I have a tale to tell

I wish old houses would be able to actually tell, then what would we know, what could we ashive and what rumours would delight our days! 

Again I will write about my hometown and places you can discover when you are here. 

As it is, this town is not that little and has a quite interesting history and while the years gone buy the town is changing. 

As a tourist you'll be for sure most time trying to figure out what is the centre and what to see is most inside the ring of our overground. Of course the buildings, the museums and clubs are mostly there but we have also other places to discover and if you have more then three days or have been already in town once or twice, then here is another area whish shows you how different Berlin can look and feel. 

Remember this town is founded in the way that two villages became one little town. Then all the other villages around became part of this town and so this place became bigger and still all those churches and gardens, all those parcs who have been once the centre of the life are now part of a big puzzle called Berlin and then as history went on or better the time, we took away houses, changed places and build street after street and the wars have punched in too and so some places are special as war has not done damage or humans themself. 

After the well known Kurfürstendamm which was once the longes shopping mile, you'll find the Schlossstrasse in Steglitz. Just 10- 15 min away from the Zoo and the old centre of the west part (you remember that there was a wall once splitting the town in two).

But shopping itself can be dull, can't it? So why should you be there, coming out of the underground? To see the "Bierpinsel" a building colourful and closed now due to unsurence fight? No, it's because the parallel streets are a wonderful area to do a walk before or after shopping and having a coffee. Why? Because you can find an italy villa or some house with a south german balcony or a miracle house or a little castle. The reason? The war did not destroy much in this area and it is a quite walk you'll take and your orientation point or better street is the Grunewaldstrasse as you walk the streets left and right, up and down. 
For me it is a pleasure to take the dog walks there. 

Look those picutres down below will give you a short impression. Don't they?

Thought for me, it feels like beeing in a whole other town not being in Berlin. And that is another reason why I recommend this little part to discover and if you come buy bus, then take the M48 and a lot of time, as this bus line can be taken from the centre in the east part and will take about an hour which is actually worth as you get a sightseeing tour too. Does this sound good? Well then... have fun!

Love & Light

autumn of books

Shakespeare it is we talk about now.

Why is he still one of the writers I recommend to read, no matter what you have read and what you use to read? Why is he one of those we need to read to understand ourself, our culture and language?

We know mostly Shakespeare these days from the movies which are made from the books and we know there are plays in the theatre. But a young generation may ask why follow an old guys stories?

You may be right but that fella is not something else and he is not just something commercial.

Yes, he was already famous in his lifetime. But he was good and smart and did not just write some plays to entertain.

You may now say it is only dramas you'll watch but that's not true. He also wrote a lot of comedy- kind of. Yes, it can be fun to read his books.

So what is the most famous book of him, as he did wrote quite a lot?

Seems the most popular is the book of "Romeo and Julia". Many take it just as a story of two families who fight each other and two people falling in a forbidden love (which has been covert by many). 

Mostly we have read the book in school and found it kind of boring, or painful, dull or could not even take it. 

Schools like to take this book as they believe it is the most easy book to understand, but that is not really true as you are mostly to understand the love play as a young man but not the bigger picture. Shakespeare was by no mean just writing a love story, a tragic one, but it was much more. The fight was the main story actually, but it was a synonym for a political situation home in England and the fight between class systems and believes.  Yet, the play takes part in Italy which was meant to be a trick to avoid to not be able to show the play back home. Thought people did quite understood the message.

But let's look on the other books like those around from 1606.

They show the mood of the time and those plays addressed very powerful the political situation and social upheavals. They reflected the fraught cultural moment. Shakespeare wanted to show a mirror and  the pressure which was to live with. He also shows the religious terror and the beginning of the modern time clashing with the old standards.

The dramas and also tragedies of "King Lear", "Macbeth" and "Antony and Cleopatra" have been written in this theme and they use for example dark element as witches, grimly regicide and the obvious mad minded man and also goth elements. 

But it is horror you can't stop reading as the language of Shakespeare is such as rhythmic and beautiful and you are astonished buy the amount of different words and words you never heard but you still understand the saying and writing and situation you are stuck with in the book. You can also see the comedy, the laughter and feel the cry and craziness. 

