Beside the Danube.
Musings and thanksgivings of a twenty-something.
Lounging
To lounge: defined by the OED as the act of passing time indolently, idly, without care.
Apt then that on one of Will’s last nights in Bristol, we escaped to our favourite haunt - Deco Lounge on Cotham Hill - to drink strawberry juice (her), dark ale (him) and hot chocolates (both), to play Scrabble and, of course, to lounge.
Deco Lounge has, this year, become my home away from home - a cosy safe haven of a place, filled with rustic wooden tables and mismatched church pews. They serve brunch all day, as well as the most warm and crispy fish and chips (with peas mushed to perfection), and their hot chocolates are to die for. They serve every comfort food under the sun and I love their glass cabinet full of old books and eclectic monochrome photographs punctuating spare spaces on the wall.
Mostly though, I like the place for its welcoming, homely atmosphere. For the fact you can play Scrabble with your best friend late into the night. For the dark, cool entrance and the light and airy conservatory at the back. The place is such a multi-tasker - we held our translation study group here, and I have spent many an unhurried evening with Will here, met friends here, worked on essays alone with a warm mug of milky coffee and a comfy corner seat.
I’m always a little sad to leave. And if that isn’t a marker of one’s favourite cafe/restaurant/bar in town, I don’t know what is.
Some places have a way of staying with you - of accompanying one on spring bike rides, dancing into your head in the sacred space between sleep and not. I love Bavaria best, of course, but there’s something about Northern Germany in the spring - something hopeful and bright, something sweet in the denim blue of the water, blankets of purple crocuses and in the bright colours of Strandkorben on a windy day. A something that uplifts and endures.
The cities are full of suspiciously wholesome people who sport the look of disheleved elegance which has become fashionable across Europe. The girls ride brightly coloured bicycles and braid their hair intricately, yet with such skill as to seem effortless. Old women with faces lined like crumped newspaper, but eyes as bright as the nearby sea, still own cafes and serve the sort of authentic coffee and cake which hip London institutions attempt to emulate.
We hopped from museum to museum, place to place, even took a ferry to an outlying North Frisian island where we are Krabbenbrötchen (seafood rolls) from a rattling food truck and cream cake in a dingy coffeehouse. Two nights we stayed by the water, on an unassuming sidestreet of redbrick houses in a groundfloor apartment. Our host made us laugh with her hospitality and took us for dinner at a friend’s, whose house possessed an attic overlooking a dusky sky, blazing ombre, as rain trickled through her skylights. We took trains twice across the region’s highest bridge, ate falafel two nights in a row and had plenty a hostel picnic in the corridor of our humble lodgings.
And I often catch myself daydreaming of those busy days waltzing from museum to museum, with little stops for Kaffee and Kuchen in between, which were lovely and full and bright as anything.
sister!
My beautiful and effervescent Ellie stopped in Bristol for a tragically fleeting four hours last week on the sunniest Saturday, bringing with her characteristic joy and fun, homemade scones and a lot of laughter.I hadn’t smiled so widely in weeks and her brief visit reminded me how lucky I am to have a best friend who also happens to share my genes!
We squeezed in a Brandon Hill picnic (is there a greater joy in life?), jumping on my already creaky bed (to spite the useless landlord?), a game of Rummy (Will is the most unsporting player because he doesn’t know the rules, which is fair enough, but Ellie and I like to taunt him), a bus trip (exciting!), a Lover’s Walk stroll (another of life’s most wonderful things), blueberries and tea with Philly (yum) and a stop to buy novels at the two-pound-bookshop (thrilling!)
Thanks for visiting, E. It was the very best day!
Growth
we do not grow absolutely, chronologically.
we grow sometimes in one dimension,
and not in another; unevenly.
we grow partially. we are relative.
we are mature in one realm, childish in another.
the past, the present, and future mingle
and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present.
we are made up of layers, cells, constellations.
anais nin
On Cities
With the advent of warm weather I have found myself missing Regensburg. Not surprising, of course: the sunny seasons there signalled non-stop Danube swimming, riverside picnics, plenty of gelato (only one country separated us from Italy, of course!) and sitting in the shadow of the medieval skyline late into the night laughing with friends.
It’s not a tear-your-hair-out, throw-yourself-onto-the-ground, life-crisis kind of missing - simply a gentle tug on the heartstrings when the sunlight dances in patterns across the floor, when my hands cup a melting ice-cream or walking through meadows towards the river. I wonder if others miss cities this way.
I have realised I love cities like friends or family. I live in a city (or perhaps just visit) and fall head-over-heels in love, the most whirlwind of romances - I define myself by my surroundings. Last year did I think of myself as an English girl living in Germany? No. I thought of myself, with a fierce loyalty, as a Regensburg citizen with as much love for the Danube and Walhalla as any born and bred native themselves.
London is my sister, my partner-in-crime. Our secret hobby is people-watching on the tube. She knows my secrets and I know a few of hers. We know together that Green Park is the best place to meet a friend in summer, that the National Gallery is best visited on a weekday, that one needs to push and shove just a little to get anywhere downtown. She’s old and beautiful, if a little rough around the edges, and she knows how to make me swoon (note: St. Paul’s at sunset.) I love her. Inevitably, though, we sometimes need a break from each other - we grew up side by side after all.
In this space, Bristol slipped in. We were fast friends. My heart leapt at the delicious old houses, the dreamy cherry blossom tree outside the French department, the acres and acres of green. Bristol is my grown-up best friend, and she’s not easy to stereotype. She’s lively, sometimes, but equally quiet. Walking along deserted Redland streets, trees bowing to make tunnels above one’s head, you’d not be mistaken wondering if anyone lived here at all. We kindled our friendship over hot mugs of tea in dimly lit cafes, overlooking the Suspension Bridge, walking through streets of grand sandstone houses covered in crawling ivy and wisteria. On rainy days (of which there are many) I curl up under blankets and appreciate our friendship. Bristol is the friend who’ll sit with you quietly in the daytime and take you out for a spontaneous adventure in the evening. I love her for her beauty and her solitary side, her surprises, and her hills which yield the most unexpectedly breathtaking views.
And then.
Regensburg.
The city to end all cities.
My true love. Regensburg which defies description. Her colour palette of Danube blue, medieval orange, grey cobblestones, green-leafed trees bending to kiss the water. The white-washed house I lived in, sitting on the spine of Europe’s greatest river. The colourful parade of 18th century houses adorning Stadtamhof’s main street. Regensburg is my soulmate. We have so much fun together. We swim in rivers, dance down ancient streets, cycle alongside streams, and sit outside at Biergärten as the sun goes down. Regensburg has the best sunsets. There’s a reason the Bavarian sky is world-renowned. I miss her every day. She taught me the essence of fun and adventure, and she was always waiting in her glorious splendour when I deserted for a few days. Regensburg lifted me up on the darkest days and made me cry with beauty blanketed in snow. She, like any good friend, will always be there for me.
I miss these places all the time. I know I will yearn for Bristol’s green magnificence when the time comes for me to go. And I wonder, with excitement, what beautiful friendships await me in the future. I’ve always wanted to be friends with Munich but our trysts, as yet, have been of the fleeting kind. I have something of a crush on old-school Los Angeles. I’ve never been to Paris but I think we’d get on well.
How exciting! All of these friendships waiting to happen! I can’t wait.
Photo: London, 2009 (taken by my sister.)
