Robbie, Hospitals and Halloween

I realised recently that I hadn't done a blog entry for quite some time. I believe this is down to a few contributing factors, one, I'm having quite a busy and fun social life here, that is literally devouring my time. Two, I've been ill for almost 3 weeks out of the past two months (and complaining about it for an additional 2). And three, laziness. But, quite a few blog-worthy things have happened, so, here they are, in no particular chronological order.

Robbie. Yes, of the Williams variety. I went to see him play a gig. Now, you may be wondering if I've gone a wee bit wrong in the head, but I assure you, no, I have not. Mostly, the reason I went was that it was FREE. Now, this alone may not of been quite enough to entice me down, but fortunately (or not) it was located literally 5 minutes walk from my apartment. So, on a somewhat grey afternoon I found myself taking a short stroll down to the mauerpark to find a large crowd of people (of the younger variety), then doing my best to spot a teeny weeny Robbie Williams in the distance, bouncing around, singing crappy songs. To be honest though, it was quite a fun experience.

Robbie, Jesus posing.

The other big event of late was a little trip to the hospital. It started as a rather bland Monday afternoon, felt a little on the queasy side but nothing too serious. Must be something I ate, I thought. A couple of hours later the vomiting began, not the most pleasant, but I figured whatever had upset one's stomach was now working its way through the sewer system, done. I popped out for a brief appearance at a Birthday gathering (where they had rather amazing looking Indian food that I couldn't eat! One has not had a good Indian in rather a long time.), returned home and discovered that my stomach was not quite finished with me. A rather gruelling 4 hours then followed where either end of my body competed to see which could expel the most, slowly at first, and then gathering pace like they were in a race. By the end of the 4 hours I'd evacuated pretty much all the liquids in my body and resembled a prune-ish white ghost. I half collapsed a couple of times, was unable to walk for a little while and had the curious experience of my arms and face going 90% numb.

So, to say I was in a bad state, would be an understatement. Fortunately I'd been in constant contact with a friend here, foreseeing my decline a little and warning them that I may need some assistance. From my (fuzzy) memory, I think that over the space of about 30 minutes it went from "Can you find me a late night doctor", to "I may need to go to the hospital, where is one" to "I'm about to pass out and can't get up off the bed, call me an ambulance". Which, thankfully, she did. Five minutes later there were two nice gruff German ambulance men who didn't speak a word of English at my door (which I'd managed to open and kind of jam myself in-between it and the frame so they could find me). They then spent about 20 minutes running various tests and asking me varied questions before deciding that yes, I was quite fucked up and should be taken to hospital.

I got to sit in a little red padded wheel chair in the back of the ambulance and be whisked around (no sirens though, I seemingly wasn't ill enough for such excitements), with my brain flicking between passing out, being in a lot of pain and thinking "Hmm, this is pretty cool, I'm in a fucking ambulance. Its just like TV!". I was plonked upon a little bed when I arrived and a nurse came and stuck a huge needle in one's arm, drew a pint of blood and then attached a huge bag of saline to me. I then spent an indeterminate amount of time watching this bag drip into my veins, whilst at the same time absolutely freezing my arse off. I was shivering so much that if you'd walked in, you would of assumed I was being electrocuted. I did manage (after some time) to get the attention of one of the nurses, who after me telling them of my freezing condition, went off and brought me what appeared to be a large sheet of tissue paper. After covering me up with it, they seemed satisfied that this was enough, smiled and disappeared, leaving me to my shivering fun.

All in all, I was on the bed for around 4 or 5 hours. Being poked, proded, tested and eventually injected with a series of drugs from little test tubes, combined with another bag of (I presume) saline, and a couple of glass bottles of stuff (potassium I think). My two views for this entire expereince where as follows :

mmmm, saline.

The ceiling.

An hour or so more of observation, to make sure that I wasn't about to die anymore, and they kicked me out onto the street, literally. It was at this point that I realised some of the drugs they had given me had made me a little high. And that I had no idea where I was. Thankfully I'd had the wisdom to keep my phone with me the entire time (hence the pictures) and Nokia Maps came to the rescue, telling me that I was infact not that far away from my apartment. A short taxi ride later (where the taxi driver took the piss as I was floating around at the top of his cab) and I was home. I collapsed into bed, presumably slept, and then I don't really remember much of the day or two after. The rest of the week was spent eating bland food (anything with a remote hint of taste would re-inflame one's intestines) and drinking water, whilst watching a copious amount of TV.

For those that are wondering, I had Gastroenteritis, caused by a rather nasty variety of some bug (E-Coli, Salmonela etc). The whole experience was a little on the shit side, but still fun and exciting, its the first time I've ever been rushed off to an A&E in the back of an ambulance.

