I’m in Berlin now and today was a good day for tree climbing and geocaching. These were the only activities that kept me warm in this forsaken cold and moist weather… And tree climbing is way more fun as an adult! During one tree-ascent, Jonas found a geocache by accident, that’s when we started looking for more.
If I sound grumpy, it’s because I’m trying to go 24 hours without smoking a cigarette. That sounded like a good bet to make last night with one of Jonas’ friends. Tree climbing is an excellent activity to keep one’s mind away from the nicotine, but walking around Kreuzberg now there’s just too much temptation to light one up. Don’t worry, I’ll quit smoking tomorrow, or the day after that 😉
After Lisbon, I did something very unusual: I boarded a flight. That flight led me here to Berlin. I’m hanging out with Jonas from Tarifa, who isn’t actually from Tarifa. He’s German and not from Berlin, but he needs to be here. I came with. Even though it’s FUCKING COLD here already – it’s only October! – we’re still doing some fun stuff out the door every day. Jonas borrowed me his amazing sweater for a few occasions. Today we visited the Treptower Park from the S-Bahn station Plänterwald in Berlin, Germany. Jonas introduced me to geocaching here by wondering aloud whether there’d be any geocaches nearby…
Well, what do you know, there are tons of them in just Treptower Park alone. I never knew geocaching was a thing, not really. In my attempt to find the caches, I climbed a bunch of trees, such as this horizontal one. Tree climbing is something I used to be afraid of as a kid. But now it feels like I have the motoric finesse to not kill myself in the process. I guess that’s progress!
The hunt for these geocaches really got to me; I didn’t even notice that it was still like 2°C. Apparently, obsessing over finding a geocache is a great way to forget about feelings like hunger and temperature regulation.
I personally didn’t find any geocaches this day, though I tried very hard. Jonas used to do this with his father and he will stick his hand in those dark places to check and see if there’s a cache. Then he’d pull his hand out with a tiny box in it. Inside the box was a piece of paper and he’d write down something on it with an actual pen I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be impressed or horrified, but that’s how he found four caches on just this little side quest.
What a weird but lovely and wholesome subculture.
[Edit: only after visiting Treptower Park, I learned about Spreepark. Spreepark is the site of an abandoned amusement park. I really love abandoned things, so I must return here one day and try to visit the abandoned Ferris wheel, at minimum.]
Nothing quite beats a good tree climb. 🙂
Exactly!