Fotoeins Fotografie

location bifurcation, place vs. home

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Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore, MD, USA, MLB, baseball, Baltimore Orioles, fotoeins.com

Baltimore: Oriole Park at Camden Yards

I’m a longtime baseball fan, going way back to the days of watching on CBC Television many Montréal Expos’ home games at Jarry Park Stadium, and back to the inaugural seasons for both the Seattle Mariners and the Toronto Blue Jays. I’ve been looking forward to visiting Camden Yards in Baltimore since its completion in 1992. I’m visiting friends in Baltimore as one of many North American stops in my 2012 around-the-world (RTW) trip. With the added bonus of the stadium’s 20th anniversary, we’re on a weekday-afternoon tour of Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Although baseball season is already a few weeks in, there are only six of us on the tour. It feels like we have all of Camden Yards to ourselves.

I’m also a fan of sports history. A few weeks earlier, I returned to Toronto for the first time in ten years, and I found some ‘religion’ in the presence of “The Holy Grail” inside the Hockey Hall of Fame. Here at Camden Yards, it’s special to examine an important part of Oriole and baseball lore, reading about Brooks Robinson and Frank Robinson, and seeing the various displays for Cal Ripken Jr.

At home plate, I imagine I’m at bat, and smacking a 3-2 outside fastball towards the warehouse wall in right field, and I’m rounding the bases …

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My Berlin: Schöneberg 2009–2017

Above/featured: Entrance to U-Bahnhof Rathaus Schöneberg.

It seems as universal as the common opinion about how cool and interesting Berlin is.

Both residents and visitors mention the same names in conversations throughout the city: Prenzlauer Berg, Mitte, Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg, Neukölln, and the hybrid “KreuzKölln”, even as Wedding and Lichtenberg begin weaving their way into the dialogue.

Of the neighbourhoods within the city’s Ring, what about Charlottenburg or Schöneberg? The answers often arrive as expected. Why would anyone visit there or live there? It’s boring! It’s too quiet! It’s dead! Lots of sniffy snobby dismissive exclamation points! That few choose the area is precisely why I’m in Schöneberg for three months at the tail end of my year-long around-the-world.

For many in Berlin, they’re living, working, and playing in areas where they’re close to the action and housing costs may on average be slightly cheaper. There’s something to be said about proximity and small “stumbling distances” after a night of drinking. For some, Schöneberg is too far, too expensive, too quiet, or all of the above. I don’t mind the 20-, 30-, or 45-minute travel times to places where friends eat, drink, or hang out.

It’s always a matter of choice for me to be in Schöneberg. There’s a comfortable stillness here that always sets me at ease, where I can tune out or turn down the noise, and find my calm. For a very special time, this area in Berlin, “der schöne Schöneberg,” is home.

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