It’s that time of year…

…when the slide shows start. The first time I came to Berlin was winter 2000, and I couldn’t work out why there were posters of New Zealand everywhere. Sure, there were also a few posters of Australia, but why?
Now I know. Every year around November, as the weather gets colder and the days get shorter, it’s time to a) wheel out the Christmas decorations and b) start selling those trips to warmer climes. So tourism companies set up slide show evenings, where you show up and look at some nice photos of countries which, quite frankly, have way better weather right now than where you are.
I haven’t been to a photo evening, but I know people who have and they say the pictures are rather lovely. And they’re enough incentive for people with cold tootsies and SADD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) to book a flight and get the hell out.
Anyway, with the New Zealand posters on every street, I have a clear idea of what’s available in my homeland. There’s a big, snow-capped mountain (only capped – the snow is at a safe distance). There is a tattooed Maori warrior, who will most likely greet you at the airport and stick his tongue out in a ceremonial gesture of contempt before he escorts you to a waiting taxi (kidding…). There is a Hobbit-hole – the traditional dwelling of all New Zealanders. Or it may just be a prop left over from the Lord of the Rings movies.
Anyway, seeing these pictures always gives me a little pang of homesickness. I wonder what the hell I’m doing in this currently grey city when I could be tucked up in my cosy Hobbit-hole. But then I remind myself that tourism publicity, while semi-honest, does not paint the whole picture. For example, they left out the overcrowding that comes with so many sheep, the pall of depression that hangs over the country after the Wallabies beat the All Blacks, and of course the Orcs and trolls persecuting Frodo as he undertakes his quest to fling the Ring into Mount Doom.
Maybe that’s a poster for next year.