Spring?!

So, first of all, sometime in the last two days (or perhaps today? I've lost track...) is the marker of one year in Berlin for me. I have officially experienced all the days in Berlin, minus a few scattered ones when I've been out of town. I'm not sure if I have a favorite. Perhaps any day when I don't have to work. Currently, I am back at BESSY (see a few posts below, if you've forgotten) doing more long shifts of synchrotron work. Two weeks more and then it's finished. This week is the night shift for me and next week should be days. Did I mention before that I don't particularly like putting in long shifts at the synchrotron? I think I must have. In any case, two more weeks... Then, back to getting a second try at experiencing all of the days in Berlin. Still lots that I haven't done, so I shouldn't be lacking in new things to experience.


Ok, so when I work at my normal institute (and not at BESSY) I am down in an area of the Berlin that is normally referred to as Dahlem. This is no longer recognized as the name of one of the official districts of Berlin (it has now been consolidated into a larger district called Zehlendorf). But, Dahlem still sticks for the most part when people are describing the area. It is generally considered a boring area where rich people live and nothing exciting happens. That's of course a big part of why I chose not to live there near my institute. But, one of the cool things about the area is that there are so many flowers and flowering trees around. Though Berlin in general really has quite a bit of park land, this is still a big change from the stinky alleyways covered with graffiti in a lot of other parts of the city. I've been enjoying the flowers as they've bloomed in spring and taken some photos along the way.
Here's a pink one before it had fully bloomed.

And after.

And there were purple flowers.


And flowers with little fingers.


And spiky ones.


Some were green...


And subsequently turned white.


Some dropped their petals so that you felt like royalty as you walked over them.

And some even looked like miniature bananas...


These are just a few of the pictures which I took on the way back and forth to eat lunch at work. Springtime is here! Kind of. The weather has been quite cool. I, for one, blame the volcano ;).

Speaking of the walk to lunch from work, there is one other interesting site on that route. Often on the way, you'll start hearing some faint crowing noise of some sort. Then, as you get closer, you can discern the noise as "cockadoodledoo" or as the Germans would say "kikeriki". I'm not kidding. The Germans have quite a few different phonetic equivalents for animal noises. Perhaps a German rooster and an American rooster wouldn't even understand each other ;). In any case, this is not just one rooster. It's a whole pack of them. Some guy has them running around in his front yard just 3 minutes walk from my institute. At least I think they're all roosters... Anyway, it's always quite interesting to go peek at them through a hole in the fence. One of them usually comes over to investigate and peeks right back at you, through the hole in the other direction. Somehow, they're just as curious what's going on outside, as I am on the inside.