All of this made Halloween a little on the sober side, not a bad thing as I've needed a break from the vodka for a while now. Went out to a couple of parties and wore a wig for a short period of time :

Otherwise I've been spending my time looking for an apartment, the short term lease on this place runs out at the end of November and can't be extended any further. So far I've not found anywhere particularly good, or if I have, I didn't get them. Apartment hunting sucks ass.

I did go along to a good classical concert a while ago :

The best bit of which was a tall solo drummer, full of pomp, playing Bolero on a teeny little drum at the front of the orchestra. Taking all the grandeur and importance of a solo violinist/pianist, despite the fact he was just playing a little drum (he was pretty awesome though).

And, of course, more Daisy.

Rainbows and Rutting

Without really realising it, another month has passed by here in Berlin (its almost October for fricks sake). The most striking part of this speedy passing of time is that I'm not really sure what I've been doing to make it go so quickly. But I do think its quite positive, a sign of settling into my life here, that things are becoming regular and every day, rather than those things being out of the ordinary and blog worthy (as when I first moved here). Not to say that things have become ordinary and boring though, quite the opposite, just that I'm getting used to having fun crazy things happening all the time.

The most fun of these recent events was looking after the little doggy, Daisy for the weekend. Now, not to put down all the good times I've had with one's human associates, but well, she is a dog, and if you know me you know where my heart lies in such matters. Much entertainment was had, although we did fall into a bit of a feedback loop. Me with my happiness to play with dogs at any given moment, as much as possible and her with her "take up any and all opportunities to play" attitude. Combine this with my love of walking and her love of sniffing and by the end of the weekend we'd pretty much worn each other out. But there was, of course, time for a little photo shoot :

All together now, awwwww.

Other than that I've been spending quite a bit of time out being all cosmopolitan, doing brunch (and occasionally actual lunch) with people and eating at various restaurants (although the Russian Gorki Park is still my fav, with The Bird's burgers coming in a close second). Had some rather good food at a little Mexican place just round the corner from where I live and it seemed to actually be Mexican food (rather than the bland pre-packed taco kit type food my English palette is used to), was rather yumo indeed. Add onto this randomly bumping into friends whilst being there (Berlin is a big city so this happens infrequently) and a little rainbow smiling down on us and it was rather pleasant :

Other than the foodage I've tried to be a little on the cultural side, mostly (and only) by seeing the odd free opera concert thingymabob. ie. :

only a bit pap as I had to share it with a billion other people :

Plus, as if you ever doubted there would be, lots of drunken nights out. The most lairy of which was a night bouncing around bars with a group of guys, all doing our best to be loud and obnoxious drunked English speakers (you have to keep the stereotypes up now and again). Although I do think I need a better social drink for myself. Vodka is all well and yummy but as I think I've mentioned in the past, here in Berlin they like to be a little liberal with their measures. The result being any night of hanging out for a couple of drinks in a bar gets me quite drunk indeed. One's liver is beginning to protest.

The only downside to this past month though, is that the regular Thursday night ToyTown drinks that I go to has somewhat descended into a horrific meat market, populated by idiotic immature rutting imbeciles. Imagine a gaggle of cave men wandering around in a fenced off pen bumping into things and each other, then a girl is thrown in their midst, they all surround her, rub up against her vigorously, ug-ing it up to the max and trying to bonk her on the head with alcoholic clubs. Its quite irritating to say the least. The worst of this though is that people have started to lump me in with the ug-o's. Am I the only one that understands you can talk to, hang out with and become friends with a girl without wanting to slip her a bit of the pink love monster? It doesn't seem that difficult a concept to grasp.

And lastly, my favourite picture finding of late :

I want all my orange juice with juicy tits from now on.

Churches, Parks, Large Burgers and Sitting on the Roof

The past 24 hours (literally) has exemplified just why it is I've moved to Berlin. It started at pretty much this time last night when I headed to a church just around the corner for a party/art exhibition/bbq type thing. Was a little unsure what to expect, mostly as I've never been to a party at a church before, but as its Berlin it wasn't quite what you'd associate with such a thing. It consisted of about 40 people sat/stood around, just outside the entrance, getting pissed and stuffing their faces with food whilst having a laugh. Occasionally ambling into the church itself to have a looksy at the various artworks hanging around :

This sounds far more pretentious than it was (not atall. honestly). Either that or wander up the rather dangerous (at least when pissed) stair case :

for a rather good view of Berlin (well, its here as much as my camera phone will allow. ie, not really a good view) :

The best part of the whole experience was later in the evening, when I may of been slightly drunked on vodka, stumbling through the church to go for a jimmy-riddle whilst two guys were singing hymns acoompanied by an organ. Not what my drunken mind is used to and quite surreal.

