So, the day I arrived was also the first day I did an apartment visit. I called Mike, who had contacted me by email shortly before I had left LA. Although his email was in German, I google translated it and got the gist.
"in our top-girls-WG `s in Friedrichshain / Mitte is a Mini Rooms available from 1.4.
(cost only 130, - / month) You can stay as long as you like - are just a few months possible."
Mini-room? 130Euros? that's impossible... Top Girl's WG? What does that mean? Should I be sketched out by this? Since I had no other options at the time I figured might as well take a look. So after my adventure to Alexa to buy a phone I contacted Mike and met him at the apartment that afternoon. I figured I might as well try all my options. So although there was nothing inherently wrong with Mike or the apartment I got the strangest vibe: he rented the rooms out only to girls (okay, I get it, stereotypes confirm that girls are cleaner), but he also kept mentioning how he was going to install a special shoe rack for "the girls' " the high heel shoes and a mirror by the door for us to check make up.... odd.
And then I saw the mini-room and tried not to laugh aloud. It was literally a mini room--straight out of Harry Potter (minus a slanted ceiling). Except for a 5 in space between the bed and the wall (on one side) the bed filled the room completely. No shelves. no windows. no space for anything really, just sleeping. Clothes, shoes and luggage would be "stored in the hallway". This seemed like a crazy option, and I wasn't going to sacrifice that much even if the rent was cheap.
so I smiled and said,
"I'll get back to you if I'm interested!"
(mental note: only contact as a very last resort!)
When I got back to the hostel I took a second look at the ad and had all my "weird vibes confirmed" and though the ad is gone now, if memory serves me right it said something like this:
"We are only interested in students and clean girls, in other words no hippies, environmentalists, or feminists"
What!?! Okay, I may not be one of the tree people of UC Berkeley, but I'm not anti alternative lifestyle (and why are feminists inherently dirty??). Weird vibes confirmed. moving on to option 2...
Needless to say I visited several more apartments and visited parts of Berlin that I wanted to go back to and other parts that were, well, much less intriguing. The whole process was a roller coaster: the first two places were mediocre and the third was decent and the fourth was amazing (I would be living with an Romanian student and two German students in a beautiful old apartment). Seeing that apartment introduced me to a beautiful area of the city that I had not had time to discover: little cafes, an old church, parks with children--it was beautiful, clean, and not touristy. But despite my hopeful wishes they chose someone else. shoot. Option number 3 also said no, they wanted a boy roommate... not much I could do about that! All this put me back at the mini room option (nooOO!) SO the search continued.
The next round also went from worst to best--from the random outskirts of the city (where the most interesting landmark was bridge for the train tracks and the Bayer medicine factory exciting), to different areas of Friedrichshain (a hip youthful area of east Berlin), and to a beautiful old flat overlooking Eberswalder station (which resembles the classic French train stations). Of course this last option had 20 other people visit to see, and although I really really wanted to live there, as I wrote my name on the list with twenty others I knew my odds weren't so good.
Actually, the last place I saw in Fridrichshain had gone really well, and if the two girls (two students at Humboldt, a little younger than me) wanted me to live with them that would be fine (anything but the mini-room). So my search (as of 11:30pm March 30) for apartments was over. finished. done. I took a deep breath, and quickly chatted with Erika about my crazy day, sent her the link to the "perfect apartment" on Eberswalder and said oh well. I sent Erika the link just for fun/"woe is me", and shortly after she said:
you could live with an art history prof! haha wierd http://www.wg-gesucht.de/wg-zimmer-in-Berlin-Mitte.2497443.html
The ad had just been put up that evening--but I was done right? No more searching for me right? This was too good though, live with an art history teacher! It said that she enjoys cooking!? I had to give it a shot. I sent a quick email explaining who I am etc and went to bed.
The next morning Romy (the art history teacher) sent me a text saying I could come visit the apartment before noon. And literally at that same moment the two students called me and said they would like me to live with them! Suddenly caught I made up some excuse and said I would have to call them back to confirm. It was already getting late, so off I rushed to meet Romy and see, perhaps, my new home.
I was so stressed out about getting there quickly that I got completely lost in the windy streets near Hackescher Markt. I hardly noticed that all the buildings were beautiful and old, that there were cute little cafes, churches, trees, cobbled streets, and fewer cars. I'd pick up on these details later. Finally I found the apartment (I had gone in circles for a while) and buzzed the name she had given me:
KOCHER
which means "cook" or "cooker" in German. This was a good sign.
She buzzed me up and I pushed open the heavy door--a huge (10ft?) heavy wooden door with inlaid wood. As I looked into the entryway I couldn't help but gasp: the walls were painted with imitation marble, beautiful woodwork capped off the ceiling and a lovely wooden staircase wound up at the end of the hall. This was too good to be true. I made my way through the space, and up the stairs, and knocked on the door. Romy, a shorter motherly looking German woman probably about fifty years old answered smiling,
"Opf! Miss Nicole Kidman! Yes, you are Nicole, blonde like Nicole Kidman! Come, come in!"
I smiled, and followed her inside. She walked me through all the rooms and explained all the logistics. As I followed I took note of the many shelves overladen with books, the art hanging on the walls, and the homelike ambiance. I met the cats and the fish and then we sat down for coffee and to chat. After talking for a bit I told her that I would call her in the afternoon with my final decision, but that I had a good feeling about it. She smiled,
"It make me happy if you live here---A French girl also looked, but--" she leaned in closer "I like you; you laugh more!" and a big smile spread across her face.
We chatted a little more, and I was off. I smiled as I walked back to the metro I noticed all the little details of the area that I had run by. I took a slightly different way back which led me straight to Hackescher Markt, a famous square that I had somehow not yet seen. The small platz in the shadow of the beautiful brick s-bahn station was reminiscent of Roman piazzas: terrace patio dining side by side with farmers market stalls of fruits, vegetables, jams and arts. Except instead of wine and cappuccinos, people, young and old, were sipping on tall glasses of beer. I had found it! the relaxed ambiance of an afternoon beer on a terrace, the joie de vivre of Paris and Italy did exist in Berlin, it had just been obscured by commercialism, but it was there in the people all along. Finally I felt at home, and luckily I could live only steps away from the Berlin I had been searching for.
Needless to say, once I got back to my hostel I contacted Romy and confirmed, and FINALLY after what had seemed like endless searching I had a true home in Berlin!
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