Autumn came with a swift vengeance this year. One moment it was August and the next moment it was, well, actually still August, but very cold. I refuse to start heating my apartment in September. I will wear many layers and a scarf indoors if I have to, but I'm going to stick it out till October or bust!
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Here are some things that have happened, in no particular order:
A power outage at a major intersection near my house (this happens so often in Berlin and I have no idea why), and again I was amazed by how well and calmly drivers coped, simply slowing down and taking turns, until police arrived to direct traffic.
A little girl bouncing up and down by the grocery store ice cream case and begging her mother, "Can I have a grown up ice cream this time pleeeease? I promise I'll be able to finish it all!"
A boy who looked about 10 or 11 biking alone in downtown Berlin, which made me nervous for him, until I thought about the fact that he was wearing a helmet and obeying traffic laws and generally exhibiting far more care than probably almost any adult in the city.
One last reprieve of a perfect, sunny weekend, where I biked up to Weissensee (how lucky am I to have a beautiful lake just up the street?) and drank a beer on the shore just because I could, watching an enormous number of rowboats jostle around the fountain in the middle of the lake and hearing strains of music from the beach bar across the way.
A sign outside a bakery reading "Sonntag ist Kuchentag!" ("Sunday is cake day!") and as I biked past, I contemplated how very true that is - Germany is nothing if not obsessed with the tradition of cake and coffee on Sunday afternoons.
A day when I biked 60 kilometers (almost all of it in the rain) within the city, just going back and forth to appointments and things.
Passing by a movie shoot near Unter den Linden, a whole bunch of people carefully polishing a car.
The Jewish Culture Days, when some of the city's synagogues open their doors for concerts and events and even services. It's a good opportunity to see a synagogue, since entrance is generally only for members of the congregation or (in at least some cases) if you register ahead as a visitor.
Every synagogue (Jewish cultural center, museum, etc.) in Germany is guarded by 24-hour police presence. And metal detectors. And you can't park out front - not even a bicycle. I've never figured out whether this is because the actual threat of neo-Nazi violence is so high, because German paranoia about it is so high, or some combination of both.
Anyway, I went to a Shabbat service at the synagogue on Rykestrasse, Germany's largest and renovated just a couple years ago. I'm glad I went, because I've meant to see the synagogue for ages, but the quite conservative service was enough quite conservative Judaism to last me, oh, several decades. Whenever I next go to a service, I suspect it will be at the lovely little egalitarian congregation in the famous New Synagogue, which reminded me comfortably of home and progressive Judaism.
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My German residency permit is now valid for another two years! This is no surprise, really, but I still felt rather celebratory as I left the drab foreigners' authority building, passport in hand.
The big difference is that now, rather than being strictly limited to work that requires an English native speaker (teaching, translating), I finally have a normal work visa that lets me do anything. In point of fact, my immediate plans involve translating and teaching, but it's nice to have options.
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