Drei Wochen in Berlin.... (three weeks in Berlin)

so, after three weeks (how has it been that long!?) I've learned a couple lessons for life, the short list:

1. Being cheap doesn't always pay off...
--when I arrived in Berlin I didn't want to buy a 1Euro Berlin map--resulting in getting lost for a good half hour with all my luggage.


2. Look at the ground when you walk, it might just pay off!
--Since I arrived I've found 15Euro on the sidewalk! Here's hoping that luck continues!

3. Stop using "pay off" as a pun, it gets redundant
--see above

4. There are no strangers, only people you haven't met yet
--(cheesy I know :) But by forcing myself to ignore fears and insecurities I went by myself to the dining commons and an Art History lecture, and made two new friends in both cases! The world is as foreign as you let it be.

Stock photo of Potsdam students pretending to study!

The Museum Lecture I attended!
Held at Humboldt University Art History Dept.

Blisss...... too bad they aren't real!

5. You can never buy too many Ritter Sport chocolate bars when you visit the factory!
--The official factory/wholesale store for RitterSport combines two of my loves: saving money (they are all on discount) and endless varieties of chocolate! so I left with 8 different chocolate bars (double what I had intended to buy)--yes, I told myself that I was buying them as gifts and but as I carried the bag full of delicious varieties out of the store, I knew I would eat them all before leaving for the states :) I believe there are 24 official flavors now (not including seasonal!) these were my choices:

The Flavors? Chocolate Mousse, Hazelnut Caramel, Dark Chocolate Marzipan, My Creation!, Rum Raisin Hazelnut, Nougat (hazelnut cream), Olympia (yogurt, honey, hazelnut, and sugar), Bitter Chocolate (71% Ecuador).
*notice that the Nugat has already met its fate! (it was delicious :)

In addition to these life lessons, a week of classes at Potsdam and a third week of life in Berlin have given me a better understanding of German culture, a few things....

1. Berkeley time of 10 min = 15 min in German schools (but literally 15 and ONLY 15 minutes after the hour, any later is too late). Although I am only enrolled in one actual Potsdam course, this was definitely the case. The professor stopped her lecture and stared down each student who came in late until he or she sat found a seat. For one student who waltzed in 45 min in, she fiercely stared him down and the hall was awkwardly silent until he finally found a seat. She stared and raised her eyebrows at him, "I am sure that this is the last time you will be so late" after another 10 seconds of her piercing gaze she quickly dove back into the lecture material. Sure it's a bit strict but I respect that she requires respect--silently I smiled in approval (here's hoping I never miss a morning train!!)

2. At the end of a lecture American students tend to awkwardly shuffle their papers and pack up, or perhaps clap if it was a really good lecture, but German students knock on the desks (like knocking on a door); somehow this sound of thunder equates approval in University settings? Perhaps its simultaneously making good luck! I'm guessing there are a few reasons why this practice never quite caught on in the US: 1. it seems to be a way to call attention or interrupt (like tapping a wine glass with a spoon) and 2. America has an addiction to plastic, and with each year there are fewer and fewer wooden desks and tables in classrooms: it just would sound lame on plastic!

3. German playgrounds are WAY cooler than modern American playgrounds. I walk by numerous playgrounds on my way home from school (another difference from the US!) and all of them are much more interesting than any cookie cutter jungle gym of the good ole USofA. Americans are too worried about kids getting hurt (I'm sorry, but that's a part of learning) that today it is hard to find a wooden playground, metal slide, or one of those cool spinning platform playgrounds which were all taken out of parks years ago (and replaced, of course, by plastic). German playgrounds have plenty of sand to play in, rock structures to climb on, wooden towers to command, and metal slides to escape on and the kids seem to love it. Honestly I think it's better for kids to face fears and experience "danger" through curiosity (within the reasonable limits of safety) instead of having a totally sheltered bubble wrapped childhood. Plus, what would my childhood have been like without sand castles and sand pies?

Good Ole American playground:
Lots of plastic and rubber and of course super safe wood chips;
Oh, and the trees are safely on the other side of the parkinglot

Stock photo:
illustrating my point

"Wish Garden" Playground!
complete with the craziest "swing" I have ever seen: plus lots
of trees, grass, and sand: child's paradise of curiositie

And the trees! Germans (Europeans in general) cherish their green spaces even within a big city. Playgrounds are no exception to this. Americans worry about children getting too adventurous and climbing trees, so trees are rarely found in play areas (making such play grounds frustratingly hot and sunny in the summer). Germans cherish the green of the trees and the shade they provide, sure kids may climb them, but if the playgrounds are fun enough they wont need to!

