Perhaps any veracity in the myth regarding the allegedly endless words Eskimos have for snow (first perpetuated in Franz Boas‘ 1911 The Handbook of North American Indians) would simply reflect a need to stamp back the boredom of talking about it for weeks and months on end.

Valentine’s Day Greetings to you, from a hasn’t-been-frozen-enough-to-walk-across-in-thirty-years Wannsee Lake. Much serious ponder on our looong afternoon hike across the ice–all big ticket items were covered–as we took turns freaking each other out. But it’s cool, we have it allll figured out now. Plus a sighting of the chalet Ali’s class visited for a week-long school trip each autumn oh so many moons ago. And…galloping dogs! People on skis! Actual sunbeams! My first snow angel! A romantic and clear-eyed kinda day.

Eskimos do have a lot of words for snow, as do English-speakers. Some words in Inuktitut for your linguistic pleasure: sikko (ice), tingenek (bare ice), aput (snow), pukak (snow like salt), mauja ( soft deep snow), tipvigut (snowdrift), massak (soft snow), mangokpok (watery snow), massalerauvok (snow filled with water), and akkilokipok (soft snow). (source: Friedrich Erdman’s Eskimo-German, 1925.)

We hosted a party this weekend and I was quite impressed by the turnout, given the subzero temperatures and inches of lumpy, slick ice (presumably the result of plummeting temps followed by thaw followed by freeze again?) covering the ground. The path carved below, for example, is not stone but thick, gray ice. Which is why this snowman is frowning and wearing his nose on his head.

A walk to the supermarket is a cause for putting on my Meindl Perfekt Franken-stompers to avoid falling with abandon, as I did last week. I haven’t fallen like that since my first winter in New York, which was ten years ago, when I was….uh…younger. My arm and shoulder were sore for days.

In the picture below I am standing on the lake that I photographed here last autumn. It’s been a household debate what has become of those koi. Anyone want to weigh in?

At this party–quite frolicky, such a good mix of lovely guests!–a German friend mentioned that this was one of the coldest winters here since humans began tracking the weather and recording it, and that Germany had, in fact, “run out of salt” for the streets. Yup, sounds like a country utterly caught off guard.

But what stuck in my craw and resurfaced as I was traversing Berlin days later was the image of a woman or man hunched over a ledger inscribing fine numbers (such as 0 F or -17 C), the first person keeping watch, noting the comings and goings of snowflakes and sunshine in a little leather book. Warmed my heart, if not my toes. (Above: 1/2 inch icy view from my desk in the early morning hours.)

“I’m going to take you on The Walk of Boredom.” is how Alfonso introduced our miles of hiking through the snow among the conifers and betulaceae. What he meant was “You and I will create new and splendid memories of one of the more dreaded walks of my childhood.” And so we did. We’ve seen the Grunewald in autumn, and we will return in spring. Until then, here are some wintery pictures for you, and a quote from Goethe to ponder, Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.

We saw deer, a pony-drawn sleigh, and had hot chocolate at Nikolskoe, a Gaststätte (log cabin) built in 1819. In the corner a large group celebrated a birthday with harmonica and singing: Hoch soll sie leben!/Hoch soll sie leben!/Dreimal hoch! (Long may she live!/Three cheers!)

Alas, the Pfaueninsel (Peacock Island) was inaccessible, as the Großer Wannsee lake was rather frozen. However, as dusk fell, the sounds of birds calling filled the pitch black night with utterly errie and comical sounds–like donkeys, cats, hyenas, and 14-year-old boys imitating all three. Listen.

Tho’ you may think it strange/Wine and women play the mischief/With a boy who’s loose with change/They’ll never want to see a rake or plow/And who the deuce can parleyvous a cow?
Oh how ya gonna keep em down on the farm/After they’ve seen Paree?

This post WWl tin-pan alley tune looped on my personal jukebox as we made our way from Paris to Berlin. Alfonso and I stopped over to visit our friend Manfred in Aachen, Germany and we three made subzero field trips to both Belgium and the Netherlands, as Aachen is perched on the border of all three countries. Our first adventure took us to Liège, a French-speaking region of southern Belgium.

In the early evening we toodled around town, spying on shoppers and bidding our time over local Jupille beer in Casa Ponton, where we inadvertently inserted ourselves in a scene of downplayed cruising. As a rather fey and jovial posse, we were tolerated by the room full of butch North Africans, but just barely.

We were patiently awaiting the open doors of café-chantant Aux Olivettes, which features traditional singing from the song books of Piaf, Brel and the like. It’s a family affair, opened in 1966 and passed though the generations. We were the first and nearly only guests during our stay (arriving at 9pm on a Friday night), which did not bother Michaël Roka, current propriétaire, who first served us and then took his spot at a piano tucked in the corner. Above him hung a splendid portrait of Miss Mary, who is described by Joan Gross in her ethnographic text, Speaking in Other Voices:

Walloon songs were popular fare on certain radio stations, at festivals, and in a singing cafe called “Aux Olivettes” located on a side street near the Pont des Arches. The cafe had a working-class/bohemian clientele whose average age hovered aroud 65. An extremely thin and frail old woman called “Miss Mary” sat at the piano and banged out tunes with scotch-tape-bound fingers. One by one audience members would mount the stage and belt out a song. The performers (who were all amateurs) generally took on the identity of their favorite singer and would only sing their songs. They were known as Edith Piaf, Tino Rossi, etc. World War II songs were common and someone always sang a song or two in Walloon*.

We were warmly welcomed in this cinematic scene, and as a result lingered in that vast and stunningly unheated room (see your breath cold) for far long than we would have otherwise.

