woman walking down the street

ciggy bug

Die Oberbaum Brücke - The Oberbaum Bridge

I have had many good moments walking home in the morning over the Oberbaum Bridge. It's one of the prettiest bridges in Berlin with some of my favorite views. It's the site of the yearly Friedrichshain versus Kreuzberg vegetable fight.

It's appeared in the Bourne Identity, although that movie is a little funny because they have scenes that appear in Berlin and they have signs up pretending that it's Moscow. We know better.

There are always all sorts of fascinating people passing by when I walk on the bridge, and incidentally, I am usually alone when I go from Kreuzberg to Friedrichshain. This place marked the border between East and West Berlin, and there were guard towers all along either sides of the river. Only after the wall came down did the train server start running freely again. Where once barbed wire and the Wall stood, there's now a sandy beach overlooking the Spree and the low throb of techno music. But only in the summer.

To the left you can see the television tower and to the right the great steel sculptures of men wrestling as the river flows east. Tourists like to stand on the bridge and take photographs; on one side inside the protective brick pedestrian tunnel you can watch bicyclists whipping by at suicidal speeds, aggressive even to the automobiles. There are always strange couples having some kind of dramatic fight here: a crying girl yelling at her boyfriend, or silent fights where one person just sags and looks away.

While there is graffiti, it seems that the officials knew what they were doing and sprayed the bricks with some kind of high tech stuff, so there is no tagging on the red stone, just one the occasional door, or even when someone tries to write something on the sidewalk. The bridge is also resistant to street art and glue, and there are relatively few flyers here for all the big parties and punk rock events and political tracts.

I have stood looking at the bridge from so many angles over the years. What I remember most are the quiet, contemplative moments when I was considering my life, and I don't ever remember being especially upset or sad or even happy. I was always on this bridge during moments of peace, watching the reflections in the Spree and seeing life going by.

IF by rudyard kipling

I will never be a man, but I always liked this poem. There is a lot to be said for overcoming adversity and becoming a better person.

IF.....

by Rudyard Kipling

IF you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!' If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, ' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

the male of the species