New Year's Circus in Berlin

New Year's Eve was extremely lively in my neighbourhood. I might write about it some other time; it's possible that the next days will bring further developments.

One thing that's less sensitive to mention is probably that we heard an explosion in the smaller street beside our apartment, then a car alarm going off. Because the explosion sounded a bit contained, I'd rightly surmised that it had begun beneath a car.

At first we just heard the car alarm. Then, after a minute or two, I looked outside again to see that a fire had kindled, and flames were shooting out to the left and right, lapping toward the black car on one side and the little smart car on the other. Pale grey smoke was billowing from the rear.

No one seemed to be doing anything about it. It also seemed to be near my little brother's window. Although I was guessing that at the rear of the car the flames wouldn't do much damage at first, I didn't fancy the fuel tank exploding, blowing in his windows, and injuring him.

So I very reluctantly went out of my building in my loungewear. As expected, a stray firework instantly landed maybe 3 metres away from me, bouncing off the house foundation; I haven't gone outdoors on New Year's Eve in years, maybe a decade or more, for this very reason of stray pyrotechnics thoughtlessly fired off. There was also a bad rubbery smell, overlaying the usual pyrotechnic sulphur, from the burning car.

I rounded the front of a huge silver-and-blue police van that was parked in front of my building, around the corner from the flaming vehicle. (~3 police vans had been circling up and down the block like a Barnum & Bailey unicyclist since around midnight, as had groups of 6 riot police officers on foot.) I gestured to the driver. He rolled down the window, pulled down the black balaclava material from around his mouth with a patient expression, and heard my report. He answered, 'The fire department is on its way.'

One of our upstairs neighbours was standing excitedly at the stair balustrade on a higher floor when I reentered the apartment building. Another neighbour joined and chimed in from an even higher floor.

After sharing the meagre gossip that I had, I went back into my apartment.

What I'd missed while going outdoors, but the neighbour had seen, is that in fact someone had already extinguished the fire. From a window I soon saw a group of young men encircling the car. A riot police officer with helmet standing near the car's rear surveying the damage, like George Washington inspecting a military parade. (Later, three riot police officers came and, again with flashlights, checked all around the car, probably to make sure that it was still entirely extinguished and maybe to gather evidence.)

It was just as well that someone took the initiative: the fire department never seemed to arrive anywhere near the car. Next day, in the evening news, a fire department official mentioned that within an 11-hour timespan, over 800 fires had been reported in Berlin. The year before, it'd been under 700. Clearly they were overwhelmed.

My brother Ge. looked out the window too. He immediately saw that the car that had been on fire belongs to one of our upstairs neighbours, and texted the neighbour to alert him. The neighbour is retired, I think, and a dedicated do-it-yourselfer who might be an alumnus of the hippie movement; and we like him a great deal. His partner is a nurse or care aide whom I've sometimes met on the staircase, for example returning home after a night shift, or in the streets around the apartment, or carrying firewood.

After a while, the neighbour went out with a flashlight and glumly inspected the damage. Now, days later, the car is still sitting there, while he's waiting for an expert to inspect it and tell him if it's safe to drive.

Fortunately the cars to the left and right seemed fine. Looking displeased and, like our upstairs neighbour, tired, the cars' drivers checked whether their doors and locks still worked properly, and then drove off.

I wish that the New Year's revellers had showed more empathy.

Instead, after the car was already injured, someone added insult to injury by finger-writing messages in the dust of the fire extinguisher material on the rear window pane, like 'PKK.'

I don't want to be too mean, but aside from feeling stupefied that the human species has survived so many generations given the stupidity I witnessed, I also felt that the posturing youths were pretty darn cowardly. For example, as far as I recall, a firework flew straight at someone who belonged to the revellers but was circumspectly crossing the street; instead of telling the person who'd fired the projectile to get a clue, the potential victim just smiled sheepishly.

As insane as the evening up to that point already sounds in retrospect, it escalated further.

I might be too biased because of the events in my neighbourhood, which I think were especially severe because we were on the periphery of a 'fireworks-free zone' that I think just exacerbated the problem where we were. (The German term verschlimmbessern — roughly translatable as 'improve-worsening' — comes to mind.) But I am peeved at Berlin's mayor Kai Wegner and at Germany's chancellor Olaf Scholz for not taking the mayhem and destruction seriously enough to agree to a fireworks ban.

