An Early Christmas Dinner on the Canal

Since Black Friday came and went, my team has had so much time to do our regular work that it's challenging to adjust to the comfort and lack of pressure. In fact, I think I'm falling back to an old tendency to brood about things once my mind has little other food for thought to chew on.

The cold temperatures of the early Berlin winter have given way to cool rainy days. It's a relief to have some rain because November seemed dry; even before then I've only felt uncomfortable twice or so walking outside without proper rain-gear. The relative drought is likely not good for all the plant and animal life in Berlin and in the countryside surrounding it.

Today my colleagues and I went to our annual Christmas dinner. This time it was held on a freshwater barge on the Spree River, and it started in a dock at the Treptower Park in former Eastern Berlin. It was dark when we arrived.

City lights were glimmering across the water and (if I remember correctly) sparkling in the trees where fairy lights were hung, and stark brown tree branches scoured the sky Wuthering-Heights-esquely against the mottled backdrop of the general light pollution. Large white clouds with apertures and fissures between rushed across the sky. Aside from the docks; a stationary restaurant boat with turquoise keel, beer label flag, mainmast that appeared to contain a ventilation system, two booms that folded down from the masts, and a Christmas tree in the rigging at the bow; and our own boat; there was a tall building that looked vaguely 19th-century-esque remaining from that industrial era of Berlin. Black waves with glassy bright reflections swapped at the concrete shore, carrying schools of fallen tree leaves on their bosom.

We entered the boat down a firm gangway, to find a red-carpeted space with glass windows, pinky-beige curtains, cylindrical lights between the windows, plants and other bric-a-brac, and a round mirror with a white life ring around it at the wall. A white door that swung both ways led to the washrooms and to the deck. Chairs were draped in pale satin-like cloth, and the tables were decked with red napkins, two sets of cutlery (a fork and knife to either side, and a tinier fork and spoon for dessert at the top) per person, and an evergreen branch decoration with a red reindeer tea light as well as pinecones in the centre.

We were handed a bread basket per table, which included a bowl with a dip that looked like a mushy, pale olive green baba ghanoush (I didn't try it). Also, we ordered our drinks: Merlot, white wine, hot chocolate spiked with Baileys, sparkling water, etc. A bottle of Moet et Chandon would have cost 120 €, and none of us were cheeky enough to order it.

I went out on deck, and saw more of the Mitte district especially, and was rather unsettled by the unequal distribution of money for chic buildings, etc. through the city. There was the funnel nose of the Bode Museum, there the tower corners of the Reichsgebäude where the EU and German flags fluttered from the stonework as a maelstrom of little humans spiralled down the walkway in the glass dome, there the Fernsehturm. The Holzmarkt, the Jannowitzbrücke; Zalando building, Ver.di workers' union building and Kanzleramt: dramatic stages that were all lined along the riverbanks.

It was breezy, rain droplets sprinkled, and I wasn't warmly dressed. Yet I was happy to be out on water again — whether it's insalubrious freshwater in a European metropolis or the sea off Canada appears to make little difference. And it was nice to talk to the colleagues.

(And, to finish describing the menu: we ate either a meat 'entrée' of goose drumstick with dumplings and a slice of orange and green cabbage; or a vegetarian course of mixed rotini and tagliatelle with sundried tomatoes, arugula, eggplant, olives, and a balsamic vinaigrette reduction. For dessert, we had a scoop of vanilla ice cream on plum compôte, a half-moon of persimmon for the garnish, and whipped cream.)

It was after 8 p.m. when we had returned to the dock. We disembarked in (I think) a happy frame of mind, split into different groups heading back to the S-Bahn stations Plänterwald or Treptow according to our destinations, and perhaps more conviviality was to be had in a group I didn't join.