Adelaide to Sydney, upgraded to business class due to length of leg, and three seats to myself, the opportune westerly blowing us out into the ocean to turn and come at the city, sea cliffs, Bondi, Coogee, looking north to the centre and Newtown. I spent the day with Victoria walking around the harbour at dusk and later Roland, both whom I haven’t seen for years, and not spent time with since Vevey… Breakfast in Newtown with someone I’m very glad I got out of bed early to see.
I’m writing this at midnight, oh yes jetlag and soon to sleep with elephant ankles tingling and warm, a mouth of cotton wool, s tired I can’t recall these recent hours too well.
The plane to Taiwan. China Air and exit row seats… Oh they are now not a favourite airline. A stopover in Taipei, so I did yoga in the departure lounge, a marble floor, humid and sultry, the ripe smell of summer and pollution at night. The cleaning lady said, “Shenti hen hao. Hen bang le!” I tried to remember how to listen and then speak. Oh two years murders a language.
Another agonising 12 hours to Frankfurt, feet want to depart my legs, little potato blimps, and then some hours on the train to Berlin. Five? I’m not sure. I arrived at 1pm.
The train was a relief, i stared and let my brain collapse, thoughts a murky slob, often dozing, quite beyond exhaustion. Fields of unnamed crops, defined by colour, length and size of leaf, some sown so tightly as to be a blue-green mat, others open enough to see dirt between, other fields shot with purple, red, white clutches and streaks of flowers, a herd of lazy cows…
A Smart car burbled on the road near the horizon, a small trundling ladybug that if its brakes were applied too forcefully would flip head over tail until ending to rest in a muddy culvert, would right itself, shake the mess off and continue on its way.
Later the rain finally broke, sending silver drops flickering across the glass, a school of tiny Smart cars skittering up and down in unison on their rearwards journey with the roll of the carriage. I thought here I was at last reaching delirium from a score and ten or more hours of my biology stretched across hemispheres.
Berlin. I go to put €2 into a phone and Daniel says to me, “You won’t be needing that”. Fortuitous and absurdly perfect timing for my start to Berlin. (I think I’m staying in a Gay men’s guest house though. Oh confusion. I thought gay meant, you know… a variety of genitals, oh well, it’s a room and a bed and rather pretty out the window. I shall eat occasionally and sleep here and that will be all.)
I post this the next day, sitting in the café I have found in Rosenthaler Platz. We had lunch here yesterday, it reminds me of Vienna somehow.
