Category: NFN

While I was in Paris, the question of how I was going to get away was rather strongly on my mind. But not quite enough so for me not to foresee what would happen: I would miss Jardin du Luxembourg. In the back and forth about booking a rental car or sticking it out for another day, I counted the days in terms of whether I was going to get to the park again or not. I finally left, thinking that it’s always good to have a reason to return to a beautiful place.

The chair series so far: here.

I should follow up on last week’s grocery store experience in Berlin with a more cheerful piece. Jens and I discovered a lovely, tiny café, Café Bondi, at the corner of Schlegelstrasse and Eichendorffstrasse. It doesn’t invoke these stars of German Romanticism (Schlegel and Eichendorff, that is). Too clean and modern for that. Instead, it is a white-and-blue, airy room with only one table inside, and a couple of tables outside. Two young people run it, a German-speaking woman who cooks, and a guy, apparently from the US or Australia, who does the rest. Everything is organic in the best sense. Salad comes with kernels on top of it, but not, as it were, moralizing kernels, but friendly, tasty-nutty ones. They also serve fair trade soft drinks in nicely designed bottles from Charitea. I didn’t try any, but I liked the look of them. Five stars for what must be one of the newest among the zillions of Berlin cafés. *****

Overheard this past weekend in Grunewald: Female dog owner walks by man sitting on a bench. Man on the bench, interested in a conversation: “Be careful, professional dog thieves are around, and your dog is of one of the breeds they are after.” Dog owner (absent minded, not interested in a conversation): “Yes, I heard about those dog thieves.” Man: “Your dog is exactly what these guys are looking for!” Dog owner walks by, then turns to her dog and says: “If they steal you, they’ll get some shitty dog.”

A little rough around the edges, I thought.