The Life of a Danish Pensioner in Berlin

Two years cancer free (and boob free but you can’t have everything)

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Many second anniversaries this summer.

Two years since diagnosis; two years since I was told I would most likely not need chemo; two years since final decision on double mastectomy without reconstruction; two years since Max my dog moved to his new home – that was schlimm but I had invaluable help from my neighbours Sabine and Frank, and I was so glad my brother and sister-in-law were here that week).  I am already past those anniversaries and coming up is the two years after surgery, and a week later final confirmation that all margins were clear and I would not even need radiation.

Another steep learning curve and meeting new friends in similar situations. Many thoughts still going through my head. Why am I so lucky when women much younger than me are not? About trying to live as healthily as possible with the dual purpose of a) avoiding recurrence (which they say is not likely to happen at my age – in other words I will have died of other causes, but as I increasingly see in other examples – cancer is totally unpredictable – positively as well as negatively), and b) mitigating the side effects of the hormone blockers which some call the evil, turbo-aging pill.

Thoughts about the inequality in health care – even between neighbouring countries like Denmark and Germany – from what I hear from women in Denmark, I am definitely in a better position and could not have been in better hands, and that is the sentiment I still feel. Excellent follow-up and support from both gynecologist and GP, and even from my ophthalmologist 😊 who, when I was a bit anaemic post-surgery advised against iron supplements and told me one spoonful of Molasses (who knew?) would have my iron levels back to normal within days. Small detail, but demonstrates an interest.

About being beyond flat and trying to find clothing styles that camouflage the concavities a bit, rather than wearing the highly uncomfortable and impractical, albeit health-insurance-paid prosthetics and wondering why nothing a bit more comfortable has been invented yet and why we who no longer have breasts but are alive have to suffer further from saving society the costs of complications, implant syndrome etc.

But also about people who I thought were friends who fell totally silent when told about my diagnosis, as in NOT ONE WORD, which I guess might be better than “if there is anything I can do …..” which usually does not mean anything anyway. And not only that, later, even now, I get questions like can I recommend an exhibition, or a restaurant. Just like that. Not even good to see you back on your feet so quickly, for example. As if nothing happened.

I will try to organise all of these thoughts in the following, but I am well aware that I might be repeating myself since much of it is already described in this and subsequent categories: https://www.hellemoller.eu/category/a-bump-in-the-road-summer-2022/.

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Photography: Personal favourites from the year 2022

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Photography: Personal favourites 2024 June

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The Life of a Danish Pensioner in Berlin

Weimar and Buchenwald 3-5 July 2024

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Main purpose: to get away from Cresco’s infinity project next door, with its incessant noise which has now ruined every summer for us since about 2018. And now I don’t think Victoriahöfe, or Victoria zu Berlin as they now pompously call it, will ever be finished. Nobody seems interested in ever finishing it. Then rather continue to make life an eternal misery for everyone living in the area. As if the fact that it is one of the ugliest buildings in world is not enough to ruin the day for everyone looking at it.

Secondary purpose, to visit this exhibition in three parts:

“Together, the three parts of “Bauhaus and National Socialism” present a new, often uncomfortable history of the Bauhaus and its legacies. For, long after 1945, the illusion of modernism—and the Bauhaus with it—as uniquely “good” and “persecuted” persisted. As the fates of many Bauhaus members show, an innovative artistic attitude alone does not protect against the seductions of fascism. Therefore the role of art in a liberal and cosmopolitan society is a question that animates the exhibition in all three of its venues.”

But upon arrival in Weimar, I started with a visit to the Buchenwald Memorial.

I have lost count of the number of people who have asked me why I “keep visiting those places”. First of all, since the fall of the wall (1989), I have now visited a breathtaking total of three concentration camps: Ravensbrück, which can be visited on a daytrip from Berlin, Sachsenhausen, likewise, as part of a walk with Empor Berlin, and now Buchenwald, since I was visiting Weimar anyway. Hardly a matter of “keep visiting”.

I always ignore the question, since I do not feel that I have to justify anything to anybody, but if I were to, one of my reasons would be that “those places” are a significant part of the very recent history of the part of the world in which I have always lived and worked, and the country, in which I was a frequent tourist for many years, and where I have chosen to live since 2016.

Since I do not wish to hear their answers, I never ask people to justify them trying to pretend that that chapter never happened. It is a bit like with anti-vaxxers – I really do not want to hear what they have to say on the subject.

I do know that some of them would say that a visit would depress them. Oh dear. Or that it would make them feel queasy. Well, boohoo. Scarred for life then, are we? Newsflash: It is not about you.

Anyway, a strange thing happened this morning when I was trying to find the bus from Weimar to Buchenwald: The bus station in Weimar is being renovated, stops relocated, and the place is confusing, so:

Me, to a friendly-faced lady, around my age, perhaps a little older: Do you know this area well?

Her: Lived here all my life.

Me: Would this be the right direction to the Buchenwald Memorial?

Her, looking a little puzzled: Is that near here?

