Hello dear cat lovers,

today I wanted to talk about my flat again. This morning I started to feed the male cat food opener with heavy caressing… that means I played shawl for him. You cannot imagine how he enjoyed it. He was lying the absolutely quietly and stroked me without interruption. He was here all week and always in bed, so I joined him, as he was ill and needed consolation. But today he sat with the two-legged female playing at the computer and did not take notice of me, therefore I had to prove who is in charge of deciding the occupation of the flat’s inhabitants! They had equipped the kitchen corner with scratching pads nearly to the top of the room. Well, then I first brought sown the dog food and then the dry cat food. What am I a great climber for!. Then they went into bed… that was exactly what I wanted. Take care my friends and always make a beautiful arched back!

Hanna currently reminds me of a nervous race horse longing for the first ride out into the open landscape. On Monday she built a trellis out of bamboo sticks completely by herself as for clematis and roses. Today she has bought some plants and again is dedicated to terrace work.

Only spring is missing, then the BBQ may be started. Hanna’s finger is almost on the switch!

She is sitting allone on the long bench in the train to the airport. In front of her a shopping trolley full of bags of all kinds. Maybe she is around 60, maybe even 50 only, it is hard to estimate. On her head she wears a coronet of silver cardboard with fake glass emeralds.

In a low voice she talks to herself with a hard Slavic accent. “I did not want to aleniate you from your mother.” “I have to live in another flat for one or two years, this is the law here!”.

Only scraps of words reach over to me, until she gets out of her seat with lots of efforts. She hardly manages to push her car from the carriage in Adlershof. Not a single glance around her, the eyes steadily directed towards the exit, the entrance to her empire, the street.

When the train starts rolling again, I ask myself how she will manage to carry her belongings down the stairs, without elevator, without excalator.

Currently a lot is being reported in German media about the high water levels on the river Elbe. In the beginning there were also reports from Czechia, but this is on the Elbe too.

In Budapest I experienced the river Danube with a high water level which nearly went up to the overhead contact wires of the tram. But somehow the situation seemed very relaxed. People made excursions to the water and enjoyed walking on the tracks of the tram, which of course was not running. Somehow the city seemed to say, well, we have to live with it, it may happen every year.

Maybe you have wondered why I did not write anything since last Wednesday. Due to a simple reason: most of the time I was in bed and tried to get rid of an influenza (no, not bird’s flu). SLowly I am recovering, even if I still write this not in bed. I have to take care about myself until Easter and then I may go up to normal speed again.

At least I hope so!

View of the city while landing in Schönefeld.

Unfortunately to Hamburg again tomorrow.

I always try to stick to the motto: “If you are with the Romans, do as the Romans do”. Especially and in particular when eating, some undefined international cooking I also may get in Berlin or can cook it for myself.

Therefore I visited a small and rather cheap Hungarian restaurant yesterday and ordered a pork slice farmer’s style which was announced as a schnitzel with onions and bacon.

The onions were coarsely cut, the bacon as well consisting only of lard. Add Salami, season it with hot pepper and an abundant amount of garlic. This really was farmer’s style and not a light version for an office worker. This reminded me of an operette playing in Hungary with a song called, coarsely translated: “My ideal purpose of life is pigs and bacon”….

Afterwards there was no room for the curd cheese pancake which I originally had intended to eat.

About 30 years ago Iwas the first time in Budapest as well as in East-Berlin. Then the dominating impressions were the smell of the GDR-made cars, the darkness at night and the dirty and dark house fronts. Therefore I was quite curious to experience the impressions of Budapest today as compared to Berlin.

Of course there is no direct comparison: Berlin has been destroyed heavily in WWII, Budapest is older and therefore has more historic buildings which need to be repaired. All in all one can say that the old buildings in Berlin have been repaired to a larger extent than in Budapest, also thanks to the billions of transfer money in the form of solidarity supplements to taxes and tax reduction schemes. In Budapest you still see lots of run-down buildings. Even if the branch of a bank moves into a house it does not mean that the house is rebuilt.

Of course the bank has been rebuilt and it is already showing one of the main differences to Berlin: Rebuilt in style without imposing a representative front of polished stone and large windows but preserving the house’s impression from the outside.

It is quite remarkable in Budapest that there are hardly any modern store fronts in the old town and much is still preserved in the old style.

As everything is moving at a much slower pace, lots of buildings still wait for their resurrection. Of course you also find graffiti, but much less so than in Berlin.

Of course already a lot of buildings have been restored, especially the historically important ones and reflect the light of the spring sun.

But Budapest has an own pace even if it is regarded as one of the economic miracles of the former Eastern block. Sometimes it seems advantageous to speak a language nodbody else does and not having rich relatives you can move in with or who want to save taxes.

Even the old trolley buses (and normal ones) are still in use.

Friday afternoon, in the train from Hamburg to Berlin. Train is full, across me a man who leaves his seat for the buffet car. Someone is

Seriously drunk already at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, obviously not caring a lot about himself. He made a lot of money during the Internet-Boom about 5 years ago, as much that he even is sued for 2 million Euros. He’s a lawyer, practising, but only takes cases without a fee, cases which are seemingly hopeless. Some of his internet money he invested into a small Sushi-chain in Berlin with branches in Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg. This chain makes him some 10.000 Euro a month.

He complains about the evils of the world, prepares his pipe and distributes his tobacco over the table. Everything is bad, but he does not need to care about money, he has got enough.

An idealist. I would like to have his problems…