Britta's Thrill of Speed

Dear You, 

On Saturday I "hopped" to Berlin by train. 

Because I can. 😄 

I am now owner of a BahnCard 100 - which I think is incredibly expensive, but that depends on how often you use it. 

For one year from now on I can take every train in Germany - ICE, IC, Regio - and every public transport - bus, tram, underground, ferry etc I want without - and as often as I want to (haha: I might even consider living in a train!)- from now on, after bleeding a very big sum (in my eyes) - "without paying" anything. 

Son convinced me: such a card gives me spontaneity and freedom.(Hopefully no nervous breakdown - no: I see it as a chance to travel before I am no longer able to). 

I used it first to visit the Oktoberfest in München: my train was too late when it arrived in Nuremberg - but "One man's meat is another man's poison" - this time I got the meat: an ICE train coming from Hamburg arrived 47 minutes too late - and I could just hop in and arrived in Munich at exactly the planned time. 

(Our once oh so proud icon of punctuality has become a ruined business - so very often late, so often chaotic - since it got admission to the stock exchange). 

Thus I now could go to Berlin - and stayed in my huge flat for only 3 days (hahaha: part of that Me-time is cleaning...) - well: arrival day = half a day, leaving day: half a day... 

Why not longer? 

Well, Son had on the Tag der Deutschen Einheit (Day of German Unity) a decadal birthday, and being invited of course I wanted to join. So I returned - and enjoyed a beautiful Birthday Party. (Brain still works: I recognised a man who asked: "Do you know who I am?" "Of course", I said, "you are Niklas." I have a very good memory for faces - last time I had met him was the day they got their A levels of their grammar school... "Well, I doubted because I have less hair these days" he muttered - yes, yes, maybe - but I don't suffer from less imagination :-) 

I am highly interested if I will use my card the way I want to. In Berlin I was very happy: I could visit the exhibition on Edvard Munch - and will tell you in the next post. 

Yours Truly

Britta

No Fast Food

 

Dear You, 

I am back from Berlin - and have enjoyed my friends and the beautiful big flat, the fine weather and breathed culture in the capital. 

The gaps between my visits are still long - sometimes I float in a feeling of unreality: in the kitchen I grab for a pitcher - and it isn't there, it stands on another board (though I tried to make arrangements in both flats as similar as possible) - I feel a bit alien in a place where I live for more than ten years. So reassuring that I still can enter - do you know the weird feeling when you pass a house in a city where you once lived - and now are standing "outdoors", no way to get in? 

In the Bavarian village I see the opposite way of life - which also has its charms: families living in houses their ancestors built hundred of years before, never moving, and almost all of them know each other quite well and are often related in a remote way. 

Now to the zucchinis above: I planted one on my balcony (escorted by a cherry tomato) - and am happily surprised: too late I had read that you need two of them to get "fruits", but this one seems to "Live Alone And Like It", as Marjory Hillis called her very sweet book. 

The zucchino (shouldn't be that the correct term? - but the spellchecker refuses, having no Italian connections) spreads its huge leaves and enjoys parthenogenesis - with convincing results. 

Yours Truly 

The Donatello Exposition in Berlin

Yesterday I had my first "real" day in Berlin to enjoy culture. 

The days before I had speeded through the city, met a lot of friends, bought some clothes - and though I am used to running around and wore good padded trainers, my back hurt in the evening and I was very tired. 

I had come to Berlin for a week, then got a call from the electric company that they wanted to install a new meter the week after - thus I had to come back three days after returning to Bavaria... 

(I could have stayed in Berlin for the whole time, but in Bavaria I had the chance to meet my friend Anne, who became so ill. One of her daughters had invited me to her birthday, the daughter lives only 50km from my Bavarian second home address, and thus I could come by car, meet my friend - and travel back the next day to Berlin). 

On that day "I paid myself first" - meaning: 

- I went to my hairdresser (who became a friend over the time) 

- and visited the Donatello-exposition: Donatello. Inventor of the Renaissance 

- rewarded myself with a one-year abonnement for Berlin's museums next year 

The Donatello sculptures and paintings were presented in the "Gemäldegalerie" on the Kulturforum, where they're building a connecting plaza.   

The exposition was fine - though it didn't touch my heart very much. 

