A Tragic Pride Week, and Student Job Life

It was a strange weekend in Berlin considering the attack at the Christopher Street Day parade events on Saturday. Most of the main parade was already over when the news came late in the evening. Since I'd stopped checking local news for the day, mostly, I first spotted it on the Guardian's website. I had thought of attending CSD for amateur journalistic purposes, the same as last year; but I would have been long gone by the time the violence happened. It was unsettling to hear helicopters near Potsdamer Platz late into the night — between midnight and past 2 a.m. — and then for long stretches the next morning. Usually we hear them when there's a visit by a head of state who requires heightened security measures, but this time I presumed that police were using them to look for suspects.

As for the reaction in Berlin, it impresses me that the organizers of the CSD parade have repeatedly stated that they do not want the attacker's self-affiliation with Islam to lead to any stereotypes, generalizations, or hatred toward Muslims. What I just wish is that the press's coverage had focused less on the perpetrator, which from what I understand of criminology raises the probability of copy-cat attacks. It also didn't feel nice to be subjected to a livestream of predominantly Crime and Punishment updates, instead of reactions from the LGBTQ* community and, say, the flowers that were being left at the Tiergarten park where the attack happened.

*

On Friday I'd gone to a Pride Week demonstration, a smaller one, for amateur journalism purposes.

After reflecting on going to the CSD parade last year and what felt right or wrong about being there as an ally, I concluded that I'd felt out of place because I go out of my way to not express my personality when it feels socially risky. Whereas out-and-proud attendees are taking a lot of risks.

So, despite the general preferability of wearing neutral clothing when doing amateur journalism, I put on a baby-blue sweater, a flowered scarf, and lipstick this time. Besides I approached the organizers of the Pride Week demo to make doubly sure that protestors wouldn't feel uncomfortable being photographed, because I can imagine that you can begin feeling like a zoo animal if lots of strangers take snapshots of you without asking because your clothing or make-up look unusual to them. It felt like the right decision and I felt very at ease.

For comparison, a professional journalist was there alongside a camerawoman, and conducted a stand-up interview with the organizers later in front of the glass and steel Paul-Löbe-Haus where German parliamentarians work. She wore (as I seem to remember) jeans and a striped red-and-white sweater, i.e. a little colour but nothing splashy.

Besides the gay community at the protest was diverse in terms of clothing styles and cultural affiliations: some were drag queens who went for old-time glamour, others preferred slim 90s-style party gear and stiletto heels, a few into animal masks or leather, many dressed down in t-shirts and shorts or jeans, and so on and so forth. So perhaps I'd have fit in just fine with my old amateur journalism uniform of dark blue slim jeans and black long sleeve shirt.

Another reason I enjoyed the event was that — unlike many foreign-events-related protests I've been to — there was little tension of the kind that people usually emanate when protesting against totalitarian or otherwise extremist regimes.

***

This morning I went to the first student job that I've booked through the app. Waking up at 7:22 a.m. was a minor ordeal, the transit took 50 minutes but all the transfers went beautifully smoothly, and it was not too bad that I was a little geographically disorientated and not 15 minutes early at the place of employment because my supervisor hadn't arrived yet. It was out in the sticks of eastern Berlin, but well within the city limits with GDR housing blocks, a huge Höffner furniture big-box store, a smattering of plane trees if I recall correctly, and the characteristic East German tram lines. In the end the job was far easier than anticipated: with a fellow student from southwestern Berlin and the supervisor, we moved a few dozen rental e-bikes in boxes from a truck into storage cells, then labelled them with the email address of the customer. After two hours we were done. What I also enjoyed were the interactions with the others at the facility.

A few burly movers were shifting household furniture for a lanky white-haired man in a logo'd jersey sweater who did some of the labour alongside them. And the truck driver who had driven the e-bikes from a factory in France, his large vehicle having a Polish license plate, didn't speak much German but mentioned that he did speak Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian (and maybe Hungarian?). He had a vein of humour, was easygoing, and patiently pushed the cartons one by one where we needed them for over half an hour. We also met a thin facility manager in a dress shirt with the professional air of a 20th-century train conductor, brisk but friendly, who took care of opening gates and checking in with my supervisor. And a receptionist at the entrance, despite being engrossed in a telephone call, waved in a cheerful way when the fellow student and I left.