(Local internet commenters suggest that Berlin's CDU party doesn't want the city to miss out on tax revenues from pyrotechnics sales.)

Admittedly I found it boring when my family lived in Canada, where we would squint through trees to see the upper crests of the official fireworks display at the nearby community hall. So I actually enjoyed New Year's Eve in Berlin around 2006. I only began to consider supporting a ban when two fires broke out in my neighbourhood maybe two years ago. But this New Year's Eve has tipped the balance.

I genuinely think that the two above-mentioned politicians should stay overnight in my neighbourhood next year — they don't even need to set foot outdoors — so that they have better informed views.

Anyway, I was a bit traumatized, in the non-medical sense of the word, by New Year's Eve. But at least now I'm able to make jokes about it?

Shakespeare's Complete Works Reading Challenge: Fifth Day of Henry VI

WHAT IS THIS ABOUT? I've had a hankering to read and half-liveblog all of Shakespeare's plays (again)... in chronological order, onward from Henry VI, Part 1: written by Shakespeare (b. 1564) in 1591. I'm using an old Complete Works of Shakespeare edition from the Clarendon Press.

See also: Previous Henry VI blog posts:

• Act I Scene 1: Henry V's funeral

• Scenes 2, 3 & 4: French dauphin meets Joan of Arc, Duke of Gloucester clashes with Bishop of Winchester, the Earl of Salisbury is killed in fighting in Orléans

•  Scenes 5 & 6: Joan of Arc fights Lord Talbot, French celebrate lifting of siege on Orléans

*

• Act II Scene 1: The English reconquer Orléans

***

Aurelia Franciae civitas ad Ligeri flu: sita
A map of Orléans from 1581 to 1588
Source: Civitates Orbis Terrarum. Liber tertius.
Köln, G. Kempen, 1581-88. Bibliothèque municipale d'Orléans.
via Wikimedia Commons

4:45 p.m.
ACT II.
Scene II.

The Duke of Bedford poetically declares to England's forces, within the city walls of Orléans:

The day begins to break, and night is fled,
Whose pitchy mantle over-veil'd the earth.
Here sound retreat, and cease our hot pursuit.

Lord Talbot has retrieved the corpse of the Earl of Salisbury, whom he had seen dying in Act I:

Now have I paid my vow unto his soul;
For every drop of blood was drawn from him
There hath at least five Frenchmen died tonight.

But one fact dims his satisfaction: France's leaders have not fallen into his men's clutches.

The Duke of Burgundy, an ally of England, chimes in, reporting that he thinks he saw Charles VII and Joan of Arc escaping from Orléans:

Myself—as far as I could well discern
For smoke and dusky vapors of the night—
Am sure I scar'd the Dauphin and his trull,
When arm in arm they both came swiftly running [...]

*

Then a messenger arrives, on behalf of the Countess of Auvergne.

The noblewoman requests that Lord Talbot visit her castle, since she has heard of his prowess in battle. She wants to lay eyes on "the man/Whose glory fills the world with loud report."

(This sub-plot resembles the knightly romances of the Middle Ages, and epics like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, I think. I can't recall Shakespeare's later works doing the same, but may be mistaken.)

Lord Talbot, outwardly charmed, accepts her invitation.

Inwardly, he has reservations and plans of his own. He calls one of his soldiers:

Come hither, captain. [Whispers.] You perceive my mind.

Capt. I do, my lord, and mean accordingly.

***

Scene III.

We meet again at Auvergne.

The Countess speaks to her porter. But she reveals in a monologue afterward that she has laid her own plot against Lord Talbot.

When Talbot arrives, she is shocked at first, since he is small of stature:

It cannot be this weak and writhled* shrimp      *[wrinkled]
Should strike such terror to his enemies.

Talbot turns away, looking for proof of his identity. But when the messenger detain him, he insists that he is indeed Talbot. Upon which the Countess of Auvergne tells him that he is now her prisoner:

Long time thy shadow hath been thrall to me,
For in my gallery thy picture hangs:
But now the substance shall endure the like.
And I will chain these legs and arms of thine,
That hast by tyranny, these many years,
Wasted our country, slain our citizens,
And sent our sons and husbands captivate.

