Der Himmel über Berlin

I am dogsitting again this week, and aside from one vomit incident (which the culprit cleaned up as quickly as she had thrown up), it has been a most enjoyable experience.

Jenkins is, as I have already documented, a rather wonderful creature. What she lacks in canine etiquette, she makes up for in droves with cuteness, affection, attitude and hair. She quickly learned that she is not allowed to be in the kitchen without me around, and, after a couple of epic wrestling matches at the start of the week, now meekly slinks out after me. She has also learned that, despite having freedom to go through any open door in the apartment, my bed is MY bed and mine alone. But I fear this may have more to do with the enormous Jenks-proof fence that I erect around it every time I leave than any actual ability or desire to listen to what I tell her.

Anyway, when attempting to reduce the mountains of hair that follow her everywhere, I discovered that she is not a big fan of the vacuum cleaner.

Not a fan at all.

And to those of you who think that that video is not the work of someone who loves the cute idiosyncrasies of his temporary dog, I should inform you that her final scuttle out the door knocked over her water bowl. Which I then had to clean up.

Just desserts!

I survived a month in India with only one run-in with mosquitos - even then, it wasn't that bad. Mild bouts of itching for a few days, nothing that I couldn't ignore with the help of a couple of beers.

I lived in Italy for a whole year, which left me with a belief that mosquitoes simply don't like my blood. Everyone else I know got destroyed by them, but not me. Yes, I was smug about it, and yes, I probably deserve all of the mosquito ill-fortune that has come my way since then.

But who would have thought the latest and most severe round of mozzie warfare would come in Berlin, a city that regularly endures temperatures of -20°, and, this summer at least, has only shown the briefest glimpses of warm weather? Not me, that's for sure.

So, after my week on English Camp near the Olympiastadion, I have twelve massive red welts all over my legs. They are itchy, they are painful, they look like mini-volcanoes. What I fear is what lies inside those volcanoes - it could be something as innocent as a festering globule of gloopy pus, or (and I am beginning to fear that this is the more likely option), there are baby mutant mosquitos in there, capable of surviving sub-Arctic temperatures, reproducing using the human body as an unwilling host, bursting forth when ready, splitting the host open (or, even worse, just splitting the legs, thereby rendering the host unable to play football).

I think I can feel one about to burst forth already.

You've been warned.

The kid who drew this thought my name was Peter.

Quite an impressive likeness, all the same, despite the toupée.

Usually when I am hungover, there is no-one to blame but myself.

This time however, there is a very clear culprit, leaving me, as far as I am concerned, practically blameless in the whole sorry mess.

Anyway, I get confused by the odd things I crave when hungover. Just there now, I had a irresistibly strong urge to listen to Coldplay - an urge that quickly disappeared once I actually started listening to Coldplay.

Now I really want to eat something with lots of balsamic vinegar. A sandwich would be good - heavy doughy bread drizzled with balsamic vinegar, a couple of thick slices of cheddar and pepper.

I would also like biscuits. Chocolate chip, as crunchy as possible. I would be very upset if I had chocolate chip cookies that weren't crunchy.

But instead of all these things, I will sit in blog HQ for another hour, then go teach for three hours.

Curse your bad influence!

I'm reading Edmund Hillary's autobiography at the moment (and Christ, it is making me impatient for my next mountain trip in October), and decided to look up some youtube clips of the great man. This was mostly from a very nerdy desire to hear whether he had a New Zealand or British accent, but let's overlook that for the moment.

Anyway, when news filtered around the world that he and Tenzing Norgay had got to the top of Everest, there was quite the media furore, which you can see here:

Wasn't that a fantastic furore? Listen to the wonderful brass bands playing and the elegant-sounding gentleman giving a modest description of the events. Love it.

It really is for the best that there are very few 'firsts' left for mankind to conquer. I don't think I could bear the inevitable Celebrity Big Brother appearances, the big-money sponsorships, the 'Edmund Hillary drank Sparkly Mega-Water on his way to the top of the world' advertising campaigns if something like that were to happen nowadays.

That clip has just made me miss a period of time that I wasn't even alive for. It was a simple, straightforward account of the amazing achievements of a team of people, acting solely from a sense of adventure and a desire to push the limits of human achievement, all of them positively embarrassed by the relatively small amount of attention lavished upon them, attention subsequently used by Hillary and others to fund further expeditions and many charitable projects rather than for his own self-aggrandisement.

Oh, I don't even know what I am blabbering on about any more. I think I just want to climb a mountain.

Such an odd feeling, this.

Don't feel like reading any more, have nothing to blog, sick of computer games, can't be arsed hanging out with anyone, listened to all my music.