After that was a drink or two in Scotch and Soda (themed, but none the worse for it, if you hadn't guessed) and then it was suggested that we go to one of the party goers houses and sit on their roof terrace, have a couple of drinks and soak in the Berlin night. All great apart from the fact that when getting there and being pointed to go up the stairs to the roof we couldn't find said roof. You wouldn't think it'd be that difficult, but what were looking for was a door with some stairs leading to a decked garden type of thing. What we found were two derelict looking apartments without lights and with crumbling floors, imagine the set of Hostel or Hannibal Lecters' basement and you get the idea.

But after stumbling around while our alcohol addled brains tried to process the fact that we may about to be killed, we found a ladder. This led to a little hatch and then to just the open (creaky) roof. So we sat there for a short time and had a drink, looking at the tv tower whilst seemingly the rest of Berlin laughed and shouted, it was really like there were parties going on all around us. A final couple of drinks were then had in Hairy Marys ending up with me arriving into bed at about 6am.

6 hours of sleep later I was waking up to go for brunch, not the best of ideas in a drunken state you may think, and you may be right. The first thing that I noticed when walking out of my apartment though, was that today was hotter than satans ball bag. The second thing I noticed is that I wasn't anywhere near awake or in a state of functionality. But (fortunately) after stuffing my face with a breakfast buffet and drinking a rather large coffee whilst being roasted by the sun I was feeling a little better. The rest of the afternoon was then spent sitting in the park chatting shit and having a laugh, eating some rather good chocolate and banana ice cream, going to another park and sitting around listening to some music :

And then finishing the day up with a trip to The Bird, a rather good American style Burger place, where I ate approximately half a cow in 3 minutes flat (it was that good) and had a humongous mound of fries to wash it down with.

All in all a most pleasurable time.

And finally :

Not my usual style, but it does make me giggle.

Temporary Decisions and Suicidal Dogs

Last night was the regular Thursday night ToyTown drinks, of which I don't think I've missed one so far in my time here (not that I'm an alcoholic or anything). All in all it was a rather pleasant evening, sat around laughing for about 4 hours, cuddling Daisy (a wee excitable little doggy before you picture me taking advantage of some poor drunk girl recently arrived in Berlin) whilst getting rather pissed. The pissed part though, wasn't so planned. The idea was to have a couple of drinks, what with working the next day, and to be fair to myself that is precisely what I did. Its not my fault that the bar tenders idea of a reasonable amount of vodka (a shot or so) is a little larger than most peoples (ie. more than 50% of the liquid content). After one I was mildly tipsy, after two I was steaming.

So today has been a combination of working, sitting on the balcony in my grundikes reading a book by Charlie Brooker and sitting in the coffee shop drinking my regular large Mocha (I don't even have to ask the staff for it anymore. I feel like Norm from cheers, though without having just eaten 2000 donuts). Oh, all that and recovering from the unexpected hangover, they do seem to be so much worse when they're a surprise.

Apartment wise I've made a decision. After a couple of months looking at shitholes, overpriced shitholes, nice places in shitholes and one nice place in a polished turd of a street (ie. could be a shithole, but its not quite there) I had my options. One, move into a new apartment. Buy a few grands worth of furniture, washing machine etc. Sign up for all the year or two long contracts for day to day essentials (internet and such) and the long term lease on the apartment. Or, two, stay where I am now, pay a little more for the privilege and not have to sign my life away for said year or two or go through all the hassles of buying furniture (don't get me started on the additional pains I had just trying to get a desk and chair from Ikea, the cunts).

So, when I put it to myself like that, it wasn't too difficult to decide. Why spend all my time and energy moving to Berlin permanently when the moving part of this whole plan wasn't and isn't the main point. Breaking out of a stuck-in routine, having some fun and figuring out where to go/what to do next is, so that's what I'll be doing. It is just far too easy to get lost in the forward motion of doing stuff to be 'getting on with it' rather than stopping to think if what you're doing is really the best use of your time.

But, I've grown quite accustomed to my current accommodation and despite all the hassles of getting said Desk and Chair from those who we shall not mention again, its fricking good having a place to work/not work (the only thing that was really missing from the apartment before) :

My favourite picture finding of late is this, a poor doogles that's had enough of his miserable life and has decided to end it all 1920's silent film style :

Poor thing.