Talbot laughs uproariously. He and the Countess exchange words. Like Schrödinger's cat (if Schrödinger's cat could have spoken) he tells her: "You are deceiv'd, my substance is not here [...]"

The Countess exclaims, bemused,

This is a riddling merchant for the nonce;
He will be here, and yet he is not here:
How can these contrarieties agree?

Her English guest solves the riddle: he winds his horn. At this signal, English soldiers burst through the doors. Lord Talbot is free.

His hostess apologizes profusely.

Victorious Talbot! pardon my abuse:
I find thou art no less than fame hath bruited,
And more than may be gather'd by thy shape.
Let my presumption not provoke thy wrath;
For I am sorry that with reverence
I did not entertain thee as thou art.

Talbot responds, "Be not dismay'd, fair lady [...]",

What you have done hath not offended me;
Nor other satisfaction do I crave,
But only, with your patience, that we may
Taste of your wine and see what cates* you have;     [food]

Delighted, the Countess of Auvergne lets bygones be bygones:

With all my heart, and think me honoured
To feast so great a warrior in my house.

(As the Countess had likely invested years into wishing for his downfall and weeks plotting the details, this about-face is a little sudden. But I guess she was happy to be alive?)

***

Historical Note: In real life, Lord Talbot appears to have been a disagreeable fellow, also one of many English sent to Ireland on his government's behalf to make the local population's life a misery.

Shakespeare's Complete Works Reading Challenge: Fourth Day of Henry VI

WHAT IS THIS ABOUT? I've had a hankering to read and half-liveblog all of Shakespeare's plays (again)... in chronological order, onward from Henry VI, Part 1: written by Shakespeare (b. 1564) in 1591. I'm using an old Complete Works of Shakespeare edition from the Clarendon Press.

See also: Previous Henry VI blog posts:

• Act I Scene 1: Henry V's funeral

• Scenes 2, 3 & 4: French dauphin meets Joan of Arc, Duke of Gloucester clashes with Bishop of Winchester, the Earl of Salisbury is killed in fighting in Orléans

•  Scenes 5 & 6: Joan of Arc fights Lord Talbot, French celebrate lifting of siege on Orléans

***

2:30 p.m.
ACT II.
Scene I.

"Joan of Arc in the protocol
of the parliament of Paris (1429).
Drawing by Clément de Fauquembergue.
French National Archives"
[Wikimedia Commons]

We meet our cast of characters in Orléans again.

Reading the words of a French sergeant, one is tempted to wish that modern soldiery were as eloquent:

Sirs, take your places and be vigilant.
If any noise or soldier you perceive
Near to the walls, by some apparent sign
Let us have knowledge at the court of guard.

The French sentries are not pleased to be out in the weather.

Thus are poor servitors—
When others sleep upon their quiet beds—
Constrain'd to watch in darkness, rain, and cold.

But then English forces with Lord Talbot and the Dukes of Bedford and of Burgundy arrive at the walls, giving purpose to their vigil.

One would suppose that the English would be attacking at night to offer an element of surprise, so silence would be enforced. But Shakespeare writes in the stage directions of "their drums beating a dead march." I checked on Wiktionary: this means a "mournful," slow march, not a march with muffled drums.

The English lord and dukes pause to chat. The Duke of Bedford calling King Charles VII of France a "coward" for enlisting "witches" to help — since he allegedly cannot win in battle any other way. Talbot, who had also condemned the French leaders' "art and baleful sorcery," is determined to avenge the death of the Earl of Salisbury.

"God is our fortress," insists Talbot,

in whose conquering name
Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks.

(I don't think attacking one fortress in the name of another fortress makes very much sense, but that might be why I'm not a playwright. As far as I can tell, Orléans didn't have any flint buildings, either – a modern rearrangement of stones from an old Fort des Tourelles at Orléans remains, evidence of materials used in Henry VI's time. But let's read "flinty" as a figure of speech.)

Meanwhile, Shakespeare's French sentries haven't heard or seen a thing. It's only when the English "scale the walls," and break out into war cries, that a French sentry calls the alarm.

But the French, "Having all day carous'd and banqueted", are ill-prepared to defend themselves.

The Bastard of Orleans and the Dukes of Alençon and Angers run onto the stage from different directions, "in their shirts" and "half ready, and half unready."

