I am currently working in Berlin, a city I am quite familiar with in a production of the NOVOFLOT OPER to premier on the 24th of September. We are still in this gloomy sort of weather pattern that has persisted since the beginning of August. It has been cold enough to freeze some of the tomatoes in my greenhouse which is saying something. At any rate some thoughts about working and traveling on the subway here. One sees many people riding bikes and it is prudent to know where the bike lanes on the sidewalks are as could be quite dangerous. I have barely missed being hit by a rider because I am not used to being in this city. The view is quite nice at times as many of the riders are slim young ladies determinedly riding to work. One view that is not so nice is the subway entrances often peopled with drunks, panhandlers, or groups of people of indeterminate origins congregating and blocking at times access causing some detouring to get down below to a waiting train. There is one gentleman at the station on Alexanderplatz lolling around with a beer bottle in hand the whole day and into the night acting as a kind of official greeter. I have yet to figure out his function but he seems to know quite a few of the other beery individuals and then there is the smokers getting their last kick in before descending into the denizens of the Ubahn deep leaving a blue wreath of fog to get through before finally reaching relative air security.

The weather in August has been rainy and quite cool unlike Russia and Pakistan. It is Sunday the 29th of August and the daytime temperature is currently at 54 degrees. I am wearing fall jackets and sweaters. The prognosis for Monday is a high to 50 degrees and I am looking at the temperatures in the 90's in New Jersey. This is not unusual in Germany particularly in the region of Northeastern Bavaria where I live and my first year in Hof was similar with cold rainy weather up until October. This has been a good year for certain fruits such as apples and plums. They have a small plum here known as Mirabellan which is primarily used in jams and jellies and is mostly yellow in color. I had my first taste of these preserves when I was working in Austria. The lady who rented rooms for singers at the time made jam from these from the orchard from her backyard. The house stands on a former farm in Gars am Kamp in the Kamp Valley of which its river of the same name (again Kamp) flows westward to the Danube River. I still have a few of her preserve jars in my cellar. I have 2 gardens with plum trees and have had good success with the fruit making jellies, a type of canned plums in syrup and even dried prunes made in the oven. The first year I made plum jelly, I had to give away jars as it was enough for at least three years supply.

I have a large field near one of my gardens where I take my dog for a walk. The farmer usually cuts a grass strip alongside the crops which is perfect for all sorts of dogs with a brook running in the middle into which my labrador loves to plunge. Afterwards back at home I have to hose her off which doesn't phase her in the least.