Enough culture comparisons for now, I love America and all but I must admit the European mentality of life is growing on me! More stories to come :) And in the meantime, I'll let pictures tell some of the stories for me! Feel free to click HERE to access my public photo album of Berlin on facebook!

Typical German playground:
rockwall anyone?

German Playground:
Rock structure, metal slide, wooden seesaw
and lots of sand (plus TREES!)

Days 1-6: The Search

Today is officially TWO WEEKS since my arrival in Berlin! That sounds both long and short since it has gone by so quickly but so much has happened. It is also a reality check: if I want to keep writing about life as it goes by, I need to go a little faster than two posts per day. SO, in the interest of getting closer to the present I'll do a quick run down of my first week in Berlin and the rollercoaster ride of searching for an apartment in Berlin. 

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!

Day 1 (six days ago :)

Okay, so it's day ten, but for the moment I'm going to look back to Day 1, when I was fresh in Berlin, impressionable, homeless, and relatively naive despite having studied in Europe already.

And when I say "fresh in Berlin" I actually mean jet lagged and exhausted out of my mind, all the same...  the cappuccino and hotel breakfast helped cure that!

First action of business: buy phone. Where? I asked at the desk...
The staff had a quick reply. "There's a shopping center just down the street, they will have phones. they have everything. Big pink building, you can't miss it"

Everything? this is Europe, and based on previous experience no store has everything (flash back to Paris: boulangerie, patisserie, fromagerie, pharmacie, la laiterie, la boucherie, la charcuterie, la poissonnerie, le kiosque, le tabac, la droguerie....... okay, overkill I know, I took it for granted that in Europe the big American stores are broken up into lots of little stores, at least for the most part in Paris, and all the time in Rome).

So out I went into the cold grey city, and sure enough once on the main road (a HUGE road for Europe, three lanes? crazy) I saw the it, a giant modern pink building with ALEXA written on it.

Alexa! the big pink building

 

My fist picture of my trip, and its a mall

I laughed to myself as I walked into the complex: six floors of stores, Tommy Hilfinger, Claires, North Face, Fossil.... was I in Berlin? It was like a mall in LA only cleaner and a cooler selection of European boutiques (obviously)-- also including a full fledged grocery store plus, what I most needed, an immense electronic store, "Media Markt" to buy my phone.

I thought of Rome and how the only malls were well outside the city proper, yet here I was, in the "middle" of Berlin, in a mall practically indistinguishable from California, so bizarre. Plus, they were all stores and brands I knew. As I looked around I pined for Italy, for the foreign. I didn't cross America, the Atlantic, and Western Europe to experience what LA and American in general has too much of (mass consumerism). Yes, it was a bit comforting to have a big mall with everything at my fingertips (phone for instance) but I missed the Italian way, the small town way. But I was in Berlin, and, like I said, my first impressions were a bit naive. Over the next few days I would discover that Alexa was not so bad, and that there still was German culture embedded in it all. Just not the prototypical culture one expects from Europe.

My friend, Media Markt--the Best Buy of Germany

At Media Markt, I again encountered the reality that NOT everyone in Berlin speaks English, but eventually I found an English speaker. Fifteen minutes and 22Euros later I walked out of the store with my new prepaid German cell phone. Phone? check.

Alexanderplatz! where consumerism is king!!

I have since found out the the Alexa mall is by no means the norm of Berlin or Europe. Rather it just recently opened and it was a BIG deal. Mischa (one of our program tutors) told me that the Grand Opening was at midnight and people were so crazy to get inside that hundreds of people pressed up against the glass and shattered all the glass doors. I could tell Mischa was slightly embarrassed that Germans had acted so crazily, I mean, that sort of thing is relatively normal in America (relatively).

Other first impressions? Well I am definitely a product of the American movie culture--shortly after leaving Alexa an ambulance drove by with its distinctive sirens blaring and instinctively I thought, "Bourne Identity! Supremacy! whatever!". I had to snap a picture just as a fun record. I had forgotten that a lot of the movie was filmed in Berlin! So yes, first day impressions summed up to modern malls and memories of movies--capitalism yay! Despite being disheartened, I would eventually find the true Berlin, but it would take an apartment search to get there. More next time!

They are after Jason Bourne!!!