Shortly Charles VII and Joan of Arc join them. From what I can understand, 'leaping over the walls' means that they are already seeking safety away from the field of battle, not attempting any defense.

Now the French leaders squabble.

Charles VII turns against Joan of Arc.

Joan whines that she cannot be awake 24/7: "Sleeping or waking must I still prevail[...]?". She blames the watch for not keeping a better lookout. (But if the Virgin Mary is appearing to her to tell her to save France, surely it is Joan of Arc's responsibility to do more than what is humanly probable?)

France's dukes, when Charles begins to blame the Duke of Alençon instead, point out that their own parts of the fortifications were adequately defended.

***

I think that the play treats Joan of Arc as a charlatan.

But I almost wonder if a cheeky, young Shakespeare was criticizing Elizabeth I, although I have found no scholarly evidence of this.

Before the Spanish Armada reached England, in her speech at Tilbury, Queen Elizabeth I had placed herself in a military role when she said,

I know I have the body but of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.

She appealed to religion just like Joan of Arc:

we shall shortly have a famous victory over these enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people

But her influence, like Joan of Arc's, seemed ambiguously helpful.

The Spanish Armada was expensive. The English military, even though the defeat of the Spanish Armada was treated as a huge victory across England, faced disaster:

"The day after her Tilbury speech, Elizabeth ordered the army disbanded, the camp at Tilbury dissolved five days later, then discharged the navy, sending them home without pay." (Wikipedia)

Many soldiers died of sickness, too. The Queen had explicitly promised pay in the Tilbury speech. But the Wikipedia article suggests that her reputation survived. Besides, it was William Cecil, Lord Burghley, who had advised in his role as Lord High Treasurer that "‘by death, by discharging of sick men, and such like . . . there may be spared something in the general pay [...].’" (Machiavelli had nothing on him!) Elizabeth's main participation in this betrayal had, to put it generously, been to ignore protests against Burghley's ideas by men like the Lord High Admiral, Charles Howard.

Then, in the English counter-Armada that was launched in 1589, over 11,000 men were killed on the English side. The Spanish had lost about as many during their Armada. Even Philip II came out of it looking like a comparative naval genius. (And even now, this embarrassing little episode doesn't seem to enter many discussions of British history.)

It's tempting to wonder if a failed English attack on Lisbon inspired Shakespeare when he wrote of the better-fated one on Orléans?

Again, I'm not sure if Shakespeare did mean to satirize Elizabeth I. But a cursory read of another Wikipedia article reveals that Elizabeth was hailed as an "Astraea," which is the same mythological character that Joan of Arc was compared to in Act I. Merely circumstantial evidence? A cliché of the Elizabethan Age that would have been widely used anyway?

***

Returning to Scene I: Joan of Arc and the French nobility at Orléans finally stop arguing. She suggests repairing France's defenses.

But it is too late. A moment later,

Enter an English Soldier, crying, 'A Talbot! A Talbot!' They fly, leaving their clothes behind.

(I certainly hope that the dukes, king, and Joan of Arc were holding extra clothing and armour over their arms, and not that the stage direction means that they scampered off in nude abandon. Either way, the English soldier happily picks up the spoils.)

Christmas and Chaos

After 1:45 p.m., the Christmas holidays have officially begun!

Fridays the first class is at 10:15 a.m., and it was only mildly awkward because I hadn't been able to find and read the article that we were supposed to be discussing. (My error was to search for it in German instead of in English.) Fortunately the rest of the class — which was admittedly smaller today since it was the day before the holidays, and many were tootling off into the liberty of the vacation early — had read it.

The professor courageously offered us mini-New Testament Bibles and chocolate as Christmas presents. I had to decline because through grandparents, maybe my own parents, and possibly my great-aunt, there are a lot of New Testaments in German, English, Latin and New Testament Greek in our family apartment already.

I've still been feeling sick. The anaemia symptoms seem like they're under control as long as I don't exercise strenuously or lose sleep. But I'm fairly certain there's something brewing underneath, because of weird puffy face symptoms, redness and heat, and a weak feeling especially in the left arm that started this week. It's too much information, but having a slightly stuffy nose or tight clothing also makes the anaemia more evident again. I stayed up past 2 a.m. on Monday to finish an assignment, and also paid the price for that: even in the late afternoon I didn't feel strong enough, and called in sick for class. Anyway, January 2nd is my next doctor's appointment; it had been scheduled sooner, but due to the doctor's sickness and personnel shortages (a Berlin-wide phenomenon these days), it has been rescheduled twice.