Me, feeling more than a little puzzled: Apparently a twenty-minute bus ride away.

Her: But surely, the bus stop would not actually be called THAT?

True story. Talk about being in denial.

PS: Actually it is (called THAT).

The mind boggles. But anyway, here are some photos. What always strikes me during my “many” visits to “those places” is the idyllic surroundings.

Day two and three:

On the way to the first museum, a name which is familiar in Berlin, too:

Museum Neues Weimar

“The Bauhaus as a Site of Political Contest, 1919-1933, illuminates artistic and political conflicts at the Bauhaus. These began with the founding of the art and design school in Weimar and continued unabated when the Bauhaus moved to Dessau and Berlin.”

Bauhaus Museum

“Removed – Confiscated – Assimilated, 1930/1937, focuses on the “Degenerate Art” confiscations in 1937 and the campaign that preceded it in Weimar. As early as 1930, authorities had ordered the removal of over 70 works by artists such as Lyonel Feininger and Paul Klee from the Weimar Castle Museum. In 1937, more than 450 works were confiscated – a cultural loss to Weimar’s collections that is still felt today.”

Bonus tip: a nice café inside the museum (downstairs), and a good Vietnamese restaurant on the corner of the same square.

Schiller-Museum 

“The core of the exhibition deals with Bauhaus members “Living in the Dictatorship, 1933-1945″. It addresses the balancing acts they performed in the face of the new political circumstances after 1933. Many Bauhäusler had few choices; under an anti-leftist and racist regime, they lost their jobs and were forced into exile. At least twenty-one Bauhaus students perished in ghettos and concentration camps. However, the majority were not targets of the Nazi regime. In fact, they participated in propaganda exhibitions and design fairs, and they designed film posters, furniture, household goods, and even busts of Hitler.”

This, for me, was the most interesting of the three Bauhaus/Nazi-related exhibitions. However, the other two museums were interesting because of their other content and so should not be missed in this context.

Random photos from walking between museums and around Weimar:

The Balcony that "would not be affected"

Can anyone explain?

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Here is another phenomenon I don’t understand – perhaps someone can explain: If occupants of an apartment building have been plagued by noise and other nuisances from a construction site for years (and in my case the size of my balcony was halved for a couple of years, at the height of the pandemic when it would have been really nice to have the full use of my balcony), then those owners who are renting out their flats while living somewhere else will get compensation, so that they can (choose to) compensate their tenants, but the owners who live in the flats themselves will not be compensated. Is it just me who can’t see the logic in that? Cresco Capital Group

The Balcony that "would not be affected"

Where is the sense of proportion in this country?

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As detailed in this category, the building next door has been under renovation for about seven years which has meant an inferno of noise, and for example, I have not been able to use my balcony for as many summers, for one reason or the other, including this summer, which has perhaps so far been the noisiest of all because they are pretending to be doing some landscape gardening downstairs.

During all this time, our Hausverwaltung has been mostly silent and seemingly more on the side of the investors next door than on ours.

Imagine my surprise, then, when this morning I received a letter (yes – as in snailmail – how absurd and laughable is that in itself?) informing me that the fence downstairs between our plot of land and that of the monstrosity next door will be replaced this week. End of.

Now, when I receive an actual letter, as in by Deutsche Post, I assume it is about something important, and which will have consequences for me and/or require some sort of action from my side. So I opened it.

But that is literally all they write. Not a word about why they are telling us this after basically never having warned us about particularly noisy weeks months and years. Not to mention the scaffolding and debris which prevented me from using my balcony for at least two summers, one of which was at the height of the pandemic when it would have been really nice to have the use of that outdoor space. Especially since I was promised at the beginning that my balcony would not be affected. One of, as it has turned out, many lies told to me since I moved to Berlin.

Seriously? Is that all they wanted to tell us – by LETTER, as if we don’t have eyes in our heads and can see what is happening? WHY BOTHER TO SEND A LETTER about something so unimportant, trivial, and non-conseqential after having ignored all the real problems we have been having basically for the last handful of years????? Who cares that an old FENCE is being removed and replaced by a new one?

The Life of a Danish Pensioner in Berlin

Starting to think about next travels. Kostrzyn, ….. Katowice, …… Georgia, …..?

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Before Covid19, I was quite systematically visiting cities and towns in Poland, and did manage quite a lot, since that is now my new neighbouring country, but recently, I seem to have forgotten that project, except those that can be reached on foot from Frankfurt/Oder and Görlitz.

I have also always been hearing good things about Georgia. Unfortunately, in the meantime, I decided to never fly again, so I may have to abandon that principle briefly, unless I want to spend three days getting there.

But for now, I am looking for good websites about all of the above.

Already visited Gdansk, Krakow, Lodz, Lublin, Poznan, Szczecin, Torun, Warsaw, and Wroclaw. Would like to visit Warsaw again.

The Life of a Danish Pensioner in Berlin

Visitors on my balcony June 2024

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A rare honour nowadays. Despite my attempts to attract pollinators by sowing several pots of wildflowers amongst the herbs, only the marjoram attracted a couple of visitors.

