Gardening and pruning

Once again into Lichtenberg to make the stamen of my hibiscus. What? I'm sorry, I'm thought this had something to do with running, and maybe sightseeing but not the anatomical parts of plants. Well you're kind of right, but as I run my routes, I'm also trying to draw a huge picture of some hibiscus over Berlin. Hopefully you can start to see it by now. I do have to admit a bit of cheating pruning, this week however. When I started, I didn't quite know what picture I wanted to paint with my footsteps. My routes were quite long and always started and ended where I lived. As my training steps up a gear, my routes are longer and in order to make the perfect petal or leaf, I don't always draw a line back to my flat. So I've done a bit of pruning, removing some of the old route lines, so that my picture is clearer. There, its out, admitted, nothing left to hide!




Talking of pruning, my run today took me past two gardening projects in Lichtenberg. We've had flower shops, footpath gardens, allotments and now community gardens. One standing proud and completed and the other in its infancy, with pictures of what will be growing rather forlornly attached to the fence.

Tempelhof airport

Just did a half marathon without even realising it; had one of the Forest Gump days when you can just keep going for ages. I had just intended to go up the hill to Neukölln and draw the 'stem' of my flower, but when I got out to the edge of the airport, I couldn't resist going round it.

Couldn't resist running round an airport? I know it might sound mad, but Tempelhof has been closed since 2008 and is in the process of being turned into a huge park. It has huge, windswept grassland for wild flowers, birds and kite surfers, and concrete tracks for inline skaters, cyclists and joggers - round the outside or directly down the runway in the middle. For those less sporty, there are BBQ areas, a beer garden and festivals in the summer (as well as the runners preparation area for the Berlin marathon). And so no-one forgets its original purpose or historic airlift in 1948/9, the airport building and a couple of old planes remain.

 

The airport was closed in an effort to consolidate Berlin's air traffic to two main airports. I am pretty amazed (and pleased) that city officials decided to turn it into a park - they must have fought off stiff lobbying from property developers. But it is not the first time old transport venues have been turned into parks. My old map of Berlin shows that Görlitzer Park was once an railway station.

War graves and memorials

There are a number of war cemeteries around Berlin. The Commonwealth one (in West Berlin) and Soviet one (in Treptower Park) stand proud and in pristine condition to remember their dead. But for understandable reasons, there is no such monument to commemorate the German soldiers killed during the second world war. As the author of this Times article suggests, many are still not sure how to view the ordinary German soldier - criminal or hero. The German war graves commission - in undertaking its responsibility for the final resting places of Germans killed during the war, abroad and at home - is conciliatory in its explanation. It talks about their work as a way of learning lessons from history. There is no one memorial, but they look after graves in cemeteries across the country, including around 10 in Berlin.

What prompted me to find this out was this war cemetery in Lichtenberg which I've run past a few types. In contrast to the Allied and Soviet memorials, it is a boarded up and graffitied over church-like building, with only the sign to reveal its purpose. Its not one of the cemeteries that the war graves commission looks after and I can't find out anything about it. And I think its this difference - an unremarked-upon memorial in a unremarkable street - that makes the deaths of those buried within it even more poignant. A very different type of tomb of the unknown soldier.

Schrebergarten and DDR era housing estates

I've been wanting to post about Schrebergarten for ages. Although I've seen these collections of small gardens when I've been out and about, this is the first time I've come across them while running. They are a bit similar to allotments that we have in England and elsewhere, but they are a) nearer or in the city itself and b) not just about the veg.

Because the majority of people live in apartments, with or without balconies, some people also have a Schrebergarten where they can not only grow fruit and veg, but also just hang out out in the summer (and even stay overnight). And so the ones I've seen have loads of flowers, garden sheds, inflatable paddling pools and deck chairs. Apparently (according to my German teacher), they can get very bureaucratic, with precise measurements of how tall things can grow and what can be planted. But they look great to me, especially having run through southern Lichtenberg, which is made up of road after road of later DDR era housing estates.

 

I can see how planners in the 60s and 70s thought that this made sense - it feels logical, fair and practical. You have your flat to live in, your garden to relax in and amenities close by. But for me, it does miss something that makes it individual, organic and less, well, planned. Like this random hunting couple atop a brass hippo fountain that I passed as I came back under the bridge to Friedrichshain.

