The Lakes
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer quite the other way
I have to go to bed by day.
~Robert Louis Stevenson
Summer is finally here and Berliners celebrate this highly anticipated arrival by going to the lakes, where they commune with nature as only an urbanite can. Surrounded by other fellow seekers of the bucolic, beer in hand, they will once more reach the conclusion that food does tastes better outdoors, together with other platitudes on mother nature that would even make a Na’vi blush. Our ancestors spent most of their time outdoors, farming, hunting, gathering berries, and hitting bears and other people with big sticks when they ran out of berries. In the Old Testament one of the Hebrew words used for “wilderness” is “a haunt of wild beasts and nomads”. The remaining ones are not particularly flattering either.
But anyway, back to the lakes. Spring might be marked with the year’s first ice cream - a key date in any Berliner’s calendar - but Summer is all about the lakes, coincidentally the first time that it is appropriately warm enough to eat a Solero. The lakes not only provide much needed cooling vistas, but are also surrounded by forests. And Berliners, like all Germans, LOVE forests. In fact, a stroll through the forest must be in the top five favourite German pastimes, up there with beer festivals, grilling things nine months of the year, and compound words that are more a parade of syllables than proper nouns.
Surrounded by these benevolent trees, Berliners will sit in the meadow, inhale the pure air, and smoke many a hand rolled cigarette. When they are not asking other equally placid groups for Feuer, of course. Given their fondness for nicotine, Berlin’s chronic shortage of lighters is an endless source of perplexity, especially since the humble lighter seems to have more uses than a Swiss army knife. It is, for instance, a well known fact that the bottle opener has yet to be invented round here, and how else are you supposed to light the barbecue? In other countries, carrying an unlimited supply of lighters, particularly near forests, might invite suspicion. In Berlin you will be seen as a local hero.
Personally, I no longer smoke. See you down the lakes!
