Back again

Back from Germany. We spent the last ten days home. This trip had the shortest planning time of my life. The reason was a sad one, a funeral. So we booked RyanAir tickets and were airborne less than 24 hrs later. Arriving in Lübeck I noticed once again how calm Germany is. It felt appropriate and welcome, though. After the hustle of India, the uncertainty of our own life in Cambridge, the grey skies and the reserved nature of the people in Schleswig-Holstein seemed like a relief.
Days later I made my way to Berlin via Münster. Job interview. It went incredibly well, and know I have to face the prospect of moving to Westfalen. Why not, it seems like a very pleasant part of Germany. We'll be spending a fair amount of thought on that.
Berlin was great as ever. It's such a cool place. We walked around the banks of the Spree, passing the Paul-Löbe Haus, peeking into the foyer, where the MdBs (the parliamentarians) walk and lobby around. We walked quite a bit, and that evening, I walked out of a Schlingensief production. Kunst und Gemüse, Theater ALS Krankheit. A play about Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. We were naïve enough to walk into the theatre without knowing a thing about the play... Trust Schlingensief to make you wrench, give you a headache and just be plain annoying(*). We left, got our money back and went to a Sushi bar. My parents stayed and watched the play. Isn't it kinda cool when the older generation is more open minded than the younger one ;). They didn't like it either, though, but had the stomach to sit through 90 minutes of disorientating mayhem. We talked at length about how the theatre scene in Germany is so different from that here in Britain. And even though I love surrealist painting, the writings of Breton, or most of what Damien Hirst does, I can't stand much of what is put on stage in avant garde places in Germany. I just don't get it, it just assaults my senses, and I can't properly cope with any of their images. If they want to communicate anything meaningful, please, adjust the volume, and I'm happy to listen.
The exhibition in Kiel was much more interesting. Shanghai Modern, chinese paintings from the 1930s. I had no idea that there was a great fascination of chinese artists with european art at that time. They took up styles and were assessing their own work in view of the modernists in Europe. Those must have been exciting times. Both Mao and the Nazis put an end to that exchange. Sixty years onwards, and people are apparently starting to reopen that chapter.



(*) Disclaimer: As this is a (semi-) public forum, I should probably add that my annoyances are directed against the production of the play, and not against sufferers of this terrible and debilitating disease. I would have gladly donated the entrance fee to a fund aiming at helping these people.