In which November checks in.

A couple weekends ago found me a-venturing north to the forgotten city of Kiel to visit a couple friends from my not-so-forgotten German past. The train strolled out of central station just in time to catch the best streaks of golden afternoon streaming through the plastic-coated windows and construction scaffolding, and over the bustling platforms, painting shadowy vignettes of passengers on the cold, shoe-laden cement. My eyes were unaccustomed to the scenes of Schleswig-Holstein, with its gently growing hills and almost-frosted fields that had just been put to bed, dark with deer looking for leftovers in the hardening earth. Zooming through tiny towns gave me glimpses of children playing outside as the misty, damp evening chill engulfed the empty street behind them. One of my favorite views was passing through a place of flat greenness spotted with towering turbines and what appeared to be perfect fluffs of sheep. My internal dialog went something like this:
This would be such an adorable scene if those hay bales were sheep.
I think those hay bales are sheep.
It would be too perfect if those hay bales were sheep.
Those hay bales are sheep!
I don't know why the combination of wind turbines and fleecy sheepies pleased me so much, but it did. This photo does it no justice.

My body was just getting to its favorite point in the hypnotic lull and sway of speeding bullet travel when the lullabying and swaying turned into stopping at our final destination. It was then that the world started lurching and vrooming to the rhythm of a city bus at rush hour. The sun had peaced by that point, but night was delayed somewhere in Eastern Europe and left the city waiting in different shades of anticipatory grays until it arrived. Maybe it was something about being by the Baltic Sea that gave the air a kind of silvery luster, like the last remnants of daylight reflecting in the fog. It reminded me of trudging stiffly through the sand squish on a beach in Maine one evening last December-- same ocean air breezing through my bundling, same feeling of grayscale landscape. Very different situation.

All imagery aside, I really enjoyed my time there. Highlights included somewhat sporadic wandering to the water's edge, home-cooked love in my stomach, and matching French breakfast with an old friend. I was also reminded about how much cheaper everything is when you don't live in a big city, which was a temporary happiness.

Back in Hamburg, November happened. Gray, gray, creeping cold, gray pre-winter winter. The sky looks perfectly clear in its grayness, so much so that I've started to forget it could be any other color. The sun can easily be observed by the naked eye as a blurry, white circle making its way from east to west with the same rapid step I use to get from the S-Bahn to my apartment in the cold. As much as I am not partial to the color scheme or present climate, I really love November.

About a week ago, I was summoned to the Speicherstadt  (warehouse district by the harbor --> possibly Europe's largest and most expensive construction/gentrification project) for a delightfully wine and cheesy cross cultural event, and was thrilled to find a nightmareish photographer's dream enveloping the old bricks and glass walls. The Speicherstadt has unearthly qualities at all times day, but to see it moodily-lit and fog-filled made it spectacularly spooktastic. I felt like I was going to be murdered around each corner, but I wasn't. ...At least I don't think I was.

 

 

 On another note, I think I'll go to Poland tomorrow.