The First Photographic Month and New Travelings

Few pics to illustrate my first month here in Berlin.

Tiredness

Coffee

Fun

Only got a few days left before I start the mammoth journey back to the UK. Good thing this time is I'm doing the 15 hour drive over 52 hours rather than 24, a little bit more on the sensible side.

Plan is to drive 4 hours to the dortmund area, stop overnight in a crappy roadside chain hotel, awake bright and early, drive 3 hours to Bruges and then spend around a day there. Then leave midday the next day for the eurotunnel and onwards through England back to ol' Warrington. Downside is that I'm doing this drive on my own so navigation is going to be a bit of a pain in the arse (it was bad enough with two of us) and the conversational experience is going to be somewhat lacking.

Otherwise not a whole lot reportable going on, Wednesday night is a double feature of Transformers. Both 1 and 2 back to back in the cinema at Potsdammer Platz. Ace.

A Hungover Sunday in Berlin

Last night was drinks at Hairy Marys (only 4 but I was rather smasharooed, they do like their large measures here), today was being hungover and stumbling around the city. Discovered that today is some big street music festival here in Berlin (and possibly worldwide from the looks of the website) which was a pleasant surprise aswell as a hindrance (loud music doesn't help a headache). So I wandered down to my current favourite coffee shop (its very brown) for a mocha, sat down and then this happened :

Now, its not that its particularly good music (ie. it was a bit shit) but it was a nice novelty accopmaniment to my coffee. Someone had just put a few speakers and microphones down on the pavement and various bands were popping in and playing, it seemed slightly organised but only in the most flimsy of ways. I then proceeded to wander around the rest of Prenzlauer Berg, having to dodge dancing people, drummers, DJ's, guitarists et al. Basically anyone with any kind of musical instrument or device just was finding a spot on the street and setting up, then a small crowd of passers by would stop, listen and then move on. Most fun indeed. There were a couple of more organised gatherings with stages but it was the smaller stuff that was the best, especially odd/good as no-one had hats or other such stereotypical busking shit infront of them.

Then this evening I was disturbed from my meal by some noisy folk outside, popped out on the balcony and was greeted with more musical fun :

Still shit, but entertaining none the less. All in all, a good day.

Apartments

I may of found something that I hate even more than driving, apartment hunting (plus, when did I turn into an American and start using the word apartment anyway?). I've spent the last couple of weeks (and some time before that back in blighty) trawling the internets looking at around 150 or 200 places, whittling these down into around 15 or 20 decent ones and then trying to organise appointments to view them.

Now, before I get into the irritations of such a venture, a little on why I'm struggling to find a place. Finding AN apartment is fairly easy, it can be done in around 2 or 3 days IF you're not that arsed about the location or the condition of said apartment. You can get a decent enough place located somewhere around Prenzlauer Berg thats pretty cheap without any commission charges, it'd be perfectly liveable in and quite nice I'm sure. The reason its taking so long and being such a hassle (and yes, I do have only myself to blame so I shouldn't really complain, but I do so enjoy complaining) is that I'm looking for something thats a little special, located in a specific area with a specific set of criteria - ie. Frasierian living. There are places like this in Berlin but they are few and far between or ridiculously overpriced so its going to take a little time to find just the right one. Now, I've mulled over the merits of just settling for an okish place where I'd save a bit of money, but thats not why I moved here. I'm not doing the settling thing anymore, I'm getting what I want.

So, back to the fortnight of hunting. Its been a combination of a few things. One, people just don't respond to me asking for an appointment (how do these people manage to rent). Two, I get an appointment, go and see the place and its nothing even remotely like the place in the advert. Or three, its a nice enough place in a shitty area or a nice enough area and a shitty place. One place I saw was half of an office that wasn't even properly built yet (even though they were offering in a moving date of a week). All in all its about the same experience I had last year looking for a room.

The end result being that I've got a few more places to see on Monday (although I'm not holding my breath, I'm expecting more places filled with chintzy 80's furniture) but most likely I'll be extending my stay in the current temporary apartment while I look. Not the end of the world, it is overpriced for what it is but its not all that bad really :

Views from the Balcony

The Apartment

The Journey

When I first thought of driving over to Berlin it was with the idea that it would be easier (and safer) to transport all of my belongings in the back of the car. The thinking being that as most of it is electronically based (cameras, computers et al), having others transport it via air or sea in containers that would be banged around and treated with all the love and care of a box of sprouts, it'd be better if i did it myself.