None of the men were shocked or condescending because I was a woman doing manual work. It's also a sign of a good dynamic that when the fellow mini-jobber and I met up again at the nearest tram station, it wasn't remotely awkward.

We finished two hours early, so I'll probably get half the pay for the projected four hours. But I was actually happy to be let off the hook. On the way home I indulged myself by going for a walk in the sparkling sunshine between train stations. After lunch and a little internet time, I took a long nap.

Beautiful British Columbia: Our September 2024 Holiday, Part Eight

Uncle Pu retraced another journey from his past, and took us to the ghost town of Sandon. From the highway the first signs of it we saw were an elaborate system of tall white buildings and passageways at the creek's edge, constructed I think in the mid-20th century but still operational. Klondike Silver Mining Co. or a similar name was written on the side. Densely embedded in the evergreen trees, with slender railway tracks teetering along the hillsides, as this area was, I was amazed yet again that anyone had been able to navigate from Vancouver to here in the 19th century, let alone set up little or big mining outfits, before the arrival of post-war highways.

— As it was, even in 2024 road maintenance crews were working between Slocan and Sandon in conditions that did not lack adventure. Workers in high-visibility vests were scaling steep banks beside the road, chainsaw held in one hand, to clear tree saplings, as cars like ours passed beside them. Other work crews had been renewing the asphalt. —

The visitors' part of Sandon, at any rate, is upslope of the Klondike Silver Mining Co. complex. Perched beside a creek on a declivity that had already put paid to a few chapters of the town's history by collapsing it in an avalanche, the creek itself also flooding the town in the 1950s, wooden frameworks were exposed where the riverbanks had eroded underneath the buildings. Whether these frames were mining apparatus, like supports for a flume, or slope stabilization attempts, I was too ignorant of engineering to know.

Riverbank fortification beneath Sandon, B.C.
September 14, 2024. All rights reserved.

Sandon's visitor's site started with a modestly sized veranda'd house and then a string of Canada Rail train wagons behind a locomotive, which accompanied the road up to a parking lot. Behind the tourists' cars, which had US as well as Canadian license plates, there was a gift shop. It was in a building that looked very much like a drug store emporium or general store out of a Laura Ingalls Wilder book. Two stories high, impressively towering above the river like a lookout post, it had a certain flat rough-and-readiness to it that did suggest quick construction to accommodate a mining boom, as well as mysterious windows with uncomplicated plate glass panes that would give ghosts a fine view. My youngest brother popped into the gift shop and emerged with a black-and-white postcard, after chatting with the owner.

In the parking lot area, a collection of trolleybuses had been parked that traced the history of British Columbia's public transit during the mid-1900s: pastel beige shells, drivers' seats where one could imagine a uniformed conductor politely speaking in a British accent with his passengers, empty rows, an accordion door, displays on the fore of each vehicle revealing whether the bus had been in service in — for example — Stanley Park (Vancouver) or some other neighbourhood or town.

Old mining(?) structures at Sandon, B.C.
September 14, 2024. All rights reserved.

Odds and ends of old, rust-tinged equipment were scattered around. Above the gift shop and the buses, one or two business buildings that predated the First World War had been lovingly rebuilt. Their façades, like the shop, hinted at the first decades of Sandon, when it had been thriving with hotels, sports venues, brothels, telephone office, post office, an Opera House, and men on the hunt for mineral ore. Specifically these men were extracting galena, which — so an online encyclopedia informs me — is an ore that yields lead but also silver. But Sandon was also an internment site of Japanese-Canadians during World War II.

Information sign above river at Atherton Block, Sandon, B.C.
September 14, 2024. All rights reserved.

