Keys

I don't know much about apartment living in the States any more as I've lived in houses since 1976. Here, when you sign your lease, you also get all the copies of the keys to your place. There's no super with a master set. It's important not to lock yourself out.

I managed to do so, however, a couple of weeks ago, just as the housing agent was coming by to pick up his finder's fee. I took the garbage out and didn't realize until I came back inside that I had shut the always-locked-front-door behind me and had only my cell phone, but no keys, in my pocket. It was late in the afternoon and beginning to get chilly. The dog was inside, along with my keys, and my coat.

I had given my second set of keys to Hannah, who is a 10-minute tram ride away, so I called her to see if she could bring them to me, as I was expecting the housing agent any minute. She ran out to get the tram, which only runs every 20 minutes, and then called me to suggest I meet her at the tram stop so she could just stay on and get back home. She had friends coming over.

The housing agent arrived just as I was calling him to tell him what had happened and that my daughter was on her way with the keys. He left for another appointment, but was coming back in a half hour. I left to go meet the tram. Five minutes later Hannah called back to say that bus service had been substituted for the tram and had changed the schedule just enough so that she had missed the one to my house, and she couldn't wait for the later one. I would have to go to her.

But by then I had had an idea. The flat next door to me is still vacant and we have a shared back yard. I remembered leaving my back door open, so if the housing agent had the keys with him to that place, I could go through, step over the fence and get back in. I called him again, he did have the keys, so I walked back from the bus stop to the building. He arrived with the keys, I went into the back yard, and no, I hadn't left the back door open after all. There was Maggie, looking bewildered out the window at me.

Mr. Housing Agent had to go to another appointment and agreed to return in a day or two for his cash. So back I went to get the bus for Hannah's, told the bus driver in my faltering German the only story I could manage, which was that I had lost my wallet with my buss pass in it and had to get to my daughter's, and he kindly let me on. The driver on the return trip was not so nice. In fact he was downright nasty, and to escape his radiating malevolence I got off a stop early and walked the rest of the way home in the dark.

Blogged Down

I think I am finally rested from the strain of planning and executing this move. I no longer need to sleep for 12 hours at a time and then take a nap a little later. It has interfered with my hobbies. Like blogging. Or doing anything to blog about.

The weather has turned cold; it just went from summer to winter with only a brief courtesy wave at fall. Days of wind and rain alternate with a day or two of bright blue sky, so it's hardly cheerless, at least not yet. We are still on the German version of daylight savings time, so it will only get darker and colder, and the festive Christmas markets will not last through the whole long winter. I think January could get a little grim. Might be the time for me to travel to Spain...

The building behind mine is wrapped in plastic like a Christo installation and it magnifies the sound effects of the wind. I kind of like it. I feel accompanied, somehow, as though I have my own foley artist making me feel glad to be cozily inside. I need a hat.

By the end of next week I will have been here two months. My German course is almost finished; just another 3 classes. I am pleased with my progress on several fronts: a) my language skills have improved; b) I have made some good friends; c) I have dropped the whole competitive over-achiever need to excel and fear of failure. I learn what I learn and work however hard I want to work, which isn't very, and enjoy myself along the way. It's been fun to make tangible strides, to go from such a meager level of comprehension to being able to understand at least most of what is said in class, and to be able to construct some rudimentary conversations. I will miss the structure, the stimulation, and the people when this is over; I will not miss waking up to an alarm clock (my cell phone, with its perky "Beach" theme) every morning nor having so much of my time consumed by just one activity. I am looking forward to a wider exploration of Berlin.

The Goethe Institute offers a lot of additional cultural experiences to their students but I have not taken advantage of these outings. At first I was just too tired to do anything else, and now I don't want to leave the dog home alone for too long at a time, as most of these extras take place after a brief break for lunch on school days. I can't say enough good about the Goethe Insitute, however, and I may take an evening class or two over the winter. It's been an excellent experience and the people have been a hoot. And German? Well, German will be impossible to master so I can work on it for the rest of my life and still be learning something new. It will be completely reliable on that front.

