Wildflowers

Since I came to Berlin I have noticed that there are weed, nettles and mugwort growing everywhere in the city. The street corners are full of weed, the yards are full of weed, the unkempt flower beds are full of weed – even the vases in the bars and coffee shops have weed. This is something very Berlin to me. Weed and wild flowers seem to be in fashion.  They are everywhere, both in East and West Berlin, although the East is probably become little more overgrown. I guess, that the flower beds are the first thing to be cut off from the city budget. On the other hand, this creative "Let all the flowers bloom" mentality of the city can be seen in the city landscape - along with the ubiquitous graffiti and tags.
 

I went cycling to the forest not too far from where I live. People who know me know that I have a tendency to forget, drop and leave stuff around. After an hour of biking in the forest I was already on my way home when I suddenly noticed that the rubber ball of my funny bike horn had dropped somewhere. I turned my bike around and went searching for the little nuisance. I followed all the little cobblestone and earth paths that I had been following a little bit earlier but this time the missing part didn’t want to be found. As I was circling around in the forest I started to feel attracted by the yellow and purple autumn flowers I hadn’t paid much attention to before. I started picking them to make a pretty bunch.  Suddenly I felt an urge, searched for a good place behind a tree in the bushes when I heard noises around me. A nun was walking her dog pass the place where I was about to crouch. She saw my bouquet and said “Guten Tag” very politely. I decided to do save my urge for later.  I continued happily collecting the flowers for my bunch in the sunny and shadowy woods.
 

My stay in the woods was stretched to a two hour trip because of the missing rubber ball of my bike horn. I didn’t find it. But I found a lovely bunch of German wildflowers, a nun, a boat and two lovers on the boat at the lake, a snail, horse chestnuts and hearts carved on a tree.