4.22pm on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon in January in wintry Berlin.
I'm working a split shift, so I have a few hours before I have to be back at work for round two. I've had enough of not having curtains - my room is on the third floor, and has a huge bay window, which is really great for the sunshine and natural light, but my room looks out onto a courtyard: 30m away on the other side is another apartment building also with bay windows on every floor, and next to that is a high school. Yes, not only can my neighbours stare right into my room, but on weekdays, about ninety students can watch my every move from the comfort of their classroom. *shiver*.
Anyway, there's a hardware store around the corner from me, so I ventured down there into the testosterone paradise that is the German hardware store, Bauhaus.
It's no Bunnings - the standard of service at the two DIY worlds are poles apart, and Bunnings' range is unparalleled, but Bauhaus isn't far off.
I wander around for a few minutes and eventually find the curtain rods and rings, without any help from their staff - all of the high school students I have ever taught showed more enthusiasm towards learning the past imperfect tense than German service staff show towards, well, service!
After a short period of deliberation, I decide to just note down some prices to compare with the Swedish homeware haven. Any excuse for an excursion to Ikea.
As I return towards the entrance to the store to continue on my journey around Berlin, preparing to brace myself for the subzero temperatures outside, I see something which brings an immediate grin to my face.
An older gentleman, perhaps in his late 60s or early 70s, is also making his way out of the store with a trolley laden with paint tins, curtain rods and various other items which suggested a spot of redecoration was in his very near future.
That's not the entertaining part.
The entertaining part is that suddenly this gentleman in his late 60s or early 70s suddenly takes a run-up of a few steps, leans forward, puts his entire weight on the trolley and coasts blissfully along through Bauhaus for about ten metres. His momentum starts to wane, so he repeats his run-up again and coasts a few more metres, before using his feet to brake just half a metre before the concrete steps down to the carpark.
Between Trolley Man and Oma Chuck Taylors, it is clear that even Berlin's senior generation has not lost its ability to embrace their inner youth, even if they only let it show when they're reasonably sure no one is watching.
Reason #43623 why Australis hearts Berlin.
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