Dad says the produce in Berlin in June of 2006 was disappointing, that I should pack apples with me. This can’t be right. I remember how appalled I was at the available plant matter in Bergen in December… But wow we can’t grow much of anything here in New York City in late December, either, but we have access to much more than garlic and potatoes. Is it just that Bergen can’t support the import? There is not adequate market? Perhaps. That’s the self-reinforcing cycle of culture, I guess.
Where here can I get a new watch battery on a Sunday, when in this Christian god-adhering nation things are all closed?
I’ve begun making my immediately-post-Berlin plans but they’re all wrong, topographically speaking — way, way too much overland shenanigans as I shuttle between Cologne or Stuttgart and back to Berlin again and Cracow and Vienna and/or Prague and Paris, from where I’ll go to Bucharest indefinitely — must cease shenaniganning, find water, and stars, and stay.
My watch stopped yesterday, which for someone who likes to know the time and gravitates toward the analog and lives for unsettling metaphors is almost too much to bear.
I said, So far I donʼt miss anything. Not a single thing. Actually thatʼs not true. I miss the certainty that anywhere I go I have the tools to be the best possible patron, citizen, whatever, which actually just boils down to speaking the language, because here I know I have to go in and sheepishly ask that they accommodate my stupidity, and also that I canʼt avail myself of signage, which I consider very important. And I miss the selection and pricing of peanut butter.
