Letter from Germany 25

Tuesday, June 16, 1992

born: King Gustav V of Sweden 1858

died: 1963 Otto Struve

1897—Great Alaska gold rush begins with news of first discovery at Bonanza Creek

It's still not finalized, and it looks as if I will be coming to Atlanta before the juggling convention, not after. Currently, have a reservation to fly from Berlin to Atlanta on Monday, July 13. I'm trying to change it to Sunday, July 12, and am on a waiting list. This flight gets in at 5:15 PM. It seems silly to arrive right at rush hour on a Monday if that can be avoided. Sometime towards the end of that week I will go up to Montreal for the juggling convention and then out to Los Angeles to see the rest of the family. Again, still haven't finalized things or bought the ticket, but hope you will be around in the middle of July.

It's only fair to warn you that I am developing a powerful craving for root beer and Colonel Sanders' fried chicken. Most other cravings have either been satisfied by sneaking on to the US army base and impersonating an officer with a taste for maple syrup or substituting a local product such as Erdnuss Butter for peanut butter. Other culinary yearnings have effectively been sublimated by eating too many döner kabobs. However, the local variety of Maltzbeer for root beer leaves a strange after taste. Plus, nothing competes with those 13 (or whatever) secret herbs and spices of the Colonel.

My German publisher tells me The Diabolo Book will have already sold out its first printing this month, so I have started writing a sequel. The American publisher has hired a book designer to make it look flashy and hopes to have it out some time this year. A few other book projects that are coming along. In the midst of everything else, I have been writing quite a bit since Easter.

The weather is really pleasant. I am bicycling to work instead of using public transportation. Once again I have discovered a city where everything seems to be slightly downhill; bicycling is a pleasure. Parts of some of the Berlin sidewalks are laid out in a different color brick, or the weather has discolored them. In any event, people use these distinct hues as bike lanes crisscrossing the city. I, along with many others, first started biking when all public transportation was on strike. Berlin looked like Beijing for about a week with all the cyclists, the majority of which were not used to riding in the city. That—coupled with the errant pedestrians—kept my right hand (that was freed from not having to constantly shift gears due to the flat terrain) resting cocked and ready on the bell to ting off wayward fussgängers, slow rollers, and other predators that were basically in the way.

Having traveled by underground all winter, I managed to get lost every day not only riding to work, but also lost in a completely different direction coming home. I was crossing former international boundaries with abandon, little sense of direction, but above all, with momentum. Something I learned from the Butterfly Man in London, “It doesn’t matter if you are lost, the trick is to not look like a tourist.” I now have a somewhat better idea of the layout of the city and can get from here to just about anywhere in about fifty minutes.

I may be the only one who has noticed, and there seems to be a lot of broken glass on the paths in front of bicycle shops. I imagine the owners smashing beer and wine bottles early every morning to insure a brisk, spur-of-the-moment, tire-repair business.

I stopped following the news a while back when I returned to Germany after a week teaching in France. My German had morphed into a mush of French and circus onomatopoeia and I couldn’t tell the difference between broadcasts concerning Sarajevo and Los Angeles. As a result, I am a bit confused about the upcoming election. Am I supposed to get a modem so I can vote? Or do I just fax my choice of the fat or skinny Elvis?

Ciao,

Todd Strong

Berlin

Return to Letters from France main page