Strangeness

Why was I playing a bit of Beethoven on a piano in West Berlin? This is perhaps due to the strangeness of life. Some ancestor had assisted with the Berlin blockade, and decades later there remained a link to one in West Berlin who had a baby grand. The usual piano in Pakistan did not keep itself much in tune. At least it had all the keys, which is not always the case.

Olivier Messiaen - Quartet for the End of Time

Certain commentators, phloggersgarage, expressed surprise that there had been a road trip through East Germany. Sunny, dry, and staring from the natives at a rest stop. Shabby? Many places are. The border checkpoints took a while. But I was not very old at the time.