Fun and games

J and P told me about a shop completely dedicated to table tennis, somewhere in Prenzlauer Berg. This would be good to find, so I could take advantage of the public table tennis tables that are in the many mini parks and squares around here. I wonder when these were installed? On reflection, trying to play table tennis on your own is nuts, so forget it.

Last night, while waiting for a train, a middle aged middle class German couple chatted with me and a couple of twenty something English boys who had just arrived in Berlin on holiday.
"Have you called for the train yet?", the German man teased the boys.
After waiting for a long time in the cold we got on a train. As a group we spread ourselves across a number of seats as out of four sets of two double seats, we took up three. The fourth was occupied by a young man and his little white dog which had a thing about licking people's earlobes, especially ladies earlobes.
Turned out, the middle aged couple live near me.
"Go to the Wall Museum on Bernauer Strasse", they suggested to the boys.
The young man with the little white dog turned around and smiled.
"I live in Wedding", he said.
Reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket, he deftly flicked out, his switchblade. This was the kind of gesture that I suspect to those in the know, would prove that he does indeed live in Wedding. The blood drained from one of the English boy's faces. The dog man folded the blade back down and put it back in his pocket.
"What's Wedding like?" I asked.
"Not good. I have two children." He shrugged.
"I'd say it's cheap to live there at least".
"Yes, and my house in my castle".
The train stopped at the next station. He got out. So did the German couple. The train sat in the station for a couple of minutes. Then it reversed it's direction, taking me and the English boys back to where we came from.