Le Week-end

I love the Saturday farmers' market down the block so much. It's really got to be the smallest market in a city that loves outdoor markets - it basically takes up half a block - but manages to cover the essentials: a couple of farm stands, a guy selling mostly fruit. A bakery truck. Various other specialties like fish, meet, noodles, cheeses. A florist and a very small honey stand. Various things that come and go, like the guy who was there for a while selling wines and offering taste samples (wine tasting on Saturday mornings... interesting) or a new one this week selling pottery.

It's now definitively fall and that means pumpkin season - one of the farm stands had a bunch of different kinds set out on a bed of straw in a wire box. A little boy ran up, beside himself with excitement, telling his older brother, "Look, it's a leopard pumpkin! That one, it's a leopard pumpkin!"

Sunday was the Berlin Marathon. I'd expected the steadily falling rain to dampen spectator spirit, but if anything, it just added more color, thanks to all the umbrellas lining the way.

I'd only seen the marathon once before - somehow I always seem to travel this time of year - and had forgotten that it has such an AMAZING spirit. There were bands playing and people cheering all along the route. And I did manage to catch a glimpse and a quick high five with the two people I knew who were running - an English student of mine and his daughter - before they disappeared again into the masses.

Further along the route, I stopped under a train bridge by the river, where a percussion group was playing and the spectators under the bridge were leading the runners in a wave as they passed by. Looking back I realized I was on a slight rise, probably one of the few places in very flat Berlin where you could actually get a good view over a long stretch of the course and... oh my goodness but there were SO MANY runners. An indescribable, endless mass of people.

Most of them taking it seriously, but some were dressed in, you know, giant unwieldy animal costumes and whatever else. Some ran with their countries' flags painted on their faces. Lots wore thin plastic ponchos against the rain. So many feet hitting wet pavement made a soothing white noise that seemed somehow like a sound out of nature, like waves on a shore. It was a wonderful thing to see, that many people coming together for something that was purely peaceful and fun.

On my way back home I stopped to listen to a band that was belting out "Keep on Running" and stayed just enough to confirm my suspicion that the repertoire was entirely running themed - the next song was "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'."

Getting back home after an hour or so in the cold rain, my fingers were so stiff, I had to run them under warm water before I could get back to work at the computer. No idea how the marathon runners managed!

This afternoon, I passed a playground where a preschool class was clearly out on break, and saw four little girls, all - yes all - in bright pink winter jackets, shrieking with delight on a bouncy swing contraption (picture two perpendicular seesaws, but up high in the air, with a swing hanging from each of the four ends).