I don’t exactly how/when it happened, but as of sometime in the past few weeks, it’s suddenly Spring in Berlin.
Normally, the seasons changing are subtle to me. As a Californian, there isn’t much of a wide variation in weather year-round, and things like season changes tend to happen organically, at least in my experience. But here in Northern Germany, I am noticing how the seasons are very distinct in their personalities and very abrupt in their changing.
Whereas in February, we were experiencing weeks with temperatures of -18 C (read: way too cold for this California girl), suddenly, in mid-March we were hit with daytime highs of 19 C, which is like in the middle-to-high spectrum of the 60s, for all you Fahrenheiters. In other words, perfect.
And appropriately, Berliners were breaking out the bicycles and dresses and sunglasses in mass quantities (the latter of which is exciting for me, because my boyfriend can no longer make fun of me for jumping at the opportunity to wear shades whenever it’s sunny outside, because, like, everyone’s doing it).
The main highlights of this weather change are the following:
-Leaving windows open until it gets dark and breathing in the “fresh” Berlin air.
-Bicycle rides!
-Hanging out in cafes and on street corners and at the park drinking copious amounts of coffee and beer with friends.
-No longer having to wear four layers of everything.
Luckily, I had some American visitors right in the middle of this Spring Invasion, and it was great to be able to show them around Berlin without too much miserable weather to deal with.
Of course, in the past two weeks since M.’s return, the weather has been disappointingly colder, with days of cloud cover and rain, occasional hail, and even a snowstorm this past weekend, on Saturday. But as M. has told me, there is even a poem that speaks to this phenomenon, with the famous line: “April! April! Der weiß nicht, was er will.”
But while the weather has been slightly bi-polar, it doesn’t show signs of going back and forth between extremes for too long, with somewhat overcast but still warm days on the schedule for this week. And we’ve still been able to get in some bike rides and park hangouts, giving us a sweet foretaste of the spring and summer to come!