Everything I've posted on this blog so far has gone through one of two channels - one of two methods of composition. Either it's been an entry that involved on-site notes, preparation, drafts and self-editing, or it's a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants entry, that I write strictly off the cuff. Usually at ridiculous o'clock, which tends to be after midnight.
This is one of the latter. It's just past midnight, so it fits the time prerequisite, and it has absolutely no preparation: I didn't even know I was going to write it until about five minutes ago. Added bonus: this one has a dedication.
To Connor - for reminding me that I have a blog, and for informing me that there may just be some people aside from my totally awesome mum at home in Melbourne who actually enjoy taking a few minutes out of their day to peruse my latest musings.
So what's been going on recently? Well, suffice to say, a fair bit. A trip to New York and to D.C., a few days in the former with my sister and her boyfriend, summer in Berlin, ridiculously high temperatures leading to sleepless nights and rides through Berlin's government quarter at 1am (no better time to explore and take photos - hardly any tourists!), exploring abandoned Olympic villages and military complexes in western Berlin, watching movies on rooftops, riding my bike along the abandoned runways of old airports, some of our fantastic students bringing us icecream on really hot days to show their appreciation for all our hard work behind the reception desk, friends coming and going (unfortunately mostly going, or planning to go), and making plans for the next few years in Berlin.
All this has got the cogs turning in my head, leading to some serious thinking. I don't tend to do my best thinking inside - academic work excepted. Instead, I usually have a few places I go if I need to think, to clear my head, or to escape from the four walls of my flat for a while.
There's Paul-Linke-Ufer on the Landwehrkanal if I don't have the time (or the energy) to venture anywhere further. The Landwehrkanal is a tributary of the Spree river that runs through Berlin's inner southern suburbs - right through Kreuzberg, about 10 minutes' walk north of my place, and it's a great place to go on a summer night to hang out, enjoy a cold beer, dip your feet in the river, and watch the Kreuzberg locals practise their juggling routines or strum a tune on their guitar on the Maibachufer. It's also the same river I walked on in February when Berlin rediscovered the ice ages, so I definitely like that area - anywhere from Pannierstraße to Prinzenbrücke.
A little further, and south this time, is my latest discovery: the old Tempelhof airport. I've got a post in the works about that place - it's definitely earned it's own post - so I won't say too much about it here, but there's something very cool and extremely humbling about sitting under a century-old oak tree beside the runway of an airport that essentially saved the city you're living in from starvation only a few decades earlier, and all this within walking distance of your flat.
Even further afield are Berlin's lakes. I'm a water-baby: I grew up either in, beside or on the water, and I naturally gravitate toward the water when I need to relax or to take time out. The lakes are a fantastic escape from the city, but they require a packed lunch and a cooler - Müggelsee in the south is at least an hour and a half away by public transport, even with a bike to ride to and from the station, and Flughafensee in the north or Schlachtensee in the south-west aren't much closer, but if I've got the time and the energy, I'll venture to one of those.
The ultimate though? The ultimate is somewhere that I used to go a lot when I was little. Melbourne's beaches. Yes, Sydney-siders, Melbourne only has bay beaches, but half-metre waves make exactly the same sound as six-foot ocean swells when you listen to them crash on the shore. I spent almost every summer until I was about fifteen at my grandparents' beach house on the Mornington Peninsula - walking along the beach with my grandmother, collecting shells and materials for collages, and just talking. During the year, I'd go fishing or sailing with my late grandfather on his yacht on Port Philip Bay, and I loved it, for exactly the same reason - spending time on the water, listening to the waves lap at the side of the boat, escaping from the city, and talking to him and to my grandmother.
The last few years that I was living in Melbourne, my place of choice became the Esplanade in Brighton. It only took me about fifteen minutes to drive there from my place, and I could quite happily stay sitting on that beach for hours at a time - just thinking, mulling over what was going on in my world, and figuring out the next step - from sunset until well after the stars were twinkling across the skies. It was on the sand at Brighton beach at about 8pm on a summer night in late 2003 that I made the decision to apply for the assistant year in Kusel. It was on the same beach around the same time a few years later that I decided I would reapply for the same program in Berlin, and listening to the waves and watching the stars arc across the sky has provided me the space and clarity of mind to sort through other things in my world - work, friends, family, what I'm doing with my life... You know, the usual.
Like I said, there's a few things going on in my world at the moment - I think everyone is in the same boat - and there is almost nothing I wouldn't give to be able to get into my little white 1987 Corolla hatchback, cruise down North Road, hang a right onto the Esplanade and pull into the car park behind the Brighton bathing boxes, stroll down the ramp onto the sand, find a spot away from the floodlights and just think... listen to the waves, watch the stars, and just think. But I don't live there anymore: ironically the decision I made back there in early 2007 to move to Berlin has meant I can't just drive on down there.
But I've got my places here - Paul-Linke-Ufer, the oak tree at Tempelhof Airport, and the shores of Schlachtensee. These are my Brighton beaches in Berlin.
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