After three weeks I am suffering from a mild case of what could be called "buyer's remorse"- what was I thinking, moving to Europe????
This was supposed to be cheap! It is not being cheap!
This was supposed to be cultural! It is not being cultural!
I'm stuck in the middle of money hassles and haven't yet settled into any sort of normal life that will allow me to freely explore the city, let alone get out of it on forays farther afield. I'm still tripping over my suitcases in Hannah's apartment, trying to overcome fatigue and the overwhelming need to sleep (what's that about, anyway?), trying to cadge together enough cash to pay the deposit (and three months' rent in advance) on Musahmstrasse (have I just committed apartment-fail?), anxious about furnishing the place once I get the keys (am I stupid to have settled for an unfurnished flat?), and stressing about how little I've actually seen of Berlin (six apartments, Ikea, the Goethe Institute, one department store, one flea market, and a bratwurst stand). No museums, no Reichstag, no cathedral, not even a sightseeing cruise on the river. A lot of the Goethe Institute.
But at least I'm not homesick.
There are certainly things to miss at home - my younger daughter, my brothers, my friends, my other dogs, my furnished house; but I find that missing those things is more a noticing of differences than a homesickly yearning. (Email, Skype, cell phones, blogs and FaceBook help a lot.) Yes, I miss my daughter Sally terribly, but then I always do, whether I'm in the States or not. (I miss both my daughters all the time, and even when I'm with them I'm reminded of their childhood selves - bittersweet memories, to be sure - and am sad that it all went by so quickly. The cliche of middle-aged mothers everywhere. I hate being a cliche, but there you have it.) I miss having Saturday breakfast with my brother John and wandering the Walla Walla farmers' market, but now I have Saturday breakfast with Hannah and wander the Boxhagenerplatz farmers' market. I miss the conveniences and yes, spaciousness, of my little house on Newell Street, but find the under-the-kitchen-counter washing machine here amusing, and have adjusted to having drying racks with damp underwear in the middle of the living room on weekends. Hey! I'm living in Europe!! What's to miss???
Homesickness plagued my younger years. I was the kid who was always homesick on overnights, even just through the back fence at the neighbor's. I was homesick at kindergarten, homesick at high-school summer camp, homesick away at college. I believe I always felt a piece of myself was missing when I was away from home, some keystone that would keep me from collapsing. I stopped feeling that way when I moved to New York after college and discovered I was, in fact, fairly self-contained and reliable, becoming a competent adult, learning life skills like apartment- and job-hunting and how to master a subway system. It's hard to be homesick once you realize your home is you. Another cliche, I know, but cliches, like stereotypes, are grounded in a bit of truth.
As annoyed as I am with Berlin right now - the bureaucratic and financial glitches, the dirt and noise of this part of Friedrichshain, the kaputtnichkeit of the S-Bahn, the unsmiling people on the street, the culture of alcohol and tobacco (firearms left to the States), the difficulty with language - I'm still not homesick. In fact, I love it here. And it will be cheap - after tomorrow I won't have to pay rent again until January and my deposit I'll recover when I leave. It will be cultural - with afternoons no longer spent foraging for an apartment and furnishings I will have time to scour the Museumsinsel and art galleries. In November, after my eight weeks at the Goethe Institute are over, even my mornings will be free. Maggie especially will enjoy that. And maybe the Muse will return and I'll be able to paint. I won't even go into the puns that occur to me with the Muse and Muhsamstrasse.
Buyer's remorse? I guess not.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Catch-22
Let's talk about apartment hunting, shall we?
I saw my first two apartments in Berlin in June, during my nine-day visit with Hannah. I registered with an English-speaking housing agency that specializes in furnished flats; they sent me out on the viewing appointments. One was a lovely, bright street-side apartment with a small balcony, but I found the surrounding area to be somewhat lifeless and bordered by grim allees, the long, wide boulevards that change from strip-mall to upscale shopping to dead zone to major commercial center. (It was also a fifth-floor walkup...). The second was in a great area but was only one room, dominated by an ugly bed, with the shower stall IN THE KITCHEN, and the WC in a peculiar little space with a deep window and crawl space behind the toilet. It was also dark, being on the inside of the building. Great people as landlords - two art historians and cute baby - living in the next flat; would have been fun to get well acquainted with them but the room would have made me feel like the poor orphan girl in "The Little Princess." So ixnay on emthay.
