I had to travel rural Brandenburg yesterday for business reasons. Roughly 100 kilometers to the northwest of Berlin. To a place not accessible via Autobahn (yes, such places do exist in Germany, too). So I cruised country roads, which are – as is the custom here in Brandenburg – tree-lined most of the way. This part of the county, which I haven’t been to before, featured endless oak alleys. Beautiful.  Between the grand, old trees, I noticed many a young oak sprout on the grassy banks growing wild. Visible from the car only, because the four, five leafs on each tiny tree have turned yellow, sticking out from the green background. If I had enough space in my garden for an oak, I would have stopped to dig out some of the young shoots.

But stop I did, later. On my way back home in the evening. When I noticed the sky lighting up. Red dots everywhere. Periodically blinking codes into the night sky. Looking like secret messages visually beeped into space, creating a surreal ambience for the lone traveller.

Sure, I knew it was just the security lights on the many wind turbines, indicating their existance to low air traffic. But nevertheless, if one drives underneath hundreds of blinking lights, it is weird and beautiful. I wish, I could have stopped at a place, where one was completely submerged in an entire field of them. However, at least I was able to pull into a side road to catch some of it…