Here comes the sun! :)

Well I thought the day would never come - but here it is!! :) Berlin has broken into sunshine and carnival! I walked down Bergmannstr and felt the warm summer's sun hit my skin and I think my heart was skipping for joy! (Dorky maybe but you'd know how I felt if you'd been through the kind of winter we've just had in Berlin! ;) Cafes put their tables back outside and they were packed with sun worshipers sipping on coffee and soaking up the atmosphere. Musicians ambled down the street with saxophone and accordions in hand playing songs for money... and people were smiling... glowing with relief that the sun was here at last! :)

A couple of days ago my housemate told me about a cemetery further down the street where we live. He said it was well worth a visit because quite a few famous philosophers, musicians and poets are buried there. So I let the sunshine guide me and thought I'd go have a look. Well the place was beautiful! Spring flowers had pushed their way through the earth and I even saw a red squirrel!! I've only ever seen the grey ones before in England so I was pretty amazed. I took a picture to put up here but it didn't really come out - plus the squirrel kept running away from me! (Who can blame him!) Red squirrels have these huuuge ears that I don't think the grey ones have... so cute!

Well I didn't spot any names on the graves that I recognised but I wasn't really looking. I also need a couple more German culture lessons to know who all these people are. My housemate is Costa Rican but lived in Berlin since he was eight and seems to have a really strong sense of pride about German history (no not the nasty stuff) - the good stuff that no one ever hears about, like how a German explorer first discovered South America (I think) and was very peace loving with the natives before the Spanish explorers came and killed everyone off ... or at least something along these lines. Every time I talk to him he has another story to tell about a German philosopher and painter and how wonderful German culture is - so I guess he'd be a good teacher! :)

It's really hard to believe it was snowing just a couple of days ago! The only evidence of snow I saw was a little leftover pile of snow by a statue in the cemetery. Even with the warm weather it stood its ground. I love these contrasts. It's sooooo nice to experience seasons again after three years in Dubai!