The lobby of my "hostel"
definitely one of the nicest I've ever stayed in

LAX --> Berlin: Departures and Arrivals

Flashback 3 days, and after pulling an all nighter packing and trying to remember every last thing, in a delirium I showed up at LAX with my dad, laden of course with too much stuff, ready (ready!?) to fly to Berlin. I had "everything" passport, itinerary, directions to my Berlin hostel, and dramomine for the plane flight. A shout out to my dad who in addition to staying up all night with me as I packed, even made me a little sack lunch for the plane (which would save me from the awful airline breakfast and snacks). We said our goodbyes took one too many pictures and I was off.


I successfully swindled the Continental system by backing a huge "personal item" and carryon on luggage and only checking in one 50lb bag. When I got to the gate, the flight attendant almost laughed,


"You have two items, you will need to check one of those"
"But they said I could have two items when I checked in? Look, this giant bag is my personal item, this extra bag is just my lunch, food can't count as--"
"Don't worry, its free, just give me whichever bag you want to check in"
"Oh okay" (under my breath "perfect!!")


So I strolled onto the plane, feeling pretty triumphant for that very tiny victory, and happy to not have to carry all of my awkward luggage. Once on the plane I was so anxious to take dramomine and fall asleep that I tried to take it without water: BAD IDEA. Of course I had dumped all my water at the security check, and I figured it wouldn't be that bad. Definitely something a sleep deprived person would stupidly attempt! It totally dissolved on my tongue, tasted awful, and before I could climb over the woman sitting next to me my entire mouth was numb. I rushed to the back of the plane and got a glass of water to wash down what was left. Okay, so tiny victories accompanied by epic defeats! Despite the awful taste and lack of sensation I could care less, I'd sleep through it. And sure enough, I was fast asleep before we left the runway. My flight was from LAX to NY and NY to Berlin, and over the course of those 18 hours dramomine  was definitely my best friend. Despite the sleep inducers, plane travel is an uncomfortable affair, and I arrived in Berlin very sore and very dazed. But it was 8am and I had a hostel to find! and one giant roller bag, a duffel, and a backpack to slough with me through the streets of Berlin.


I took the right bus, the right train, and after getting off the train and climbing down too many stairs I found myself in the back lot of a car washing station. I made my way to the main street, and took in my first impression of the city that would be my home for the next four months. And, not going to lie, it was a pretty shabby first impression--Berlin was, as far as I could tell, positively ugly. Huge streets, lots of cars, 1970s architecture big apartment blocks that looked like any nondescript area of Los Angeles. Not only was Berlin less than attractive, I was totally lost.

My directions said "Cross the street at the light"

What street? which light? there were intersections on the left and right, each seemed so incredibly far away. So I just started walking and tried to ask the few other people on the street for help, but when I asked people for directions they did NOT speak English.


I kept thinking how before I left, so many people had told me:
"Everyone speaks English in Germany! Don't worry!"


Where were all these English speakers!?! apparently not at this S-bahn stop, probably only in the touristy areas.  So I just started walking (in the wrong direction for 10 minutes). Okay, I was lost, being a globetrotter and speaking some French and a little Italian would not help fix the fact that I did not have a map or coherent directions of the city I was in. So I wandered into a Gas Station, and the teller who spoke a tiny bit of English helped me with a map he had. I was actually really close, just lost. So, finally, I had some sort of directions to my hostel. I tried every which way to roll my awkward luggage and was ready to give up when this tiny old German woman, with glasses that made her big concerned eyes even more bright, approached me, smiled, and said,


"Mach dir keine Sorgen! Sie sind ganz nah! Die Herberge liegt nur 200 Meter entfernt! Neben dem grünen Gebäude dort drüben,siehst du?"


I understood Herberge (hostel), 200 meter, and grunen (green), and I looked over and saw where she was pointing, it was my hostel!!
I replied, "Danke danke!"
Within 10 minutes I was in the beautiful lobby of my hostel/home for the next five days. Thanks to the awesome recommendation of my roommate Alexis, I was not in the dirt cheap classic European hostel I had almost booked, but in a Singer 109, a slightly more expensive (still only 12euro a night?!) and immensely better hostel--literally felt like a hotel. 
http://www.singer109.com/index.php?l=en


I couldn't check in until 4 (it was only 11am) so after putting my luggage in the storage room I did the only sensible thing: I went to the hostel cafe, ordered a cappuccino, and FINALLY sat down and relaxed. Breakfast was still being served so I made myself a bowl of granola, yogurt and honey. I knew I still had to find an apartment, buy a phone, email family, but for now it was nice to just sit back and nourish my longing for caffeine and food (yes, I'm pretty much addicted to both).


That brings me pretty much to the morning of day 1... and the end of my transatlantic journey. So much has happened in the past few days it has almost become a blur, and despite the rough beginnings it definitely got better! More stories to come!