And now from Berlin

At last … a Mac! Unfortunately on a dialup connection, and with a German keyboard (z is where the y should be … perhaps I’ll just tzpe Zs for Ys and let zou do the transposition … there, that wasn’t so difficult, was it?

I find mz German is even rustier than mz Italian and the words are more difficult to guess. Fortunatelz, most Germans speak at least some English.

Berlin is not, of course, as I remembered it. The last time was in 1967. Mz friend Hartmut was one of a group of students who dug a tunnel under the Wall, rescuing around 50 people if I remember correctlz. He was on the ‘wanted’ list in East Berlin.

It is strange to explore the modern Berlin with its meld of east and west. The zoung couple we are visiting live just on the western side of where the Wall used to be. I swear I could still feel its ‘presence’ as I stepped across the line of bricks marking the division.

I found the citz a fascinating mix of old and new and something in between. There is no longer the sharp division between the technicolour west Berlin and the drab east, but somehow the defiant lust for life I associated with the West Berlin of ’67 is missing. Perhaps it’s just in hiding and 2 dazs is not sufficient time to rediscover it.

I’ve been having trouble with the taps. It’s not alwazs obvious how zou turn them on and off … especiallz off. Todaz I was totallz bambooyled bz the high-tech ones in the Museum of Communication’s classz toilets . Bz experiment I found that pushing down on them turned them on. Logicallz, pulling them up should have turned them off. Not so. I tried everz variation of pushing and pulling, turning, twisting and bashing … all to no avail.

To mz relief (for I found mzself incapable of just walking awaz from the problem), a zoung woman came to mz rescue. Zou can’t turn them off, she told me – thez have sensors which turn the taps off automaticallz when zou stop pushing and pulling etc. Well reallz guzs, in a Museum of Communication zou’d think thez’d communicate this, wouldn’t zou!

Tomorrow, back to gracious Hamburg, where we are stazing with the still dashing Hartmut and his wife – mz friend of 40+ zears, Ulla. Their home and garden is full of warmth and love and tulips and daffodils. Hartmut and Ulla are JUST as I remembered them.
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Backtracking a little … when I die I want to go to Bergamo. If zou want to experience an Italian hill town without the tourist crush, go to Bergamo … an hour bz train east of Milano. The birds work overtime on singing practice, the church bells chime musicallz without intruding, and even the motorists are respectful of pedestrians. The food is divine, and verz ‘local’.
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Mz apologies for not including photos … thez’re all downloaded to Colin’s Powerbook which is back in Hamburg.

And now, I think I’ll get some sleep … zou’re probablz tired of the z-y transposition anzwaz.

Love to all