Further up, two or three historical houses that had belonged to engineers or other staff (and were inaccessible to prying eyes as they are still in use, if only for storage) sat below a very old hydropower house from the reign of Queen Victoria. Still operational over 125 years later, thunderously loud to the point that I could not hear the guide explaining the history of the site to my brothers from where I was standing, it still feeds electricity into the BC Hydro network. Below where I stepped out of the station again, frothing water went crashing out below the turbine's screw, to rejoin the river. Piles of dark grey rubble nearby looked like fertile terrain for archaeological foraging, but I realized soon enough that I didn't have the necessary knowledge of materials to 'read' the spoil heaps.

The guide told my brothers that old mine shafts and tunnels hidden in the hills around the ghost town are often searched out by prowling visitors. A few of these tunnels are accessible and safe enough; others are less accessible and hardly intact. Needless to say that my imagination could hardly have been fuelled more. I'd have happily poked around — if amongst other doubts I weren't afraid of creeping someone out by trespassing on their private property.

View of Sandon, B.C. from the power house
September 14, 2024. All rights reserved.

I was in a stinker of a mood, however. (Which is also why I took only about 12 notes on the site and may have made a lot of mistakes in the past few paragraphs.) So it was a relief to drive back toward New Denver, by way of Kaslo. We passed many faintly haunted corners, like Zincton, a ghost town established in 1892 that was tenanted by miners of zinc ore, just like the name suggests. What we saw of it was a hushed, marshy green pond steeped in trees. We passed a sign warning of danger — explosives — avalanche control ... a wooden boat in antique shape ... a Mudslide Area ... and a cross-country skiing sign.

***

Church in or near Kaslo, B.C.
September 14, 2024. All rights reserved.

STEAMSHIPS, like gold miners in 19th century garb standing ankle-deep in the pebbles of a British Columbia river or a Victorian housewife wearing a crinoline while boiling hard candies for a party over a coal stove — as well as largely unchallenged racism and colonialist brutality — seemed like a figment of Canadian history that I could read about but never see.

That said, Kaslo brought brighter facets of this lost world back to life. Tourist destination via steamship a hundred years ago, it is still a tourist destination via car now. Dominating its lakeside fringes is a well-kept paddlewheeler, a National Historical Site of Canada, with historical exhibits like vintage automobiles in and around it. We arrived on a thriving but not overly crowded day, where rainbow-coloured Pride flags were flying around the false fronts of the old buildings. I ate a few cherries left over from the Okanagan region orchards before we strolled toward the ship. A few of the siblings went down to explore, while I remained on the street above.

Uncle Pu ventured into an antiques shop and I came along. It offered an eclectic mixture of war medals, historical currencies of many different countries e.g. from the 1920s, tobacco pipes arranged on top of furniture, candlesticks, vintage clothing like furs, vinyl records, Dickens volumes and the Bobbsey Twins, 20th century toys for children, perfume diffusers, and even a painted red memento box for the coronation (if I recall correctly; it could even have been the coronation of George V, in this style) of George VI. Other people were browsing, too, like a U.S. couple from Idaho. If I'd had more luggage space and hadn't quit my job a year earlier and thus been on a budget, I would have been tempted to buy at least the royal memorabilia for a British friend. A kayak shop was nearby, although I've forgotten how the negotiations went there and just jotted down that it was too late in the day for rentals — and a realty office and a Drill Hall.

The paddle steamer sternwheeler S.S. Moyie in Kaslo.
It looks taller in person, when not looking from the far side of the street.
September 14, 2024. All rights reserved.

Then we ambled into a café that offered ice cream — tiger and rainbow sherbet was my choice — and muffins (apple & bacon, blueberry) as well as the coffee. The two snug tables could barely fit us, and I felt mildly guilty as other customers came and left without finding a seat. Through the window we could easily see, without leaving our chairs, the comings and goings on the main street. Feeling well fed and relaxed after that — even I, despite my earlier grumpiness — we happily took our leave from Kaslo and returned to New Denver for the evening.

