Spring in Berlin

     To say that spring is a beautiful season beyond being a cliché, it's also obvious, but I never imagined that spring could be as fragrant and as colorful as here in Germany. Berlin is finally beautiful!

      Of course we have flowers, perfumes and spring in Brazil. No doubt that we do. And they are beautiful! But I never imagined anything like what I see on the streets here. The winter is barely gone and the grass just shows up green again. A light green, almost fluorescent. Then the flower buds begin to emerge. That's right, buds on the grass! The grass here is full of flowers. On it dandelions are "born" (which, contrary to what happens in Brazil, here they're not considered weeds) and other yellow, pink, white, purple flowers. The grass itself is already a spectacle so beautiful and colorful. Then come the shrubs. Fully covered with flowers and mostly leafless, they bloom in shades of yellow, purple, white, red, and so on. Then, the trees, which took a little more to have its leaves back, start to show not only tones of various green, but also flowers of various sizes and colors.

     Adding to all this are the flowers that were planted in the gardens but, being bulbs, don't need to be replanted. And, "suddenly", the city gardens appear in each corner, covered by pansies, daisies, magnolias, several beautiful little flowers that I don't know the name and, of course, the famous and beautiful tulips. These appear everywhere. In the flower beds of the avenues, under bushes, in the neighbor's yard, on the windows of the old lady who is always having tea on the porch. Pink, yellow, red, red and yellow, purple and white, orange, wine colored tulips, and all it's unusual color combinations. Rounded, pointed, dentilhadas, frayed petals of tulips, types I never thought existed.

     With the flowers come the seeds. They spread through the air on clouds. Clouds, that if it weren't for the temperature, looking from afar, you could swear it was snowing. And the seeds are found everywhere. Yesterday, for example, Sophia slept on the living room carpet, and on top of her, a seed of dandelion that unaware came through the window without knowing that here it would not have a fertile soil to grow and, once again, beautify the world.

     Yes, we have spring in Brazil, but unfortunately we do not have this profusion of flowers that bloom all together making the cities a large garden for a few weeks. But perhaps this was nature's solution to make winter more tolerable in cold countries.