I have not melted, and I will finally write my next post.
On the 29th of July our container arrived. There is a bus lane right outside our apartment that is free on Saturdays; the truck came and left it there -- after we had to call the police to tow an unfortunate fellow who ignored the signs and left his car parked in the most inconvenient spot on it after nine o'clock.
Our uncle, his friend, and people off the street (for money) helped us move our belongings (over 500 boxes and individual items, amounting to about ten tonnes -- teaching us all the value of minimalist interior design) out of the container and up the stairs. The stairs, incidentally, were only those leading up to the first floor, but the first floor is always taller than the others, and the stairs are windy. Even carrying one box up felt really unhealthy. I mostly put the boxes into appropriate places in our apartment, which was a figurative pain as well as a literal one. Anyway, we all perspired amazing amounts (fortunately it was only about 27 degrees, or we might have perished), and we have all sorts of aches and pains. My mother and eldest brothers have impressive colonies of bruises on their legs, my parents and I have muscle cramps, my eldest brother couldn't fold back his arm far at one point, etc. The whole thing took six hours.
I really enjoyed the activity, and could easily have done the same amount of work over again. If I had no box I could run up the stairs easily -- even though my back "killed" yesterday. It's liberating to work really hard and intensively; since I'm no good at sports I've never had such a good opportunity before. The shower afterward, and the wearing of beautifully clean clothing, was such a luxurious experience, too.
At any rate, our grand piano is with us now. I've already played a lot: Beethoven variations for cello and piano with Papa, piano duets with T., bits of Beethoven's sonatas, some of Mendelssohn's Lieder Ohne Worte, Schumann's Kinderszenen, pieces in the Toronto Royal Conservatory of Music repertoire (I reached Grade 8 in their programme, at which point I failed the exam twice), three of Chopin's mazurkas, three of Brahm's waltzes, the first two movements of my favourite B flat major sonata by Schubert, etc. Today Papa went to a computer store to buy two power supplies, then to the music store Hans Riedel. He bought notes and grease for Mama's French horn, and checked whether our piano bench would arrive soon (there's no real hurry because sitting on what we call "rolly chairs" at home is lovely too). I looked through a big pile of notes and found two suites and a chaconne by Haendel, as well as a book of technical exercises by Czerny. I played the first two exercises and the first two movements of a suite when we arrived back home.
Then Mama and I walked to the post office, then two Turkish grocery stores on the way back. When we were home she prepared delicious lamb chops in a yoghurt sauce, which we ate with a type of Turkish flat bread sprinkled with aromatic black as well as white sesame seeds. In the evening Papa made one of his great pot-roasts with leeks, carrots, potatoes, and tomatoes alongside the meat -- and we had cake and ice cream for dessert. Of course we won't dine so well every day! I must say that the past four weeks of Doener Kebabs have been nice too, because the restaurant where we get them really make them well.
As for other activities today, I went with my youngest brother J. to a bicycle store to get him a helmet (later he had to return for a lock), I continued knitting my scarf (probably one of those many knitting projects that remain eternally unfinished), and I read a little of the newspaper. I wonder if the Israeli attacks of Lebanon will finally mark the turning-point of the situation in Israel/Palestine -- if people will finally see that they cannot depend on the Israeli government (especially under Likud) to defend itself a) successfully, and b) without killing hundreds of civilians. Reason and humanity have been ignored, or invoked in ways distorted by fear and hatred, long enough. And the fact is that now none of Israel's neighbours have little enough to lose by invading it, the majority of the Palestinian population (as polls indicate) wants peace, and the Palestinian government is ready (and has been ready for a long while) to negotiate; the Israeli government should no longer be excused from turning to diplomacy with the sincere desire to finish what Yitzhak Rabin started.
And now I should get off the internet because I shouldn't be on here for longer than an hour . . .
Monday, July 31, 2006
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Tidings from the Sauna
Today I feel much more cheerful, even though it is at least 33 degrees in the shade.