Holidays and the Scourge of Homework

I am beginning to suspect that finding a student job in an app is like a small pyramid scheme, if I understand pyramid schemes correctly. Before your application is accepted, I am getting the impression that 1. it is better to get a food health certificate (€30 if done through the public Health Office), 2. acquire new clothes (I might be a little eccentric in not having black suit trousers already, but I don't like the expensive idea of filling that gap in my closet), 3. own a pair of hard-toed safety shoes for factory/warehouse work, and 4. preferably already have job experience in a relevant mini-job, tracked in the app. (Investing some funds makes sense, but I'd prefer to find a job that doesn't have these prerequisites first, then to use some of the proceeds toward certificates and clothing.)

Regardless of the truth of this pessimistic assessment, I had better luck — as usual — finding volunteer work. Today I woke up incredibly early by my standards (7:30 a.m.), then toddled off to a Berlin food bank for what promised to be a long and stinky four hours of sifting through vegetables and fruit rotting in the summer heat. Instead, miraculously, three fellow volunteers (in their twenties and thirties) and I were set to distribute non-perishable food into black plastic crates that will be delivered to charities around Berlin. We packed over 150 crates with noodles, flour, rice, soup cans, tomato sauce, mayonnaise (since I detest it I would always pack one jar per crate whereas other volunteers packed two), cucumber pickles, apple sauce, bottled cherries, chili con carne spice mix, coffee creamer, sugar, etc. As refreshments we were given soft drinks and chocolate bars, so the snack I had packed for myself wasn't necessary. And the food bank staffer who was directing us was good about making sure that we were set up with everything we needed to work — tables, cardboard recycling bin, the food for the crates. He was at hand at once to inspect the situation when I stepped on a piece of glass, broke it, and briefly froze because I wondered if the shards would cut through my shoe sole. It was still stinky volunteer work, firstly because a fraction of the non-perishable food had been delivered broken open and decomposing, and secondly because the crates had been re-used from the fruit and vegetable section and we still had to remove some of the remnants. But it was far less stinky. And for once as I went home I still had a spring in my step — and marzipan in my bag that I was given because the food bank could not use it due to its alcohol content.

On the way home I saw that a building beside the railway tracks had evidently suffered a fire, broken white slabs of something scattered out the rear door where firefighters had presumably tossed them, windows empty of glass, and a gaping hole in the roof. I thought there was still a whiff of woodsmoke in the air. I took photos and saved them for my 'Blaulicht' folder, where I keep stock images of police cars, ambulances and the like in case I ever report on something crime-adjacent. Crime itself I want to avoid, because it's depressing and doesn't feel like my business as long as the relevant authorities are handling it. At home I checked if the fire had been reported in the news, saw that it had seemingly not been reported, and presumed that nobody was injured and that I wasn't a vampire for taking the sensationalist shots.

Since the volunteer outing I've done another of my daily workload of about forty-five minutes of reading the pages of the Kapodistrias biography that we were assigned over the holidays. It looks like I have at least 40 hours of work on that class alone to go. This homework will surely be good for me in terms of learning Greek. But a feeling of ire does arise when I reflect that, when finally reaching the end of a semester of lectures and seminars full of migraines, anxiety and pressure, and the intermittent loss of what felt like all of my personal and social life, as well as budgeting and inter alia doing a lot of home cooking to save money, not to mention sitting in an apartment that is partially messy due to me and that I'd been hoping to spring-clean, I am still chained to my desk doing hours of work for university instead of being able to call it done. Not to mention that plans to swim in a lake, travel to Oranienburg, visit free art and history exhibitions, or go on wild journalistic adventures are being pushed further into the distance. None of the grades or participation marks for any of my classes have been posted yet, either, so the feeling of 'not being done' is not just caused by the biography, the upcoming exam, or the three essays I need to write. Why may I not have actual holidays? That said, of course millions of people have had to take (or seek) jobs and study and save money simultaneously, so it is difficult to feel that self-pity is justified.

On a happier note, I also baked a gingerbread loaf cake recipe that turned out nicely, and went shopping at the local zero-waste shop. On a less happy note, the model of zero-waste shops seems to have perilously thin profit margins: the opening hours have been further reduced so that the shop is closed Tuesdays as well as Mondays. The cashiers and owner have shown signs of strain especially in the past two weeks or so, but before seeing the opening hours change I'd wondered if I was imagining things. [Update: I felt chattier than usual when shopping there again after writing this post. After I asked how long the new opening hours have been in effect, the shop's owner told me that it's something they also did last year during the school holidays. The reason: Berlin empties too much in late July, so standing around not serving (m)any customers is an expensive luxury.]

