This Wednesday I had the opportunity to take this snapshot of the cargo jumbo, which abandoned take-off, slided beyond the runway and broke into at least two pieces. The picture was taken through the window of the airport express and makes it quite clear that it was a near miss before turning into a huge catastrophe. If the plane just would have moved 50 yards further, it would have fallen onto the tracks, and fuelled as it was for a transatlantic flight, it would have exploded for sure. Not to think about the consequences if train would have passed at this moment goint to or coming from the airport. Only abot 200 yards further there is the high-speed track from Brussels to Liège and Cologne.

As it was, there were 4 staff on the plane only of whom just one was injured.

Some time ago the wonderful long weekend was over, Michael being in London again and I was back in Hamburg as usual.

May Day was not as bad as many expected. Even if all streets in danger were cleared beforehand, after the official events in Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg some drunken youths tried to make trouble. Well nobody knows if these youths wer not a couple of tourists as some suspect. But taking just our feeling living less than one kilometer from Boxhagener Platz, it obviously was not that bad. Otherwise alarms and helicopters would have kept us awake for quite some time. And newspaper reported riots and numbers of arrests, but reports concdfning the number of burnt cars or windows destroyed were missing completely. Therefore I assume that these numbers are close to zero.

Personnally the weekend was quite relaxing, Michael is more and more adapting to not being active any time you can imagine. Currently we try not to smoke in the flat, simply to reduce consumatiom as cigarettes just are not available without thinking. Just a pity if our mates just occupy the smoking seats established in the hallway even if they are non-smokers!

Here in Hamburg there was quite some stress, many deadlines are imminent concerning proposals for EU projects to be submitted with our help. In addition we have to do PR for our LOCOMOTIVE-Conference, as nothing is more deadly than a conference without paticipants. My boss is on holidays in the republic of Georgia, but she sent Emails before departure and afterwards (even if having difficulties and using a strange sending address), called as soon as possible and then sent an SMS. One could say “Business as usual”.

During the last weeks I had to move 3 times here at my working place, from the ground floor into the basement, then into the first fl0or and finally into the second. It was not my fault only, but I take my share, which I will report some time when I am drunk enough. My new secondary flat does not have the disadvantges of a ground floor flat, the view out of the window is quite nice, showing a park and a school. The school is quite useful as I hear the sound at 8 o’clock sharp and know the time. Even without owning a watch.

Somehow this seems to be the time of moving into new flats when I look around among our friends. These days having removals are: Rita and Peter, Dagmar and Hans-Peter, Manu and Karsten.

It is really good that we love our flat, I would not like to move currently.

Listening to ”Was den Himmel erhellt”, by Tomte (Play Count: 2)

After luring Hanna into the Eastern part of Berlin, her connections to old acquaintances from Wilmersdorf practically have been cut. For many obviously a visit in East Berlin psychologically still is brought into connection with border controls and compulsory currency exchange.

The only ones which have visited Hanna several times (like yesterday) are Frank and Uwe, the owners of Hanna’s former local pub, the Spinnrad. Unfortunately they are free only on Wednesdays, so that they rarely have the opportunity to see us both. Therefore it was a special occasion to have me with them for BBQ and talking on the terrace.

Elisabeth is in Berlin with a group of women from her institute and of course had to come by at our place for a couple of hours. And of course we had a BBQ again, even if she already had eaten with the group at the 12 Apostels.

We had steaks of lamb from the leg, tsatsiki, young potatoes and for desert an ice cream bomb.

Participants: three women, a tired, a not yet quite recovered and an unknown man… (in our home it is hardly possible to have one guest only)

Yesterday evening again we had a welcome visitor, the best friend of Axel’s from school days. Now a medical doctor in Hamburg he came for dinner, and I realise that such a weblog makes a lot of things easier for people you did not see for a long time. He had read our pages intensively and therefore brought another hortensia, so that I now have a true “ensemble”, not knowing the colour of the third, as it was only 10 cm high when I rescued it from Aldi last year and so far did not bloom. I also tried to photograph my blue flower box with blue summer meadow (a super tip from Ms Pinné, the official custodian of my mother), which I sowed last week, Axel has to do everything again… we, I and photos.

But back to the visit, we had a good dinner, chicken legs with rosemary yogurt (recipe upon request), we laughed a lot, as emerging similarities between old friends and new wives are not just poor chance to my opinion. You could still feel deep friendship between the two men, which had nothing to do with “I now can do this and now am this and that” from so many school reunions, it was a could exchange, also for me, about family situations with new insights and cognitions for both sides. My beloved one, still marked and handicapped by his illness, again acquired this boyish expression which I so love, Andreas his friend also became more and more like the boy on the childhood photo. So I could very well imagine how these two broke many a heart in Europe during their hitchhiking tours.

As I said, it was also easier being familiar with each other through the web site, and during this evening not only Andreas, but also Michael and Derek, Axel’ family and many others were with us during this evening.

Yesterday evening Andreas visited us. During school times he was my best (and only) friend, we spent many weekends together, either at his or my place, we had three holidays together hitchhiking through Europe. During the last years we lost contact, for about fifteen years we had not seen each other. Reunited in the end (of course) via the Internet, we had lots of things to talk about. The image above shows us as about 14 years old.

It is hard to imagine that the two had left their jobs just a couple of hours before. Sure, it is important to finally know where one is at and thereby feel a certain relief. But good friends and sympathetic listeners also help you master situation.