I spent the summer back home communicating with ExBerlinerFlats, but could not commit to anything online; was simply hoping for there to be something I could send Hannah to go see for me in person. Nothing. So I tried Craigslist, appealing because it's also in English, which should be rechristened Scam-o-Rama and forgotten by the world. 100% of the people who responded to my inquiries were scammers, and not particularly bright scammers, at that. In fact, maybe it's only one person whose hobby it is to list phantom apartments and see who will bite. There was a definite monotony to the stories being related: This flat is the most important thing in the world to me because I inherited it from my dead husband/wife and so your "absolute maintenance" of the place is of the utmost concern and oh by the way I am going to/already in West Africa on a mission and I have the keys with me but once you wire me a big deposit and several months' rent I have made arrangements to send the keys to you and really it looks just like it does in the pictures. I'm not kidding. There must have been at least a dozen of these with only minor variations.
Arriving in Berlin should have made things easier, as I could actually look at places. The first place was a great space - nicely furnished, near the river - and nothing nearby except block after block of apartment buildings. No shops, no cafes, no bakeries, no grocery stores. Nada, zilch, nothing. Not the European urban experience I'm looking for. I don't need Hipster Heaven, but a coffee shop at least is de rigueur.
The second place I went to sounded really promising, being more in the middle of old Berlin, also along the river, in an older restored building, on the first floor; also furnished. The building was truly stunning, a turn-of-the-twentieth-century striped masonry edifice with bay windows and a gracious entry. Again, the area wasn't quite as lively as I would have liked, but the building was so beautiful I would have made do. Except that the "first-floor" apartment turned out to be a dank basement room with Pergo floors and an old, dirty green couch to sleep on. Eeeew!
By spending a work-week's of hours deciphering German online newspaper ads and agency listings I finally understood enough to be able to send out some email inquiries. One guy responded promptly and we set up an appointment but then I remembered to tell him I have a dog and that was a deal-breaker. Understandable. One response was an auto-reply from an agency referring me to their website. I'm guessing they specialize in "fixer uppers" as most of the spaces were in pretty bad shape; one didn't even have a toilet installed, just the pipes where one had been. I did not bookmark their page.
It is very common here for people to take their kitchens with them when they move - sink, stove, fridge, even the cabinets and countertops. I find it a bizarre practice, but at least it helped me narrow my search results to places with cooking areas intact. The toilet thing still puzzles me.
Feeling frantic, I registered with another English-speaking agency, right in the courtyard of the Goethe Institute, specializing in helping people like me - new to Berlin, lacking language skills, needing furnished places. They sent me to two beautiful flats, one in the picturebook district of Schoeneberg, and one in the trendier Prenzlauerberg. Schoeneberg was a very nicely done place - ground floor, nice kitchen and bathroom, flat-screen TV, but was only one room with a round bed in the middle of it. Also a little dark, being on the airshaft side of the building, and the neighborhood gave me a social-class anxiety attack, the way my kids' prep school in Seattle did. Beautiful, but maybe not quite where I belong. And the place in Prenzl? Sheesh! Nice place, but the area is like a freeway for strollers - Hannah calls it "Breeder Central," there are so many young families living there. And did I mention the commission? The agency wanted 2 months' rent for two telephone calls and one email, the equivalent of about $2,000.00 U.S. Plus 19% service tax. Works out to about $100 per minute which means I'm REALLY in the wrong line of work.
OK, enough of that. I did finally find a place, by myself, through the newspaper. Unfurnished. Ground floor. Good light. Pleasant garden, good for the dog. One big room, one nice kitchen, one lovely bathroom, 3 french doors. No partridge.