Sunset Days of the Summer Semester

It's the first day after the university summer semester, and it's been quite busy.

Last night, my mother went off for the next leg of her walking pilgrimage, which is still leading her through eastern France. It sounds like it was literally rocky today, but at least she has eaten a square meal for dinner.

One of my brothers had contracted what seems to be food poisoning, and was sleeping like a log in his room.

I was a bit unsettled on the whole and woke up before 6 a.m., before going back to bed and waking up before 10 a.m. It was far earlier than I usually wake up unless prompted by educational or vocational obligation. But it was worth it to see my once-ill brother happily zipping about his morning routine, well rested and ready to face the world again.

Since then I went on an errand, played one or two pieces from Bach's Well Tempered Clavier as well as an arrangement of an Edith Piaf song on the piano, and read the news (in my neighbourhood, there were a few very happy Spain soccer fans who let off firecrackers, honked their horns, and shouted in a primeval manner after midnight at the end of the World Cup final).

For university I did half an hour each of Greek grammar exercises and reading the Kapodistrias biography. Besides I emailed the Greek-Russian literature professor for help approving the topic for my end-of-term paper.

But aside from that I am quite focused on finding work, as I might otherwise have trouble paying my way in eight months' time.

***

In September, fortunately, I will be working as an exit poll helper for Germany's public media, just as hoped. The contract is signed, sealed and delivered. It will earn me €170 plus reimbursement for expenses incurred e.g. travel.

Fortuitously, a fellow student elections helper also told me in May about an app for student jobs.

I've signed up for the app now, although divulging a plethora of personal information over the internet went against the grain. Since then a cornucopia of possibilities has spread before me, with jobs that are a lot more realistic for me as a student than the 20-hour-per week jobs that are usually presented as 'flexible' but seem to me to leave ludicrously little time for homework, transit, etc. Warehouse sorting, bartending help, dishwashing, promoting high fashion brands, restocking medicines and accessories, cashier gigs, waitressing, etc. ... at any hour of the night or day.

The app offers online training for food service work and for grocery store cashier work, which combine written text with instructional videos. I was skeptical as to their value, but realized while watching them that they really might save a manager/onboarding employee from having to explain too many details at once to a student jobber. Having breezed through the food service work (a few tips, like that it's easier to polish silverware when it's somewhat wet from the dishwasher, were already familiar) I am finding the cash register introduction more daunting. It's nothing like the cashier work that I once did at the family bookshop. But I've been working on the tutorial in installments today.

All qualms aside, I can't deny that I find this job-search exciting. It's thrilling to think of catching up on experiences that I never had as a teenager, or even as a twenty-something student.

Strawberries and Exams

In two weeks, the university seminars will be officially over, except insofar as there are two essays to write (Greek history, Greek/Russian literature) and one exam (Greek language) before I will receive credit for my courses.

Besides feeling apprehensive about a class presentation where I am supposed to compare a Spanish and a Portuguese Renaissance epic, I feel apprehensive about the spoken Spanish exam on Thursday. That said, I've learned a few tricks from past failures. Firstly, half the battle is won if I've gotten enough sleep the night before, because vocabulary magically comes to mind and I can present neatly structured material then. Secondly, re-reading the news articles and re-watching the videos that the professor shared with us a) refreshes the information, and b) ensures that I never run out of material to talk about. But as there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, as the saying goes, the most important trick is to remember to take my own advice.

It's been delightfully cold — and one might say autumnal — since our descent into the infernal a week or two ago (I am trying to repress the memory) by way of 38°C peak temperatures. That said, the windy weather has made me a little less enthusiastic about cycling.

'My' tree has still only had about 15% of the rain that it needs over the past 30 days. That said, the agricultural realm seems to be doing well, and the usual German strawberries, blueberries and red currants are thronging into the shelves of the grocery stores.

