Chorin

Yesterday I went to Closter Chorin for a concert. It was great!  The evening before I sat in the garden of Schloß Biesdorf.


 It was the home of Herr Siemens many years ago.  Now it is a museum and centre for artistic events. I met Jutta, Johanna and about eight other family members and friends. We listened to a young lady playing five instruments accompanied by her father. A very pleasant evening.

Yesterday the music was presented by the Deutsche Streicherphilharmonie ( The German String Orchestra) directed by Michael Sanderling.  The programme was (1)  Felix Mendelssohn, Streichersinfonie Nr.1, which he wrote when he was only 16. Amazing ... when I was 16, I was gazing out of the window wonder what it was all about!

It was followed by 'An English Suite' written by Hubert Parry. Very English indeed. He is famous for his church music in the late Victorian Period. This piece is pure 'English' of spring on the Sussex Downs, tea with scones, news of the Empire in The Times and all being well with the world. The weather was also perfect.

After the break, we enjoyed a remarkable talent called Da Sol. He was born in Korea in 1989 and didn't get his hands on a piano until he was 11 years old. Then he really made up for lost time. Although rather small in stature he made up for this with a strength of playing, which surprised most listeners, as he interpreted Chopin's Piano Concert Nr. 1.

The audience was very appreciative of all the music and performers and gave all and each a lot of applause - but then very well deserved.  The combination of music, warm sunny weather with clear blue skies and performance skills was perfect. A day to remember for a long time.

The location also played an important part. Closter Chorin was build about 1250AD as the Germans moved eastwards and settled into Slavic speaking land. It was built on a lake north of Berlin. It was famous for its hospital and discovery and use of herbs in treating ailments and diseases.

It continued this work for three hundred plus years until it was closed and sold off in the Reformation. Fortunately, all the health cure recipes had been written down over the years and so were used in other centres for treating the ill and infirm.

What a pity that almost no tourists know about this centre for music for it is only an hours journey north of Berlin.  Just a reminder that there is more than Checkpoint Charlie to see when you visit Berlin - particularly in summer.

Closter Chorin was built on the shores of a lake in a wonderful forest. Calm and quite, which is perfect for recuperation after an illness and treatment.  Also a great setting for classical music. Hundreds came to enjoy the combination --- as you can see from the photos!

Topping Danlap

I've done it again!   I can hear Sven saying, "No, not another one!" Yes, and I really enjoyed it.


The story begins thus: Once upon a time in a galaxy far away, our hero called John bought a laptop.He did it to learn more about such machines and also make it available to Jan for his studies. But Jan had also bought a laptop, so what to do?

He started to use it for teaching, including at the institute where he worked, and lo....it came to pass that he added a projector and all were very happy to use the equipment so John made a profit on his investment :-)

One day Daniel arrived in Berlin to learn German and Jan asked John if he could loan said laptop to Daniel. This he did and all were exceedingly happy. One year passed and Daniel returned the machine before he returned to Brazil.

Poor laptop looked well worn and tired but John put it back to work and earned more money. Nice!  Poor laptop got older and slower and could not keep up with pace of technology. Things began to malfunction and this morning poor laptop died. Oh no, I can hear you all cry!

Yes, so John had to remove parts of poor laptop before he hands it to a dealer and makes €30,-. Here are two photos of poor old trusty laptop giving up its valuable bits before being sold off for scrap!

Szczecin

The first Saturday this month I went to Szczecin.  'Oldie' Hermann was my travel companion. A good choice for it turned out that he knew the city very well and could show me the main sights.

Szczecin has in interesting history and is part of the story of German settlement in the old slavic speaking areas of what is now the east of Germany and Poland. It was the seat of a 'Furst' - this is usually translated as Duke - who ruled Pommern/Pomerania.

 It figures in the expansion east under Frederick the Great and the first division of Poland. It also formed part of the later state of Preussen/Prussia. When the borders were changed in 1945, it was incorporated into the new Polish state and  formed one of its two major port-cities. The other is Gdansk.

It was bombed extensively by UK-USA planes in the last war, particularly the port area and inner city were destroyed. Some fine old buildings survived, including some which were later renovated and restored to their original appearance. I was particularly interested to photo these.

The white building is the Furst's city palace and the large and imposing buildings go back to the Preussen days and the founding of Germany in 1871. They were used either for government, administrative, police or education - and they still are!

There is a really nice part of the inner city on high ground overlooking the river. People call it the balcony of the city. There are some nice restaurants there and we had lunch in one with a nice view of the river.

The weather was warm and sunny so there were lots of tourists. It was also in the school holiday period so I noticed a lots of families with young children. As usual, the local people were as pleasant and friendly as I remember Polish people were to me on my holidays there many years ago.

Emily

Last week I played host to Emily and her sons. She is a close friend of one of my friends in Brighton and asked me to show her around Berlin.

A really interesting time for me for they asked to see sights that are not on the tourist maps. Quite a challenge!

I did it and they liked the mix of seeing the usual tourist things and wandering off the beaten tourist track. When I had to teach they did the tourist bits and we went to Potsdam on their last day.

That evening they left for Budapest. That was the next part of their five country tour. I am sure they will have had a great time there. It is a really interesting city and well worth a visit.

Busy

Busy, busy since my return from England. It started with a series of calls from the Institute asking me to teach through August. I accepted for it will pay for my China trip :-)

Yesterday I was in Glashütte to enjoy a cello concert. It was given by Milka and others who are learning the cello. It was nice to see her again with husband Sven and their children. A great time. The bonus was that their little boy let me pick him up and cuddle him. When I put him down, he wanted more cuddles. How to melt one's heart!

On Saturday I went to a workshop for teachers. It was about English as a Lingua Franca. There is a new academic movement exploring this and slowly we are getting books with teaching tips for practical work. It was really interesting and I learnt a few new things. Can't be bad!

Just been to the dentist. Trying to save the root of a tooth. Not sure about having it out rather than risk having dental treatment in Beijing. We decided to wait and see how I reacted to treatment this week. Perhaps the wisest decision.

This week I'm teaching each day, tomorrow is an 'oldie' meeting to eat chicken and chat! On Friday I have been invited to an evening concert in Schloss Biesdorf. This is followed by another concert in Kloster Chorin to the north of Berlin on Saturday. Another busy week!

Raining

It really is raining here. The last couple of weeks in July were very wet. It is the school holidays so not very nice for the kids and families who don't have the money to escape to warmer climes. They have to spend their holiday period here. Not nice to have so much rain!

Shirley is celebrating her birthday with family and friends as I write these words. Hope you are having a great time Shirley. Jan is thinking of packing and driving to north Spain on Wednesday to join Arancha. They are then going to the south to spend some time alone on the beach, swimming and having fun. Great! They deserve it.

I am still waiting for Daniel to get this act together. He has sent me e-mails for a week and we still haven't met. He is over from Brazil to visit friends and his old haunts in Berlin. At the moment he is in the Baltic states so hopefully we can meet when he returns.

Very busy month coming up. I am suddenly 'flavour of the month' at the institute. Another student asked to have lessons only from me. I will be teaching there three days a week throughout August. Can't complain for the money will cover my next travel plans!

Supposed to be going on as bicycle tour tomorrow with five oldies. I wonder if we shall do this given the weather. Watch this space. Now where did I put my large umbrella?