Why wouldn’t the weather be perfect?, it is May first, the first of May, the grand day, oh what a day… also the day on which, among other important things, the borders came down. The borders which we had to cross in some strange way in the summer of 1981… well, the borders are now gone. Janek was always able to read between the lines: “They showed this guy on television who received a certificate for being the first person to cross the inner European border. Except, if the borders are gone… he could really not have crossed it, could he? Oh, and they renumbered all the tramway lines here. What used to be 41 is now 31 and 31a. And the police made a little stand and whoever wanted could have their fingerprints taken, just for fun.”
Some things change, and thus they stay the same.
I hear that Poles will not really be allowed to just leave their country and look for work in Germany. And the Euro is actually also more of an alternative…for now… not really the full blown new currency… and what else… oh, apparently some Germans were now learning Polish. So highly interesting.
Oh, and Ukraine may be next, they say… probably before Turkey… (Which is technically not completely European… now is it?)

The Salvation Army store really did not smell right. It was really packed…
An older lady was showing off her little “t-mobile sidekick”, checking if the air was clear behind her, or if somebody was trying to spy on the sites she was surfing on that freshly donated green sofa.
A man emptied an entire bag of carb-crumbs onto the landscaped area of broadway. (Hello rats.)
I was offered clearly raw fish in a French restaurant…
Oh, and also accidentally helped this incredibly talented upper westsider with her toy decorated carriage..

“That car matches your shirt.” A guy pointing towards a little honda civic picked the wrong line to impress his first date in front of the building here.
“Hey, how’s it going?” somebody else on the floor here has a new boyfriend… which also solves the mystery of the strange marks in the carpet… they must have been caused by his hairy hands dragged as he walked like a slightly drunk silverback…
Oh, and I do not believe that FAMILY stands for “Father And Mother I Love You”… (as seriously suggested in a recent piece of spam…)
I do believe that what is here now is the real spring.