This was pointed out to me by an Aussie lad I met recently, whose that Berlin is "the best city in the world, a real grower" is proving true to this scribe. I have to say that each day I find something intriguing about this fascinating place. Although the weather is brutally cold at times, I am told that it has been unseasonably warm, due to a few inconvenient truths. But it seems damn frigid to my delicate constitution.
Naturalische, as the cold has been permanently etched into my bone marrow. I was locked out of meine Wohnung (flat) for 2 days, which was quite a miserable experience. This sent me into a downward spiral in which I was rent with homesickness, for obvious reasons. I was able to spend the night at Assaf's, but not before I was unceremoniously dumped at Potsdamer Platz at the stroke of midnight when the UBahn stopped running. This was several miles from his Soviet compound at Heinrich Heinestrasse, and the night bus system was difficult to navigate (although user-friendly, I got off course twice on the triple-bus route), as I tend to launch into panic mode when a situation is out of my control. Vielleicht this will help me get over my control-freakishness and realize that control is always a total illusion. I finally ended up at my buddy's place at 3 am, shaken and refrigerated. The following day I was deflated, but still made it to language school.
After this mishap I finally accessed meine Wohnung when my flatmate Amandine arrived . I had dinner with her and her charming Freund and we spoke German together and all was well. The following day I was looking forward to some some r and r, and having the place to myself for a while. Unfortunately, Amandine arrived home early and informed me she was having a dinner party for 6 colleagues. Where had she been before? Christ. I decided, though, to rise to the occasion, pull myself up by the bootstraps and don my best party shoes and use this as a chance to polish my admittedly meager skills auf Deutsche. However, as happens so often here, English became the default language, as it was the common denominator amongst the Turkisch and Francozich company. The meal was lovely, I made my excuses and decamped to my room to do my Hausafgabel (homework).
After being upbraided by Fraulein Buschmann re: losing meine Schlussels (keys) I was feeling a bit harassed (she felt I should have called her in Turkey, but I saw no reason to drag her into it). It didn't help that in the interest of not hearing her grousing I went ahead and agreed to water the plants in the Erkerzimmer. I stole into the room the day after my return to complete this thankless task (esp. since the consensus amongst my colleagues is that I'm being totally ripped off by the exorbitant rent), and I realized that the entire room had been jerry-rigged into this elaborate Rube-Goldberg-esque deathtrap. As I began to water the plants I realized that almost every flowerpot was festooned with spiderwebs of electrical cords. Some of these plants were teetering on speakers and other live objects and if you even touched one thing it would set off a terrible chain reaction. Although I am realistic and understand the maxim that one should never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by simple ineptitude, the paranoid side of me wanted to believe that there was some kind of conspiracy on the order of Roman Polanski's The Besides, if said aphorism is true in this case, the sheer number of village idiots in mein leben has reached critical mass. At any rate, I was livid that Frau Bushmann would ask me to risk my life in order to water her ugly-ass plants.
I did have high hopes for a place I had seen online in Prenzaluerberg, in the city East Berlin. But when I went to see the digs today I was crestfallen to find that it looked like a squat, with coal stove you have to start yourself. Although this may be preferable to the situation I have now, and it's cheaper, the current inhabitants kept mentioning how the phone was broken, the Waschmachine was broken, the wireless was broken so you had to use a cable, etc. None of this, of course, was mentioned in the ad. So for now...better the devil you know, I guess.
After all the trouble I forgot to mention my brush with "fame" the other day. Assaf and I had gone to the beautiful Jewish quarter to look for a kosher bottle of wine and decided to stop at this dramatic-looking old dance hall called the Ballhaus. After entering and admiring the ancient wooden floors, mirrorball and tinsel-studded stage, and querying the hostess on duty about the different theme nights (jazz, swing, etc) I noticed a diminutive fellow in all black enter with his partner. The note of familiarity struck by his appearance was stereo-ized when he opened his mouth, but rendered dissonant by the fact that this was an actor I had seen on screen many times, seen in the flesh. At that moment I realized it was Willem Dafoe, the Green Goblin from the Spiderman films. Assaf and I were gobsmacked. After scanning the place for a moment, the weathered-looking thespian turned on his heel and walked out, passing me and giving me us an "I know you know who I am, and give me my privacy" kind of look. It was a true Gloria Swanson moment...
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Berlin is a Grower, not a Shower; Brushes with Fame
This was pointed out to me by an Aussie lad I met recently, who asserted that Berlin is "the best city in the world, a real grower." I have to say that each day I find something intriguing about this fascinating place. Although the weather is brutally cold at times, I am told that it has been unseasonably warm, due to a few inconvenient truths. But it seems damn frigid to my delicate constitution.
