Pfaueninsel (Peacock Island)

Spring is finally here in Berlin. There’s really no mistaking it. There are only 2 seasons here: cloud and no cloud. From about October through most of April a huge blanket of cloud covers the entire Berlin sky… and cries. And it continues to cry, every day, and not too hard, just a whining steady sob. You don’t feel bad for it, you just wish it would shut the hell up and go away because it’s bringing everyone down, but it stays, day after day, month after month, keeping the streets and people not quite soaked, just generally wet. You hope after a while that maybe it’ll let it all out in a huge torrential outpouring of negative emotion and rain, and then it’ll feel better and open up a little.

It doesn’t quite do that, but it does eventually leave, making way for the other season, which we are in right now. Everyday just seems perfect, clear skies, warm weather, people out and about living, making babies, drinking, playing music, feeling good. To celebrate, I went with Natalie last week to Pfaueninsel, a tiny island in the Southwest corner of Berlin where peacocks roam free.

We didn’t actually make it there till about 3 or 4 hours later than we had originally scheduled for a few reasons, namely dinner and church with Dragana the night before, and breakfast with Dragana the day of. And that’s not to make it sound as if any of these diversions were unwelcomed in the least, quite the opposite in fact. Dragana is quite the cook and her lasagna was, I must say, one of the best I’ve had in a long time, all the more impressive because of her strict dietary restrictions (e.g. no garlic or onions among other things). After dinner we went to her church, a Serbian church, for an orthodox Christian ceremony celebrating the Orthodox Easter (which occurs some weeks after the more commonly known Easter). Dragana is actually quite religious and so this was important to her.

We got there about 11:30 pm. The place was packed and when the ceremony began, Dragana was near the front of the congregation singing with the group as they proceeded to go out the door and walk around the church a few times, with the enitre herd of, well, I guess at least a few hundred people following, most of them holding candles. It was actually quite beautiful for a moment but I couldn’t help thinking how much cooler the whole thing would have been with some alcohol and drugs and perhaps some street performers and nudity, and perhaps even a mock battle between the two guys in front with the huge staffs with crosses at the end… anyway, the group made it around the church about three times before Natali and I snuck out for the night, now well past midnight.

Morning came, Dragana called and invited us over to eat, which we did even though we had already eaten, and there we sampled some more of her delicious food, and her husband/boyfriend (can’t remember) offered me some Serbian schapps, homemade by Dragana’s father or uncle or something, and it was delicious, with a sneaky bite that lagged a few minutes behind. After three of these and some pleasant conversation I was ready to see some peacock with Natali.

And so by around 5pm, Ubahn to the SBahn to Wannsee to the bus through the forest to the boat, we made it to Peacock Island. It’s a quite nice place to spend a day, or in this case an evening, calm, peaceful, a few different walking paths around the island to explore, and then you can always go off-path, and then you hear some honking and follow the sound to the beautiful blue peacocks.

We took our time, making our way around the island, watching and playing with the compelling freaks of nature. As we were coming back around towards the dock we spotted 4 peacocks in the tall grass and ventured off to see them up close and feed them some chocolate, when it began occuring to Natali that she wasn’t quite sure what time the island closed and that perhaps we missed the last boat. I laughed it off, playing along a bit, sorta fueling the anxiety as the impulse hit: “well, I guess we’re spending the night here”.

I was quite sure we weren’t stuck there for the night, and though it would’ve given me a whole lot more material to blog about, turned out I was right. That’s not to say I didn’t start to get a bit nervous when I saw the boat comfortably docked without another human in sight. And then when a human did finally appear and I asked him in my horrible German something to the effect of: “Hello, we’d like to go home now” he responded sardonicly in words that, though I couldn’t translate, I understood intuitively meant: “sorry, no more boats today”.

You just don’t see humour like this very often in Berlin, and so, it’s very effective and quite refreshing when you do. After a minute or so watching us squirm he directed us over to the boat with a smile.

Some pics:

 

An albino

“Hmmm… you would go well with my blue carpet. ts ts, here peacock, peacock.”

::sigh:: “He just won’t come”

Chillin’ with a Pfauen

“He went that-a-away”