Beautiful British Columbia: Our September 2024 Holiday, Part Seven

Carpenter Creek, New Denver
September 13, 2024
All rights reserved.

AFTER we visited the Japanese-Canadian internment centre in New Denver, we walked back toward the inn. First we passed through the thinly sprinkled trees at a campground beside the lakeshore. As we wandered along the beach and over the large smoothed pebbles, as crickets chirped and woodsmoke floated on the air.

For dinner we went to the restaurant that adjoins the inn. The dining room in the back of the restaurant reminded me of Social Studies (i.e. history) classes in Canadian school. Its decor was a mixture of time periods: a fan-shaped lamp hung from the ceiling, oil paintings of landscapes as well as of people dressed in 18th?-century attire apparently somewhere in Eastern Canada or the US hung on the walls above the wainscoting. Swing music played from unobtrusive loudspeakers. The tablecloths were mulberry-red and I worried about dropping any food on them. Flowers from the garden beds were sprinkled in vases on the tables: yellow dusty miller or white yarrow? I don't remember. A grandfather in a plaid shirt and baseball cap was dining with his grandson in one corner of the room, and at the end of the meal they played on the floor. The inn owner family's grandchild was roaming around all the tables and intermittently vanishing into the kitchen with a quietly cheeky air.

A man and woman were the other guests, sitting in the opposite corner. As they chatted with the current owners, we found out that they were the inn's previous owners. The pair had run the place for (I seem to recall) thirteen years. When we were woven into the discussion, they told us about the inn's past life. In the 1970s, I think, the inn had been named in honour of Lucerne in Switzerland, before being renamed after the park on the other side of Slocan Lake. The pair bought it and ran it for many years. They reminisced about the boom and bust cycles of working at an inn: long periods of inactivity, even with the year-round influx of mountain cyclists in summer and snowmobilers in winter. They evidently had few, or no, regrets about passing the torch.

Besides, the former inn owner mused about the social changes in New Denver, likely applicable to British Columbian towns in general: new people moving in, people speaking to each other on their smartphones instead of meeting each other in person, young people travelling off for jobs in remote areas, for weeks at a time, returning too tired to leave their houses and go out in the village. I guess that in a city like Berlin the social change is not dissimilar, although it might be easier to notice the change if one lives in a village.

As for the food, one of the brothers ordered a wild sockeye salmon burger with fries. But above all we shared sweet & sour chicken, spring rolls with dipping sauce, dumplings with soy sauce and green onion, beef ginger chicken, and sweet & sour pork. It was Hong Kong food as we'd never had it before, because it had elements of home cooking rather than the familiar conventions of restaurant fare made for a large crowd. Green onions from the garden and lemon slipped into the sweet-and-sour sauce, and I liked it. It felt like being invited over to a friend's house.

To drink I had chrysanthemum tea, which came in greenish-yellow buds. The inn owner daughter also recommended that we try a new ginger ale brand, brewed in Victoria, so we did; in Berlin I also like to compare the taste of German ginger ale (generally more pungent and dry) to the Canadian ginger ale brands we grew up with, and this Victoria brand was the first time that I had ginger ale that tastes like cooked ginger root rather than raw ginger root.

For the dessert, the grandmother — who was doing the cooking — brought us apple fritters as an extra: fried with fruit which her grandson had picked from a tree across the street, dusted with powdered sugar.

After that, pleased with everything, we went to our rooms.

***

September 14, 2024

Next morning, as I recorded in my notebook, I woke up before 6 a.m.

Walking downslope through the town, it was a relief to see rain and mist clinging to the mountains across the lake. Hopefully they were quenching more of the forest fires — although it was always hard to tell what was mist and what was smoke. The reddish mountain ash berries glowed in New Denver's streets, and (intentional) woodsmoke rose from a house's chimney. We saw one or two For Sale signs on the buildings. No bears in sight, but we did spot what I thought was a hawk.

Sign near the waterfront, New Denver
September 14, 2024
All rights reserved.