When you move to Germany - or change your address once you're here - you have to register with the city within seven days of obtaining permanent accommodation. It's called anmeldung. (Visitors who stay in hotels also get anmelded, but the hotels do all the paperwork so the guests don't even know about it.) You need a copy of your lease to get your anmeldung. You need your anmeldung certificate in order to get a bank account. You need a bank account in order to produce enough cash to make a deposit to obtain your lease. Foreigners have to pay bigger deposits. You can see where I'm going with this. I'm now stuck in Catch-22. I can't withdraw a large enough sum of money from an ATM to pay my entire deposit and 3 months' rent in one fell swoop, which means I can't get the lease document to take to the Bürgeramt to become anmelded in order to open a bank account to pay my deposit...
By dribs and drabs I will accumulate the cash I need from ATMs and by using 3 cards. I paid a third of it today and it will take me until Monday to accumulate the rest. And then I get to go shopping at Ikea, which also only takes cash.
The icing on this particular cake is deliciously ironic. Hannah was describing a high-maintenance friend to me the day before I went to look at this apartment. She said, "She's so mühsam." I said I thought the apartment I was going to see was on Mühsamstrasse, and what did it mean exactly? She laughed almost to the point of tears and said, "It means 'pain in the ass'". Perfekt.
I saw my first two apartments in Berlin in June, during my nine-day visit with Hannah. I registered with an English-speaking housing agency that specializes in furnished flats; they sent me out on the viewing appointments. One was a lovely, bright street-side apartment with a small balcony, but I found the surrounding area to be somewhat lifeless and bordered by grim allees, the long, wide boulevards that change from strip-mall to upscale shopping to dead zone to major commercial center. (It was also a fifth-floor walkup...). The second was in a great area but was only one room, dominated by an ugly bed, with the shower stall IN THE KITCHEN, and the WC in a peculiar little space with a deep window and crawl space behind the toilet. It was also dark, being on the inside of the building. Great people as landlords - two art historians and cute baby - living in the next flat; would have been fun to get well acquainted with them but the room would have made me feel like the poor orphan girl in "The Little Princess." So ixnay on emthay.
I spent the summer back home communicating with ExBerlinerFlats, but could not commit to anything online; was simply hoping for there to be something I could send Hannah to go see for me in person. Nothing. So I tried Craigslist, appealing because it's also in English, which should be rechristened Scam-o-Rama and forgotten by the world. 100% of the people who responded to my inquiries were scammers, and not particularly bright scammers, at that. In fact, maybe it's only one person whose hobby it is to list phantom apartments and see who will bite. There was a definite monotony to the stories being related: This flat is the most important thing in the world to me because I inherited it from my dead husband/wife and so your "absolute maintenance" of the place is of the utmost concern and oh by the way I am going to/already in West Africa on a mission and I have the keys with me but once you wire me a big deposit and several months' rent I have made arrangements to send the keys to you and really it looks just like it does in the pictures. I'm not kidding. There must have been at least a dozen of these with only minor variations.
Arriving in Berlin should have made things easier, as I could actually look at places. The first place was a great space - nicely furnished, near the river - and nothing nearby except block after block of apartment buildings. No shops, no cafes, no bakeries, no grocery stores. Nada, zilch, nothing. Not the European urban experience I'm looking for. I don't need Hipster Heaven, but a coffee shop at least is de rigueur.
The second place I went to sounded really promising, being more in the middle of old Berlin, also along the river, in an older restored building, on the first floor; also furnished. The building was truly stunning, a turn-of-the-twentieth-century striped masonry edifice with bay windows and a gracious entry. Again, the area wasn't quite as lively as I would have liked, but the building was so beautiful I would have made do. Except that the "first-floor" apartment turned out to be a dank basement room with Pergo floors and an old, dirty green couch to sleep on. Eeeew!
By spending a work-week's of hours deciphering German online newspaper ads and agency listings I finally understood enough to be able to send out some email inquiries. One guy responded promptly and we set up an appointment but then I remembered to tell him I have a dog and that was a deal-breaker. Understandable. One response was an auto-reply from an agency referring me to their website. I'm guessing they specialize in "fixer uppers" as most of the spaces were in pretty bad shape; one didn't even have a toilet installed, just the pipes where one had been. I did not bookmark their page.