Yep, I am bored. B-O-R-E-D.

This isn't meant to happen in summer. Wasn't I supposed to be out every evening, enjoying the sun, loitering in the park, having so much fun that I almost feel guilty about it?

I must be getting old. I am becoming an Old Fart. Bloody hell, I am sitting here listening to Holly Golightly, wearing slippers and drinking orange juice. Where the feck did it all go wrong?

I bought bedclothes today, and coathangers. Christ. Coathangers. And then had to go through five minutes of German bureaucracy, because the idiot at the checkout scanned my coathangers twice and made me pay €2 extra. €2! The humanity! Off with her head!

I also tidied up my room, which is what forced me to the conclusion that I needed new bedclothes and coathangers. This was even after donating some clothes to charity. I also put my mini-fridge up for sale. Thrilling.

I made one half-hearted attempt to do something sociable tonight. I wanted to play pool with a buddy. Play pool! I mean, really! But he has to stay in and look after his sick girlfriend. Bloody hell!

Sigh. SIGH.

Best go try out those bedclothes.

Time for some answers.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Toughest question first, I generally don't think much more than six months into the future.

Honest answer? No idea. I hope to have improved my lot somewhat. Maybe have a more stable work situation and a better apartment. I don't want to own property though. I would be surprised if I were still in Berlin, but not very. I'd hope to be a little tamer and a little easier to satisfy. Less impulsive and impatient.

Bit of a non-answer there then, sorry...

If you could take one person (alive or dead) out for a kebab from that stall in Berlin, who would it be?

This is a tough one too. I am presuming that I can only hang out with them for the length of time it takes to eat a kebab, which for me is not very long at all.

...

Gosh, I have been thinking about this for ages and can't come up with someone.

I think I am going to go for my dad. He's not very adventurous food-wise, but I think even he would like a Mustafa kebab.

Are you going to stay in Berlin forever?

I don't think so.

The world is too big and beautiful and amazing to live in just one place forever.

(Warning, pretentious bullshit alert coming up) I don't think I'll ever properly leave though. I feel very, very at home, I'll always somehow belong here.

What made you want to move to Berlin?

A number of reasons. I had just finished my final year of university in Ireland and had spent the previous year in Italy and had VERY itchy feet. I wanted a change but didn't really know where to go. I had a couple of friends here, who were always telling me what a great town Berlin is. I needed to do a TEFL course and saw one in here, so I signed up for it. And just never left.

Oh, and the fact that the World Cup was taking place here the following summer was also a factor...

How many kids do you want?

I always thought that I wanted lots. But after a certain heartbreak incident a couple of years ago, I don't think I want any now. I don't know if I could ever trust someone enough to have kids with them, to know that our lives would be forever bound together.

That said, I think the world would benefit from my offspring being in it. And I think I'd be a good dad.

So let's say one then.

Do you have any regrets in your life, or anything you would've done differently?

No, I don't have regrets. They are fruitless, consuming things and I would prefer to invest the energy in righting whatever wrong I did or failed to do.

Hence a certain action being taken on Hausvogteiplatz last March 21st...

Close your eyes right now. What's the first thing that comes into your mind?

I did this immediately after reading this question the other night, and the answer was potatoes.

Now, it's "Potatoes? Really? What the hell is wrong with you, Stephen?"

What would be your ideal career in life?

I don't want a career.

I want a job that pays the bills and gives me the freedom to do what I want with my life.

It's also a nice benefit to live in a nice town and be able to meet interesting new people who have stories to tell.

For those reasons, I think I am pretty close to being in my dream work. Now if this job translating Italian football websites works out...

What's the date of the best night of your life?

Either July 9th, 2006 or October 17th, 2006.

Yep, 2006 was a stunning year.

If you could win an apartment in any city in the world, which would it be and why?

Sooooo easy. Berlin, because even if I leave here, I will always keep coming back.

And there would be lots of spare rooms for anyone who wanted to come visit.

...I want to know what you want to know.

As a blog friend, I'm giving each of you the opportunity to ask me one question about me.

I'll try my best to answer every one, but reserve the right not to to answer in a different language.

As many of you probably know, I am a little obsessed with mountains and have a vague plan to reach the highest point in every European country before I die. Despite having climbed a few decent mountians in France and Italy, I'm not doing very well so far, with only Ireland, Britain and San Marino having fallen to my rampaging climbing boots. Either Romania or Poland will join that slightly pathetic club in October.

So it appears that I may need a more achievable goal. And I think found it last week, when a friend sent me a list of all the highest points in each of the thirty-two counties in Ireland. I've already reached a good few of them already, but on Sunday I decided to hit the reset button on those memories. How could I resist the three lowest highest country peaks, the lowest of all being my very own home county of Westmeath?

