broken

Dear friends of piano music, 

"That's totally broken," said a friend of my mother's when she was visiting Heidelberg Castle, full of disappointment. Yes, the Heidelberg Castle is actually largely a ruin, and as such a symbol of romanticis., The romantics especially loved ruins as an expression of longing for a bygone era. My son would also like to rebuild it, he has dealt intensively with the history of the building, and it was actually very beautiful in its heyday when it was intact and inhabited, but that would deconstruct a romantic myth for which Heidelberg is world famous . But what is it really like to live in Heidelberg? Well, we don't live in the historic old town, which outside of pandemic times is actually firmly in the hands of tourists from all over the world on the one hand and students on the other. There is always flooding there when the Neckar's river bed becomes too narrow, the alleys are sometimes very narrow, the baroque houses small, at least on the lower floors also quite dark inside, and above all acoustically you take an active part in the life of your neighbors . Our district emerged from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century,. Also most of the trees still date from this time, and I look at them every day with a mixture of awe and concern, because they suffer a lot from the drought of recent years. The houses are just incredibly beautiful, but they also have their own peculiarities. You can also hear a lot from the neighbors here, especially through the beamed ceilings. If someone crosses the room above ours in normal pace, the lamp shakes and makes funny noises. Even if we walk across the historical parquet, it makes funny noises - the wood is over 200 years old ..... But sometimes it's not that funny anymore, the combination of beamed ceiling and historical chandelier, for example, can be uncomfortable. if, as with friends, a ballet dancer lives above and has to do his training in the living room at home during pandemic times. The only safe way to walk under the chandelier is probably to put on a hard hat, as you would on a construction site, because the beams, they swing, that it is a joy, and the chandelier is probably dancing a duet with the carelessly hopping dancer ion the floor above. Who wants to be killed by a falling chandelier? Even if it's a sacrifice for art ...

Coughing neighbors are an ever-present topic, especially in times of fear of Corona. Across the street lives a lady whose permanent smoker's cough has sounded absolutely final for years and really scares the children. I explained to them that she would always accidentally eat breakfast out of the ashtray and that she had to get it out again - since then they have been laughing when they hear the hideous cough. On the courtyard side lives a cough of vengeance, reminiscent of the sonorous barking of a Danish mastiff, as well as a lady who also smokes very extensively without temperature sensitivity, who sat on the balcony for three full days at Christmas in a T-shirt and with bare feet at two degrees Celsius. She is also a little scary to the children, but she is nice and friendly.

In addition to chain smokers, it is mainly toddlers who live here, and you stumble across them when you step out the front door. We only have two children, which is unusual, you have at least three here, or even four, which you then stack in the not particularly large apartments - nobody likes to move out, because it is simply beautiful here, you can walk or do everything you need to do  by bike, and the wooded mountains and thus the local recreation in the countryside is only a stone's throw away. This is why it is teeming with squirrels scurrying across the balconies, and unfortunately also with wild boars who mess around in the streets and repeatedly run over unsuspecting passers-by. Especially in the street where my husband lived in three different apartments, someone is struck down relatively often by such bristle cattle. However, the risk of being knocked over by a bicycle is even greater, because in bad weather around 4000 bicycles drive through this street every day, in good weather there are significantly more - this is revealed by a "bicycle counting system" that was installed there.

some of the historic houses have a somewhat museum-like character, so of course no elevators in the venerable stairwells, but again and again no heating or no bathroom, but a toilet in the stairwell. We had this pleasure in one of our apartments, so there was a shower cubicle in the kitchen, and if you wanted to go to the toilet at night you could have a chat with the neighbors in your nightgown ...

Kerstin