The plan was to set out on Friday, drive down to Folkestone, then during Saturday drive from Calais to Berlin. Seems reasonable enough, two days to do 900 miles of driving with the aid of Mr B splitting the driving in half. What I didn't really factor in was that if you set off at 18:30 on Friday with an aim to get to Berlin by 20:00 Saturday (early-ish to pick up the keys) that in actual fact its only a little over 24 hours.

So, the first night wasn't too bad, we didn't hit much traffic and got down to the hotel in Folkestone around midnight. After some wrangling with the hotel staff we parked the car directly infront of the main doors to deter would be thieves from stealing my 32" TV, computer and boxer shorts. The room itself was sparse but accommodating enough, we settled down around 00:30 for some sleep, alarms set for 06:15.

After one of the worst nights of sleep I've ever had (full of stress filled dreams about the sheer act of moving to another country along with worries about the journey itself) I awoke fairly fresh in the morning. Got up, showered and promptly packed and was out of the room by 06:45. At the time I thought I was quite mentally aware of what was happening but as I left a couple of things behind in the room, I obviously wasn't. Downstairs to reception, asked the receptionist for our pre-packed breakfasts to which I got a look of blankness despite the fact that only 6 hours earlier I'd asked that exact same person for the breakfast and he'd noted it in a crappy looking scuffed binder.

The Eurotunnel was surprisingly easy, not once on either side of the channel were we stopped to ask for passports or even the slightest look into the cars contents. I could of had a mound of C4 and 15 AK47's in the back and they'd of been none the wiser. But, the lack of hassle from any kind of customs or bureaucratic mess was a pleasant surprise.

The drive itself wasn't too bad for the most part, just the complete tedium of staring at a road/arse end of cars for 11 hours only being broken up by the odd respite for food or a pee break. Driving in europe (my first time) was surprisingly easy, not in the least part that 98% of the driving was on motorways.

But, after nearly 24 hours of travelling the most perfect thing happened :

Now, you may not be able to tell from this photo what was about to happen, it was the last one taken before arrival in Berlin though. But that little dark grey patch just above the road we were heading into was whats commonly known as a bitch of a storm. So, just at the time when we were most awake and alert, torrential rain started to pour down so hard that on occation I was wondering if I was actually driving on the road or not. Talking became an extravagant pastime that was unavailable with the processing power left in my addled brain and the last part of the journey was turned into a complete nightmare.

After an hour or so we arrived into the city and around 45 minutes of pain in the arse driving around small roads found a parking spot so I could jump on the U2 line to go pick up the apartment key. This was a hassle in itself, but I'll cut the story short : the attendant at the DB service station at alexander platz was a prize winning cock. I'll leave your imagination to fill in the rest.

Then followed about another sweat filled half an hour of unpacking lots of heavy boxes from the car and trudging them up two flights of stairs with a brief lift assistance inbetween (ie. pain in the arse). Then a hassle of finding somewhere to park the car as what the apartment agency told me (no problems/charges for parking the car near the apartment) was completely untrue. At around 22:30 we meandered in a zombie like state down kastanienalle and found a little currywurst stall to add to the potato and sausage diet we'd already consumed thus far in Germany. Sleep thankfully came at around midnight.

The next day was a whirlwind tour of Berlin for Mr B : Prenzlauer Berg, Alexanderplatz, Brandenburg gate, Jewish memorial and a little rest on the grass of the Reichstag.

So, in summary, a bit of a nightmare journey and definitely something I won't be doing again (at least not over such a compressed time scale), but an experience none the less. I wouldn't say that I enjoyed it or hated it as such, more from the fact that I was so tired by the end of it that I don't really know what I was feeling.

Since then I've not done a whole lot thats fun (other than the occasional good night out). I'd say its taken me about a week and a half to get over the combination of the journey here, shell shock of actually finding myself in Berlin (driving here is weird, its such a slow change that you don't notice it creep up on you) along with doubts on whether such a huge move is a good idea in the first place. Add to that the pain in the arse of finding an apartment and I've felt somewhat zombiefied.