I loved "Virgin and Child" (ca 1422), which "is one of the very first examples of linear perspective, not only in Donatello's work but in all Western art. The figures emerging from the marble niche seem truly three-dimensional." (text of the museum) 

or this "Virgin and Child" ca 1422 

or this "Virgin and Child" ca 1420 - 23)

Outside I did a few steps and took some photos of the newly renovated Neue Nationalgalerie (building by Mies van der Rohe) , here a dramatic photo in black&white: 

- had a very nice meal at an Indian restaurant near my home 

- bought wristlets (haha, they still exist - these are my first try - winter may become very cold! - and they are so very stylish, artfully created by two sorts of mink - wait, I'll show you a photo: 

- and, after a short (but very necessary rest) I hastened to the Cinema Paris to see a new German movie, "Mittagsruhe" 

Then I bought some groceries and went to bed quite early. 

Where do you feel most alive?

 

I found this question in: "How to be a Wildflower" by Katie Daisy. (I wouldn't have ordered it if they had changed the title by using "Wall" instead of "Wild" :-)  

Honestly: I cannot answer this interesting question. 

Coming back to Bavaria yesterday, I felt so alive! 

Despite a remarkable journey by train - we left Berlin at 12:05, should arrive at Nuremberg at 14:48, then I have to wait 56 minutes - YES --- and then the little red train - TOOOT! - drives me in about 25 minutes to my destination.

That was the plan. 

The Deutsche Bahn - formerly an international envied Technical Marvel of Punctuality - has changed its image drastically: from boring conservative to youthful spontaneity - but "Go with the flow!" can become a bit tedious with lots of luggage and No Flow. 

We arrived at Nuremberg 20 minutes late - during the ride they informed us that in Halle they "had to remove" a woman from the train by police - the woman had shown a forged doctor's certificate to avoid having to wear a mask. 

Later we lost another 12 minutes - without a given reason, though we were informed that near Bamberg an overhead wire might be damaged.  

When you know you have 56 minutes waiting time you are not troubled by 20 minutes delay - thus I could fully bestow my empathy on those poor travellers who had to reach a train to Zurich (Swiss) or Wien (Austria). 

With Giovanni Della Casa, Galateo, or, The Rules of Polite Behaviour, 1558 in my mind (thank you, Pipistrello!) at the exit I even politely offered the young man who queued behind me: "If you want you can leave first - I have time. "   "Ladies first", he answered gallantly, and I suspected that he had used the 20 minutes to read page 61 intensely too. 

So: I had earned a Karma-point, I hoped. You guess: Lila, the Hindu goddess, laughed. 

In the Nuremberg Central Station  

there was chaos: the damaged overhead wire had stopped almost every rail traffic. 

No little red train. No way to reach my destination. 

Standing beside this huge building site (they build something in front of the left wing of the central station since I can remember)

I called my son. 

To make a long story short: he saved me, arrived accompanied by The Three Graces, who enjoyed the ride immensely, sitting in their new children's seats (one barefoot, one with one shoe, one in socks - you might be able (though I doubt it)  how long it takes to put on socks and shoes to the feet of very lively young women who just became gorgeous two years old). 

So: here I am. back in Bavaria - in my little Apartment With a View - and am HAPPY. 

Though I am happy in Berlin too - in that melting pot of everything. 

So: I cannot answer the question above. 

And, come to think of it: Why should I? One of the big lessons I still try to learn is the Buddhist wisdom: "Thou shall not judge." 

I try.  

Birds and blossoms

 

photo: Britta Hügel

December 2nd --- Since three days (and nights) it is very cold in Berlin. My rose geraniums (Pelargonium odoratissimum) still bravely defy the cold - but I have to think about my oleander:  I have enough space, but all rooms are heated, and in winter the plants want it cold. The cellar is no alternative - in Berlin we have long-distance heating - and the pipes run through the cellars - good for furniture that you want to store there - but, as it is warm, it's No country for Old Geraniums. 

And I have to think about the birds too. They are regulars for water - the sparrows, blackbirds, a pair of jays, (the magpies do not come). The doves and hoodiecrows I shoo away- especially since I know the Latin name of the hoodies: Corvus corone cornix (Apples autocorrection turns that foresightful into "corona"..)

I love the tits (birds) - and for all of the above mentioned (and sometimes a squirrel) I put out grains etc to feed them. 

Sparrows are the typical birds for Berlin: cheeky, bragging and in loud huge groups. They go to MacDonals and eat French fries, they sit on coffeetables and pick at your cake, if you don't watch out - and when I read in a photo-book that is impossible to take a picture of a sparrow I went out and proved the opposite. 

