parsley sauce. Just what I needed.

Refreshed, I started on a tour of the centre. It is an interesting mix of old walls and buildings with 1960/70s functional 'box' buildings you can find all over the DDR. I found part of the old city wall and had to take a photo.

I made my way back to the station, onto one of the trains that run hourly to Berlin and settled down to enjoy the sights en-route. Yes, a very enjoyable day and made all the better by warm, sunny weather. Perhaps I need more days like this one to help me adjust to life post-Australia!

Neue Kunst

It was pleasant to meet my Photoshop Gang last Friday afternoon. It was the first sunny day of Spring. We relaxed over coffee and some tasty chocolate and fruit cakes, plus intelligent conversation - as usual :-)

I got a 'newish' printer from Stefan. It is a 3in1 Cannon Pixma. My old, made in 2000, HP Inkjet finally gave up its ghost last Wednesday. I put it outside next to the waste bins and it disappeared within an hour!

My homework for this afternoon is to get the Cannon up and running. Not an easy task for I want to link three computers using different systems to it and over my WiFi/Wlan. That means loading software into each computer so it/they recognise the Cannon is sitting next to it/them!
UPDATE: I've got it operating on my laptop running Microsoft. I'll try the same on the Macs tomorrow!

After the coffee and cakes, we adjourned to the computer room and I created this work of art. Do you like it? I found it interesting to produce this type of background before adding the photos. They are all of Berlin taken at above ground level.

OZ News

I recently got an e-mail from Colin with news and some photos. Two are of me. One was taken when we were in Sydney on the train/metro system probably going into the centre. The other is of me in the garden area in the middle of the National Museum in Canberra.

What happy memories they bring back. I seem to have a suntan by then. Colin said the weather is turning into early autumn, the temperature is dropping and there was snow at Oberon. I think this is in a mountain range in the south of the state.

Here are a couple of photos taken on a recent walk with the 'Oldie-Walkers'. One of them looks like a 'Yungie' 

If you remember, I walked with them and posted a report and photo on this blog. They crossed the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge to pick up a track on the northern side of the bay.

I didn't get there but passed it on ferries and so know the layout. By chance, the weather has improved in Berlin. Even blue skies and rising temperatures. I hope Colin sends more photos and news so I can re-live my time there and share with you!

Hobbies

I think most of us have a hobby. Mine is photography which developed over the last few years. It was a spin-off from my Photoshop Gang and encouraged by Stefan.

Colin has a hobby. It is not photography. Those of you who follow my blog and recent adventures in Australian will know it is model planes.

It helps, as in the case of Colin, if you have spent years in different planes owned by Quantos or Virgin Australia as a pilot.

He retired recently and started to explore his German family connections. When not doing that he builds/repairs/flies model planes.

He is a member of a model plane club with a nice green area for flying in the very south of Sydney. He showed it to me when I was there. I also saw the workshop where he designs, repairs and builds model planes.

The workshop was originally a garage for two cars located at the entrance to his house. His car now sits under a tree outside the garage!

I recently sent him an e-mail and photos of our 'Müller Gang' meeting. He replied with news of what he is doing and enclosed a few photos. Here we can see Colin in his garage making a model plane. Another is of the results.

For me a very impressive photo is that taken at sunset on the water/lake behind his back garden. The photo was taken at a stage showing the red in the sky and the even deeper red reflexion in the water behind his house. This image reminds me of my visit there. Happy memories!

5 Stars

What has five stars? Ehhh...err..err  Give up?  Okay, the answer is in Daniel's left hand. He arrived yesterday for an English session. We started with tea/coffee and cakes as usual. He then informed me that 'Mutti' had arrived from Moldavia (Correction from Daniel: It is called Moldova) to spend two weeks with her husband and son. Good news.

He then produced the bottle and chocs as a gift from Mutti and family as thanks for helping Daniel. What can you say? I was speechless at first. Of course I accepted them. Daniel told me the bottle contained a very fine made in Moldova 5 Star Brandy.

I didn't know such a thing existed. How ignorant are we of our not so far away neighbours culture, history and traditions? He told me that this brandy had been very popular in the Soviet Union period and nearly all production had gone there.

The chocs are also famous for quality and taste. I really must learn more about parts of eastern Europe I have not yet been to. I decided to open both on my birthday in a months time. Such quality products deserve a quality occasion to be opened and enjoyed! I shall share the taste experience with you then:-))

K&K

Hello Silsdeners, what does K&K mean?  You may quickly check back into old posts for I have used it before. Time is up. It means Kaffee und Kuchen. You don't need to speak German to quickly understand these words mean coffee and cake. Well done!

I told you I was going to an 80th birthday party yesterday. I really enjoyed it. Much better than I thought it would be. Good atmosphere and discussions. It started with a splendid fluted crystal glass of Fürst Metternich Sekt - and then another one!

This was followed by a very tasty fish dish with freshly cooked spinach. A suitable cool dry white wine was served with it. We retired to the sitting room for more conversation and to relax after the meal. At 4 o'clock the table was suddenly covered with K&K. Here is a shot taken with my phone camera. It was an excuse to use the best china cups, saucers and plates. Very fine!

Last night I slept badly and gave up at 4:30am. Fresh tea and a book to which I added a sleeping tablet. Read on until eyes began to close and quickly back into bed. I slept until 13:15/1:15pm. Unbelievable! I even slept through the arrival of the workmen on the building site opposite my bedroom and the start of all their banging. The downside is that I have felt groggy ever since.

Look at this photo. I always smile when I see it. I am still amazed at the human ability to solve a problem. Camera and tripod not high enough? No problem - just do this to solve the problem. Great :-))

More eating

In this part of the world it is Easter weekend and that means a lot of eating and drinking. I didn't get my teeth into a pork pie but I have had some tasty meals with nice people.I also got some Easter cards. Here is a colourful one from Ilonka and Sandor. Thanks to all who sent me one.

Since chocolate and sugar arrived in the European diet they form an important part of eating to celebrate holiday weekends such as this one. Think of all the chocolate Easter eggs that have been eaten, sweet hot-cross-buns and cake with lots of marzipan and icing.

For me it all started on Friday when I had a visitor who wanted to show me a DVD he had made when he and his wife recently went on a cruise including Bombay and Goa. We started with coffee and fruit cake. We happily chomped away as we saw the sights of what is now called Mumbai.

Yesterday was 'Brunch' with Johanna and the Müller Gang. Here you can see part of the table which when I arrived was covered in lots of tasty dishes. It was our first meeting since my return from Ozland so there were many questions about my time there.

This morning I went for 'Brunch' to Marita's flat and as usual it lasted for hours with lots of interesting conversation. She is going to move into a flat in the new building opposite where I live so we really will be neighbours then.

Tomorrow I have been invited to lunch to celebrate an 80th birthday. I know there will be lots of food and the glass will be continually filled :-)  Hope you are enjoying your holiday weekend - and yes, you may have another helping of food and another glass of wine with it! 

More pies

How about this to get your taste buds moving? Mmmmhh.....pies!

Unfortunately they were not destined for my table. Jan sent me this photo with the comment that they tasted great. I can believe it!

Arancha was in London recently for a business meeting and bought said pies for Jan as she left. She had learnt about pies from me and my blog.

The pie on the left looks like a traditional pork pie - perhaps from Melton Mowbray Pies for they are the market leader. Could even be from Marks & Spencer.

They were not made in Skipton and I know they do NOT taste like those made by the  pie shop there. Even so, I could bite into it right now.

The pie on the right looks like it could have any filling including fruit. This one is a chicken pie - Jan told me. I think I would go for two pork pies. What about you?