Seasons

People in Berlin are often telling me they couldn't live in California because they would miss the seasons too much. But we DO have seasons, I tell them. We have winter for about six weeks from late December through January, which means heavy rains and occasional mud slides. We have your odd wild fire every couple of years or so, some of them burning down acres of forests and rows of celebrity beach houses (ok, this goes more for Southern California, and SoCal ain't no NorCal as any Bay Arean will tell you....) We have fog all year round. And we have earthquakes. Personally, I would take earthquakes any day over winter, or at least the leaden-skies-don't-see-the-sun-for-four-months version of winter we have here in Northern Germany.

Besides Berliners, be honest. You don't REALLY have seasons. In Berlin, spring and summer are optional while fall and winter are inevitable. The following photographs are proof of this, taken last week during a rain storm when I was trapped under the U-Bahn bridge at Hallesches Tor for a good twenty minutes. This summer has been cold, then hot, then sickly humid, then cool again (I know, I know. Spring was great this year, so I shouldn't complain but, Hello! People, summer should be summer....)

Still, I have become a true Berliner. When the weather is nice I spend the entire day outdoors, not inside with the blinds shut like we do in California where we take our good weather so very much for granted.