Have you ever had a boss who says, "Hey, do NOT call me unless the building is on fire!" just before leaving on vacation?
When I arrived in Germany, I did not immediately grasp the concept "Urlaub means Urlaub."
I have made frequent references to this over the years and have gradually come to terms with it. At least, I better understand (with a bit of envy) that when people go on vacation, they switch off from work, leaving any concerns and job challenges behind them. At least, for the period that they are on holiday.
During my father's visit a couple of months ago, I really felt like I, too, was finally able to switch off from work, and, as you will recall from the recent posts, was able to simply enjoy my time on vacation. As I have seen photos posted from various friends who are on holiday in Thailand, Hawaii, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Idaho, Pennsylvania....just to name a few places, I hope very much that they all switched themselves off and enjoyed themselves.
Over the past couple of weeks, we have had really high temperatures here in Frankfurt, which is never something that I enjoy. But, we have to persevere (clothing is optional, especially if you work out of your house) and in fairness, it is not as if we are going through weeks and months of excessive heat. Instead, we go through a couple of days of 30-plus degrees (Celsius to Fahrenheit conversion makes this mid to high 90s), then the heat breaks and we get back down to something a lot more pleasant.
Last week utterly sucked, particularly last Sunday, but then on Monday things improved dramatically, and this whole week has been very nice. The temperatures definitely hovered around my summer sweet spot, which is probably a tad cooler than other folks might prefer, but to each his own, right?
All my living room windows are open, and combined with my open balcony door, I am able to get a little breeze that flows through the flat, much to my great enjoyment.
Tuesday afternoon, however, I started to smell something burning, and initially thought that a cigarette was smoldering on my balcony. But, the smoke was really acrid and is it grew stronger, I realized that things were a little more serious. Right about that time, I heard the first sirens from the fire trucks blaring. I peeked out my front window and saw trucks heading up Berger Strasse, seemingly stopping just around the corner from my flat.
Police were quickly on the scene, blocking off the street, and more and more trucks converged on what now was clearly a building on fire. The police tried semi-successfully to keep people from heading in the direction of the fire, and once again I was amazed at people's tendencies to rubberneck.
This went on for the next couple of hours, but fortunately the fire was extinguished fairly quickly. I did venture downstairs as things started to calm down, and ran into my friend and neighbor, Jens, who was not looking particularly thrilled.
During our brief conversation, he told me how his day had been going. Jens works in a little wine bar about 2 minutes away (on foot) from the front door of our apartment. It turns out that said wine bar is the building that burned, at least the back part where the courtyard of the establishment is.
Jens went on to explain that the owner (his boss) was currently away on vacation in Scotland and Jens was left in charge, and now had the burden of having to deal with the situation at hand.
"Did you call your boss?" I almost asked, then wisely refrained.
Now, to be clear, das Lokal is not a total write-off, not like what happened to the Greenville Avenue Bar and Grill back in 2010. In fact, Jens rallied the staff to help get things cleaned up and they are set to reopen (partially) later today. That is very good news, particularly to the staff, some of whom I'd spoken to during the course of the week; the inability of the place to open for business gave them a few nights free, which they used to gather in the pub.
It is not yet clear as to what caused the fire, but I am sure that more details will become available in the coming days. Meanwhile, the owner is still on holiday, and I just checked the weather forecast.
My sweet spot is set to continue.
see you out there
bryan
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