German Oddities

I.  The current German fashion must-have is a long, soft scarf, wrapped around the neck the way Isadora Duncan's must have been wrapped around that hubcap. Around and around and around. Weather and temperature make no difference - 60 degrees and raining, scarves abound. 70 and sunny, ditto. I like a scarf myself, when my neck is cold, which it is NOT when it is 70 degrees outside. One day in early September Hannah and I were on the S-Bahn going to Ikea. It was quite warm, so Hannah opened the top window so we could at least get some air movement. A woman in the seat across from us made quite a point of rewrapping her scarf and pulling it up OVER HER CHIN. Sheesh.

II.  Maggie and I have found a small off-leash area at the Friedrichshain Volkspark. The offleash parks I've been to at home are usually occupied by people chatting and throwing balls and dogs running to chase things. At this one, however, the people just stand around. They lean against the fence, don't talk to each other and mostly they don't throw balls, which means that mostly the dogs just stand around, too, not talking to each other and not chasing things. Maggie tries her hardest to get a game going but these German dogs just don't seem much interested. Perhaps it's the language barrier. Once Maggie begins to just stand around I know it is time to go home. Again I say, sheesh.

III.  Street food is abundant and ubiquitous here; you can get just about anything: wursts of all kinds, hot dogs, Turkish döner and falaffel, pizza, sushi, Asian noodles and egg rolls, local bakery goods, Italian gelato, potatoes, sandwiches, fresh fruit, crepes, American hamburgers (and I don't mean McDonald's. These are honest-to-goodness real old-fashioned American burgers!). One of the most popular treats is the currywurst, which I felt obliged to try one day at the flea market. Never let it be said I don't sample the local specialties when they present themselves. This particular local specialty consisted of a large bland bratwurst, conveniently cut into rounds in a paper boat, sprinkled with a soupçon of curry powder, and then doused with catsup-based barbecue sauce. Served with a toothpick for tidy dining; this is one local specialty I won't be resampling.

Reunification

This weekend was the celebration of the 20th Anniversary of German Reunification and the Fall of the Wall. One of the big attractions (oh, this is an unintentional pun) here in Berlin was the 3-day performance by 2 gigantic French marionettes ("Die Riesen"), a little girl looking for her uncle who, inexplicably, is dressed in a deep-sea diving costume, and stands 15 meters high. For two days they meandered separately around the center of Berlin, with their teams of cranes and people swinging from cables to move their limbs, and on the evening of the second day they were, yes, reunited, and spent Sunday wandering together, eventually leaving in a boat. Did I mention they were French?

I saw a brief video clip of their previous performance of this drama in the streets of Paris (funny, I don't remember a reunification issue in France), and decided it would be an interesting spectacle.  I invited Hannah to go with me to Pariser Platz on Saturday for the experience. Crowded doesn't begin to describe it. Even when viewing pre-Popemobile John Paul II in Paris 30 years ago, I don't know that I've been part of such a large mass of living organisms all trying to see the same thing at the same time. (I'm sure the crowd would have reduced its volume by at least a third had those huge baby strollers been banned. There's a reason why the Victorian pram became outmoded! Why don't people understand this?)  And had I not misunderstood the printed schedule, we might actually have been able to see at least one of the puppets in action.

I thought they finished at 3:00, so we went down around 2:00. No, apparently they took a midday break and didn't begin again until 3:00, so what we saw was the girl puppet sleeping, complete with snoring sound effects. That's it. A few giant snores and a half million Germans. Hannah had brought a friend and neither of them wanted to wait a long time to see if something would transpire, so we exited Pariser Platz and went to a large special-event flea market at Ostbanhof instead. It, too, alas, was a flop. Nary a trinket caught my eye nor was Hannah satisfied in her continual search for furniture.

On my way home I had the oddest sensation of being in Seattle. There is a tram stop near a bridge that has the same feel to it as any of a number of the Seattle bridges, and the street even feels a bit like First Avenue. Very dreamlike and disorienting; surreal; like waking up and not knowing where you are. Perhaps I was unconsciously imitating the little giant girl who perhaps should have awakened in Paris...

September 28-29

Monday was a HORRIBLE day. German was tedious, the weather had changed, no one had any energy, and I thought poor Herr Muttschall would tear his hair. I hit a depressed funk.

I went home with the intention of going back out to get anmelded but I couldn’t get off the couch once I had sat down. The handyman’s window shades continued in their closed position so I couldn’t get any help for the non-working refrigerator, and when I took Maggie out for a walk it started to rain. We went up to the Volkspark anyway, but there were a Great Dane, two French bulldogs and a Chihuahua in the off-leash area and I wasn’t sure about turning Maggie loose on such an odd assemblage. I could just see her caroming into the Dane and breaking its hip, or having an unintentional game of boules with the bulldogs and Chihuahua. So we just walked for a while, always a good antidote to depression.