I've been thinking that I was too decided in saying that I don't want a job except if I'm a big financial drain otherwise in the last blog post. It is, after all, a very important question what one wants to do with the rest of one's life. But, if I get a job, I want to feel qualified for it and I want to feel excited to do it.
Anyway, I'll write more tomorrow, if I haven't melted.
P.S.: I'm writing another story, essentially identical to Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, but a lot less sentimental and dramatic. The heroine, Constance, is about to set forth from the subalpine village of Vaulieu to the subalpine village of Valmont, but stop at the house of the Beaumont family. She will encounter robbers along the way, who will let her pass with all her money out of chivalry (i.e. I am also ripping off the tales of Robin Hood). This may sound dramatic, but I am sure that my writing will make it boring. I have not yet decided why Constance embarked on her impromptu walking tour; the classic thing would be to have a disagreeable suitor waiting back home, but the idea doesn't appeal to me. The Mysteries-of-Udolpho solution to the problem would be that pernicious relatives kicked her out of the house as soon as her parents died -- I don't like that idea either, though. I should, by the way, find a village name that does not start with "V." I like "Valmont" a little better, so "Vaulieu" will probably go.
I've been thinking that I was too decided in saying that I don't want a job except if I'm a big financial drain otherwise in the last blog post. It is, after all, a very important question what one wants to do with the rest of one's life. But, if I get a job, I want to feel qualified for it and I want to feel excited to do it.
Anyway, I'll write more tomorrow, if I haven't melted.
P.S.: I'm writing another story, essentially identical to Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, but a lot less sentimental and dramatic. The heroine, Constance, is about to set forth from the subalpine village of Vaulieu to the subalpine village of Valmont, but stop at the house of the Beaumont family. She will encounter robbers along the way, who will let her pass with all her money out of chivalry (i.e. I am also ripping off the tales of Robin Hood). This may sound dramatic, but I am sure that my writing will make it boring. I have not yet decided why Constance embarked on her impromptu walking tour; the classic thing would be to have a disagreeable suitor waiting back home, but the idea doesn't appeal to me. The Mysteries-of-Udolpho solution to the problem would be that pernicious relatives kicked her out of the house as soon as her parents died -- I don't like that idea either, though. I should, by the way, find a village name that does not start with "V." I like "Valmont" a little better, so "Vaulieu" will probably go.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Woe is Me
As one can tell from the title, I feel a lot like complaining today. I have no reason to complain of Berlin (despite the unwholesome heat), but I do feel like complaining about the situation in general.
We've been without our belongings for twenty-three days now; they're still stuck in the container in Hamburg, if I understand matters correctly. I try not to let that get to me, because I think that I shouldn't suspend my life because of it, but it still affects me, and it certainly seems to affect my parents. I wish I could play the piano. The violin is nice too, but I hit so many wrong notes and my technique is so bad and I feel too lazy to correct it -- moreover I always worry that the neighbours, etc., will be annoyed by it. Here evidently my common sense has deserted me.
The main problem is really boredom. It's not pleasant to walk anywhere if I begin to perspire profusely after half a block, and at home I can only read, write, sleep, eat, and play the violin if someone else isn't playing anything. T., Ge. and J. resorted to throwing rolled-up socks at each other yesterday while giggling hysterically, which amused me too, but which I didn't feel like joining. Mama listens to the radio and reads the newspaper, Papa reads books or helps Ge. with his flight school reading, Ge. does the flight school reading, J. is working on a powerpoint presentation, etc., for an imaginary airline, and T. is immersed in War and Peace (where Prince Andrei has just died). Gi. is at Muenchehofe.
At the same time, I feel pressure (magnified by my bored state of mind) to do something, research about the college that T. and I will be attending, and get a job. I'm not looking forward to the college, because somehow the last year at university has left me with little energy and the belief that I will never write essays, etc., the way I truly want to. As for getting a job, I would only get it because I don't want to be a financial burden. I've looked in the job listings in the newspaper, and I'm unqualified for basically all. As for the only job that would work out, I don't want to distribute flyers on conscientious grounds -- I find them a nuisance.
