Monday, November 29, 2010

Why Don't We Learn From the Bears?

Seriously people, I think bears are really on to something with this hibernate-through-winter thing. Wouldn't it be great if, say, shortly after Thanksgiving we all retreated to our warm and comfortable, albeit musty, caves and curled up next to our loved ones not waking up again til the middle of April? What would we really be missing out on anyway? Christmas? Overrated. New Year's Eve? Such a bore. President's Day? Please. We could pig out all summer, go to bed fat and wake up thin and ready to party. What more could a little old person ask for?

As you can see from these photographs winter has already come to Berlin pretty much full force. I will always have way too much California/Arizona in my soul to think much of this season. As a child, I spent many a Christmas Eve swimming outside when we went to visit my grandparents in Phoenix over the holidays. In my East Bay adolescence/young adulthood we would talk each year about maybe going up to "visit" the snow. "Hey, why don't we drive to the Sierra Nevadas say "hi snow!" and then drive back home?" Sounds good. Little old East Bay me just has no need for it covering the courtyard of her apartment building....

I finally broke down and bought a pair of imitation Uggs today. Uggs stands most definitely for god-awful-ugly, but the darn things are pretty warm and I decided warm, un-stylish feet are better than stylish, numb blocks of ice posing as feet. Still, winter does have some highlights like Glühwein and taking the girls to Hasenheide for sledding. They say this winter is supposed to be the worst one in a 1000 years (go German optimism!!) so we should have plenty of frosty-building fun....

When the sun actually shines it's also not that bad. It finally did on Sunday and I took a little jaunt with Baby Li through the graveyard on Zossenerstrasse Ecke Blücherstrasse which is about a five minute walk from our apartment. Several famous people are buried there including Felix Mendelson and Fanny Hensel. So many art deco crypts and sculpture of weeping angels and Victorian wrought-iron fences that are deliciously decrepit and run-down. I had fun taking some ghostly self-portraits in the glass door of the old crypt below.

Yes, when the sun shines winter is bearable, but in Berlin it rarely ever does. Today it's back to leaden gray skies and darkness like when Sam and Frodo got too close to Mordor. The weather forecast says it should stay this way for a while. Nice. April is how many months away? Crap. I shouldn't even start having such thoughts. No matter what anyone ever says, no matter how excited people get about skiing or snowshoeing or freezing their asses off for some unknown jolly reason, this is my two cents:

Winter is for the birds!!

6 comments:

Karen/Small Earth Vintage said...

Oh, I LOVE these photographs. But I love winter. I just spent a week in Colorado where, frankly, it was too sunny for me and I couldn't wait to get back to gray old Michigan. (I readily admit I'm a freak of nature in this respect, however.) No major snow here yet, though.

petoskystone said...

:) i love autumn & winter! the blue-grey skies, the cloudy light during snow, the colours of autumn leaves & winter trees. during the end credits for 'cloudy with a chance of meatballs', a montage of before (damaged/gloomy) & after (bright/cheerful) shots are shown of world capitals. except for london---which is grey before & after! are you saying berlin in winter is like that? ;)

Schaufensterbabe said...

Yes, winter with light is lovely, but in Berlin it's grey, grey, grey, but not like it's overcast, more like it's a ceiling coming down on top of your head, trying the squeeze the life out of you....Karen, if you are a fan of winter then I bet Michigan is perfect for you. I have some friends from there and from what they've told me, Michigan winters put Berlin winters to shame, at least in coldness.

petoskystone said...

i spent my high school years in lower michigan (2-3 hours from chicago). i miss their lake-effect winters...connecticut winters just don't cut it.

Laura said...

Yes, it's a bit too frosty for me already and I was quite happy to have the snow melting already Ok, the kids looooove it for sledding and it can look quite romantic.

However, I have too much northern california blood in me to completely embrace it. I prefer the whole 'visiting the snow' style.

Laura in Ludwigsburg

Schaufensterbabe said...

Laura, it's nice to know there are some like-minded souls out there in frosty Deutschland! :)

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