Bought a half a roasted chicken on the way home for dinner – oh, they are so good here!

I decided to tackle the depression by making a plan for getting done the things that were most bugging me. The plan was to take Tuesday off from the Goethe Institute, get the fridge problem solved, go to the Bürgeramt to register, then get a bank account and take care of the internet order; do some miscellaneous shopping, as I still need some basics like a broom and hotpads. I had found a bakery with a “free internet here” sign just around the block so that figured into the mix as well. I was feeling very cut off, now living on my own, without email or Hannah’s landline which Sally can call for free so we can all talk.

Tuesday morning, the handyman’s shade is up! Knock on the door, talk with his assistant who informs me they don’t deal with problems like that and I’ll have to call the landlord. I call him and leave a message, then head out to anmeld. There’s a two-hour wait, for which I was prepared with my NYT crossword puzzle book. Got the stamp, but can’t register the dog at the same office; will require a cross-town trek to a different department. Went to the bank and had a pleasant experience opening my account but came out in a rainstorm and decided to forego the internet order and just go home. I took a side street I was sure would put me out at my main drag, but no, it took me way off somewhere with no cross streets, so I couldn’t even exit it. Finally ended up at an S-Bahn station, took the train back to where I started, went to the U-Bahn stop where I can get the tram up to my street. But I got turned around in the underground and came up kitty-corner across a huge platz from where the tram stops and decided it was probably shorter just to walk home at that point. Then it REALLY started to pour and by the time I got home I was as wet as I’ve ever been – raincoat soaked through, shoes squishing puddles, pant knees sopping.

And now I’m at the internet bakery and either their network is not working or my laptop can't interface with their system. Another day without my internet connections, and I didn’t even get it ordered yet. And I haven’t heard from the landlord about my fridge. I will continue with the bananas and peanut butter, I guess.

In spite of all this, it was nice to take a day off from school. That really batters my brain for 5 hours a day. In hindsight, a two- or three-day-a-week program would have suited my needs just fine. I think I chose the Goethe Institute because of its starting dates. 

Mühsings – Sunday, September 27

Maggie and I walked around our new area yesterday for a bit – between Ikea headaches – and discovered a chicken roaster (my favorite!), a bakery (my favorite!), a little park (Maggie’s favorite!) and various cafes and restaurants; even a little art supply store. The Evangelical church nearby has pleasant bells and looks as though it is a concert venue, although the sign only posted summer concerts through September 19.

Today we had a VERY leisurely day. I pulled some weeds in my back weed patch (found the nettles) and discovered that there’s a pear tree just over my back wall. Also an owl, and a pussycat. No pea-green boat, but it’s the first cat I’ve seen in Berlin and I’ve already been here a month. And maybe it’s not an owl. It hooted all day long. I found a snail shell in spite of my efforts to avoid that particular metaphor when thinking about my situation; and a very oddly shaped black rock with a whitish coating, that looks more like a piece of whale vertebra than a rock. Can’t imagine what it is.

After these riveting discoveries I went to the flea market and bought a round, red carved wood-framed mirror (my new couch is red), which I probably won’t even be able to hang because of my solid masonry walls, and then walked the dog to the Friedrichshain Volkspark, where we happily found an off-leash dog play area. Maggie did her bit to uphold the image of the clumsy, stupid American, ricocheting off people, dogs, fencing, and trees with a look of mad glee. This dog needed to run. She had a WONDERFUL time. I’m not so sure about the other dogs.

Got the stink-eye again today! And a lecture to go with it, although I couldn’t understand it and completely ignored the woman who was scolding me for crossing against the light on the way home from the park. Sometimes it’s nice to be uncomprehending. There was not a car in sight for a mile in any direction. Wish I knew how to say “Get a life” in German, but it’s probably more satisfying in the long run just not to have acknowledged the diatribe at all.

I have lovely radiant heat in my floors. Very cozy on this chilly evening.

I am exhausted. It is 7 p.m. and I’m already eyeing my sofa-bed with a deep desire to lie down and see what happens.