Naturalische, as the cold has been permanently etched into my bone marrow. I was locked out of meine Wohnung (flat) for 2 days, which was quite a miserable experience. This sent me into a downward spiral in which I was rent with homesickness, for obvious reasons. I was able to spend the night at Assaf's, but not before I was unceremoniously dumped at Potsdamer Platz at the stroke of midnight when the UBahn stopped running. This was several miles from his Soviet compound at Heinrich Heinestrasse, and the night bus system was difficult to navigate (although user-friendly, I got off course twice on the triple-bus route), as I tend to launch into panic mode when a situation is out of my control. Vielleicht this will help me get over my control-freakishness and realize that control is always a total illusion. I finally ended up at my buddy's place at 3 am, shaken and refrigerated. The following day I was deflated, but still made it to language school.
After this mishap I finally accessed meine Wohnung when my flatmate Amandine arrived . I had dinner with her and her charming Freund and we spoke German together and all was well. The following day I was looking forward to some some r and r, and having the place to myself for a while. Unfortunately, Amandine arrived home early and informed me she was having a dinner party for 6 colleagues. Where had she been before? Christ. I decided, though, to rise to the occasion, pull myself up by the bootstraps and don my best party shoes and use this as a chance to polish my admittedly meager skills auf Deutsche. However, as happens so often here, English became the default language, as it was the common denominator amongst the Turkisch and Francozich company. The meal was lovely, I made my excuses and decamped to my room to do my Hausafgabe (homework).
After being upbraided by Fraulein Buschmann re: losing meine Schlussels (keys) I was feeling a bit harassed (she felt I should have called her in Turkey, but I saw no reason to drag her into it). It didn't help that in the interest of not hearing her grousing I went ahead and agreed to water the plants in the Erkerzimmer. I stole into the room the day after my return to complete this thankless task (esp. since the consensus amongst my colleagues is that I'm being totally ripped off by the exorbitant rent), and I realized that the entire room had been jerry-rigged into this elaborate Rube-Goldberg-esque deathtrap. As I began to water the plants I realized that almost every flowerpot was festooned with spiderwebs of electrical cords. Some of these plants were teetering on speakers and other live objects and if you even touched one thing it would set off a terrible chain reaction. Although I am realistic and understand the maxim that one should never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by simple ineptitude, the paranoid side of me wanted to believe that there was some kind of conspiracy on the order of Roman Polanski's The Tenant. At any rate, I was livid that Frau Bushmann would ask me to risk my life in order to water her ugly-ass plants.
I did have high hopes for a place I had seen online in Prenzaluerberg, in the city East Berlin. But when I went to see the digs today I was crestfallen to find that it looked like a squat, with coal stove you have to start yourself. Although this may be preferable to the situation I have now, and it's cheaper, the current inhabitants kept mentioning how the phone was broken, the Waschmachine was broken, the wireless was broken so you had to use a cable, etc. None of this, of course, was mentioned in the ad. So for now...better the devil you know, I guess.
After all the trouble I forgot to mention my brush with "fame" the other day. Assaf and I had gone to the beautiful Jewish quarter to look for a kosher bottle of wine and decided to stop at this dramatic-looking old dance hall called the Ballhaus. After entering and admiring the ancient wooden floors, mirrorball and stage, and querying the hostess on duty about the different theme nights (jazz, swing, etc) I noticed a diminutive fellow in all black enter with his partner. The note of familiarity struck by his appearance was stereo-ized when he opened his mouth, but rendered dissonant by the fact that this was an actor I had seen on screen many times, seen in the flesh. At that moment I realized it was Willem Dafoe, the Green Goblin from the Spiderman films.
Naturalische, as the cold has been permanently etched into my bone marrow. I was locked out of meine Wohnung (flat) for 2 days, which was quite a miserable experience. This sent me into a downward spiral in which I was rent with homesickness, for obvious reasons. I was able to spend the night at Assaf's, but not before I was unceremoniously dumped at Potsdamer Platz at the stroke of midnight when the UBahn stopped running. This was several miles from his Soviet compound at Heinrich Heinestrasse, and the night bus system was difficult to navigate (although user-friendly, I got off course twice on the triple-bus route), as I tend to launch into panic mode when a situation is out of my control. Vielleicht this will help me get over my control-freakishness and realize that control is always a total illusion. I finally ended up at my buddy's place at 3 am, shaken and refrigerated. The following day I was deflated, but still made it to language school.
