autumn in the city

finally berlin feels like home again. this was not berlin's fault, but we felt a little bit unsettled for a while. that could be partly because our place had been rented out for about a year, and we had to make it our own again. and also because things do change when you are gone for a while. but the city changes in a really good way. in our neighborhood are many scaffoldings on beautiful old buildings that are being restored or even just painted (including ours). our little neighborhood park finally got finished, after years of being under semi construction. the apartment under us finally got sold and is being worked on. our neighbor above us had cancer surgery, but is doing very well.
we have a phantastic new vietnamese place around the corner from us that has become our new regular 'cold october night soup place'......
it is great to be here again and we wonder why we were gone for so long.

tonight we stopped in our little neighborhood bistro where the regulars hang out and we saw one of the old timers hans peter. he has lived here forever and seems to know everyone. we sat with him and his friend for a few minutes to catch up - of course outside, since berlin has caught the no smoking ban also (that is a whole story by itself, since the germans are fighting this more then any other country and there are still many places where you CAN smoke - but more on that some other time)
so as we are chatting with hans peter his friend is rolling a cigarette... plus doing funny things to the tobacco, like burning it for a few seconds before rolling it - and then added some little brown pasty like things... but we were not paying too much attention since he was not exactly part of the conversation. but then he got up and said he was going to smoke a few meters away, since 'you cannot smoke here' but we were welcome to join him and have some.
i had apparently still not completely arrived in berlin, since i was not sure what he meant and said 'no, that's ok, thanks' and then asked hans peter why he would not smoke here (kind of thinking like someone in boulder where often bars don't let you smoke in their little outside seating area either) - but as i was asking i realized that he apparently was smoking hashish.... hahaha ---
i should have added that this little neighborhood bar is an old hang out from the 60's - but even though, it is hard to imagine smoking pot right outsid of my brothers bar :-)

just a quick side note - i have not been writing much, because we are having internet issues in our apt, and when we are at the internet cafe for limited time, it is hard to have the creative juices flowing. those internet cafes are pretty fun and a fascinating social study by itself though. you see everyone from the traveler to the semi homeless to kids playing games to people making international calls yelling into the phone or a man that had to work out some ocd issues before he could pick up the receiver. the real money maker (1 hour online is only 1 euro, so the owners don't get rich on that) is the fact that you can buy anything from beer to junk food there, when most regular stores are already closed) this has become our international office and home away from home for many hours of the day....
see you there next time -------