You may then remember the light of Shakespeare "Romeo and Julia" and how funny the play is or "A midsummer nights dream" fantasy and laughter. Yes, the comedy has a lighter language, but is in no way easier to understand. Just in the first moment you may think so. But all books have in common that the language is kind of a song you sing while reading. 

Shakespeare language is to the point, no waste and always rhythmic and has a melody you can't miss if you read it aloud, nor even in silence. 

Thought sadly these days kids have problems reading even "Romeo and "Julia". Which is truly a sad thing and something we should think about. It is not only that language has gone forward and changed in the way we use it and words have also changed, it is that the understanding of long sentences have been lost and I wonder how we will get young people to learn to understand the old books if they only can understand twitter long terms. Teachers should work hard I guess and in a way movies maybe can help to want to read the books again and talk about them, but can the movies show the meaning of the books? Will the new "Macbeth" in cinema stand this test or just be a spectacle? 

Thanks to the language actors still love to perform Shakespeare as it is a wonderful language to use, and it is like a spell on you when you start it buy yourself to say those words loud out.

That is why I recommend to read this book and give it to anyone and press them in a way to read them, to learn from them and to understand history and the time now and also where we come from, how old some problems are and to touch our hearts to do the right thing. 

Give it a try, please. 

But do me a favor, avoid those modern translation and versions who put the plays in our days language. It destroys all the fun. And if your language is not english in first, try the english and your countries language versions, as it is a difference sometimes. Shakespeare is all but easy to translate.

Love & Light

The genetic of our culture we've been grown from...

When you try to live in another country you will come one day to the point where you realize how deep the culture you have lived with most of your life will affect your stay in the new country.
It is a background you will be more aware then ever and in the same time many question are popping up into your mind. 
Starting maybe with the fact that you may take a walk around in your new country and try to discover new places and so you find things they made to remind people of their past and history of this land. As all countries nowadays are made of all the people who came across the ocean, people who rode across the other countries to get in touch to you. 
What would we be if we never met each other that way in the past. We exchanged food, lifestyle and knowledge. 

Expect those reminder on strange places as this is often the case, even here in Gothenburg you'll find those things when you walk and try to look an other way as you used to. 
So I found evidence of the asian contact Swedish people had somewhere between the streets. Yes not saw them when I walked by a several times but then, it was discovered. 
Of course you maybe then start to wonder how people can hate other people, strangers or refugees. 
It's those looking with a blind eye that makes it possible. 
And many do not take the opportunity to discover other countries to their heart when they make their holiday there. Sadly, far to many prefer to stay blind to all that could be because they have somehow in mind all they need is all they already have and they will get whatever they want and so there is no need for more but that they always could be wrong does not come to mind. 
Anyway, when you start to go a new way you will come to the point where you ask yourself not only to see the difference between the old and new or to see what could be possible. You start to wonder what of all the different things may fit you and with which you may never come to make peace as some things can be compromise but sometimes you won't. It actually does not matter why, as it is often just a feeling and then the mind who declares the reason why. For other people it may not be logical but when does have feelings inside you have to do with logic. 
The trouble is, that if you are a man of mind you will get confused for a short or longer time and it won't be easier when you get back to your old home and then again come back to your new place. 
That is what I experience now, the different feelings of all good and bad here and back. The awareness of what I can and want to deal with and what not. The discovering that even known that I am living just now in Sweden it just came to my inner place that when I came back the other night that I had the strange feeling of being in a book, being in another country. Already realized that living in a nice and clean town, as Gothenburg is very nice and clean, it seems to me to clean, to quite and then I wonder... has the genetic of my hometown Berlin become that much part of myself that I feel less comfort with such a place like this here in Sweden? Because that is what will come to your mind. The places you're crown will make it into your flesh and the way you lived your live back then too. 
Wonder then how a refugee must felt as they are not here because they wanted, more that they needed to flee. How must this feel for them. Better being on a modern place? Maybe it is not. 
Also being in a foreign place makes you aware of what you like and what not, because it is always easy to make the mind stray but in new places you have no other choice then take this path and decide if you care, if you like and if not what to do and how to react. 
This is much what I do now.
And just now leaving my old flat and now living in a rented room is a compromise I do as I always lived alone, but as this is not for all time, but nevertheless leaving my flat feels good as it was planed so and so. 