Yesterday I felt like crying when I woke up and at other points during the day, and I'm usually disgruntled and disagreeable.
That isn't to say that I haven't had fun, too; for instance, I've written a short "eighteenth-century novel" in three "volumes," which was truly amusing, though without literary merit. Before that I began to write a short story entitled "Friedrich von Tautzick." I've also been downtown twice, once with my brothers and once alone. The time I was there alone I made a huge detour, going in exactly the wrong direction along the north bank of the Spree, but enjoying the scenery and the adventurous sense of having made a stupid mistake immensely. I walked past the new main train station (Hauptbahnhof) and various buildings of the Bundestag, past the Reichstag, through the Brandenburger Tor and the Tiergarten, and down Unter den Linden past the Komische Oper and the Russian embassy and the stately Staatsoper and the beautiful building of the Humboldt Uni to the museum of German history. I've been to the Volkspark at the Rathaus Schoeneberg often, and I've walked twice in a lovely, shadowy graveyard where the composer Max Bruch is buried.
Anyway, now that I've poured forth my egotistic lament, and probably shown myself in a highly unflattering light, I feel much better!
We've been without our belongings for twenty-three days now; they're still stuck in the container in Hamburg, if I understand matters correctly. I try not to let that get to me, because I think that I shouldn't suspend my life because of it, but it still affects me, and it certainly seems to affect my parents. I wish I could play the piano. The violin is nice too, but I hit so many wrong notes and my technique is so bad and I feel too lazy to correct it -- moreover I always worry that the neighbours, etc., will be annoyed by it. Here evidently my common sense has deserted me.
The main problem is really boredom. It's not pleasant to walk anywhere if I begin to perspire profusely after half a block, and at home I can only read, write, sleep, eat, and play the violin if someone else isn't playing anything. T., Ge. and J. resorted to throwing rolled-up socks at each other yesterday while giggling hysterically, which amused me too, but which I didn't feel like joining. Mama listens to the radio and reads the newspaper, Papa reads books or helps Ge. with his flight school reading, Ge. does the flight school reading, J. is working on a powerpoint presentation, etc., for an imaginary airline, and T. is immersed in War and Peace (where Prince Andrei has just died). Gi. is at Muenchehofe.
At the same time, I feel pressure (magnified by my bored state of mind) to do something, research about the college that T. and I will be attending, and get a job. I'm not looking forward to the college, because somehow the last year at university has left me with little energy and the belief that I will never write essays, etc., the way I truly want to. As for getting a job, I would only get it because I don't want to be a financial burden. I've looked in the job listings in the newspaper, and I'm unqualified for basically all. As for the only job that would work out, I don't want to distribute flyers on conscientious grounds -- I find them a nuisance.
Yesterday I felt like crying when I woke up and at other points during the day, and I'm usually disgruntled and disagreeable.
That isn't to say that I haven't had fun, too; for instance, I've written a short "eighteenth-century novel" in three "volumes," which was truly amusing, though without literary merit. Before that I began to write a short story entitled "Friedrich von Tautzick." I've also been downtown twice, once with my brothers and once alone. The time I was there alone I made a huge detour, going in exactly the wrong direction along the north bank of the Spree, but enjoying the scenery and the adventurous sense of having made a stupid mistake immensely. I walked past the new main train station (Hauptbahnhof) and various buildings of the Bundestag, past the Reichstag, through the Brandenburger Tor and the Tiergarten, and down Unter den Linden past the Komische Oper and the Russian embassy and the stately Staatsoper and the beautiful building of the Humboldt Uni to the museum of German history. I've been to the Volkspark at the Rathaus Schoeneberg often, and I've walked twice in a lovely, shadowy graveyard where the composer Max Bruch is buried.
Anyway, now that I've poured forth my egotistic lament, and probably shown myself in a highly unflattering light, I feel much better!
