Choppers

Just a quick one today, since there's work to do and more on the horizon.

I did go the dentist, and he did agree to replace the shattered plate for free. That was the good news. He grilled me about my financial situation, saying that what he'd really like to do would be put in implants for a mere €20,000, but even though I had over €50 in my pocket at the moment, I didn't think I was quite ready, thanks. He then indulged in the great Berlin tradition of the-customer-is-always-wrong and told me that it was because my gums were now so healthy -- thanks to him -- that the old plate had loosened up. Then he took an impression and told me the new plate would be ready in 24 hours.

It was. It didn't fit, of course, so he had to modify it, twice. Each time I could sense him getting angrier and angrier at putting in free labor when he could have had a paying customer in the chair, and in the end, they weren't totally snug, but he said -- and I believe him -- that my mouth will adjust. He practically ejected me out of the room.

The adrenaline was so great after this that I walked back to the subway station (which was the end of the line) up Britzer Damm. Britz is said to have some of the oldest structures in Berlin, although I've pinpointed them to a different area than I was walking through. Still, I saw a couple of old farmhouses that had been turned into city dwellings, as well as a couple of the early 19th Century townhouses, two stories and lots of frosting, that I'd also seen up in Pankow last year. Might be worth going back to look for those old houses, but not until the weather gets better.

In a great happy-ending conclusion, this morning's e-mail brought one from Goldapple in San Francisco, giving me the name of his former dentist here, a nice Jewish girl with a degree from Tufts, much more centrally located. And that Tufts degree means that she's in the same great tradition as another great dentist, my maternal grandfather!

Tomorrow I'm going to try to photograph the construction next door (given how it wakes me up every day, I might as well get something out of it), because it's unearthed an entire bombed building.