It is very common here for people to take their kitchens with them when they move - sink, stove, fridge, even the cabinets and countertops. I find it a bizarre practice, but at least it helped me narrow my search results to places with cooking areas intact. The toilet thing still puzzles me.
Feeling frantic, I registered with another English-speaking agency, right in the courtyard of the Goethe Institute, specializing in helping people like me - new to Berlin, lacking language skills, needing furnished places. They sent me to two beautiful flats, one in the picturebook district of Schoeneberg, and one in the trendier Prenzlauerberg. Schoeneberg was a very nicely done place - ground floor, nice kitchen and bathroom, flat-screen TV, but was only one room with a round bed in the middle of it. Also a little dark, being on the airshaft side of the building, and the neighborhood gave me a social-class anxiety attack, the way my kids' prep school in Seattle did. Beautiful, but maybe not quite where I belong. And the place in Prenzl? Sheesh! Nice place, but the area is like a freeway for strollers - Hannah calls it "Breeder Central," there are so many young families living there. And did I mention the commission? The agency wanted 2 months' rent for two telephone calls and one email, the equivalent of about $2,000.00 U.S. Plus 19% service tax. Works out to about $100 per minute which means I'm REALLY in the wrong line of work.
OK, enough of that. I did finally find a place, by myself, through the newspaper. Unfurnished. Ground floor. Good light. Pleasant garden, good for the dog. One big room, one nice kitchen, one lovely bathroom, 3 french doors. No partridge.
When you move to Germany - or change your address once you're here - you have to register with the city within seven days of obtaining permanent accommodation. It's called anmeldung. (Visitors who stay in hotels also get anmelded, but the hotels do all the paperwork so the guests don't even know about it.) You need a copy of your lease to get your anmeldung. You need your anmeldung certificate in order to get a bank account. You need a bank account in order to produce enough cash to make a deposit to obtain your lease. Foreigners have to pay bigger deposits. You can see where I'm going with this. I'm now stuck in Catch-22. I can't withdraw a large enough sum of money from an ATM to pay my entire deposit and 3 months' rent in one fell swoop, which means I can't get the lease document to take to the Bürgeramt to become anmelded in order to open a bank account to pay my deposit...
By dribs and drabs I will accumulate the cash I need from ATMs and by using 3 cards. I paid a third of it today and it will take me until Monday to accumulate the rest. And then I get to go shopping at Ikea, which also only takes cash.
The icing on this particular cake is deliciously ironic. Hannah was describing a high-maintenance friend to me the day before I went to look at this apartment. She said, "She's so mühsam." I said I thought the apartment I was going to see was on Mühsamstrasse, and what did it mean exactly? She laughed almost to the point of tears and said, "It means 'pain in the ass'". Perfekt.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
A Day Off
I will begin with a bad pun, given where I am, but Friday night I hit the wall. I was in bed by nine and didn't get up until after nine Saturday morning. Twelve hours after that, I was still tired and was so very happy that evening does eventually follow daylight and that bedtime heaves into sight, every night, at last. It has been an exhausting two weeks, hitting the ground running as I did; no wonder my brain and body both rebelled.
In spite of the fatigue, I walked a good bit Saturday, out and about with Hannah, who is likewise fatigued, to the farmers' market (pecorino!) and paper stores (still on the sketchbook quest; fail) and later out with Maggie for her evening stroll. It was a pleasantly cool early fall day; suddenly this week it is dark noticeably earlier.
Neither of us felt like cooking so we went out for Vietnamese again, always a good choice for tired people who have not eaten particularly well all day. (On days when I have not had my vegetables, I am now able to say "We are not gemused.") We then holed up all evening with our books and laptops, Hannah working on her academic papers on Pope Gregory VII and the Habsburgs, and I moving restlessly between online apartment-hunting and reading my novel. We took frequent Maggie breaks.
Berlin has me thinking about relationships, as what I am doing here these days is establishing a new one, with the city itself. Getting oriented in a city is almost exactly like meeting a new person, beginning with elementary chitchat. Lovely weather we're having = I don't yet need a sweater. I like your hat = This is a pretty park. What do you do for a living = What IS the economic base here? I venture a little farther afield each weekday, but weekends have been for sleeping, cramming for German tests, and doing laundry. We are at an early stage of acquaintanceship.