Saturday, July 08, 2006
First Post From Berlin
One week has passed since the gruelling transatlantic flight that transplanted us to Germany. My eyes are no longer swollen, my throat no longer dry, and my self no longer sleep-deprived!
We are now in our apartment in Schöneberg. It's still bare wooden floors with bare white walls, and a primitive kitchen and bathroom, but we have been able to sleep on mattresses and we have acquired a laundry machine, figured out how to get hot water, and applied for a telephone connection. The outside of the apartment, partly obscured by oaks, and with stores in the ground floor, is a pale yellow, rising to a peaked black roof roughly reminiscent of a Teutonic castle.
The apartment is situated on the busy Hauptstrasse, where the noise of cars assails us night and day, so that we continually raise our voices (excellent practice for me to speak more clearly). I've already walked all the way along one side of it into the Potsdamer Strasse and thence into Potsdamer Platz -- foolishly, as it turns out, on a very hot day --, I've become doubly aware of the virtues of the U-Bahn. My siblings and I -- except two brothers, who are with our uncle and aunt in the countryside -- routinely wake up at about 5:30, much to my surprise and pleasure. At 7:00 or 8:00 the shops open -- including the Turkish bakery about two blocks away and the convenience store opposite -- and I've accompanied Mama to them twice as she bought breakfast and the newspaper (usually the Berliner Morgenpost) there.
I hope to do more cultural things soon, like going to museums and art galleries and concerts, and sketching architecture, and painting scenes. I would like to go to an opera at the Komische Oper, but I'm not sure if it will be a sex-obsessed modern version or a less distracting traditional one . . . So far I did sketch one window (though I could not have told anyone the name of its style or the approximate date of its construction), and I played a lot on the violin (though I neither divide my bow, nor hold it straight, nor do any other things that I should be doing).
The big "but" is that the container with our belongings has not yet come, and that my parents are considerably stressed (though at least Mama is relaxing more), and that we miss the two brothers who are elsewhere. I wish I could just speak out directly about things, but in this case it would be better not.
P.S.: It turns out that I can't by any means go to the Freie Uni this coming year because of my bad marks; instead I should find an evening school where I can do a sort of "Abitur" extra. But I did leaf through the "studies handbook" of the FU and decide to take a bachelor's programme in comparative literature once I'm there.
We are now in our apartment in Schöneberg. It's still bare wooden floors with bare white walls, and a primitive kitchen and bathroom, but we have been able to sleep on mattresses and we have acquired a laundry machine, figured out how to get hot water, and applied for a telephone connection. The outside of the apartment, partly obscured by oaks, and with stores in the ground floor, is a pale yellow, rising to a peaked black roof roughly reminiscent of a Teutonic castle.
The apartment is situated on the busy Hauptstrasse, where the noise of cars assails us night and day, so that we continually raise our voices (excellent practice for me to speak more clearly). I've already walked all the way along one side of it into the Potsdamer Strasse and thence into Potsdamer Platz -- foolishly, as it turns out, on a very hot day --, I've become doubly aware of the virtues of the U-Bahn. My siblings and I -- except two brothers, who are with our uncle and aunt in the countryside -- routinely wake up at about 5:30, much to my surprise and pleasure. At 7:00 or 8:00 the shops open -- including the Turkish bakery about two blocks away and the convenience store opposite -- and I've accompanied Mama to them twice as she bought breakfast and the newspaper (usually the Berliner Morgenpost) there.
I hope to do more cultural things soon, like going to museums and art galleries and concerts, and sketching architecture, and painting scenes. I would like to go to an opera at the Komische Oper, but I'm not sure if it will be a sex-obsessed modern version or a less distracting traditional one . . . So far I did sketch one window (though I could not have told anyone the name of its style or the approximate date of its construction), and I played a lot on the violin (though I neither divide my bow, nor hold it straight, nor do any other things that I should be doing).
The big "but" is that the container with our belongings has not yet come, and that my parents are considerably stressed (though at least Mama is relaxing more), and that we miss the two brothers who are elsewhere. I wish I could just speak out directly about things, but in this case it would be better not.
