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.
I've been busy stitching photos again. Here's another that will soon be part of some new work or another. It's part of a photograph of the gorgeous art deco Anzeiger building in Hannover, Germany. I took the picture four years ago, when I had a job going around to various cities in Germany and teaching English to the train service employees in order to prepare them for the world cup. The teaching itself was rather tedious, but I got to take around 11 different trips where my hotel and train was covered and the work itself was pretty well paid. One of the places I went several times was Hannover. I'm sorry if any locals read this post, but Hannover just isn't an exciting place. Located in the middle of Germany, there just isn't much about it that is especially interesting. The court house and the lake behind it are pretty and there is a villa district which might be nice to walk through. And, of course, the Anzeiger building is really beautiful. But the city itself is simply boring. There is not even a local accent or dialect (something they are proud of in Hannover)but I think it really says something about the place. Hannover is a city without a face is what my husband says.
Still, one of the times I went there to work it was really inspiring. It must have been in late November or maybe early December. A storm was brewing throughout the day, but somehow the rain never started. Instead there was just this incredible light shining through these dark, gray clouds; truly dramatic and electric. After class I walked around for hours taking pictures. When I got back to my hotel room, my feet sore from all the walking, I took a series of self-portraits called, appropriately enough, 10 Self-Portraits in a Hotel Room in Hannover. Later, I fashioned them together into a book. Hmm....Maybe I should stitch some of them....;) These days, I'm having an obsession with needle and thread. Whatcha gonna do?
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....)