"Rest You Merry" by Charlotte MacLeod

 

photo by Britta Hügel 

Chapter 1

"PETER SHANDY, YOU'RE IMPOSSIBLE!", sputtered his best friend's wife. "How do you expect me to run the Illumination if everybody doesn't cooperate?" 

     "I'm sure you'll do a masterful job as always, Jemima. Isn't that Hannah Cadwall across the way ringing your doorbell?" 

     With a finesse born of much practice, Professor Shandy backed Mrs. Ames off his front step and shut the door. This was the seventy-third time in eighteen years she'd nagged him about decorating his house. He'd kept count. Shandy had a passion for counting. He would have counted the spots on an attacking leopard, and he was beginning to think a leopard might be a welcome change. 

     Every yuletide season since he'd come to teach at Balaclava Agricultural College, he'd been besieged by Jemima and her cohorts. Their plaint was ever the same: 

     "We have a tradition to maintain." 

(.....................................................................................)  ....something snapped.  (...) 

On the morning of December 22 two men drove up to the brick house in a large truck. The professor met them at the door.

     "Did you bring everything, gentlemen?" 

     "The whole works. Boy, you folks up here sure take Christmas to heart!" 

     "We have a tradition to maintain", said Shandy. 

"You may as well start on the spruce trees." 

     All morning the workmen toiled. Expressions of amazed delight appeared on the faces of neighbors and students. As the day wore on and the men kept at it, the amazement remained but the delight faded. 

     It was dark before the men got through. Peter Shandy walked them out to the truck. He was wearing his overcoat, hat, and galoshes, and carrying a valise. 

     "Everything in good order, gentlemen? Lights timed to flash on and off at six-second intervals?" Amplifiers turned up to full volume? Steel-cased switch boxes provided with sturdy locks? Very well, then, lets's flip the power and be off. I'm going to impose on you for a lift to Boston, if I may. I have an urgent appointment there." 

Every year I read this very funny Christmas-detective novel (it appeared in 1978 - if I'd count the way  Professor Shandy does that would be....?...times...) 

The photo above I took yesterday evening - in Berlin they start their Illumination tradition too! 

(I have typed the whole text by hand - hope there are no typos) 

Contact Restrictions of a Special Sort

 

30th November --- The supermarkets silently have raised the sum you can spend with a credit card without using your PIN - (45 Euro now). Till The Plague Germany was the country of cash - the Flying Dutchman always aghast, because in the Netherlands you even pay for five bonbons with your card (Memo to myself: should avoid self-censorship by turning harmless use of "five acid drops" to even more harmless "bonbons" - fearing unwelcome associations .. the Netherlands with their free grass politic...) If you pay cash in NL and the sum is "0.36 Euro" they round up to 40 cents (the Dutch always were great merchants!)

In Germany you had to spend hours in the queue before the till because a person tried to hand over the exact sum of money - "Wait!", fumble, fumble, "I think I have it exactly fitting..." fumble, fumble, then, after felt ten minutes: "Oh no, sorry...it doesn't match!" and uttering a little (lonely) pearl of laughter hands over a 10-Euro note. Now Grim Covid educates the Germans moneywise... 

See that little wallet-safe above? I bought it for my credit cards, but didn't use it - until some weeks ago Francine and I sat at Ishin, the Japanese restaurant. The waitress took my credit card - and stopped midway: "What? I did not even put it on the cash-reader - and yet it has already deducted the sum!" 

Oh! - I became quiet...thought... I mean: I live in Berlin... to avoid a shit-storm I want to phrase it politically correct: we have a very mixed public... thimblerigger playing their criminal games on the Ku'damm, though it is legally forbidden ("C'mon", laughs permissive Berlin - "that is piffle, look at our clans which work in other dimensions, think of the recent Great Treasure-Robbery in Dresden...) 

But "Many a little makes a mickle" (or as we Germans say: "Small livestock also make dung-shit"). 

The thimbleriggers do not care about contact restriction, they search contact -"Oh, sorry!" - having this little cash reader in their pocket which can work without the contact of a card - hoho. 

From that day of satori, Enlightenment, I use my beautiful Wedgwood-blue security cardholder - you bet!

 

 

The Knack of Books... And How to Get It (Them)

photo by Britta Hügel

 

In Covid-time I have to pull myself away from Amazon & Co... because as I do not want to shop much, I look into Amazon's offers. 