P.S.: It turns out that I can't by any means go to the Freie Uni this coming year because of my bad marks; instead I should find an evening school where I can do a sort of "Abitur" extra. But I did leaf through the "studies handbook" of the FU and decide to take a bachelor's programme in comparative literature once I'm there.
Saturday, July 01, 2006
A Day of Momentousness
Today is my family's last full day living in Canada. We have to wake up at around 4:45 tomorrow morning, and leave our house by 5:40; our suitcases, adds Papa, should be packed by 6:00 this evening. We'll take the ferry over to Vancouver, drive to the airport in a rented car (even though I should have liked to ride the buses one last time), then take off at 2:05 in a flight directly to Duesseldorf. Fun stuff.
Anyway, not only is it a lovely sunny day, but it is also Canada Day! We have no specific plans to celebrate it, but we do have a bottle of red wine left, and a handful of sparklers, so . . .
Yesterday our aunt and uncle came with two helpers to pick up some of the furniture that was left after we packed the container. My older brothers helped too, while my sister and I relaxed in the little house and played the violin and recorder. I must admit to being bored now and then . . . It was also bothersome to lose our cable internet, since I've found that I can't bear the thought of being without the internet even for a day -- but Papa has shown me how to use the dial-up connection from my laptop. Since the fridges went too, we have a sad array of condiments (teriyaki sauce, cream cheese, salsa, soy sauce, plum sauce, and mustard, as well as capers and sliced jalapeno peppers) waiting to be used up. We've used up most of the milk by having cereal.
In the evening we watched Miss Marple (4.15 from Paddington) with Joan Hickson, a documentary entitled Canadian Guitar that I found most boring though nice, the Sherlock Holmes (played by Jeremy Brett) adventure at Reichenbach Falls, and finally several talk shows. We children all slept in the living room, like uncomfortable islands in the hard sea that is the living room carpet. My sister and I had been able to occupy the two sofas the last few nights, but now they're gone; fortunately I was so sleepy it didn't make much difference that I was now basically sleeping on the floor and that I was chilly. At some point in the morning my sister rose from her sleeping bag and hauled it off with her into our car, so that she could sleep more comfortably. I didn't take out my sleeping bag because it took so much trouble to pack it in my suitcase to begin with.
Anyway, I'll go off and enjoy my last day (though I intend to come back some time) in this country now!
Anyway, not only is it a lovely sunny day, but it is also Canada Day! We have no specific plans to celebrate it, but we do have a bottle of red wine left, and a handful of sparklers, so . . .
Yesterday our aunt and uncle came with two helpers to pick up some of the furniture that was left after we packed the container. My older brothers helped too, while my sister and I relaxed in the little house and played the violin and recorder. I must admit to being bored now and then . . . It was also bothersome to lose our cable internet, since I've found that I can't bear the thought of being without the internet even for a day -- but Papa has shown me how to use the dial-up connection from my laptop. Since the fridges went too, we have a sad array of condiments (teriyaki sauce, cream cheese, salsa, soy sauce, plum sauce, and mustard, as well as capers and sliced jalapeno peppers) waiting to be used up. We've used up most of the milk by having cereal.
In the evening we watched Miss Marple (4.15 from Paddington) with Joan Hickson, a documentary entitled Canadian Guitar that I found most boring though nice, the Sherlock Holmes (played by Jeremy Brett) adventure at Reichenbach Falls, and finally several talk shows. We children all slept in the living room, like uncomfortable islands in the hard sea that is the living room carpet. My sister and I had been able to occupy the two sofas the last few nights, but now they're gone; fortunately I was so sleepy it didn't make much difference that I was now basically sleeping on the floor and that I was chilly. At some point in the morning my sister rose from her sleeping bag and hauled it off with her into our car, so that she could sleep more comfortably. I didn't take out my sleeping bag because it took so much trouble to pack it in my suitcase to begin with.
Anyway, I'll go off and enjoy my last day (though I intend to come back some time) in this country now!
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