Jakob Preuß’s cemetery tours are always interesting. Today’s tour is themed according to the fact that it is voting day in Berlin.
The cemetery on Wikipedia here.
InterNations gallery walk 15 February
!!!NOTE: THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED!!!
Since InterNations does not allow links to google maps in the event descriptions on their website, here are further details, and here the link to the map of the route.
Note that not all the exhibitions are about photography.
We’ll start in the Alfred Ehrhardt Foundation with the exhibition “The Polar Silk Road”, and after this visit, those who wish can proceed to Galerie Martin Mertens, Galerie Kuckei + Kuckei, Galerie Deschler, Mountains, Galerie Nagel Draxler, and if we have enough energy left, Galerie Sprüth Magers (which will be worth it for an exhibit of “one of the most influential sculptors and conceptual artists of his generation”).
We will of course stop for coffee and other desired/needed sustenance somewhere along the way.
Please make sure you have access to this map of the route in case you fall behind or get lost. Most of the time, I will not be replying to messages, and definitely not anwering phone calls, while walking or while inside the galleries.
My favourite salad dressing right now, and a footnote about “the oils”
I eat salad at least once a day now, and this type of dressing has been my favourite for a while:
Blend about a dl of tahini, four garlic cloves, a bit of fresh ginger, chili in some form or other, one tblsp roasted sesame oil, two tblsp olive oil*), 1 tsp black treacle**), grated peel and juice of two lemons, and one tesp roated cumin seeds finely ground. Add cold water a little at a time till the desired consistency, usually about the same amount as the amount of tahini.
As long as you don’t eat it by the spoonful by itself before that, it will last four to five days in the fridge. I believe it can also be frozen, although I would probably prefer to blitz in the garlic upon defrosting. Any which way, having a batch on hand cuts down on preparation time. I must admit – preparing, and eating, a big salad for breakfast does take a lot longer than slapping some cheese on a slice of bread and eating it.
*) Yes, I know, the WFPB police will come after me, but I refuse to live without olive oil & co. at least for now. In recent months, I have been learning so much about nutrition and made quite a few changes to my regular diet (and liking it and feeling great – don’t get me wrong) that I am thinking (sobbing) – PLEASE don’t take my beloved olive oil away from me. I have yet to be convinced that it is the great evil that whole-foods people say it is, but who knows ….. that day might still come where this last frontier of my complete surrender to Dr Greger’s Daily Dozen Doctrine will fall.
**) Most similar recipes call for maple syrup or honey, but black treacle from Alnatura is my always-available, staple sweetener (of which I don’t use a lot anyway) and has been since I was a little bit iron deficient not so long ago and found out that one tblsp of it will have your iron levels replenished in no time.
Getting to know Köpenick and surroundings better
Spending the week cat-, dog-, and housesitting with my ex-dog Max (and a cat, whom he is jealous of, and later another four weeks.
4 February: First, a failed photo of the full moon just before it set:
Went on to checking out the nearby forest and “ehemaliger Schießplatz”, a lovely area in Erpetal where dogs are allowed to run off-line. Not as long a walk as I had wanted to do today but Max seems tired after running about five times the distance that I walked. Here is where we were. We will definitely go back very often. A couple of photos – not from the Schießplatz which is quite a large, open space.
5 February: Max is lucky to have a number of frequent visitors in the trees outside the windows of his new home. However, he does not seem to appreciate it. I am hoping for some better photos later, with more practise.
6 February: With Max’s longer mid-day walk taken care of by his new local dogwalker, I went to Friedrichshagen to take a look at Bölschestraße – a very nice street with shops, cafés and restaurants – and an Alnatura – my preferred eco-supermarket – after spending some time plodding around the relatively unspoilt area by Müggelsee on the other side of the Spreetunnel. Here is the route on MapMyWalk. Total distance walked on this day 14 km.
Snuck in a street photo – I know I should not, but I could not resist that impressive beard:
Back in the flat, I was happy to spot this Eurasian Jay in one of the trees outside the windows:
9 February: Another day out with the dogwalker for Max, so I went to take a look at Altstadt Köpenick. Hmm. The best thing to say about it is that it is surrounded by a lot of water. But they have done nothing to exploit that fact and it is actually nowhere near as attractive as it could have been. I am hoping that later in spring and summer it will turn out to be nicer and I will discover that it is more conducive to outdoor city life than meets the eye in winter. There are two or three cafés that look really nice, but with no outdoor seating space, and nowhere near a waterfront. I stopped for a cuppa in Café Milchkaffee, and will stop there again, given the opportunity.
Photography: Personal Favourites 2022 November
Photography: Personal Favourites 2022 October
Trying to visit as many EMOP exhibitions as possibe
((Despite being “internally displaced” most of that time :-))
European Month of Photography Berlin officially takes place from 2 to 31 March, but some open earlier, and some are open longer than those dates.
IN PROGRESS
29 January NABU guided tour of Rummelsburg Biotop
Again, too much of the national favourite passtime: standing still, occasionally interrupted by some very slow walking. I have never had too much patience for that when it is exaggerated, and nowadays I don’t seem to have the metabolism for it either, so by the time my bone marrow was frozen to the core and nothing much was happening, I had to leave the group and walk the length of the biotope. On my way back I saw that they had only just started walking.
Before seeing it in NABU’s event plan, I did not know this place existed. It was interesting, and slightly surreal, to see such wild, untouched nature in such a small area so close to very built-up areas.
28 January Gedenkstätte Sachsenhausen and Lehnitzsee
10 km with SV Empor Berlin – a walk found in the booklet “Vorschläge zum Mitwandern 2023 – Berlin-Brandenburger Wanderplan” issued by Berliner Wanderverband, available in bookstores at the cost of 3 euros.
The walk was supposed to start at 9.25, but people kept turning up after that time, completely unapologetically (“sorry I’m late” does not seem to be part of the German vocabulary), so we did not start till almost 9.45. That kind of thing irritates the sh.. out of me.
Anyway, the visit to the memorial was interesting, but the walk there had taken place at such a slow pace that I decided to leave the group afterwards and try to make my way round the northen tip of Lehnitzsee. This turned out to be impossible without going a very long way around it – the usual scandal: pedestrians only have access to a fraction of all the waterfronts in and around Berlin – and the fact that google kept pointing me in the wrong direction and could not even find the station in Lehnitz also did not help. I therefore only saw a little bit of the lake on my way back to the station in Oranienburg. For what it is worth, here is my route on MapMyWalk.
Other links: Todesmarch Sachsenhausen – Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp
Disgusting behaviour
The people from Gastro Furniture Bölme not only feel they have a right to park their car whichever way they see fit, inour courtyard outside the assigned parking spaces, in the street blocking the bike path, whereever, but they also, despite several complaints, let their dog shit in our courtyard and would not dream of removing the Schweinerei. Are they from some banana republic? Do they think this is one?