reunification

It's stern and cold here. In the quarter where I live, (Holbeinstrasse area) the buildings are old, basic, and have coal burning ovens instead of central heating. The streets are all old, the enormous trees are too. In another part of the city there are newer buildings and huge estates of empty factories. There are miles of canals, isolated steel bridges with english words scratched into them, rickety pavements with thick tarmac squeezed into the gaps. At least a hundred blocks of empty buildings, cracked stain glass windows and cellars full of soot. The streets are so quiet. Even in the middle of the day I wonder where everyone is. Either people stay indoors a lot or the houses are empty.

Yesterday was the aniversary of the reunification of East and West Germany. My new flat mates had a party. All the men sat in the kitchen getting drunk whilst the girls sat in another room and smoked cigarettes.