Where Would I Cycle Without Bridges?

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I’ve gone off on a tangent, I admit, but once I found the Jack London quote I just had to.

“Ever bike? Now that’s something that makes life worth living!…Oh, to just grip your handlebars and lay down to it, and go ripping and tearing through streets and road, over railroad tracks and bridges, threading crowds, avoiding collisions, at twenty miles or more an hour, and wondering all the time when you’re going to smash up. Well, now, that’s something! And then go home again after three hours of it…and then to think that tomorrow I can do it all over again!”

Jack London

Although there were motorbikes as early as 1885, the way Jack London describes it I believe he was talking about cycling. Which is also born out by a number of mountain bike tracks named after the author.

Wednesday Quotes #11

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Howyadoing?

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Anybody not from the area around Frankfurt would look quite flabbergasted if greeted with “Ei gude wie?” It’s in the dialect of the area. We live barely 80km to the South, we understand the words but would never use them ourselves.

FOWC with Fandango: Dialect

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Times Going By

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The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin has seen its share of history. It was built in the last decade of the 18th century. Twenty years later it saw the downfall of Napoleon. The French troops had taken the Quadriga (the four horses and the carriage on top) to Paris and General Blücher found it in Paris and brought it back to its original place.

After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 it saw the victory parade and until the end of the first World War only the Prussian Emperor and his immediate family as well as honoured guests were allowed to use the middle passage.

The Nazis celebrated their seizure of control over the German state with a massive torchlight possession through its arches. The gate then was quite heavily damaged during the fights in Berlin at the end of World War II.

On 17 June 1953 it was one of the sites of the uprising in East Germany. From 1961 to 1989 it couldn’t be crossed at all because it stood on the border between the two German states.

Today it is almost a casual place.

FOWC with Fandango: Historic

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One of the Last Days of Winter or Earliest Days of Spring

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I went exploring yesterday in a new area which was dismal. Still brown and grey and no colours anway. But the overgrown path looked as if it wanted to suck me into a tunnel.

The only thing that hinted at the end of winter were the little white blooms on the blackthorns, the earliest bloomers in the woods.

Yet there was something in the air that promised more colours to come (see the hint of blue in the sky?).

The Cosmic Photo Challenge: Out in Nature

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The Admin Building

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I showed the institutional care building which is being partly demolished last week. This week there is a glimpse of the administration building which will be kept. I particularly like the five narrow windows with the sandstone frames.

Monday Window

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