Anyway, after the first class, I went to the university cafeteria. It was still too early for many of the food booths in the back, and I wasn't familiar with the ones that were open yet. So I returned to the booth at the entrance and ordered a rectangle of blueberry streusel cake and got myself a mug of hot cocoa at the machine. The cafeteria lady at the cash register was in a beaming mood, despite her being busy with paper and the inner workings of something behind the counter. I hazarded a guess that the impending vacation might have been inspiring the mood, and offered, "Schöne Feiertage" as I left. She lit up even more and returned the greeting, so I felt like a Sherlock Holmes.

Then we had a lecture where we looked at an artifact, two drawings, and text excerpts from the inglorious period of European conquest in the Caribbean and South America.

In the lobby of the large lecture halls in the university building, students were playing an upright piano that had been painted green (which makes me shudder) and placed there I think as part of a sustainability initiative. 'Sustainability' is a very, very flexible word. But a few of the students played beautifully, for example one of Tchaikovsky's Seasons, and the audience — and, I kind of thought, one of the cleaning crew who was standing with his trolley around the corner — loved it.

*

It's not very Christmassy, but I realize that I haven't commented on news lately, and there's a lot of it.

For Berlin: The debate about budget cuts continues to rage. Joe Chialo, senator for culture, said persuasively that Berlin's cultural scene is part of Berlin's society as a whole; and if Berlin's society a whole is facing a tight budget, the cultural scene cannot be magically exempt from sharing the problem.

That said, some of the budget cuts there seem wrong, as do ones for social charities that regularly appear in the Berlin evening news. Then, according to an email from the student's association ASTA, apparently some of Berlin's universities and colleges have already laid off staff in anticipation of the budget cuts to the educational sector.

Finally, there are budget cuts to the green transportation sector, which I find especially shortsighted because if from a meteorological standpoint Berlin becomes Dubai 2.0 in fifty years*, we'll really have wished we had those electric buses and better rail network. The dysfunctions of 'green' transportation methods that do require costly fixes are also probably deepening resentment against the Green Party, as a party that seemingly equates moral purity with voters' inconvenience, and any leftist-to-moderate government it was or will be a part of. As right now Berlin is ruled by a coalition of the centre-right CDU and centre-left SPD, it's unlikely that the mayor intends to weaken the trope.
*I'm exaggerating slightly.

For Syria: I haven't spoken to any Syrian citizen about the situation, but like everyone else I was also awestruck that the removal of a dictator, something that 13 years of deep suffering didn't achieve, happened in two weeks. At the same time I think the country's factions and the fates of divers regions, villages, and perhaps even city districts are so complex and individual that I am a little worried about the 'now everyone's an expert on Syria' effect that seems to have spread through news media not just in Germany, but also in the UK, USA. In other words, 5-minute segments will necessarily go nowhere near doing justice to the situation.

That said, it is also strikingly tragic to hear that so many disappeared political prisoners really are likely dead. Also, on the smaller individual scale, it's sad to hear that Austin Tice — the American journalist — is still not returned to his family. It boggles the mind that I've worked a job for 7 years, quit it, and started studying full-time, during the same period of time he hasn't been able to talk to his family or go home.

I have also written enough about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to make my feelings clear: both that it's necessary that the Israeli hostages be released and returned to safety, and that the deaths of now over 45,000 Palestinians are unjustified. As for more recent developments: I'd need a lot of convincing to believe that the encroachment on the Golan Heights now, in defiance both of international law and the feelings of the Druze residents, is any way not colonialist. (And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's unmitigated cheek in wearing a yellow hostages ribbon, I'm presuming to enhance his own image, when he appeared at his Israeli court hearing on charges of corruption, has made me hopping mad. He seems a narcissist on the level of the 45th US President at times: any justified criticism of him seems to feel to him like a tragedy greater than the death of thousands.) But the same thought as mentioned for Syria applies to this: I am not an expert.