So here are a few pics of five intrepid voyagers, conquering the highest points in Meath, Westmeath and Longford, clocking in at a vertigo-shaming 258m, 278m and 279m respectively.

Carnbane East in Co.Meath - that's a passage tomb on the top, much like the one at Newgrange, some 50km to the east.

The view from atop Mullaghmeen, Westmeath's highest. You can see Carnbane East in the distance.

A big phew! at the top of Longford's Cairn Hill. There's a huge RTE transmitter at the top, as well as a road the whole way to the top. We parked at the bottom though, and hiked strolled up.

So, just twenty-nine to go now...

So there I was, in the bus shelter with my two buddies in a small town in northern France, shivering in the freezing December wind. Our search for booze yielded nothing more than a large number of closed pubs, the town deserted. The best we found was a drunk passed out in an alleyway, but none of us were brave enough to ask him for a swig of the elusive elixir that had conferred such an enviable state upon him.

Our chatter petered out as the night progressed, our watches seemingly refusing to approach the magical 0500 that would allow us to sit on a nice warm train bound for Lille. We were drifting into an uncomfortable half-slumber when the silence was interrupted by an ear-splitting scream, as sudden and unexpected as it was frightening and brutal. We were immediately wide awake and saw a young woman across the street, the wind whipping her long dark hair into a frenzy. The devilish sound was undoubtedly coming from her. Aside from us whimpering Micks in the bus shelter, and the frightening apparition some 200 metres away, there wasn't a soul to be seen.

Some thirty seconds after she started, and just as suddenly, she stopped. She retreated calmly back into the building that one of my buddies saw her come from.

I am convinced she was a banshee. Thus, number one is, as far as I am concerned, true.

-----

Almost a year later, I took off to visit some friends in Finland. Due to the vagaries of budget airline travel, I went via Riga and decided to spend a few days there on the way back since I had never been there before.

As I was undertaking this leg of the journey by myself, and am not such a huge fan of travelling alone, I booked a bed in a dormitory in a city centre hostel, certain that this would help me meet some fellow travellers to keep me company.

The dorm, on the top floor of a ancient building, ramshackle on the outside but pleasantly renovated on the inside, was completely empty. Curses. Flying solo after all then.

After an exhausting day of rambling around and being lonely with a couple of beers, I hit the sack early. From the thirteen beds on offer, I chose a bottom bunk in a corner by the window and soon drifted into a perfectly normal sleep.

I woke with a start some hours later, with a strong feeling that I was not alone. My sleepy mumble of 'hello' went without response. My whole body felt strangely itchy, much more than simply a mosquito bite or any normal itch. I slowly became aware of a presence standing at the bottom of my bed, but, oddly, I felt no malevolence. I perceived the presence to be that of a little girl, who circled my bed along the side tight against the wall. She seemed to be quite intrigued by me, and nothing more.

Still far from awake, I reached out to turn on the light on my phone to get a better look. As soon as I did this, she was gone.

And thus ends the story of my meeting with a friendly ghost.

So I am pleased to report that number three was the lie, I have never encountered a poltergeist. I hope I never do, as I would certainly poop my pants with extreme petrification.

...is what I am.

Yes, you were ALL right, I can't play the bagpipes. I blame the music I was listening to at the time for making me come up with such a pathetically unbelievable lie.

And I thought going through four countries in six hours was pretty unbelievable. If anyone is interested, it was Berlin to Dublin to Brussels to Lens in northern France. My team only needed a draw to advance to the next round but conceded two late goals to get knocked out, stranding me in one of the shittest towns in the world for the night, since no trains were in operation until 5a.m. Even though the local team had pulled out all the stops to go through, there was not a single pub open to celebrate their unlikely victory. Consigned to a night of shivering sobriety in France - my idea of a nightmare.

I had written a lot more about this story, as something quite odd happened that night. But then I realised that this oddity actually makes for a much better lie game.

So here goes, round two:

1). I am convinced that I have seen a banshee.
2). I am convinced that I have met a friendly ghost.
3). I am convinced that I have encountered a poltergeist.

And then I think it will be time for a good, old-fashioned exchange of ghost stories. Anyone have any to offer?

Go on then, pick the one lie out these three. Might not be very difficult, as I tell everyone everything anyway.

1). Despite always claiming to have no musical ability whatsoever, I can play the bagpipes to a very competent level

2). During that scene in Brokeback Mountain, the female companion I was watching it with became, shall we say, very frisky and forced me to miss the rest of the movie

3). I once passed through four different countries in six hours to see my favourite football team play a game.