After this mishap I finally accessed meine Wohnung when my flatmate Amandine arrived . I had dinner with her and her charming Freund and we spoke German together and all was well. The following day I was looking forward to some some r and r, and having the place to myself for a while. Unfortunately, Amandine arrived home early and informed me she was having a dinner party for 6 colleagues. Where had she been before? Christ. I decided, though, to rise to the occasion, pull myself up by the bootstraps and don my best party shoes and use this as a chance to polish my admittedly meager skills auf Deutsche. However, as happens so often here, English became the default language, as it was the common denominator amongst the Turkisch and Francozich company. The meal was lovely, I made my excuses and decamped to my room to do my Hausafgabe (homework).
After being upbraided by Fraulein Buschmann re: losing meine Schlussels (keys) I was feeling a bit harassed (she felt I should have called her in Turkey, but I saw no reason to drag her into it). It didn't help that in the interest of not hearing her grousing I went ahead and agreed to water the plants in the Erkerzimmer. I stole into the room the day after my return to complete this thankless task (esp. since the consensus amongst my colleagues is that I'm being totally ripped off by the exorbitant rent), and I realized that the entire room had been jerry-rigged into this elaborate Rube-Goldberg-esque deathtrap. As I began to water the plants I realized that almost every flowerpot was festooned with spiderwebs of electrical cords. Some of these plants were teetering on speakers and other live objects and if you even touched one thing it would set off a terrible chain reaction. Although I am realistic and understand the maxim that one should never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by simple ineptitude, the paranoid side of me wanted to believe that there was some kind of conspiracy on the order of Roman Polanski's The Tenant. At any rate, I was livid that Frau Bushmann would ask me to risk my life in order to water her ugly-ass plants.
I did have high hopes for a place I had seen online in Prenzaluerberg, in the city East Berlin. But when I went to see the digs today I was crestfallen to find that it looked like a squat, with coal stove you have to start yourself. Although this may be preferable to the situation I have now, and it's cheaper, the current inhabitants kept mentioning how the phone was broken, the Waschmachine was broken, the wireless was broken so you had to use a cable, etc. None of this, of course, was mentioned in the ad. So for now...better the devil you know, I guess.
After all the trouble I forgot to mention my brush with "fame" the other day. Assaf and I had gone to the beautiful Jewish quarter to look for a kosher bottle of wine and decided to stop at this dramatic-looking old dance hall called the Ballhaus. After entering and admiring the ancient wooden floors, mirrorball and stage, and querying the hostess on duty about the different theme nights (jazz, swing, etc) I noticed a diminutive fellow in all black enter with his partner. The note of familiarity struck by his appearance was stereo-ized when he opened his mouth, but rendered dissonant by the fact that this was an actor I had seen on screen many times, seen in the flesh. At that moment I realized it was Willem Dafoe, the Green Goblin from the Spiderman films.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Kreuzberg Krunk
The past few days have been jam-packed with activity, hence the dearth of posts. I've been flying high on a new wave of energy, quaffing kaffee and all manner of caffeinated beverages to beat the band, exploring all the nooks, crannies and subterranean lairs of Berlin.
I have a new best friend. His name is Assaf, he's an Israeli architect (yes, there are a few Israelis in Berlin) who lives near Alexanderplatz in an unimaginably huge Soviet era tower block, which is tantamount to living in a concrete box, but kind of fun in an Eastern bloc kind of way. Frankly, while the apt. is very New York, I can't imagine being able to sleep there at night. Of course, Berlin is a city that never sleeps. The energy here is really infectious, not like that sleepy burg whence I came (although the weather is quite similar to the Pacific Northwest.)
Last night I picked up Assaf at the Stadtoper (he just assumed I didn't like opera, so didn't invite me, but I want to go -- he scored a ticket to the Magic Flute for 8 Euros) and afterwards made my first foray to a gay bar, in Kreuzberg. I guess we went on the correct night, because it was good old unwholesome, unpretentious trashy fun. One thing I noticed in stark contrast to the bar scene in the U.S. was that everyone seemed to be there to have a good time, without the kind of boring body fascism so endemic to gay culture in the US. In short, the guys here just seem comfortable in their own skins, with what they have, not striving to meet this vile, diseased ideal of some buffed, plucked, shaved and moisturized day-spa queen. Even the drag queens here seem more natural and hence more glamorous here, and think it has to do with the same gender issues which drive U.S. gay men and women to this kind of guilt and self-denial which results in eating disorders, body dysmorphia, etc. Queers here in general are just more integrated as a natural part of life, like the rain.