*Ed: Walloon being the apparently dying out ancestral language of Wallonia, and a casualty of the long-time debate between the Francophonic and Flemish in Belgian culture. It is similar to, but not a dialect of, French. Bonjour becomes Bondjoû. A Manifesto for Walloon culture can be found here.

We began our last morning in Paris at our local belle époque Café Charbon, and then hustled to the train which took us through Belgium to Aachen, where we stopped to visit a friend en route to Berlin.

A few nights back we saw a good chunk of Cabaret, which I spose heralds our homeward crawl. Isherwood lived in our current German hood, Schöneberg, and wrote Goodbye to Berlin about his neighbors, who are, suffice it to say, exactly like our neighbors.

I have mixed emotions about departing–sad to say goodbye to Paris, yet ready to get on with the new year and as Bowie said of Berlin, A New Career in a New Town. I’ve been away from Germany for three months, and only lived there four before flitting off to this dense adventure. Paris has opened to me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I am grateful to the universe (and Jerome Foundation) for this time.

To wit: all local research has been completed for the next project, I am nearly done with a proper first draft of the current book. As for the blog: 53 posts in 53 days, a record for me (and now, a respite).

The early months of the year (much less decade) have always something vague and melancholy about them to me. Best to tromp well into it, and with a certain reckless, embracing abandon. To quote Keats, There is nothing stable in the world; uproar’s your only music. Onward!

For our last night we met Alfonso’s colleagues for dinner and then solo walked to Canal St. Martin for a glass of Bordeaux at Hôtel du Nord (aka Hotel of the Flying Louses). This spot was made famous by Marcel Carné in his 1938 film of the same name (it’s been around since 1885). The canals are iced over, the year young and somewhat uncertain, my tea is cooling, and I’m feeling all the feelings you’d expect at the end of a two-month stay in Paree, plus a big travel day ahead, so for now, rêvée…

Today is an editing day, so I offer photographs of the second half of our Sunday. Cimetière de Montmartre was built below street level in the hollow of an old gypsum quarry and opened on 1 January 1825. It is the final address of Truffaut, Picabia, Nijinsky, Foucault and courtesan Marie Duplessis, among others. On our last trip to Paris we stayed just up the street and crossed this bridge nearly every day without exploring the 11 hectares that make up the grounds. We discovered it is a charming and rather wildly unfurling landscape worthy of a longer visit in warmer weather. Particularly of appeal to me was the manner in which the bridge has been integrated, or built around this stone city. As we were there–once again–for research, after finding the second-to-last item on my treasure hunt(!), we took our freezing selves home to tea.

We spent the afternoon on rue Montorgueil, the oldest market street in Paris. Elements of a salad Niçoise were purchased, as well as yet more foie gras (Alfonso is anticipating our departure, it seems), and another small Galette des Rois. Delicious cake (puff pastry and frangipane) with a surprise inside (une fève), what could be better? The first concealed a tiny ceramic baker man, a sort of strange simulacra (not to get all Baudrillard on you). Perhaps tonight’s cake will have a tiny cake inside, or a tiny Alfonso & Kim.*

Above and below, the Patisserie Stohrer has been open since 1730 in this same location. The murals (scantily-clad ladies and pastry, that’s what’s better that trinkets and pastry!) are from the 1860s, and painted by Paul Baudry, who also painted the grand foyer of the Opera de Paris.

Above is the sign for L’Escargot Montorgueil, opened 1832 and a favorite of both Proust and Sarah Berhardt, some of whose household furnishings can be found decorating the interior. We hoofed three miles up to Montmartre for yet another research to-do (post tomorrow), and succeeded in reminding Alfonso how much he loves the neighborhood. Below is a photo of the man at his most coveted metro station with the crazy spiral staircase, on Rue Caulaincourt.
* our cake had no surprise! whatever can it mean?!

Working down to the bottom of my research list, we had an adventure on the outskirts of Paris, at Le Parc de Saint-Cloud. It spans over 460 hectares, and on the east end of the park at the Seine, was once the house purchased by Marie Antoinette, that delighted both Napoleon I and Napoleon III.

The chateau burned down in 1870 in the Franco-Prussian War, however the garden grounds including a steep escarpment overlooking Paris with landscaping by André Le Nôtre, remain. The two black/white photographs are of the chateau ruins, 1871, by Adolphe Braun.

Somehow the crumbling remains and the shattering ice suit each other. Alfonso skated rocks across the ice that made an incredible echo-y sound, like saints and clouds.

Woke before dawn and watched the sun come up on a new decade, from a window I will soon sadly relinquish. Made coffee for my honey, who bravely accompanied me to Passy, a wealthy area of south-west Paris that was once a commune, as I begin to wrap up the research that brought me here. We walked our usual miles in the snow-spiting air, and rewarded ourselves later with hot chocolate at (that nutty tourist-trap) Café de Flore. My frozen ears complained fiercely as they thawed.

The bakeries are preparing for Epiphany (from the Greek epiphaneia), the holiday that brings the New Years festivities here to a close on January 6th. A Galette des Rois is eaten, in which a little ceramic figure or such has been hidden. Whomever gets the piece with the prize is said to have luck that year. At both Epiphany gatherings I’ve been to over the years, the prize was in my piece of cake. Think I can pull off a third time?

Beyond the religious usage (ye old Adoration of the Magi), an epiphany is also of course that illuminating philosophical a-ha moment we all loiter around hoping for. A trinket in your gateau is lovely but pales in comparison to a sudden revelation of the essential nature of all things. Or something like that.

Don’t the faces on the facades here look like spirits coming through the ether, many themselves having epiphanies?