My hubs so far are two: Hannah's apartment and the Goethe Institute, in two vastly different neighborhoods. The GI is right in the heart of Mitte, the cultural and historic "center" of the city, if Berlin can be said to have one. It is really more like a bunch of smaller cities stuck together, each one with a distinct personality, like any big city I suppose, but less homogenized than, say, a place like Seattle. Mitte is home to the major museums, the Berliner Dom (technically a "cathedral" in name only as it has never been the seat of a Catholic bishop but always a Protestant institution), the Brandenburg Gate, Unter den Linden, and the most famous modern landmark, the Fernsehturm, Berlin's TV-tower answer to the Space Needle.
I have mentioned that Hannah lives in gritty (I need a new adjective!) Friedrichshain, an industrial working-class district that was heavily bombed during the war and then was part of Soviet East Berlin until the Wall came down. Cheap rent and lots of empty flats made it popular for students and artists right after reunification, but as ALWAYS happens, the cheap-rent era has been followed by gradual gentrification and a slow rise in rents. Although still pretty dirty, F'hain has become a hot spot for the twenty- and thirty-somethings who like its club scene. Students and artists are now moving to the next cheap areas...and so the cycle will go on. I am looking for apartments in Prenzlauerberg, Kreuzberg, and the quieter, cleaner parts of Friedrichshain, near the Volkspark. I hope to find something this week.
Once I find a place and get settled, my relationship with Berlin will change yet again, from first-time visitor in June, to currently displaced flat-seeker, to actual resident, at least for a time. I am eager for that phase to begin. In the meantime, I have a test tomorrow on noun declensions, comparitives, and the passive voice. I think I'll go to the fleamarket.
In spite of the fatigue, I walked a good bit Saturday, out and about with Hannah, who is likewise fatigued, to the farmers' market (pecorino!) and paper stores (still on the sketchbook quest; fail) and later out with Maggie for her evening stroll. It was a pleasantly cool early fall day; suddenly this week it is dark noticeably earlier.
Neither of us felt like cooking so we went out for Vietnamese again, always a good choice for tired people who have not eaten particularly well all day. (On days when I have not had my vegetables, I am now able to say "We are not gemused.") We then holed up all evening with our books and laptops, Hannah working on her academic papers on Pope Gregory VII and the Habsburgs, and I moving restlessly between online apartment-hunting and reading my novel. We took frequent Maggie breaks.
Berlin has me thinking about relationships, as what I am doing here these days is establishing a new one, with the city itself. Getting oriented in a city is almost exactly like meeting a new person, beginning with elementary chitchat. Lovely weather we're having = I don't yet need a sweater. I like your hat = This is a pretty park. What do you do for a living = What IS the economic base here? I venture a little farther afield each weekday, but weekends have been for sleeping, cramming for German tests, and doing laundry. We are at an early stage of acquaintanceship.
My hubs so far are two: Hannah's apartment and the Goethe Institute, in two vastly different neighborhoods. The GI is right in the heart of Mitte, the cultural and historic "center" of the city, if Berlin can be said to have one. It is really more like a bunch of smaller cities stuck together, each one with a distinct personality, like any big city I suppose, but less homogenized than, say, a place like Seattle. Mitte is home to the major museums, the Berliner Dom (technically a "cathedral" in name only as it has never been the seat of a Catholic bishop but always a Protestant institution), the Brandenburg Gate, Unter den Linden, and the most famous modern landmark, the Fernsehturm, Berlin's TV-tower answer to the Space Needle.
I have mentioned that Hannah lives in gritty (I need a new adjective!) Friedrichshain, an industrial working-class district that was heavily bombed during the war and then was part of Soviet East Berlin until the Wall came down. Cheap rent and lots of empty flats made it popular for students and artists right after reunification, but as ALWAYS happens, the cheap-rent era has been followed by gradual gentrification and a slow rise in rents. Although still pretty dirty, F'hain has become a hot spot for the twenty- and thirty-somethings who like its club scene. Students and artists are now moving to the next cheap areas...and so the cycle will go on. I am looking for apartments in Prenzlauerberg, Kreuzberg, and the quieter, cleaner parts of Friedrichshain, near the Volkspark. I hope to find something this week.