Living in 1984 and How Ikea Can't Add

Has been a mostly uneventful past couple of weeks here in Berlin, afternoons drinking coffee and evenings drinking vodka interspersed with work and the remnants of moving my life here. The first of which this week was going to register myself with the government, all 1984 style.

First off, I'm not too sure why this is exactly needed. I mean, why do the German Government need to have the address I'm living at along with my landlord written down on a form that is then processed. Its nothing to do with taxation. Its nothing to do with immigration. Its nothing to do with having any form of ID. It seems to simply be that I now have a stamped form that says I am infact here in Germany. If I didn't have one, I'd still be here, living in the same place, paying the same taxes (well, when it comes time for me to do such) and doing all the other little things that one does when one exists. So, the only conclusion I can come to is that its for The Man/Them to keep tabs on me.

But, the process itself. It wasn't too harsh (when I booked an appointment rather than sat in the waiting room for 3 hours watching a number slowly change on a board, clutching a much larger numbered ticket in my hand) although it was rather Communist/Orwellian. Mostly because of the nice big soviet style building that I went to go register in, what seemed to be, at one time in the past, an ornate town hall type place. All official looking, where a man in a top hat and large moustache, debating the merits of hot air balloons, wouldn't look out of sorts. Add to this a gaggle of bored looking grumpy old women who don't speak a word of English (well, I guess it is Germany and not England, although with the way she just repeated the same sentence to me louder in German thinking that I'd then understand, it did remind me of the English) who seem to revel in making sure you know just what a pain in the arse their job is. Throw in some 1970's furniture, a humongous cavernous room for an office and some glorious olde world rubber stamps and the picture was complete. All in all it was quite entertaining.

Organising a bank account on the other hand, was a bit of a breeze. Deutsche Bank not only have people who can speak English (I know, I should learn German) but they also have forms and leaflets in English along with online banking in English. They didn't seem to care about my job or how much money I make, and within about 10 minutes it was all done. Bliss.

Then, I went onto the ikea website, with the idea of buying myself a cheap desk and chair. Simple enough. Found a couple of cheap options on there, clicked to order them, came to around €100. Type in the postcode, calculate the delivery charge, €79 for delivery. "Hmm" I thought, that seems a little on the steep side, I could probably pay someone to carry them on their back to my apartment for cheaper than that. So after some more clicking around and investigation I found that if I buy the desk (on its own) it'll cost me €9 delivery charge and if I buy the chair (on its own), it too will cost me €9 delivery charge. Now, I don't know about you, but for me that adds up to around €18 which is around €61 shy of what they were asking for to carry them on the same van rather than two separate vans. So, like a good citizen, i dutifully emailed ikea to point out that they are infact morons and could they please fix their stupid website. I am yet to get a reply.

So, life here in Berlin is going quite well. Just have some insurance bits n bobs to sort out, moving my company here for next year and an apartment. Oh, and learning German, that might be quite usefull.

I want a blue jumpsuit named "The Corvette", I'd look soo cool.

In Bruges

The drive back to England was substantially better than the drive out to Berlin. Mostly as it was done in a sensible amount of time (3 days rather than 24 hours) plus the addition of a couple of stops along the way. The first of which was near Dortmund, staying in a road side chain hotel next to an Ikea. And thats about as interesting as that stopover got.

The next day was a quick drive down to Antwerp to meet up with Mr & Mrs B for lunch, all was going well until the main road into the city was closed due to a market. My Sat Nav then decided to have a bit of a laugh and take me round all these tiny roads whilst occasionally loosing its GPS lock, ending up in giving me the wrong directions. After some ignoring of the sat nav I found the main road myself and worked my way round to the water front. Didn't spend a great deal of time there, just time to eat and a 10 minute wander around, this photo about sums up me and Antwerp :

Non-Plussed

A quick hour drive to Bruges then followed, with my Sat Nav having another giggle at my expense by taking me down cobbled streets overflowing with old grey haired tourists who didn't seem to understand that they were walking on a road, and therefore couldn't grasp the concept of getting the fook out of my way. The hotel itself was pretty shitty, not updated since the 70's and in a weird shade of blue, but it sufficed for an evening of sleep.

The rest of the day was spent (unlike most of the other tourists there who I'm sure were interested in history or some such other mundane thing) wandering around the filming locations of In Bruges (staring the, up until this film, very irritating Colin Farrell). This took me all over the city and was quite fun indeed, in part because some of the places I was going to see nobody else was arsed about so it gave a slightly tourist free atmosphere.