In reading history it becomes clear that there are many crises, many times where crises converge into what feels like a black hole of chaos. In between, there are still stretches of peace, and people who work competently and hard to make those stretches happen. So I am determined to remain optimistic.

Beautiful British Columbia: Our September 2024 Holiday, Part Four

On Friday, September the 13th, I woke up at 5:45 a.m.

Daybreak in Lumby,
where the highway leads to Cherryville.
(Salmon Trail branches off to the right.)
All rights reserved.

We had plenty of time before breakfast: the brothers and I went walking along a new branch of the Salmon Trail: the Chinook Trail. (I had considered the hike on Sugar Mountain as a final exam on whether I was free of anemia during our Canadian tour, and it was wonderful to find out that I was.)

First we retraced the part of the trail we already knew, which took us along the industrial yard we'd seen the day before.

But this time a mist blanketed everything. The dawning sun glowed through the haze and the summer's desiccated weed flower heads and husks. White-tailed deer bounded away from us, behind chainlink fences, into blurry infinity.

The Chinook Trail itself turned off onto a broad gravel road, where a few hopeful pine saplings were planted.

Crossing an asphalted street, we passed along the bed of a defunct railroad. It may have been a railroad for freight trains instead of passenger trains.

There were traces (to the left) of an industrial wasteland. A building complex had been torn down: piles of rubble rose from the floor. It would have been more tidy than haunting, except that trees and bushes screening the terrain lent an air of mystery. I could picture train wagons waiting here, to bring or fetch away products – not so long ago, judging by the new-looking concrete that had been poured beneath the torn-down building. A pick-up truck rattled along the gravel past us.

A car renovation business advertised itself with a VW Beetle on a rooftop of a nearby edifice. The yard's driveway entrance itself was decorated with what looked like a vintage 1920s car, its roof down, skewered on a pole (my notes: "like a beetle with a pin"), beside a huge needle tree and a second VW Beetle. Given my months of obsession with early 20th-century history in Europe, I was aghast.

Behind it, many parked cars looked like post-2000 models. It was only when we walked around the very back of the lot that piles of disassembled car parts and pieces of old lumber were stacked near the fence, as far as I remember.

We walked until we came to an Andrew Wyeth field with an abandoned-looking barn of wooden planks that had been greyed to a fireplace colour, unused railway track still laid and disappearing into infinity. Dried burdock stalks, thistles, rosebushes with hips, and cattails lent autumn hues to the deep green grass, and I seem to remember that a few saskatoonberry bushes and hawthorns flourished near the barn.

Nature took the upper hand.

The marshy landscape felt like wilderness even if we knew that the houses and businesses of Lumby were not far off, and even if the trimming hand of humans had clearly arranged the paths, fences, and other elements. We spotted a reddish deer at the far end of a field. Then a bald eagle flew in. It was hounded at first by a retinue of other birds, but finally perched in a tall, dead tree. There it was soon proudly alone, presumably scanning the marsh beneath for prey. I wondered what it thought of our smartphones and our diligent photography.

Bald eagles have become so rare that I felt honoured to have seen one.

We had, speaking for myself at least, the pleasant sense of being monarchs of all we surveyed when we were alone except for the animal kingdom. – While at the next moment we equally enjoyed the company of locals who were out for a stroll themselves.

We emerged at a bicycle park where cyclists do stunts in better weather, then walked back through the town.

In the yard of a house right at the park, two or three layers of sandbags across the garden hinted that the creek overflowed, flooding the area, at other times of the year.

On a nearby street, a large and small deer that were dark brown, looking like a different species from the white-tailed deer earlier, were roaming the neighbourhood. Three logging trucks passed us before we reached the motel. But I also remember one or two quirky late Victorian or Edwardian buildings surviving into this modern era beside the busy road.

We were culpably late: Uncle Pu was waiting for us.

*

THEN we all set out together to a bakery. It was crammed with customers. It also had a heady selection: plain glazed doughnuts, Boston creme doughnuts, carrot cake, etc. inside the glass-paned counter, and I seem to remember Nanaimo bars and brownies that came in a vegan variant in a refrigerator, and a shelf full of breads in bags near the door. I asked for carrot cake.

Afterward we returned to the motel, eating the doughnuts and carrot cake in Gi.'s motel room. It was nostalgic of the 1970s: in its homelike kitchenette, the gas oven had analogue dials and the flooring was pressed vinyl or linoleum. Earth tones were everywhere.