Once I find a place and get settled, my relationship with Berlin will change yet again, from first-time visitor in June, to currently displaced flat-seeker, to actual resident, at least for a time. I am eager for that phase to begin. In the meantime, I have a test tomorrow on noun declensions, comparitives, and the passive voice. I think I'll go to the fleamarket.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Stairmaster
6:30 a.m. it begins:
Down 6 flights of stairs to walk the dog for 30 minutes or 8 blocks, whichever comes first,
Back up to get ready for school.
Back down 6 flights, walk 3 blocks to the S-Bahn station;
Up 2 flights and down 2 flights to get to the platform.
8:00 a.m., arrive at Alexanderplatz, down 2 flights to street level,
6-block walk to school with my crepe-to-go breakfast.
Arrive at school,
Up 2 flights to class.
10:00 down a flight to the break room, back up 30 minutes later.
Down and up again for the noon break, then
Down 2 flights when class is over.
Wander Mitte for an hour to stretch my legs after so much sitting,
6 blocks back to Alexplatz and
Up 2 flights to the S-Bahn to return to Ostkreuz station.
Up 2 flights and down 2 flights to get back to the street.
Walk home - 3 blocks.
Up 6 flights to collapse on the couch.
4:00 p.m., after a rest,
Back down 6 flights to walk the dog for an hour or so,
Back up, a little more slowly. Hmmm. Maybe a lot more slowly.
Down again - to the grocery store, or an apartment viewing (more train stations, more stairs),
or out for dinner, then
Back up again, perhaps laden with bags. (Or a piece of furniture from the flea market. But that was on Sunday.)
10:30 p.m., down 6 with the dog, one last time;
Up the final 6, and
then to bed.
No wonder the Germans have such sturdy thighs.
Down 6 flights of stairs to walk the dog for 30 minutes or 8 blocks, whichever comes first,
Back up to get ready for school.
Back down 6 flights, walk 3 blocks to the S-Bahn station;
Up 2 flights and down 2 flights to get to the platform.
8:00 a.m., arrive at Alexanderplatz, down 2 flights to street level,
6-block walk to school with my crepe-to-go breakfast.
Arrive at school,
Up 2 flights to class.
10:00 down a flight to the break room, back up 30 minutes later.
Down and up again for the noon break, then
Down 2 flights when class is over.
Wander Mitte for an hour to stretch my legs after so much sitting,
6 blocks back to Alexplatz and
Up 2 flights to the S-Bahn to return to Ostkreuz station.
Up 2 flights and down 2 flights to get back to the street.
Walk home - 3 blocks.
Up 6 flights to collapse on the couch.
4:00 p.m., after a rest,
Back down 6 flights to walk the dog for an hour or so,
Back up, a little more slowly. Hmmm. Maybe a lot more slowly.
Down again - to the grocery store, or an apartment viewing (more train stations, more stairs),
or out for dinner, then
Back up again, perhaps laden with bags. (Or a piece of furniture from the flea market. But that was on Sunday.)
10:30 p.m., down 6 with the dog, one last time;
Up the final 6, and
then to bed.
No wonder the Germans have such sturdy thighs.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Weekend - September 5 & 6
Panic mode has set in. I have a German test on Monday, and, overachiever that I am, it is exceedingly difficult for me not only not to be at the head of the class but to be so near the bottom. This is NOT the Jamison way. And yet, the last (and only) German class I had was one semester at Columbia in 1975, while the twenty-somethings in the course at the Goethe Institute are either currently studying it elsewhere or have had it recently. And their brains are more plastic. Sheesh. They weren't even born yet in 1975. A sobering thought. I should cut myself some slack. I guess just the fact that I tested into the same level with them says something, although it reminds me of the typing test I took while applying for employment at Columbia. I did miserably, but the HR person could see potential! She KNEW I could become a faster typist and therefore be such an EXCELLENT secretary that she hired me anyway. I've always set the bar so high...