Mühsamstrasse Lives up to its Name

I completed the move to Mühsamstrasse on Saturday, and mühsam it was. After Wednesday and Thursday afternoons at Ikea (30 minutes by subway plus an 8-block walk) Friday was my day for assembling things, at least my sofa-bed so I could sleep here starting Friday night and avoid yet one more first-thing-in-the-morning encounter with the stairs at Hannah’s just to let the dog out. Such are my priorities.

As I did not want to spend any more days shopping than absolutely necessary, I got as much as I could at Ikea on Thursday – sofa bed, under-bed storage box, mattress, couch cover, pillow, sheets, armchair, footstool, wardrobe, pots, silverware, knives, cutting boards, mixing bowls, coffee press, dish rack, 2 cabinets and some storage bins for Hannah. And yes, it’s STILL cheaper than renting a furnished flat, and everything is new and clean. No questions asked. But it was bulky, heavy stuff and I had to go through the store twice.

Because I also took a large bookcase off Hannah’s hands and purchased a table at a thrift store, I needed a different kind of delivery service than Ikea offers, which is priced according to how much you spend. I thought about renting a van, and even recruited some of the young men in my German class to help, until one of them mentioned having seen “Möbil Taxi” trucks around the city. These are freelancers with trucks parked out front of various stores, who deliver furniture for a flat fee, based on where you live, and will make as many stops as you need; you just pay per stop.

After I found a guy who spoke English I hired one of these outfits in the Ikea parking lot, and made my first pass through the store. (Got the stink-eye from the cashier for not having my barcodes all neatly lined up.) I stashed my stuff with the truckers until I came out with the second batch (got the stink-eye from the guy ahead of me in line, whom I ran into with my wardrobe box because I couldn’t see the front of my cart) and then hopped in the truck and took off with two strange men. Imagine my mother doing this! The driver could speak English and he informed me that he was in Berlin because he was in trouble with one of the four construction companies he works for in Poland. I didn’t ask for details.

Friday after school I loaded up my suitcases and miscellany from Hannah’s (except for the dog and her bed), called a taxi (avoiding 6 round trips by myself on the tram), and arrived to begin my assembling. Started with the thrift-store table to get it out of the way and so I’d have a work surface. Easy as pie. Started next on the Ikea footstool. One hole wasn’t drilled deep enough to accept the final piece of hardware. Maybe the building super will have a drill. I’m NOT going back to Ikea. Put that aside and moved on to the critical piece, the sofa-bed. Missing four bolts. Another night spent at Hannah’s, another missed tram and walk back to Boxhagenerstrasse, another morning greeting the %#$% stairs with the dog at 6:30. Good thing I didn’t move the dog bed.

Saturday I returned – this time with the dog and all her belongings, by tram – and started putting together the wardrobe until I could muster the energy to head to the hardware store for the bolts for the bed (1 tram, 1 subway and a four-block walk). Died and went to Ikea hell for a while trying to figure out the directions, but the solution came to me, as so many do, as I lay on the floor in a puddle of tears.

To finish the job I needed a hammer and a bigger screwdriver than the little interchangeable one I brought with me, which was beginning to inflict stigmata on my palms. I went to the apartment I thought was the building super’s, only to find quite a lovely young woman tenant instead, who willingly lent me some tools and came back with me to see if she could figure out why the refrigerator doesn’t work. No clue. But she did know that the building “super” keeps an office around the corner, and does not work on weekends, although the estate agent told me he lived here. He’s not even a super, more of a for-hire handyman who keeps the grounds clean. A few days without refrigeration. I can live on bread, peanut butter and bananas until Monday.

Then I negotiated the huge Home-Depot-type hardware store, got my bolts and a lamp for the kitchen so I could cook dinner. (People take their light fixtures with them when they move; and their medicine chests, toilet paper holders, and towel rods. I’m not kidding. They strip the places clean.) Got another stink-eye from a grumpy cashier for being slow on the uptake when she asked me if I needed a bag for my items (you have to buy bags here), and realized I hadn’t eaten lunch. It was 5:00.

There’s a nice little grocery store just a half block from my place so I stopped on the way home for some provisions; Hannah came for dinner and to finish the furniture for me, as my back had given out. So now I’m done. Except that I forgot to buy salt and the store is closed on Sunday. Oh well, I don’t need salt for peanut butter and bananas, anyway.