THIRDLY, we went to a coffee house for breakfast. It was the most hipster establishment I'd seen since leaving Berlin! A sign even informed us that we could order oat milk. (Generally the only concession that British Columbian restaurant menus made was to gluten-free diets, which I wrongly thought had gone out of fashion in the early 2010s.)

Two middle-aged men sitting at the dark wooden tables in the back resembled college professors; one of them was mentioning that it was Friday the 13th. Two young women resembled urban creatives. They were absorbed in their conversations and we felt less like pleasing novelties than on other occasions. Later two paramedics (judging by their work uniforms) drifted in. The café had been recommended by the lady at the dollar store, a hint that it was a community favourite.

The dispenser of recycled paper napkins on our tabletop  – not a single fast food restaurant in Canada has bleached white napkins any more – warned us to think of the environment before digging in.

Country music, despite the left-wing, urban vibe, was playing from the kitchen. I think it was modern country music and not Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash etc. classics.

I ordered a California BLT sandwich on multigrain bread. We were recovering from Bitter Mountain and weren't planning to hike again soon, so a lighter meal seemed enough. I was pleased to find that the sandwich's layer of mayonnaise was thin, and that mashed avocado had been layered on the bread too. To drink, I had a hot chocolate, which seemed to be based on chocolate syrup. The others had caffè latte, burgers, and a lumberjack breakfast of sausages with 2 eggs and hash browns and toast.

*

We filled up our gas tank before driving to New Denver; while near Cherryville regular gasoline cost 154.9 cents per litre, here it was 152.9. (I remember when the cost of gas per litre in British Columbia was under 1$...)

As the minivan was grimy after our mountaineering, we went to a car wash.

An automated car wash is to be built in Lumby, according to a sign opposite the supermarket: in the meantime we went to the manual car wash.

You drive your car underneath an open roof, and feed loonies or toonies into a coin drop. Then you wash the car with water spurting out of the long hoses, or soapy water spurting out of the squeegees. You top up the loonies and toonies as needed when the water or soap run out. Perhaps all very ordinary, but as I don't drive a car, it was engrossing.

Soap
Presoak
Tri-Foam Brush
Tire cleaner
Wax
Rain X clear coat
Rinse
Spot free rinse

Uncle Pu and Ge. took care of the rinsing, paying, soaping, paying, and rinsing. I sat inside and watched the deluge of water and bubbles, and read the 'menu' beside the coin drop.

***

Feeling more respectable, we drove out into the countryside.

We saw advertisements for straw, firewood, and artisans on roadside signs; other signs said PRIVATE PROPERTY and WATCH FOR LIVESTOCK.

We saw a hay barn and a field with hay bales, as logging trucks and motorcycles passed us, and a flower stand.

The evocatively named "Goldpanner Campground" hinted that miners had haunted the area, too.

The "thin, spire-like trees" were characteristic of the high altitude, as were my popping ears. Eventually we passed the Monashee Summit, elevation 1241 m, near Struttell Creek.

Another roadside cross paid tribute to someone who had died.

A new sign had something like this wording:

Hunters

To hunt please get permission from owner of property

Above the road, a "shuttered small building advertising ICE CREAM" appeared, I seem to remember. Then the next RUNAWAY LANE appeared.

*

Boater Advisory

Arrow Lakes is a
hydroelectric reservoir.

Be aware of:
* changing water levels
* submerged hazards
* floating debris

BC Hydro

To our delight, we took a half-hourly car ferry at the Needles Ferry Landing. (It is free of charge.) Uncle Pu brought us there just in time for the next sailing, and we rolled on board alongside 2 motorcycles, 1 compact car, 2 pick-ups, 3 RVs, etc. The ferry's journey was brief: in 5 minutes we had already landed on the other bank of the Arrow Lakes and saw a sign, "Welcome to Fauquier."

SET BRAKE, SHUTOFF ENGINE,
REMAIN IN VEHICLE UNTIL
VESSEL HAS DEPARTED

A dark green tugboat floated near logs in the water. Mountains that are still green enough to feel hilly embrace the Lakes, and the Lakes feed hydroelectric dams. The Lakes have such a long circumference that two ferry routes (that I know of) lead across it, to save driving time.