Anyway, test anxiety to the point of tears - I can't learn 300 verb forms and 400 vocab words in four days of classes, flash cards or no flash cards. So I went to the farmers' market on Saturday and the flea market on Sunday (Hannah bought a piece of furniture which she had to haul on a rickety handtruck over 10 blocks of cobblestones and THEN up 6 flights of stairs), and took a couple of walks along the river with Maggie. I did study for 5 hours Saturday evening and a bit on Sunday night but it hardly made a dent. I am NOT well prepared. And I am not working towards a degree or credential of any kind, am only doing this for myself, and am 57 years old. Test anxiety needs to go away.
Hannah is wonderful support. She uses the sponge analogy for my brain - soaking up things whether I'm aware of it or not. Studying is now "exercising my sponge." Hannah also either appreciates or denigrates my bad puns, but at least she gets them: T'was billig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe - my "poor man's Jabberwocky, billig being German for "cheap." There have been others.
Favorite word so far is still Krankenschwester (nurse!) although Streichholzschachtel (matchbox) is a close second.
I spent many hours Sunday combing the Berlin Morgenpost for apartments; sent a few emails imploring answers in English; we'll see what turns up. I don't want to do the equivalent of moving to Burien while Hannah inhabits Capitol Hill but nor do I want to live in her back pocket - not only because our lives are separate and we both need our space ("Guess what, Honey, I'm moving to Berlin! And I'm going to live next door! Love, Mom) but also because her back pocket (Friedrichshain) is so noisy and gritty. Laut und schmutzig.
Have I mentioned that one of the top entertainment/events magazines here is called Zitty?
Anyway, test anxiety to the point of tears - I can't learn 300 verb forms and 400 vocab words in four days of classes, flash cards or no flash cards. So I went to the farmers' market on Saturday and the flea market on Sunday (Hannah bought a piece of furniture which she had to haul on a rickety handtruck over 10 blocks of cobblestones and THEN up 6 flights of stairs), and took a couple of walks along the river with Maggie. I did study for 5 hours Saturday evening and a bit on Sunday night but it hardly made a dent. I am NOT well prepared. And I am not working towards a degree or credential of any kind, am only doing this for myself, and am 57 years old. Test anxiety needs to go away.
Hannah is wonderful support. She uses the sponge analogy for my brain - soaking up things whether I'm aware of it or not. Studying is now "exercising my sponge." Hannah also either appreciates or denigrates my bad puns, but at least she gets them: T'was billig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe - my "poor man's Jabberwocky, billig being German for "cheap." There have been others.
Favorite word so far is still Krankenschwester (nurse!) although Streichholzschachtel (matchbox) is a close second.
I spent many hours Sunday combing the Berlin Morgenpost for apartments; sent a few emails imploring answers in English; we'll see what turns up. I don't want to do the equivalent of moving to Burien while Hannah inhabits Capitol Hill but nor do I want to live in her back pocket - not only because our lives are separate and we both need our space ("Guess what, Honey, I'm moving to Berlin! And I'm going to live next door! Love, Mom) but also because her back pocket (Friedrichshain) is so noisy and gritty. Laut und schmutzig.
Have I mentioned that one of the top entertainment/events magazines here is called Zitty?
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Day 9 - Friday, September 4
I made the mistake of having a tablespoon of espresso yesterday morning at school - 8 am, mind you, and yes, a tablespoon is all that comes out of the coffee machine's espresso function. I didn't fall asleep until after four a.m., and got up at my new usual time of 6:30.
Wonderfully cooler today, and breezy. A few showers. School was over my head again so I'm going to have to work really hard over the weekend to catch up and prepare for a test on Monday. We get out at noon on Fridays instead of 1:00 so I took the extra hour to walk and shoot photos; got a few good ones, although not all the graffiti shots I wanted.
Spent quite a bit of time looking for a paper store where I can purchase a sketchbook but didn't find the store I was thinking of. Or any other, for that matter. I need a book to begin to paste my ephemera into. Then napped, and spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening apartment hunting online, plowing through listings on German sites. It's a time-consuming process, first figuring out all the vocabulary (warmmiete, kaltmiete, nach vereinbarung, befeuerungsart, kurzfristig, etc.) then locating the address on a map because the pictures don't show you that this particular lovely apartment sits above 3 sets of railroad tracks. Waterfront property in Arizona.
