nineveh_uk | Despatches from Berlin

I am in Berlin. It is very hot. It is so hot that today I am joining the ranks of people who wear shorts in a city. Since this appears to be 50% of people I've been seeing, I shouldn't feel too conspicuous in my sartorial crime, and it is a small price to pay for hot weather.

Berlin is great. I can't remember much, and absolutely nothing has looked as I remember, which isn't surprising on any front since I was last here in 1993. There is far more history that is reasonable for one place, I knew I was only going to scratch the surface, but now I feel I won't even so much scratch as gently tickle, but there are worse fates than to have to come back. My feet hate me.

Tanz der Vampire was amazing. My decision to base a holiday around seeing a cheesy musical is one million percent vindicated. I'm going again tonight. I even stage-doored The shame! The shame!, which is probably the most nerdish thing I have ever done in my entire life. I have also found several prospective entrants to the Galactic Cape-Twirling Championships. So far the hot favourite is the dancer who twirled his cape while simultaneously twirling a woman above his head, but there were also strong entries in the dramatic and moody categories.

Naturally the fic I bought to write remains entirely unwritten, as indeed does my diary. Never mind, no doubt I will catch up during tomorrow's 8 1/2 hour train journey.

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I hope tonight is equally fabulous and the cape twirling likewise.

PS. There is no shame.

My seat is further away, but on the other hand I shouldn't have a commentary going through my head going "Oh, it's that bit!" "Hmm, yes, I see why they made the staging choice" all the time and I can just watch it.

Any shame I have is not sufficient to prevent my planning to find the stage door for Wednesday's next performance (I can't tonight as I have an 8:30am train, and also I have the autographs I wanted anyway :-) )

ETA: There was cape fail! Dancing vampire and dancing Sarah managed to have a moment of his cape and her ?wig getting tangled together. They handled the untangling pretty smoothly, though.

Edited 2016-08-28 21:44 (UTC)

New line for Alfred: "when I came to disentangle you from the vampire, I didn't mean it literally...'

Hopefully the bag contains a pair of scissors.

Or there's Herbert: You can get this vampire out of my cape anytime, darling.

Hope it cools down a bit.

*giggles at the thought of Galactic Cape-Twirling Championships*
*goes looking for a cape*

It is forecast to cool bt 10 degrees tonight/tomorrow by means of a thunderstorm. Given timings, I am taking an umbrella to the theatre, but not putting on closed shoes.

Where are you heading tomorrow? We are going to Berlin next month, just for 48 hours, as part of our next long trip.

Fuessen, in Bavaria, to see Neuschwannstein, and what promises to be a rather kitsch musical about Ludwig II.

Enjoy your trip to Berlin (and beyond), I had a fantastic time.

Bavarian cakes for Kaffee und Kuchen!!! Mmmmm..... we go to Oberstdorf most years, for an international skating competition (and many friends go for the odd week for extra training), so Fuessen is an obvious side-trip for those who have not already been. I hope you enjoy the musical! (and the cakes!)

I am taking full advantage of the cakes. Oberstdorf is clearly winter sport central - I know it through cross -country skiing. I can see a ski jump from my hotel room window, but it isn't very big.

This reads as a very necessary recharge and reorientation.

It is proving both of those, if not the third R, rest!

You're not meant to wear shorts in a city? I had no idea. Does this apply to all urban areas, or just ones over a certain size?

Enjoy the rest of your trip.

You can wear shorts in a city (to be precise, the tourist bit. You can wear what you like in a suburban supermarket), it's just that in the UK you run a high risk of looking like an American tourist and in continental Europe of having to drape a polyester shawl round your bum every time you want to go into a cathedral/historic church, and a lot of my recent European holidays have been in Italy involving cathedrals and historic churches. But as I wasn't going to any cathedrals yesterday, the coolness massively outweighed the fact that it meant I didn't wear a skirt I really like.

I'd forgotten the cathedral issue, not having been abroad for some years now. In the UK, if it's hot enough that I feel the need to wear shorts, I don't care what nationality I'm taken for! In fact I don't tend to wear shorts when going into London, but that's because I'm nearly always going to rehearsals, and objections have been raised to the wearing of shorts there. No, I don't know why.

The choir rehearsal thing sounds odd. Yes, shorts are coded casual, but it's a rehearsal!

One of the highlights of my high school years remains when our headmaster did in his Achilles tendon and had to wear shorts for half a term because he was in plaster. It was really not his image...

I am pleased to hear that you are enjoying yourself.

Thanks! It is proving enormous fun.

Good! :-)

Everyone has been to Berlin but me! Helen has just spend the past week there on a research visit, but Edie and I did not accompany her.

We met there in 2004, and lived there in the summers of 2005 and 2006. Berlin is my falling-in-love city.

(Have just realised I've rather coyly claimed we met in Berlin. This is true in the sense that it's the first place we met in person, but I suppose this is one of the places where I don't need to be coy about admitting that we actually "met" on LJ eighteen months earlier!)

Clearly you need to arrange a trip! I had such fun even without falling in love, and definitely won't be leaving it another 20+ years.

(Also, congrats on the new job!)

Despatches from Berlin

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