As we drove uphill and downhill through the terrain around Nakusp, the snug-looking houses, gardens with dahlias and other flowers, hedges, and general air of middle-class suburban bliss, resembled southern Vancouver Island.

On the road, at least eight motorcyclists passed us, profiting by the mild temperatures. The unincorporated community of Hills advertised a garlic festival. I tried to guess if the area's climate would be icy and inhospitable in wintertime, or temperate even then.

The road signs suggested the winters were harsh: WATCH FOR BLACK ICE, and SKI AND SNOWBOARD AREA, near an advertisement for the skier's destination Valhalla Hills.

But later we caught sight of another danger: wisps of smoke and steam rising from the uninhabited-looking, hazy blue mountain slopes on the opposite bank of Slocan Lake. When we reached the level of Rosebery, the scent of woodsmoke infiltrated the car. We were wondering if this was an undiscovered wildfire; many signs asked drivers to "Please be careful. Report wildfires," and one such sign was nearby.

Finally we reached New Denver. 

Living the Winter Life Like An Ailing Victorian Urchin

It's been a difficult few days: holding the presentation in Spanish in front of the entire class made me nervous and I ended up having fewer than 6 hours of sleep. Then my voice grew hoarse because I practiced too much for my choir's Christmas concert.

For the following two days I barely practiced singing at all, to rest my vocal cords. Unfortunately on the second day I had a flare-up of what I think were anemia symptoms, felt too limp to do much, and skipped both of my university classes. I was quite worried: not only did I need to have enough oxygen to sing for around 45 minutes (not including the warm-up), but I was also standing on a wooden platform during the concert and it would have been very risky if I'd become dizzy and had fallen off.

But by dint of sleeping and resting as much as possible, I felt well enough to jog around on the day of the choir concert itself. I braced my feet apart a little as I sang. Surprisingly I also don't think I made any egregious errors except when everyone else did too, having sung along with the men's voices by accident only during the warm-up.

Waking up before 7:30 a.m. on Monday was also not great. I felt so tired and weak that I held onto the stair railings on the way to the U-Bahn station, took much longer than usual to walk from the U-Bahn station to the university buildings, arrived half an hour late which I figured was better than passing out, and was pretty cranky because I just wanted to get home again. In the afternoon I'd perked up, so going back to university for the second class was less tormenting.

Obviously it would be best to visit the doctor again. The thing is that I don't want to take the darned iron pills again. Besides which I was satisfied with the conclusions of my tests in August: unexplained anemia means that you are trying to rule out a smorgasbord of different cancer types, and I was quite happy that a lot of types were indeed ruled out. Why reopen the topic? I'm also annoyed because I thought my diet had been not great, but nutritious enough, lately. Besides it's boring to keep having the same ailment, and droning on about it on this blog.

Tuesday evening I was getting ready to go to choir practice. Earlier in the evening I'd been thinking that I wasn't sure I was going to make it, but then I'd thought that I can't sideline my whole life because of anaemia. Whatever modifications I need to do to keep participating, like slowly walking somewhere instead of quickly cycling, I do. After that resolution, I got a second wind. But finally I realized at the last moment that I was not feeling fit enough after all.

This morning, having had over 6.5 hours of sleep, I felt rather better and felt extremely cheerful, although I was embarrassingly sleepy in my second class and had tingly headaches as I went home.

The professor of my morning class had mentioned a demonstration, which I was wildly curious about. When I looked it up on the police registry, it turned out to be a pro-Palestine students' protest, at the Humboldt University campus in the area around Unter den Linden. I'm a little mad that I wasn't feeling fit enough to go observe it, because my inner amateur journalist immediately popped up and reported for duty. (The role of student makes it difficult to report on my own university, due to conflicts of interest and the risk of retribution. Besides I figure it's better to be a good student and no reporter, than a lousy student who's also a lousy reporter. But this would have been safe, neutral territory; and I feel that chasing after one story per week is not going to distract me to a harmful degree from academic work.)

On the way home, I did stop to shop for dark chocolate with ginger in it (one of the perks, of course, of an iron-rich diet), and pecorino romano to go with the penne pasta and tomato sauce for dinner.

And at home, being in good spirits, I sat at the piano and played a few Christmas songs.