The Internet Personified: And I would walk 500 miles
This is it, friends, my last day in Europe. Berlin is overcast and sulky today, and I'm pleased because it seems fitting with my own mood. A day when I'm not going to go out except to catch the bus for the airport? It seems like a good day to be cold and moody.
That being said, I'm excited to get home too. I Googled to see if there was a word for "sad that your holiday is over but happy to be returning home" but there was nothing except a bunch of articles on how to cope with the Holiday Hangover, which is a real and true thing. (Top tips: get back into your routine as soon as possible, start planning your next adventure away so you have something to look forward to.) I'll tell you what I'm happy to get back to though, in no particular order:
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The Cats: Even though one is a pissy little creature. Olga ran off while we were gone and then a week later she meowed at the door to be let in as if she hadn't been gone the whole time. Maybe she just wants to be an indoor/outdoor cat, one of the decisions we'll have to make about her soon. (I can still put it off for a bit, at least till K returns which is a week after I do.) At least I'm reassured in that she knows how to survive outside AND how to make her way back to the flat. The other two I look forward to with no complicated feelings, Squishy will be my cuddlebug and Bruno will hop on to my desk and both will be happy to see me. They miss us when we're gone, despite what you've heard about cats, and we're lucky that our cat sitter loves them so much too.
The Garden: Remember I told you all about Ram Lal our magical gardener? Magic has happened in the fertile rainy season while we were gone and now we have loads of karela (what? I love karela!), limes, and even a few brinjals growing large and lush and purple.
The Food: I can either acclimatise by eating spicy food very slowly, micro-dosing self as it were, or I can jump right in and eat a daal tempered with five fistfuls of red chilli. I think the latter is the more exciting choice. WHICH REMINDS ME: I've been broke in Amsterdam and Berlin because we rented bikes in Paris and they take money out of your account as a deposit. This money is supposed to come back the next day, but maybe the rules are different with Indian debit cards? ANYway, almost two weeks later and I've only seen half the money come back. Which means our last two weeks have been spent trying to save as much money as we can for you know, food and things. So, back in Berlin, with the flat entirely to ourselves, we've been cooking. And I've been cooking BEEF. So much beef. Steak sandwiches and burgers and bolognese and also a Thai red chicken curry. I've realised I'm a pretty good cook too, so that was a nice development.
The BOOK LAUNCH: OMG you guys have to come to my book party next week! Here's an invite, please share liberally with anyone you think might be interested. Ek Bar is one of my favourite spaces in the city too. (The book has been seeing some pretty good press as well, so I'm pleased that I went away and left it and didn't stay in Delhi and obsess as I was doing before.)
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My clothes: Ten clothes, including t-shirts for one month away? I AM SO READY TO BE FASHIONABLE AGAIN. I'm reminded of that scene in Gilmore Girls when Lorelei and Rory come back from their Euro trip and Rory has a joyful reunion with her cupboard. ME TOO.
I still have to tell you all about Amsterdam, which was bright but also windy, so I shivered in the sunshine, which was strange. The red light district had a weird effect on me, as I walked through, I felt kind of, I don't know, strange. The women were behind the glass as promised, people walked by and glanced at them like they were clothes, and it felt so.... creepy and wrong. Even though since then I've looked up articles and all of them say "yes prostitution is my choice to make money" I'm not sure that I enjoyed the feeling of cruising through a human mall as it were. Is this what it looks like when prostitution is legal? And does that make me incredibly small minded for feeling this way? I think I'm going to need to unpack this in writing later.
Apart from that, I loved Amsterdam. They're the only city in Europe that I know of to have a "Homo Monument" which is a memorial to all the LGBT folk who were persecuted during Hitler's time. So their Pride is a big deal and it was to begin the day after we left, which was sad, but we didn't have enough money to extend our trip there. I loved the trams too and the houses which looked exactly like those ceramic ones from the '90s, you remember? The ones with liquor in them that every family who travelled had?
I think the next time we do Europe, I'm going to spend a good amount of time just in the Netherlands which has the kind of vibe I could get behind. I've realised, even though I liked Spain a lot, that I just prefer the Northern Europe look and feel. I like the order and the structure even in chaos. I like that everyone feels busy but also chill at the same time. Spain can feel a bit.. cliquey in spots, and I didn't find that of Amsterdam at all.
Oh, and yes, we did go to a "coffee shop."
Anyway, I'll be home tomorrow morning. Look out for Our Woman In Delhi stylings from this newsletter again soon!
Have a great week.
xx
m
Where am I? The Internet Personified! A mostly weekly collection of things I did/thought/read/saw that week.
Who are you? Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, writer of internet words (and other things) author of six books (suppport me by buying a book!) and general city-potter-er.
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