With Empor Berlin, led by Fritz Heiber, with start from U-Bahn Platz der Luftbrücke. Very interesting, but unfortunately cut short due to the heat – upwards of 30C and a merciless mid-day sun.

From Paradestraße I walked home via the northern end of Tempelhofer Feld, close to the airport building, so with everything included, I still managed about 12 km.

My route on MapMyWalk here.

Seeing Hangars 4 and 5 so close by, I was reminded how much I look forward to the annual art fair – Positions – which takes place there. Apart from a lot of great contemporary art, it is a good opportunity to see the hangars inside. I have an invitation for a guest and myself for the duration of the fair and plan to go on Thursday, 14 September in the afternoon. If somebody reads this, is available at that time and would like to join me, please let me know.

Great to see so many wildflowers on the former airfield. No birds to speak of, apart from the obligatory crows, but lots of insects – butterflies too small and quick to be able to take decent photos of them (but I am posting some here anyway) and thousands of incredibly well camouflaged grasshoppers.

One of the things I like about Tempelhofer Feld is that in addition to the take-off and landing strips, there are still relics from when it was an airport scattered all over the place, unlike for example Johannistal which has been redesigned to the point that would never guess it was a former airport.

My first, but definitely not my last, walk with Empor Berlin, very pleasant and informative. Led by Eckehard Fritz Heiber.

But I have to say this: I was once again shocked to hear so many Germans my age plus/minus ten years say how they no longer like to live in Berlin because of “all those foreigners who have more rights than them”. (I hasten to add that I am quite sure they are not referring to the likes of, for example, me). I usually just keep my mouth shut, and sometimes walk away, but one of these days I will have to ask them exactly what rights it is that they would like to have but feel they do not have.

I find this kind of attitude from people from one of the most priviledged parts of of the world really hard to stomach. I do admit that they did not have as easy a start in life as I did, and they have some demons which I do not have, but like me, they grew up in a spirit of optimism and progress, and have had all the civil, human and political rights served to them on a silver platter. We in northern Europe, now in our sixties and seventies, have probably lived through the best times, and in the best part of the world, which this planet has ever, and will ever see again.

We cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like to be forced to leave everything behind and migrate (like so many have done all the way up through history and they are not responsible for any – none – of the problems plaguing the planet and world today), because we have never come even close to having to make that decision (except totally voluntarily and for completely different reasons than today’s asylum seekers) – I certainly know I can’t – so to whine that they have more rights than we do is petty, ignorant, callous, heartless, and – well, actually, words fail me, and the kind of attitude I used to meet from some people in Denmark, but I thought Berlin was better than that.

Incidentally, it was the same people who insisted on calling today’s Christopher Street Day celebrations a demo and not a parade (as in: an inconvenience, and there ought to be a law against it, rather than an event which several hundreds thousand people attend and enjoy). Sigh.

So with that off my chest, here is the route on MapMyWalk, and below are some photos from the walk. Bonus tip: Right at the end of the line of bus M45 (which can be taken from Bahnhof Zoo, U Ruhleben, and Bhf Rathaus Spandau) there is a restaurant – Heidis Landgasthaus – with a nice garden. Needless to say, I stopped there for a coffee before taking the bus back towards Bhf Rathaus Spandau.

(Many jokes were made about the “lioness on the loose in Kleinmachnow”).