Yet often The Good in me gains the upper hand:  I call my bookshop - and next day I take a walk and have a nice talk with the bookseller, and she often presents new books, so I get ideas and skim and buy - thus hopefully supporting Berlin's economy. 

But I have to confess that the man I see on an even more regular basis is the Amazon delivery man - he really is a marvel, always laughing and so beaming that one feels the sun goes up - he is from Africa, black, shiny, and full of joy. 

We talk and laugh a lot, and I have the feeling that the world is a good place to be in.  

Which it is: I am so thankful that I can breathe in deeply the crisp fresh air when I finally pull down the mask. That I can smell the special odour of autumn leaves, savour a cookie, see and smell the fine spray when I peel an orange and read a book - so: it is so lovely to be ALIVE.  

PS: Some of you might have noticed that I twisted and maltreated my headline to make it resemble one of the very first films I saw in the cinema (as I am 1.78m tall I could smuggle in very young, a little lipstick and kitten-heels from my world-wise girl-cousin Ragnhild helped ...): The Knack ... and How to Get It, by Richard Lester.. I have it on DVD and still adore it! 

Cinemas in Berlin in time of Corona

That's how our Cinema Paris greets us these days:

"WE SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN!" says the red line.

And: "STAY HEALTHY!" the blue.

The Cinema Paris at the Ku'damm is one of the lovely old-fashioned cinemas.
Berlin has 97 cinemas - with 288 film-saloons, and  50.959 seats (in 2017).
What will happen in the future? Will they have to reduce their seats to place people in a distance of at least 1,5 meter?
When will they be allowed to open again?
And how many of the cinemas will survive?
I wish so much to see film-titles in red and blue again!

Spring-Greed? Spring-Folly!

Almost two weeks ago I suddenly thought: enough nostalgia about how lovely the big river "Elbe"  in Hamburg was - and how I jogged there, and had to go 120 steps down to reach the bank (and up, to reach our flat) - and enough about "more nature in Hamburg".
You know me a bit by now: If I can't get one thing, I shrug and think: "Other mothers have beautiful sons, too" (you say: "There are plenty of fish in the sea") - err...no...I mean: I'll find an alternative in this big beautiful world.
And of course I did.
Not far away from our Berlin flat is the Tiergarten (long time ago the Kings hunted there, now we common mortals are allowed to stroll through it - and a lot of rabbits happily dance in front of us, being sure of their life!) It is huge -here you see about a qurter of it:

OK - the 'river' you see above in the first photo is the Landwehrkanal - but inside the Tiergarten there are many lovely lakes:

And suddenly - I was so surprised and not quick enough to take a photo - a kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) flitted past me!!!
I walked almost an hour. Spring signs everywhere (and today it will be far more advanced).

If you ask: why the "greed" in your header? I have to show you this:

These seeds I grabbed greedily carefully and thoughtfully collected and brought home -
TYPICAL! (my father would say: Your eyes were bigger than your belly! (though only when my garden is concerned).
Come to think of it: I don't have a garden anymore.
I have a (big) BALCONY.
Want some of the hundreds of marigolds when they push through the earth of the boxes???

Yes!!! A Breakthrough!

Dear You, 

Thank you for crossing your fingers! It helped me and all those with tickets to cross the street. In the first photo you see only the start of setting up...) The Zoo Palast showed the movie at 12:30 a.m. (in the evening you had to drive -- well: sneak - through half the city to Friedrichstadtpalast).
They even put protection around the groundfloor windows of the Waldorf Astoria. Normally I visit after a film their Romanisches Café (you can eat there too) - but this day was everything except normal. I thought about the guests who had booked their expensive rooms long in advance - strange surroundings for them. President Netanjahu's visit came quite as a surprise. Mrs. Merkel and he will talk about the problems between Israel and Palestine.

Being quite early (to be still able to dash to the Friedrichspalast in case of need) I got a wonderful seat: horizontal and vertical middle - and an aisle in front of me, so I could stretch my long legs during the movie comfortably.
The movie "A Quiet Passion", which depicts the life of Emily Dickinson, was really good (in my opinion - some people left the cinema - maybe the last third was a bit weepy). Beautiful décor (I instantly decided to upholster two armchairs with a fabric they used and which I once had); of course little action, because we all know that Emily was a sort of recluse; wonderful recitations of her poems.
But the cinema operators must have misunderstood the movie's title - "A Quiet Passion" - they ghetto blastered the sound to my threshold of pain.
Well: the very young are often aurally handicapped nowadays, "thanks to" headphones and discos.
I hope I remember to take my earplugs for todays movie with me!