In the restaurant, the radio was playing 1980s hits like "Down Under" and "Eye of the Tiger," as we ordered coffee, Earl Grey tea, and chrysanthemum tea. The brothers had one of the omelettes with toast, as far as I recall, as well as Belgian waffles with blueberry jam and whipping cream, and French toast with maple syrup. Uncle Pu and/or I ordered porridge, too.

Uncle Pu was asked how he would like the porridge prepared. He was ready with an answer, since he has a patented way in which he prepares it for breakfast. He explained that he likes it served with brown sugar and milk on the side, and — when asked — specified that the milk should be 3.8%... Unfortunately for the restaurant, Canadian milk that is not skimmed seems to come in 3.25% or some other fat percentage, unlike German milk. But, when it was reported to him, Uncle Pu accepted this divergence willingly. I did feel bad that there was any doubt that we'd accept the infinitesimally less creamy milk... Either way, the porridge was tasty.

Then Uncle Pu roamed around the town with us again. We stopped at the Catholic church of St. Anthony's (1929): there, he said, he had met the priest and rung the bell a few times when he was a child. Afterwards we passed the Knox Presbyterian Hall, built 1897, now a non-denominational community hall.

Old fire station, New Denver.
No longer in use; as of 2024 I think it was partly or wholly owned
by a tree maintenance company.
September 13, 2024
License: CC BY-SA 4.0

Returning to the inn, Uncle Pu engaged one of the owner's family in talk about geothermal energy, and I cryptically noted that there was mention of "exploitative rentals of gold mining equipment by stock listed companies (TSX)." Which I guess refers to the veins of various precious and semi-precious metals that still lurk in the British Columbia hills, luring modern-day heirs to the gold fevers that once populated the Yukon, Cariboo and Sacramento. Meanwhile, the housekeeper (wearing an apron) was on her rounds and knocking on doors.

As we headed outdoors again, we had (in my case, for the first time) a quintessential North American experience, namely a visit to an outdoor outfitter's shop. I was so awed that I kept a long mental list of items:

canoe paddle covers, pots, pans, water bottles, water purification kits, water purification tabs, forks, spoons, bear spray, bear klaxon, whistles, lifevest for dogs?, swimwear, tops, hiking trousers, puffer jackets, paddles, knives, axes, maps, books about bear attacks and mushrooms, fuel canisters, sunscreen, flares

Sale signs were prolific, given the end of the holiday season, and I guess we probably felt doubly welcome. Uncle Pu chatted with the shop's owner, who stood behind her son at the cash register. (The store is a franchise, which has outlets with other owners in, for example, Victoria.)

I think he was at the time embarked on his months-long quest to find Gore-Tex hiking trousers with a certain number of layers of fabric, so that was one topic. (In Berlin's sports stores, he had failed to find his Holy Grail: one salesperson explained that they only carry the cheaper apparel in-store, and that online shopping is the likelier option.) But he also winkled out the information that the outfitter would be running kayak rentals the following year. In the end he bought, for example, two waterproof bags that can be used in kayaks to prevent one's valuables from becoming soaked or sunken.

Then, at the owner's recommendation, we drove to a boat rental in the nearby town of Slocan, thirty kilometres away. I continued to worry that we were on a lemming mission and that I'd see my uncle and all of my brothers be lost to Davy Jones's locker if they did go kayaking. (Whether this fear was rational, or irrational — and if the latter, if it was inspired by my father's sudden death — I guess I'll leave to any future therapist to decide.)

In consequence, I felt little sense of grievance when Uncle Pu surmised that the area's kayak store owners were engaged in a conspiracy to keep tourists off the water and away from the far shores of the National Park, to avoid risking people's lives through the wildfires there. I also still had no intention whatsoever of climbing into a boat myself, although I feared that this would seem like girlish timidity and let down the feminist cause.

Instead I was sunken in foreboding gloom. That said, the foreboding gloom was needless. Slocan's kayak rental was closed — the owner clearly cheerfully convinced that the season was over anyway and that a spontaneous vacation was in order.