Travel the world and living on other places as the one you know may give you the feeling of being lonely or and then being free, may give you the idea of what could be but most of all, after you felt all this it will most likely make you wonder where home is and where you will be in the next year as you may realize that you've changed from a man who believed that there is only one place of happiness and future to a man of the world and maybe you will become one of those who will live on different places all their live. 
I know some of them and I for sure know I won't crow old in Sweden, as I realized that I want to discover more and more. 
But so it is important for you to make friends all over the world who can not only help but teach you and give you strength just by being there. Then you maybe will also- like I - discover that you will survive somehow, even know your mother and father will not feel the same sure as you, as parents used not to do- how open they may be. 
Smile about that, that's the right way. 
Also many of you will feel that money is really not everything that matters to stay or to go. It is the way you feel how you want to liv your live. Thought as a single it is surely different to be in places no matter where there are. 
But no matter what you do.. all comes to clear and in the end every step you do is right, thought it may not always feel like this, but it will led you to the place you have to be and mistakes are just things to learn from, challenges to take and to remember to take the word problem out of it will help you a big deal because then you will always be able to stop and do it different. How can you not win that way. And with that positive thought I will leave you for now... enjoy the autum/ fall.

Love & Light

Autum/Fall in Gothenburg

Well, I could start with that it always rains and is so cold and getting now so early dark but you know what?! Actually we have great weather here, warm wind blowing and only once in a while the rain. Autum in Gothenburg can be fine. But you know what?! Is autum/ fall not the best time of the year? 
The colours are spreading, your steps are faster and you still can eat outside or well you can look out for mushrooms. It is the best time to discover nature as its best again. Go out and not only into little parks. Flee to the woods and smell and listen! Listen and hear that you can hear the silence in nature. Thought around this town Gothenburg- there are a lot of woods and little sees- you don't have to go that far. Just visit the botanical garden and then the saved nature area behind it. 
After driving the car the day before and wonder why so many people seems to like to get killed by a car because they don't even look on the streets and I mean when it is dark you really should, as the most of you aren't actually no sparkling light. But even the bike riders don't seem to care- no light, no looking around , just going on their bike. Not that this is new as I know this from Berlin and many other big towns but I am drifting away now. Those letting them self killed by stupidness is just one of the sad things going on on earth. All those killing by following blind a religion or the media and the politic instead of taking care of their life by - well - your own. Of course those thoughts came up after I went through the wild, the garden, the park. Because nature is such a place to easy show you what life is about. Just look around, the plants, the animals and we as the mankind think, really think, we are better because we have a brain -many don't use by the way. How sad this is, but more sadly those who prefer to stay blind never know. But then, we have a choice because we have a brain. We can choose to live in love. Because nature also does this and see how god it gets. There is no hate and no useless killing. There is no need for negative use of power. Yes some animals eat animals but only when they are hungry. They do not kill just to give you pain or because you are different. Difference is actually needed for a healthy nature. A wood will liv better with hundreds of different kinds of plants and animals. So does a garden. 
But what I also like with a garden, parks and botanical garden is, that you travel through time and space and countries. So many plants come from so many different places and there you see them coexist. And then the silence. How I could easy forget that this is so god for you, is just to remember that when we live our everyday life, we are easy to turn our eyes the wrong way as we have to often learnt from the media, politic and religions. So turn around and breath, sit in the sun, touch the tress and grass and watch the birds fly. 
How wonderful to be in the middle of something like a wilderness and being far away from a town which surrounds this place. I actually felt that I even was not in Sweden. I felt like I was home at my parents wood. That feeling that I could be somewhere on this earth and that it doesn't matter where this place actually is was new. I just felt being in the nature and that's why I tell you to do the same. It is still warm enough and it is so colourful and the shadows play is so nice and you calm down and so you reconnect with the nature, the true nature you are part of.  We are all part of, but we are drifting away to soon, to often. And understanding in the same time how big it is to have a big park in town. It is not just a place to rest, it is to reconnect and the air refreshing machine and it is culture and after all it is a wonder we have the great luck to have. Our grandmothers generation may not did all right but this, they did, because this will keep the chance for us people to survive when the time of real crisis come, because this will remind us before and after how to survive in nature and how we are part of it and that the world, the earth does not need us but we do need the earth.  
If only more people would walk and talk in a park or just walk and watch and be in silence instead of having their focus on the iphone nowadays. What a shame. 
But there is always hope. There is always a chance. There is always a choice. To waken up and reconnect. Like you've seen in so many movies in the last years. 
So, folks, now, the pictures are coming and maybe you want to do the walk in the green. 