Splat

Peeking Dog

Park Benching ala :

Time was spent sat in the places, walking over the bridges and drinking in the bars where it was all filmed. Its certainly a much better way of seeing a city, especially if (like me) you're not a fan of old crumbly buildings (give me steel and glass any day). The evening was spent at a free concert/mini festival that was down the road from the hotel. Very nice of them to organise it for the one night that I happened to be staying there.

The next day I awoke after an odd nights sleep (the air conditioning was akin to a 747), got some coffee

and wandered the streets some more. I bought some chocolate (as is the law if you visit Belgium) and set off mid afternoon for the short drive to Calais. More eurotunnel fun was had, driving down the train is quite entertaining

The drive back through England was long, tiring but uneventful. But, around 8 hours after I left Bruges I arrived back in Warrington

Which was quite odd indeed. I'd just about acclimatised to life in Berlin and suddenly I was back in a mostly empty house, my addled brain not quite sure where I was, where I was going or what I was doing.

A week of frantic insanity followed while I sold off the rest of the furniture in the house, sold the car, disposed of more or less ever other trapping of my Warringtonian life and put the house on the market. A party was had on the Saturday night, a final farewell as it were, attended by the barest minimum of people. If ever a sign was needed to validate my reasoning behind my move to Berlin, the party was a fairly big one.

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.

On Having Stuff

I've had quite a cathartic (and busy) past couple of months and have pretty much thrown away most everything that I own. Stuff has been sent off to Charity shops. Ebay was surprised that I've finally decided to sell something after being on the site for over 5 years. Lots has been given away to friends and even more has been packed into black n blue wheely bins for the council to spirit away. The end result of which is that I've discovered that I'm quite a minimalist kind of guy who doesn't really like owning 'things' and being all materialistic.

But, there is a rather large caveat to this sudden discovery of Buddhist sensibilities. I LOVE having the ability to do the things that these objects enable me to do. For instance, I LOVE all the things I can do on my computer, photos, games, editing videos, and all the other fancy shit its capable of. But the actual physical object that is my computer, meh. I could throw it away tomorrow without a second thought. The same with all my cameras, TV, Mobile Phones etc. I don't care about the things themselves and treat them accordingly (ie. a multitude of scratches on all the expensive stuff I own).

So, in reality, rather than being a spiritual type with no need for earthly nik naks (the incense/wicker required for such a role would just irritate me anyway), I'm actually just a renter rather than an owner. I've never quite understood the need to purchase things just to have lots of things. I understand having things that you use, its just the idea of lots of shiny pristine stuff to show off with has never really appealed to me (mostly evidenced by my 'once every 3 or 4 years' car cleaning regime).

All in all, I'm looking forward to not owning a house or a car or all the other stuff that I've acquired over the years like a capitalist zombie (not that I have anything against capitalism, its yummy). One has better stuff to do with one's life than derive status from owning objects, actions are a little more important.

This week my idol is Gary Busey, oh to be as free and bat shit crazy as him, bliss.

And on a side note, why is Arnie doing this? And why is it so creepy?

Moving to another country is a Pain in the Arse

Getting closer to the date I move back to Berlin and have spent most of my time over the past few weeks researching the best way to do it. What I've discovered is that if you're a bum and have nothing much to show for yourself, its very easy to do, you just pick up and go. If on the other hand you have your own company, a house and a little bit of savings, its a real pain in the posterior. Quite why things are this way round is beyond me.

But, I've now got myself a tax consultant over in Berlin to sort out all the company side of things along with my accountant here (as I'll have to file tax returns in both countries) and I have a pretty good understanding of the tax laws and legal responsibilities I have running my company in Germany. Basically, things are beginning to take shape and fall into place, even if it is a huge gangly pointed shape that's falling into an ill fitting place.

Other than that, I've been volunteering at a local dogs home. Sounds good but is a bitter sweet thing, part fun of taking the dogs out and playing with them and part soul destroyingly depressing having to put them back in their cages. The only weird thing about it is that we're only allowed to take the dogs out for an hour a day, between 12 and 1. Firstly for the good reason that you have to wait a certain amount of time after they have been fed to take them out (12), all well and good. But then we have to stop at 1 because thats when the place opens to the public. I understand theres a safety issue but surely they could of come up with some kind of fence or way of being able to take the dogs out more.

What this results in is that the dogs are caged for pretty much all of the 24 hours in a day and when you do take one out you have to be quick, run them round as there are another 50 dogs waiting to be walked and you only have one hour to do it in. Its the horrific decision between not being able to give a dog a good break from the cages with some human contact or that some of the dogs won't get out that day because you didn't get to them in time. It all comes down to something is better than nothing, but it still really pisses me off.

On a lighter note though, a few of my favourite picture findings of late :

Why with a Fish! WHY!