Red and black trees after forest fires; mist and possibly smoke,
in Slocan. September 14, 2024.
All rights reserved.

By way of compensation, we went on a road trip to the ghost town of Sandon and the former steamship vacation destination of Kaslo.

Flowers, a Spanish Essay and Sewing

We're expecting 33°C weather tomorrow. So while lush May and early June flowers remain — like elderflower, jasmine, and bellflowers — especially in the shaded hedges, and the linden trees are still diffusing a lovely fragrance from their pale leaf-petals, I expect everything green and bright will become withered and straw-like sooner or later. It is a particularly bad year for rain, but I still can't water the trees in the neighbourhood because the street water pump is still out of service; the RBB news network has even run an article about the widespread problem of non-operational pumps. (This malfunctioning is also a spanner in the works of Berlin's emergency planning, because the Notbrunnen are meant to be a back-up resource for civilians.)

While frantically cycling between universities — again, it's sadly a necessity every Thursday due to my schedule this summer — I noticed that the diesel(?) price at a gas station has finally dipped to 181 cents per litre. Thanks, probably, to the Memorandum of Understanding that was just signed between Iran and the United States.

I've been struggling with overstimulation at university: due to the Franco presentation, then an in-class essay, regular homework, and bouts of migraines/tension headaches that make it impossible to do homework.

The 600-word, Spanish-language in-class essay was especially stressful as I didn't quite know how to prepare for it. Nevertheless, at first it went beautifully. I was well-rested before writing it, the argumentative structures were neat, and I recollected many pertinent details from our semester materials, etc. (Of course I did make mistakes, but still.) ... Then the professor alerted us: we had 5 minutes left. Sadly, it was impossible to transfer the rest of of my draft essay text to the final version paper in that time.

My main consolations (besides a fairly decent class attendance record, and the successful tackling of much of my prescribed readings and homework) have been 1. the fairly warm atmosphere amongst my classmates and professors, and 2. little discoveries along the route to campus — like random police officers standing on deserted sidewalks and foxes trotting into the underbrush.

*

Another factor in the overstimulation has been performing in my choir's two summer concerts. That said, I enjoyed the first one hugely, and Mama, T. and J. came to watch it. It was just that practicing the songs at home before the concert, to avoid singing off rhythm and out of tune, is stressful.

(It was only when they and I walked home together after the event that J. divulged the details of his highly adventurous afternoon. He and Ge. capsized their canoe in one of Berlin's southwestern lakes, soaked their shoes and clothes and wallets in evil-smelling water, and ruined a smartphone and a digital camera (which now have to be replaced). But they were wearing life jackets, and they were in such a shallow area that they were able to wade through the mucky urban lake bottom to terra firma. Meanwhile Gi., staying perfectly dry and on top of the water surface in his kayak, helped steer the canoe to the shore.

As a temporary measure, J. is enjoying the use of my old smartphone — the phone that I was phasing out because its battery has been bulging, a little alarmingly, for months.)

Ge. had already wisely decided to stay at home instead of attending the concert, since he would work an early shift the next day. So he recovered at leisure from the canoeing shenanigans.

The second concert has not happened yet. It will be on Sunday: part of the Fête de la Musique.

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On Wednesday, I had a brief phone interview for a one-day job that I am very excited about: conducting voter polling during the next Berlin city government election, on behalf of one of Germany's two big public television channels. They have promised to contact me again, with a positive or negative response, in July or August.

I'm also keeping an eye out for other jobs to help fill the summer holidays. (No news from the political think tank, mentioned in the last blog post, yet.)

I am growing increasingly cranky about worrying about my spending.

My latest flight of anxiety: Even buying darning wool for my socks at €1.20 per package now seems extravagant. So I thought to ask the local zero-waste shop if I could have the packing yarn that is used to sew shut some of the bags of food. Happily the staff said yes, were delighted by the idea because they've just been throwing away the yarn, and have already given me the first string. But, to be honest, I felt a little embarrassed...

The round of socks that I mended over the past months is beginning to dissolve into holes now, which is deflating my morale. But I have mended a pair of pajama pants as well, and that made me feel very accomplished.