So, cobblestones. They’re a lovely way to pave a street, much nicer than the ribbons of concrete we have in the United States.

But on a bike? Really, really bumpy. Thank god they let you ride on the sidewalks here.

The problem: A vast, empty apartment. Which incidently smelled like sheetrock. We clearly needed Ikea.

Ok, and a car. Or a van, technically. We find a shop that will rent to us. Many won’t, because we don’t have the International Drivers Permit that is really only a translation of our US drivers license, or an EU license. But we get an enormous van. Which is just the way I want to learn how to drive for the first time in a foreign country — in something roughly the size and shape of a whale, with a stick shift on the dashboard just out of reach of my arms, trying to find a megastore that’s on the outskirts of town and thus off the edge of any map we have.

So off we go. One bit lip and half hour of teeth (and gear) grinding later, we’re there, eating celebratory meatballs. Three more hours and three massive shopping carts later, we’re out, with furniture in boxes, and various sundries that give us an actual apartment.

Thusly we have created about two-thirds of a home out of empty space. We need to fill it it in with color and personality, for which we will turn to the big Mauerpark flea market on Sunday. The fridge guy came yesterday, so we can shop now. It’s like having a life again.

Maybe best is having bicycles at last. Yesterday evening at dusk we rode down a long path where the old Wall used to be, which has now been planted with lines of the most voluptuous pink-blossomed cherry trees I’ve ever seen. This is a beautiful way to signify peace at last.

So, Mayday. I’m chatting with Corii online, and she says there’s a huge parade on Market street in San Francisco, part of the immigrant protest movement in the states. Here in Berlin, the first of May is supposed to get ugly. For the last 24 hours, we’ve seen literally dozens, even scores of police vans and riot contol vehicles, filled with cops, hanging out by the major rally points in Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg and Prenzlauer. Far more cops even than at the biggest antiwar marches in San Francisco, when they had human walls trying to move the people off Market.

So we went walking today, all across the city, trying to find a riot. But nothing. Not even a looting. Barely a decent jaywalking.

There was clearly action last night. The Mauer park, near where we are going to live, was covered in plastic cups, and the temporary metal fences had been trampled by the time we got there today. I think we simply missed the memo. Midnight: riots. Mayday: sleep in, have a beer.

According to this story, Walpurgis Night, or May Day’s eve, is in fact when the scheisse goes down. But the cops say this was the quietest night in years. They expected left wing protest action later in the day, but we were here, all we saw was public drinking and a rockabilly band singing in English. Sigh. I would have taken even a public urination — except wait, that happens everyday…

On a brighter note, the Dunkel Heffeweizen I drank a liter of tonight is very good. Time for more, I think.

Sitting in a smokey Internet cafe around the corner from the Landwehrkanal, and our little temporary studio apartment. It’s cold outside, and supposed to reach freezing point tonight. This just a few days after the entire city spent an afternoon sunbathing — some of them nude– in the Tiergarten. We’re on the way to find a bowl of pho. That should take the chill off.

The big news of the day: we’ve purchased a mattress, the first thing to go into our as-yet-empty-and-echoing apartment. For now, I stand in the living room and whistle, and it sounds like I’m in a stadium. I think I’ll sample the sound before we put a rug down, if I can get enough power adapters to get my little ministudio running.

We probably won’t move in until Tuesday. This weekend is a holiday, with Mayday on Monday, and nobody works (or delivers mattresses). We’ll wander around and take pictures on Monday, but not too obviously — it’s a day of protests, for which many businesses are already boarding up their windows, and we’re too obviously Auslanders, and probably Americans, to make would-be-rioters happy, I fear.

Drinks with our landlord’s local agent last night, a former squatter here in Kreuzberg who said that tourists come for 1 May to make trouble, and to get in fights with police. He prefers to stay away. Important to remember, of course, that he described himself in his squat as “the only punk with a pillow.”

Which I think should be an album, or a T-shirt. Off to nudeln now.

A study supported by Acco Brands — the Day Timer organizers company — says that Americans feel much less productive than they did years ago.

It’s not that they’re objectively getting less done. According to the U.S. Conference Board, labor productivity overall grew at an annual rate of about 2.9 percent between 2000 and 2004. That’s respectable, if not spectacular, trailing Japan, but exceeding Europe substantially.

The Day Timer folks are instead tapping into the problem of expectations. Email, IM, cell phones and 24-hour workplaces have made everything move faster. People expect more from themselves, and managers expect more. Workers set out a plan for the day, which is quickly disrupted by email and other electronic interruptions.

Two ways to adapt to this: Carve out time to turn things off. That’s critical, if we ever want sustained thought. And the rest of the time, learn to surf, instead of fighting the electronic waves.

Link:

• Americans work more, seem to accomplish less – Yahoo! News