Back in the Saddle?

It's Spring here, which means I thankfully don't have to look at the hairy guy across the street anymore.

It's been a while since I last sat here in front of my computer with the purpose of updating you on my daily activities here in Berlin. (If you weren't keeping up with my travels through China, well, I suppose you had something better to do.) And a lot has changed here in three weeks. For example, the trees outside our apartment windows are now sporting thick green leaves, which conveniently block our view of the building across the street where a fat, hairy guy likes to lean out his window without wearing his shirt. Our Hausmeister (the very flattering German word for janitor) has painted over various bits of street art that had appeared on our fine building's walls, some bits of which (an interesting depiction of what looked like a goat) I will miss, others I will not. And my dear wife took advantage of my time away to upgrade our bikes, adding a small cargo basket to hers and a new set of pedals to mine.

But beyond those changes, I now find myself slowly sliding back into The Routine, where in the afternoon I attend my German classes at the Volkshochschule five times a week, I do the corresponding homework at night, and then in the mornings before I attend class I worry a little bit about how I should be doing something more productive. Then I navigate to usatoday.com or cnn.com to read the latest news about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears -- there's always a link to some ridiculous story about one of the two, regardless of what else if happening in the world.

Frankly it's not an awful Routine -- it doesn't involve a commute of longer than 15 minutes, I like my classes, and the air here is usually pretty clean. And because my wife is intelligent and has a decent-paying job doing something she tolerably likes, the pressure on me to bring home the groceries is pretty negligible, assuming I do a load of laundry every now and then.

But still, we all long for some greater purpose in life, to achieve something remarkable and to thereby win recognition, be it in the form of fame, power, or financial compensation. I, too, my friends and acquaintances, am human; I wish to know that my German homework was correctly completed, to hear snippets from my writings recited in high school English classes on a par with Shakespeare and Orwell, to be paid a living by a certain publishing house to pursue the travels and adventures of my dreams. Is that so much to ask?

Well, I suppose so, particularly if I continue to insist on sitting around every other morning reading the latest Paris Hilton gossip...