Hannah and I had Vietnamese food AGAIN tonight, the third time since I've been here. I like being able to take Maggie to the outdoor cafes. She's being the BEST dog. I didn't get her out for a long walk today, so going to dinner at least helps make up a little.
Hannah went out to an art opening, and I had good Skype chats with brother Bob and daughter Sally, who just got engaged Wednesday night. And THEN I started making flash cards. Hundreds of them. On Friday night, no less. Sheesh! How my life has changed in 30 years.
I like German, though. It feels like a meaty language, with words that almost require chewing. Mein Stift ist auf dem Tisch. French is easier to just swallow. La plume est sur la table. At any rate, I feel as though I'm roiling around in an atmosphere of alphabet soup; occasionally the letters line up right and I can recognize a word. But mostly it's still just soup.
Wonderfully cooler today, and breezy. A few showers. School was over my head again so I'm going to have to work really hard over the weekend to catch up and prepare for a test on Monday. We get out at noon on Fridays instead of 1:00 so I took the extra hour to walk and shoot photos; got a few good ones, although not all the graffiti shots I wanted.
Spent quite a bit of time looking for a paper store where I can purchase a sketchbook but didn't find the store I was thinking of. Or any other, for that matter. I need a book to begin to paste my ephemera into. Then napped, and spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening apartment hunting online, plowing through listings on German sites. It's a time-consuming process, first figuring out all the vocabulary (warmmiete, kaltmiete, nach vereinbarung, befeuerungsart, kurzfristig, etc.) then locating the address on a map because the pictures don't show you that this particular lovely apartment sits above 3 sets of railroad tracks. Waterfront property in Arizona.
Hannah and I had Vietnamese food AGAIN tonight, the third time since I've been here. I like being able to take Maggie to the outdoor cafes. She's being the BEST dog. I didn't get her out for a long walk today, so going to dinner at least helps make up a little.
Hannah went out to an art opening, and I had good Skype chats with brother Bob and daughter Sally, who just got engaged Wednesday night. And THEN I started making flash cards. Hundreds of them. On Friday night, no less. Sheesh! How my life has changed in 30 years.
I like German, though. It feels like a meaty language, with words that almost require chewing. Mein Stift ist auf dem Tisch. French is easier to just swallow. La plume est sur la table. At any rate, I feel as though I'm roiling around in an atmosphere of alphabet soup; occasionally the letters line up right and I can recognize a word. But mostly it's still just soup.
Day 8 - Thursday, September 3
Not much of substance to report today. The third day at school went better, although by the end of the 4 1/2 hours my brain is kaputt. I have a LOT of flash cards to make. Home for the usual nap, although without the tears today; progress. Another hourlong walk with Maggie around the neighborhood.
We have been eating a lot of blueberries, which are the best I have ever tasted. I didn't even like blueberries until I ate them here. These are astonishing! There is flavor!
The hot-water heater in this apartment is something new to me, being a little tank high up on the kitchen wall which heats the water on demand. This is not so bad at the kitchen sink for doing dishes, but the shower in the bathroom is another story. The faucet has to be set at just the right angle and must be turned on with the proper amount of force or the water doesn't heat. My first shower was definitely on the chilly side. I've had a few that rival the Norwegian sauna experience as well - first scalding and then freezing. Not my favorite invention.
We have been eating a lot of blueberries, which are the best I have ever tasted. I didn't even like blueberries until I ate them here. These are astonishing! There is flavor!
The hot-water heater in this apartment is something new to me, being a little tank high up on the kitchen wall which heats the water on demand. This is not so bad at the kitchen sink for doing dishes, but the shower in the bathroom is another story. The faucet has to be set at just the right angle and must be turned on with the proper amount of force or the water doesn't heat. My first shower was definitely on the chilly side. I've had a few that rival the Norwegian sauna experience as well - first scalding and then freezing. Not my favorite invention.
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