In Holland they kiss bicycles.

The winter is so long ago, that I even can't remember the first flowers that announced springtime. Still those days that shone like freshly polished soviet metal feel like yesterday.Maybe it was because of the sun or because of my first encounter with the Sonnenallee, a prolonged back entrance to the city, that ends in the Mediterranean part of Berlin, Neukoeln. Apartment blocks colored like children's toys, all facing the bleeding sun on the horizon; never ending grasslands, the communal gardens of the poor, that you also find near Alexander Platz (or in the very centre of Warsaw), and to me is the real heritage of socialistic city planning. (Mind you, their capitalistic cousins in the west employed the same architects.)

Writing about Berlin is looking with an inward eye at the scenery's I pass on my bicycle, like the Rummelsburger See, the lake you see from one of the labyrintic platforms of Ostkreuz, looking east. It must have offered a different view in those cold war years, old factories made of bricks, some hidden Wilhelminian house between the trees; few of them are still there. Most of the land is sand, and not because of beach life. New life is built on the shores, like an artists village in what once was a jailhouse complex. Other buildings – spacious and full of windows – are ready, and make me think of Amsterdam, same architecture, probably same supermarket. The light is different.You can't wipe that away. This is the east.

I should write about the last festival. Maybe I will do one day. As for now Harold and Tobias, who shared my living space while they were here, now take care of business. For those who would like to listen and read, there is enough links on this blop. Just have a look at the recent entries.

I am already thinking about the next festival.

And what it is that I think about will be posted here.

Soon.

Or one of these days.