'Where Angels Fear To Tread` or: Berlin's Building Sites - Uhrgh!

Dear You, 
actually I wanted to write a post about a wonderful discovery I made on Monday - I give you a hint: Italy here, around the corner - but I can't do that now: it is too loud. 
Almost everybody - at least in Germany - knows that Berlin is a permanent building site. They dig up the roads and tunnels, they build new houses, renovate the old ones - and the symbol for all this might be the Airport Schönefeld - a billion-dollar grave, that will not come to an end, and those that are responsible get even more money instead of social condemnation or prison - and the news even reached other countries and they have a good laugh about this play from the madhouse. 
But I can live with that. 
More disturbing - because they are very, very near - is the renovation of a house at the end of our street - can you imagine that they stick on to the facade all the stucco ornaments that a mad city council paid to be destructed in the early decades of the 20th century - to make the buildings more "modern" and easier to paint (I believed that the masses and masses of these 'modern' houses were the sad relicts from World War II, but no: these houses had survived the bombs, and then the city paid (!) for 'modernisation'.  
An example: both houses are built in the same year. 

But more awful (for us) is the drainage that 2 (!) building labourers are giving to our neighbour's house (all the houses in the street, though very posh, are joint by a wall). 
The 2 (!) building labours (though I hesitate to use the word "labour") are the typical and perfect impersonators of building labourers. 
They arrive between 6:30 a.m. and 6:45 a.m. 
They turn on their radio. Having often worked with a pneumatic hammer, they are deaf as - a nut. So they need LOUD music - and they SHOUT. Why should other people sleep when they have to work? They discuss this important question before they start to - "work". And because Law allows to start this "work" not before 7 a.m., they use the time before to playfully test their jackhammers - at the wall between the two houses. When the baby of the neighbours starts to cry, they stop and bang on their big big basins - to clean them a bit - better to be done in the morning... more attention... 
But the worst thing are their cellphones. I put "Work" into quotation marks to hint at a certain mistrust on my side: half of the time (at least!) they do not work - after the big overture in the morning they rest for an hour, smoke and shout into their cell phones - (nobody told them that a cellphone is a sort of telephone that enables you to talk with a person at normal pitch - but no, not them -- Shout, Shout, Shout! You might hear them easily at the Alexander Platz). 
By working very slowly they manage to prolong their "work" till doomsday - this wonderful hot summer is definitely spoilt for those who intended to enjoy their balcony (I flee to other beautiful parts of the city, but the old people can't). 
To make it even worse: in our house the landlady has engaged craftsmen to renovate the flat on the groundfloor: wall breakthroughs (we are in Berlin :), floorboard abrasion and varnishing (smell!) and polishing and, and, and - the full monty. 
And when I looked out into the Hinterhof (backyard) I saw another couple of workmen (though they finished after three days). 

The rents in Berlin soar, because Arabs and Russians and Italians etc buy houses or flats like mad. Sometimes it is merciful that they see only the "new" flats they buy. Since last year a clever salesman let this house beside the KaDeWe be renovated (I only heard Polish sounds at the building site - I think they are good workers, but often are treated and paid not much better than modern slaves). These flats (of about 110 square meters) cost over 1 million Euros each - but with that goes the privilege to look at really sordid houses on the other side of the street, hear the suppliers for the KaDeWe in the very early morning bring tons of flour or lobsters etc - and look into the "patio" which leads to the car park of the KaDeWe. 
Sometimes it is very good to have not seen your "bargain" before in its original state... 
I'll show you the photos of "before" and "after" in another post. 
Till then we'll book a holiday on an island... I think we'll give up... 

I promised you...

...to show you how the alteration of my hat (the pink one with pink fur) worked out.
Now that I read that Susan of "Southern Fascinations" still has tornadoes, and see on the header of Joanne's 'Cup on the Bus' that icicles still hang in Canada, I take my last chance to present it (though my friend Anne took me very much from the front - the fine pink cloche is not to be seen, only a small brim).
You might remember that I thought the old version was "Too much pink". Following my own subtle fine logics, after the alteration I bought a pink coat to counter the silver-grey, hahaha.
             It is my stratagem to counteract the doom-prognosis : "From a certain age on you are invisible." I am not. At least my coat is definitely not.
What looks here a bit like winter-fat is the result of a silver feather down-jacket under the coat over a dashy grey felt-jacket over a pullover - you get the message: it was a very, very Siberian-cold day in Berlin.
I could hardly move - and if I had been the sprayer of that cozy entrance of a house in Kreuzberg, I would hardly have been able to do a runner. Life is so interesting between all fronts: the wild Kreuzberg inhabitants might take me for a Member of The Gentrification Gang. The Anti-Fur-Fighters might use their little cans to spray on me - pink again :-)

Let's talk about the weather instead, to be on the safe side: Now we have had some beautiful spring days, warm, though today suddenly we had it cold again.