Recycling and fleamarkets

Running round the same suburban streets as earlier in the week. Normal people leading normal lives in an unremarkable sort of way. So seems sensible to write something about a very normal, and nearly everyday activity here - recycling. Germany is really into recycling. Lots of sources say they are the number one country for recycling in the world, with the average consumer recycling 76kg every year. There are laws that support it - in the early 90s a law was passed which meant that food and drink producers have to take back their packaging for recycling. And as even Lord Alan demonstrated this week, waste management is big business. In Germany, the sector makes 50 billion euros a year.

So what does it practically mean for you or me? Firstly you have to sort your household rubbish into bins for paper, food, glass, plastics which have a green 'recyclable' dot on them, and other. So you have to have lots of bins! Then you have to sort your glass. Brown, green and white can go into bins in the street - but not on Sunday - when it is against the law to make a loud noise. But you can also make some money out of it. Stores will buy back empty bottles - for about 8 euro cents each. After a good weekend that could mean nearly two euros! This hasn't passed some entrepreneurial types by. There are plenty of homeless people out and about on Friday and Saturday nights picking up the discarded bottles of trendy hipsters on their night out.

The recycling philosophy doesn't just stop at household waste. It feels very much like an engrained way of life here. There are tons of great flea markets across Berlin where you can pick up anything from antiques like 19th century globes, 1950s armchairs and 1930s radios, to more modern items such as shower heads, inline skates and even 1980s jumpsuits! There is a good, but bit pricey one on Boxhagener Platz every Sunday, a bigger more eclectic one at Mauerpark again on Sundays and my favourite in Treptower Park (Eichenstr 4) on Saturdays. There are no nice cafés and its a bit dirty (think I did see a rat) but its cheap, you can bargain and where else can you buy a collection of toilet wheelchairs?

Telephone boxes

My next few routes all take me up past the gorgeous, italian looking Tuchollaplatz (thanks google street view) and into Lichtenburg proper. It feels like a completely different town - you only have to go under the railway bridge and you find yourself in a quiet residential, suburbia. Bicycles seem to have been replaced by cars and only one café every four blocks rather than four cafés every block on the other side of the tracks. True to my original aim, with my camera in my pocket, I kept my eyes peeled for something to note. I have to admit that half-way round I was struggling. Due to the heatwave we've been having, it was early in the morning but there were enough people about for something to crop up.... but nothing.

 

Suddenly, I noticed that the last three telephone boxes I had run past were all different. Maybe being from England where the red telephone box is such a national symbol made me more sensitive to variations in how people house their telephony. In any case, telephone boxes used to be yellow, until T-mobile made them bright pink. But while looking for some interesting facts about the boxes on the internet, I came across this one which has been turned into a library. Which a village in Somerset has also down with our beloved telephone boxes.  Amazing.

Spreepark

 

My marathon training plan has me taking it up a notch with 15km run around Treptower Park and Planterswald in the east of the city. I actually ran round a bit of it in my moving-house-internet-less days which is how I came across the abandoned amusement rides that I mentioned in an earlier post. Peering through fence which is overgrown with greenery, the rides look like they belong to a magical, but eery, fantasy land. There are rusting rollercoasters, swan-boats that seem to have triumphed over a T-rex now slumped on his side, and a huge ferris wheel that still peeks out from above the tree tops. In my previous post I said that the owner had taken some of the rides with him to Peru. I've since found out that he also tried to take them back to Germany, with 180kg of cocaine hidden in them, and promptly got jailed for drug smuggling.

Normally you can't get inside unless you jump the fence. But last weekend the park was opened for a weekend festival. The rides weren't working, but we were with our friend who used to go as a kid and explained how scared he was the first time he realised it was actually not within his Dad's power to stop the ride. With so many people around, it wasn't as spooky as when you peer into the 

woodland silence, but I did get to sit in the 

T'Rex's mouth without being scared it might spring into life. Also found this article describing the campaign angle to the festival - that income from the growing Berlin tourist industry should be more fairly distributed among the city, and that we need to reconsider capitalist lifestyles that allow no time for leisure. And I would definitely agree with that.