LOVE & LIGHT

two plants connecting 

the colors of our life

art is for some just a place to be

the japanese garden part

autum/ fall must be the greatest time of the year

seems so far a way this town called Gothenburg but is nearer then you think

A walk in Hamburg

Remembering a walk I did in Hamburg, that little town in the north of Germany, with a whole lotta history on it's back. Starting as it has to be with a bit of autum rain.....and then let's see what I've got.  Oh yes, having arrived in Hamburg I was near the main station to get my breakfast which was needed to be strong all day long and to talk to a very nice friend... :-) But always you have to start to show around and so we came to the Alster- how can't we... if you are in Hamburg you have to take the underground and see what is going on with the "Hafenstadt" and the "Elbphilharmonie". Lot's of ships and new buildings around and oh they still build on the "Elbphilharmonie" which actually you can see quite good but it's  kind of a mess you watch... now this building has a problem with statics and cost around already 800 mill. Crazy, isn't it?  But it's much bigger then it looks on the pic. Not only in real this building is far bigger, also who's fault it is with all this going on and on...

But don't worry, just do your walk and enjoy the fire boat, or the view because of all the old buildings around and some new. Yes walk to the "HafenCity"- kind of a little town in the town, with the "Dungeon Doom" or restaurants or shops and even when they have the water on the streets - Hamburg people don't care and go on living and making the best of it.  
But also you can ask about the "Speicherstadt"cos it was and is a place for the warehouses.

I mean it's the second biggest town of Germany and has the biggest port of the country. So actually big. So watch out!
So no wonder you'll find a lot of new apartments at the port and houses in modern style there. You walk along them and just think that you will not want to have a flat there because not only people can look inside your bedroom, also it's just too expensive. 
Although if you're interested in architecture it's very pleasant and you can get exited. 
From the "Jungfernstieg" Station you also can see two of the Musical halls, which Hamburg is very much known for. A night at the musical theatre is easy to have in Hamburg. There are a lot of choices. You must know Hamburg has over 60 theaters. But I must say the newest building looks in my eyes like a coke bottle on the top.

Anyway, let's go on to see what this town has to offer you. Our harbor walk is going behind the "Elbphilharmonie" and we come to the Underground station "HafenCity Universität" from the U 4... a light show with music will welcome you. Very beautiful to watch and when your going up to see what's outside the station, go to the bridge and there on the other side you have a little tower to climb on and what do you get? A view over the town and what is going on and will be done in the next years.

Now back to the place we've started and we stand in front of the building called the "Landungsbrücke" next to this building is a tunnel. It goes to the other side of the river and is just now under construction and will be rebuild and renovated in the next years, but don't worry, they let you use it! Just one side of those two tunnel routes. Do it, take the elevator or the stairs down and go through the tunnel. It's so nice to walk under and inside a very old thing and maybe you meet a couple too who has just married. :-)  Like I did with my friend, after we have been on the other side, watching the people, the sun, the harbor and feeling very good. It's a romantic place in some way and you have easy to talk to each other no matter what. 
Well, going now to the "Speicherstadt" which is actually next to the "Landungsbrücke" feels very well and you discover the beauty of this town and much more when you try the underground which partly drives overground. Hamburg can be very nice on many places. And yes if you are hungry try fish.... it's good and fresh. 
I had the luck to have a friend there who had spend some time with me and I really appreciate that. It's always funny and much more delighting when you know someone from the place you travel to. 
It was a short trip and I will sure come back in time. Yes it was much the typical tourist places this time, but as I was only two or three times there, it was the right thing to start with. And somehow I can understand this way the longing for the north. Enjoy the rest of the few pics...

Love & Light