ritas kleine welt

birgit and i went for a walk through berlin on friday afternoon in order to secure some tickets for the world premiere of the restored metropolis. (we were short of ten people in front of us when the box office closed. dang!) on our way to the friedrichstadtpalast, we crossed one of the many bridges across the river spree. this is what we saw...

observing the mid-winter growth of my potplants, i was delighted to see that the hibiscus is in bloom again. which never happened before during this time of year simply because our flat is a bit colder than average. so i'm rather delighted that the plant surprised me with an open blossom this morning.

edit: and thus, silliness ensued...

every winter, the crows are gathering in this city in order to survive the cold season. the colder it gets, the bigger the swarms. one of the great side effects of this phenomenon are the dancing swarms every evening. single flocks gather together every evening to create one big swarm before they settle down for the night in the trees around. but see for yourselfves below.

five days away from christmas, in christian parley on the fourth sunday in advent, i thought i should finally get into the spirit of the season and make a day of it. so in the order of appearance, here's what i did today.

sitting here with my breakfast (cheese on toast and a welsh tea with milk), watching the snow fall outside and looking forward to watching the gold rush on the big screen with a number of people in the english department this evening. it doesn't need much for happiness.

finally, it has arrived. winter is here and it brought along a big load of snow. good thing it was sunday, so we all could enjoy the magical powdery stuff properly. no snow plows dug their ways through the snow and all the cars went on very carefully. and then there were all those people having some splendid time -- building snow creatures, igloos and taking their sled to the next hill (which in leipzig is about 2 metres high...). so, in order to keep up with all those people out there, maria, denise, obi and i just went with the flow.

and what did you do today?

looking outside my window this morning, i beheld a young woman hauling a potted larch tree homewards. it was the saddelst little christmas tree i have ever seen with its drooping branches and the top swaying heavily from left to right every time she took a step. thus i thought i should commemorate the doleful needle beam and draw a portrait in his memory.

tonight, we had the first snow for this coming winter. when i got up this morning, i beheld a most impressive display of weather -- well, for the leipzig common snow standard that is. of course everyone at home would point their fingers at our half inch of snow here and fall into fits of laughter. and rightly so. (when you've grown up in the mountains, anything below three feet of snow simply fails to make an impression.) but when you look at the average snow rate of leipzig in the past years, we are practically snowed in.

this is antarica, baby!