The city awakes.

[Kitosdad]

Having risen at 5.00a.m. today I made an early start and had finished all of my ablutions and duties by 7a.m.
I wrapped up well and jumped onto an early-morning bus that delivered me into the city-centre by 7.40a.m.

Finding my favourite snack-bar just opening, I entered and ordered a hearty breakfast.
Having finished the meal I sat back and began my observations of the folk around me.

The first to enter the snack-bar were a group of young mothers with their young children. They had just finished delivering their older children into kindergartens and schools, and were now going to enjoy a coffee and a natter with their friends.

What a gregarious group they were! All laughing and talking, making the snack-bar come alive with their joviality and banter.

Outside the shops were beginning to turn on their lights, and the young assistants were stamping their feet in frustration at having to wait for the owners to open the doors.

The young guys with half-asleep faces, and the young girls checking their hair and make-up in preparation for their first face to face encounters with early-morning shoppers.
The city was starting to awaken, and it wasn't too long before the customers were streaming through the doors of the department stores.

The market stall-holders, all wrapped up, and their faces stark in the light from their low slung paraffin lamps, all busy arranging their wares for potential customers perusal.
The smell of the fruit and fish hanging in the cold Autumn air.

Directly across from me stands the Volkshochschule, and I watch with interest as the people of many nations enter its doors with their back-packs bulging with their work- books and dictionaries.
They are all part of an Integration course for Ausländer, Immigrants to Germany, who are obliged to learn the basics of the German language, and social structure.
They will attend each Monday to Friday from 9a.m. until 1p.m. for 140 hours in total.
This is a completely free course for each Ausländer who is new to Germany!

The activity of the day is speeding up now and people are wide awake and on the hunt for bargains.
I too must join them for I am in search of a birthday present for my neighbour.

This afternoon we will have coffee and cake, and sit and talk until around 6p.m. when an evening meal will be served.
There will be Karaoke singing until around 9p.m. and then the party-goers will disperse to their own homes, and once again virtual silence will descend upon the household, but the city will be alive until about 2a.m. when once again it will fall asleep, only to start anew with the breaking of dawn.

I will be there to greet it, as usual.

Kitos.
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