New Year's Eve was much calmer this year in Berlin, so if the U.S. government hadn't decided to invade Venezuela a few days later it would have been a quiet transition into 2026. Even the New Year's concert of the Vienna Philharmonic was, I thought, a pleasing balance between the traditional, modern, and absurd; if the Canadian conductor was a little obsessed with his own presence at the event, I still thought he wove his knowledge of late 19th century French impressionist composers into Strauss and his contemporaries in a way that gave the first half of the concert different nuances. (In the second half I felt he ran out of steam, especially after the Egyptian March.) I liked the first ballet performance a lot, too: elegant dancers pretended to emerge from a diplomatic vehicle, and pranced around a Viennese building in pastel-coloured pantsuits. It felt like a fantasy of a world order where diplomacy isn't Steve Witkoff grinning shyly across a Kremlin table at Vladimir Putin, alongside a poker-faced Jared Kushner.
But as it was, on January 3rd I cycled to a demonstration against the Venezuela intervention, which had been registered with Berlin's police earlier that day. It was an adventurous ride: for the first two minutes it felt like the snowflakes were lacerating my eyeballs, and even after the snowfall lessened, my tires slipped and skidded on the bicycle paths. A few beleaguered bicycle deliverymen were undertaking the same route. Then I decided to switch into the car lanes, after walking partway along the sidewalks while pushing my bicycle, and somehow I arrived in one piece at Brandenburg Gate, beside the U.S. Embassy. A crowd had gathered and police officers were surveilling a line of security fences, set up on two sides of the mass of people, designed to protect the Embassy. I was undecided at first to be part of the protest as a private citizen or whether report as an observer, but since a lot of agendas were mixing in the crowd, I eventually decided for the second. It seemed to me that most of the protestors were German-speaking, and belonged to a coalition of far-left and communist groups. I counted well over 100 people— a police officer told me he'd estimate about 250 — and I felt it was a decent turnout, especially given the short notice.
A massive power outage happened on the same day due to sabotage. It wasn't in my part of Berlin, so I have no firsthand experience to report except that — unlike some politicians and part of the press — I am not particularly scandalized that the city's mayor popped out for an hour of tennis practice on the first day. I will say that in general the U-Bahn seemed less crowded, but that might be because of the parlous state of Berlin's icy sidewalks for the past week.
My youngest brother shared with me an apt meme adapted from Hergé's comics: Captain Haddock sits, exhausted, at a bar while Snowy eyes his glass of whiskey, and exclaims "What a year, huh?" Tintin replies, "Captain, it's January 3rd."
I've been wondering from time to time what to do if Canada is invaded. For some reason my paternal grandfather pops into my head as the person whom I'd ask, if he hadn't died twenty years ago. He of course served on the wrong side in World War II. I feel that he would frown on any idea of fixing the problem by taking up arms myself, but would approve my general tendency to want to get a sound training in First Aid, if not a paramedic's training, and put that training to use. Especially after seeing what home care aides go through, I figure that providing health care is harrowing and psychologically risky enough to count as a dedicated service.
The university semester is picking up speed again. I skipped two classes last week, and two classes were cancelled, so I had one in-person class and three online classes. For Wednesday I need to prepare a presentation in Spanish, which is leading to the usual low-level classroom stress. It will be about the effects of migration on children.
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