PS: (I think they call this phenomenon April)

The Collection Bayer

When you are in Berlin at the Potsdamer Platz, not everybody knows that you have to walk only a few steps to find the impressing museum, the Martin-Gropius-Bau. The building was erected in 1877 as an Arts and Crafts Museum. Since 1981, when the ruin had been restaurated, you can not only see exhibitions of photography and art, but also admire the building with its high atrium.  

Yesterday (they are open on Monday) I went to see the Collection Bayer (from the chemical and pharmaceutical international concern).  The paintings, normally hanging in the offices of their (important, I guess) employees are now "out of office", because the concern is celebrating its 150 years company anniversary. In 1909 Carl Duisberg asked Max Liebermann to paint a portrait of him, which was the foundation. At first the concern bought paintings to educate their employees - now they own over 2000 works of art.  
It is the first time that 240 of their works of art are presented to the public. And the names of the artists are exquisite: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Max Pechstein, Emil Nolde,Max Beckmann, Lyonel Feininger, Georges Braques, Pablo Picasso, Joan Mirós, Gerhard Richter, Sam Francis, Andy Warhol - to name a few. 
The exhibition is divided into four parts: German Expressionism, École Paris, After-War-and Informal Art, and American modern art.  I liked a drawing of David Hockney, "Rapunzel" very much, and of course Emil Nolde's paintings. As  nobody is allowed to photograph, you have to put up with the poster, sorry.  

"Too much of a good thing can be wonderful"

As you all know through my (more or less late) blogs - 'You are Witty and Pretty', 'Britta's Happiness of the Day' and 'Gardening in High Heels' - I am not always dishing out light fare.
So - this blog will be substantial, nourishing and yet: sublime.
I'm talking of - yeah, you've guessed it by now: CHOCOLATE.
Last week I emerged from the bottom of my MSP (Monumental Secret Project). (For that moment) I just had enough. So out I went. Took the underground to Gendarmenmarkt. Looked into the shopwindows of http://www.fassbender-rausch.com/manufaktur.html  . Another woman did the same - we grinned at each other, and went inside, talked a bit about fashion. She was from London. And then we looked into the shopwindows again. From inside out.

I am not sure whether you can see on the pictures that here the Gedächtniskirche and the Brandenburger Tor are made entirely from chocolate (and cookies).  Absurd. Monumental. Kitschig.
Like two schoolchildren we looked at each other again, and giggled in helpless mirth. " Eat Art!" I breathed. "Wohahah!", she roared. "Epoch-Making!" .
Before studying at the university in Mainz, after my A-levels in Bremen, I worked for two months in the Hachez chocolate factory in Bremen.
Though normally I chirp in with  Mae West's saying  "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful", I didn't after being allowed to eat as much chocolate as we wanted. After three days we didn't want any more...
Being quick with my hands I was soon allowed to work by the piece (literally: we had to fill boxes of chocolates - every woman at the production line had a special section of the box). Piece work brought more money. And interesting insights into real life. I learned:
1. Age is relative. Being almost 18 was here extremely old - the co-workers were my age, but had left school long ago and  looked at me pityingly as if I were a 'box of chocolate on a shelf' (not married yet!).
2. I learned that "Non vitae, sed scholae discimus" (Seneca - and no: I didn't quote it wrong!) is utterly true - you might also say: a pinch of experience is worth a peck of theory. Fifty Shades of Whatsoever is an innocent Sunday School book - compared to the graphical visual way those girls depicted their Secret Lives on every Monday morning at work.
3. A pearl of wisdom for life: Things in a different box with different print (and price) are not always different - believe me, dear brand-buyer. From that time on I do - with only a few exceptions :-) - the double-blind-test.
4. If you love something dearly - like chocolate - after a short alienation you will like it again. I do!
Though: in modertion. Because: "Too much of a good thing can be ..."