More unwelcome visitors are the pigeons, rats with wings, that seem to be looking for nesting places almost all year round. One afternoon I watched one flying in and out of a neighbour’s porch with construction material. I think it has been discovered in the meantime and the structure disposed of. It is not nice to return home from holiday, for example, to find a nest full of eggs, or worse ……..

I am still trying to photograph the swifts that are sometimes swarming in great numbers near my balcony, but even with my camera locked and loaded, and a lot of the time perfect light conditions, they are too, well …. swift …..

The Life of a Danish Pensioner in Berlin

Pfaueninsel 28 June 2024

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I am not sure why it has taken me so long to visit “Peacock Island“, except perhaps the fact that I have never really liked peacocks (pompous divas) nor old buildings, nor manicured parks, and all those are represented there.

Bus 218 leaves from S Bahn Station Wannsee once every hour (on weekends twice every hour) and stops by the small ferry which leaves more or less on demand and the rides takes about fifteen seconds. A return ticket costs 6 euro and can be bought from machines – one for cash and one for cards.

As it turned out, most of the buildings there are currently being renovated and therefore scaffolded and inaccessible, so I ended up taking many more photos of peacocks than I had expected.

Fortunately, it is not all overly-manicured park – there are some more unkempt areas more to do with real nature. I heard many birds, but saw just a few. Mid summer is not the best time for birdwatching.

I was pleased to ascertain that peacocks are clumsy and inelegant flyers :-).

The island is easily walkable, though due to the occasional thunder and heavy rain, I did not stay long enough to walk all around it and am therefore definitely planning to go back.

There is a kind of café with food kind of one step up from junk food, and what looked like nice, homemade cakes, and there is also a rather large restaurant on “the mainland” just by the ferry.

Definitely a nice day out

Favourite recipes

Stuffed eggplant – Indian Bharwa Baingan – or that was the plan

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IN PROGRESS

I was unable to find the right type of eggplant, so I decided to use the purple ones which are available everywhere. I also decided against stuffing them, which made it a lot less messy but also the end result a lot less elegant. Hopefully, the flavour is still OK. Here is what I did:

2 medium,sized, purple eggplants, cut into wedges

For what was to be the stuffing – now the marinade:

  • 1 teaspoon oil
  • 1 tblsp coriander seeds
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds
  • 2 dried red chilli peppers (broken into pieces) or the equivalent quantity of whatever form of chili you have available
  • 4 green cardamom pods
  • 4 cloves
  • 1 medium red onion (chopped)
  • 50 g cashew nuts
  • 2 tblsp sesame seeds (I am using black ones)
  • 50 g grated coconut

  • 4 tblsp coriander leaves
  • 1 tblsp garam masala (despite my best intentions, I have not yet gotten round to making my own, so am using storebought)
  • 2 tblsp dark brown sugar (or molasses, but then a bit less due to the strong flavour
  • ½ tsp turmeric
  • ½ to 1 tsp cayenne pepper or any other kind of chili pepper you have available – to taste
  • Salt to taste

Heat 1 tsp oil t on medium heat, add coriander seeds, cumin seeds, cloves, cardamom pods and chili, saute until the coriander seeds are a light reddish-brown and all the spices are very aromatic, about 2-3 minutes on medium heat.

Add one chopped red onion and saute until it softens.

Add cashews and sesame seeds and saute for a couple more minutes over medium heat. Then add the grated coconut and sauté for a couple of minutes. Take off the heat and add turmeric, brown sugar, and garam masala, and salt, mix well, and set aside to cool enough to be added to a blender and blended into a coarse past.

Pour this paste over the eggplant wedges and leave them to marinade while your prepare the rest.

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 tblsp oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

Pinch asafetida

  • 2 red onions finely diced
  • 1 knob fresh garlic, minced
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 medium potatoes of type that will not fall apart easily, halved and then quartered

1 red onion, finely chopped

4 potatoes in wedges

  • In the same wok or skillet add 1 tablespoon oil over medium-high heat. Add mustard seeds and when they sputter add cumin seeds and asafetida. Stir in the last cup of onions. Saute until the onions begin to brown.
  • Stir in ginger and garlic and saute for a couple more minutes.
  • Place the stuffed eggplants in the wok in a single layer.
  • Mix the sliced potatoes with any leftover masala in the bowl and add to the wok or pan, arranging the potatoes carefully on the sides of and between the eggplant.
  • Add the tin of chopped tomato along the edges of the vegetables. Once the liquid bubbles and boils, cover the pot. Turn heat down to medium low and let the eggplants cook about 15-20 minutes. Add a little water along the edges as needed to ensure the eggplants and potatoes don’t stick, or if you want a saucier dish.
  • After the eggplants have cooked for 10 minutes, turn them around gently to so they cook evenly on all sides. Use a spoon or small ladle to ensure you don’t mash the eggplants or potatoes.
  • Once the eggplants are very soft, turn off the heat, garnish with cilantro and serve hot.

The life of a Danish pensioner in Berlin