Writer, Explorer and Travel Philosopher
Pariser Platz on COVID-19 nights (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
I’m not a disease expert by any stretch — though I have been sick in several third world shitholes.
But it feels like anyone with any sort of public platform is expected to take a position on the COVID-19 pandemic. It certainly had a paralyzing impact on travel.
Is this what it’s like to live in Berlin…?
A group of four shirtless guys sat on the grass, smoking pot and rolling a soccer ball in slow listless circles. Across the clearing, a man in a leather costume, with a mask and a long graceful tail, was pulling a two-wheeled cart. The lingerie-clad driver smacked him with the reigns and urged him to trot faster.
Outpost Winter 2019… Berlin, baybee!
The latest issue of Outpost hit newsstands across Canada a few weeks ago.
This time in my Adrift on the Continent column, I’m taking you to Berlin. Well, I suppose I should say “bringing you to Berlin”, since I live here.
Sunday in the Tiergarten…
Sunday afternoon in the Tiergarten.
A group of four shirtless guys sit on the grass, smoking pot and rolling a soccer ball in listless circles.
The Cecilienhof, site of the 1945 Potsdam Conference…
I haven’t written a new blog in ages. Working on a book has kept me close to home this past year.
But I took an afternoon away from my desk last week to check out an exhibit on the painter Max Beckmann at Potsdam’s Barberini museum.
Surveying my domain from the top of Viktoriapark, behind my flat…
Today marks a small anniversary in my world.
It was exactly one year ago — January 8th — that I moved to Berlin and started a new life-after-Malta.
The Christmas market at Charlottenburg Palace…
The Christmas Market tradition goes all the way back to the Late Middle Ages in the German-speaking areas of Europe. It’s normally held during the four weeks of Advent leading up to December 25th.
Schloss Sanssouci
There’s a smallish town just outside the Berlin city centre that’s completely encrusted with palaces.
It’s only 30 minutes away, at the end of the S7 line, on the River Havel. And it’s the most popular day trip from Berlin.
Berlin is such a liveable city…
It’s been ages since I’ve published a blog. I think I’ve only written 3 this year.
But I haven’t forgotten you, or vanished in a desert somewhere.
It’s just that I haven’t been traveling at all. We moved to Berlin at the start of January, and I haven’t left the city since.
A new life in a new town…
I learned and experienced many things during my years in Malta, and I wrote around 30 articles about it — most of them were positive, about the places we discovered, from small village streets to the windswept heights of Ras ir-Raheb and the coast of Blata tal-Melh.