Vielleicht one reason for this is that the Germans actually treat homosexuals with the dignity and respect that they deserve, and Berlin is ground zero for the German homosexualist. (Qualifier: just as New York is not the US, Berlin is not all Germany) Don't forget this was the home of pioneering gay rights researchers and activists Magnus Hirschfeld and the Mattachine Society. Even Hitler could not completely dampen this legacy, and today it feels like no less than the Queer capital of the world. Just take a stroll down to Schoneberg and pop into the community center. There you'll find all manner of queer boys and men filling out paperwork for their free HIV tests, having coffee, getting flyers with the straight dope on all the latest club drugs and generally taking advantage of the support on offer here. Or cruise down to Bruno's (I sound like a glib travel guide here) , a gay bookstore that would put any of it's US counterparts to shame. Even Assaf remarked at how the bookstores in Chelsea couldn't hope to be as sleek and nice. But that's how we treat our community in the states; it's as if we don't deserve to have nice things. I found several DVDs there I had been looking for for ages too!
Changing gears a bit, I'm trying to decide on my next critical piece. I thought about doing a piece on Doblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz paralleled with the Fassbinder mini-series, which was just released on DVD. This could prove to be a massive undertaking being as how the book is a zillion pages and the miniseries about 27 hours...Marianne was actually encouraging me not to concentrate too much on literature as it could prevent me from the social interaction being abroad begs. Once I get out to the museums and theatres this may inspire me to do an synthesis of lit crit and that of other art forms. An American Harvard student I met today is here for two weeks on a grant doing a critical study of literature about the Berlin subway system. So anything is possible really!
Tschuss for now
I have a new best friend. His name is Assaf, he's an Israeli architect (yes, there are a few Israelis in Berlin) who lives near Alexanderplatz in an unimaginably huge Soviet era tower block, which is tantamount to living in a concrete box, but kind of fun in an Eastern bloc kind of way. Frankly, while the apt. is very New York, I can't imagine being able to sleep there at night. Of course, Berlin is a city that never sleeps. The energy here is really infectious, not like that sleepy burg whence I came (although the weather is quite similar to the Pacific Northwest.)
Last night I picked up Assaf at the Stadtoper (he just assumed I didn't like opera, so didn't invite me, but I want to go -- he scored a ticket to the Magic Flute for 8 Euros) and afterwards made my first foray to a gay bar, in Kreuzberg. I guess we went on the correct night, because it was good old unwholesome, unpretentious trashy fun. One thing I noticed in stark contrast to the bar scene in the U.S. was that everyone seemed to be there to have a good time, without the kind of boring body fascism so endemic to gay culture in the US. In short, the guys here just seem comfortable in their own skins, with what they have, not striving to meet this vile, diseased ideal of some buffed, plucked, shaved and moisturized day-spa queen. Even the drag queens here seem more natural and hence more glamorous here, and think it has to do with the same gender issues which drive U.S. gay men and women to this kind of guilt and self-denial which results in eating disorders, body dysmorphia, etc. Queers here in general are just more integrated as a natural part of life, like the rain.
Vielleicht one reason for this is that the Germans actually treat homosexuals with the dignity and respect that they deserve, and Berlin is ground zero for the German homosexualist. (Qualifier: just as New York is not the US, Berlin is not all Germany) Don't forget this was the home of pioneering gay rights researchers and activists Magnus Hirschfeld and the Mattachine Society. Even Hitler could not completely dampen this legacy, and today it feels like no less than the Queer capital of the world. Just take a stroll down to Schoneberg and pop into the community center. There you'll find all manner of queer boys and men filling out paperwork for their free HIV tests, having coffee, getting flyers with the straight dope on all the latest club drugs and generally taking advantage of the support on offer here. Or cruise down to Bruno's (I sound like a glib travel guide here) , a gay bookstore that would put any of it's US counterparts to shame. Even Assaf remarked at how the bookstores in Chelsea couldn't hope to be as sleek and nice. But that's how we treat our community in the states; it's as if we don't deserve to have nice things. I found several DVDs there I had been looking for for ages too!
Changing gears a bit, I'm trying to decide on my next critical piece. I thought about doing a piece on Doblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz paralleled with the Fassbinder mini-series, which was just released on DVD. This could prove to be a massive undertaking being as how the book is a zillion pages and the miniseries about 27 hours...Marianne was actually encouraging me not to concentrate too much on literature as it could prevent me from the social interaction being abroad begs. Once I get out to the museums and theatres this may inspire me to do an synthesis of lit crit and that of other art forms. An American Harvard student I met today is here for two weeks on a grant doing a critical study of literature about the Berlin subway system. So anything is possible really!
Tschuss for now
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Where is Petra von Kant when you need her?
This is my first entry in the blogosphere, and my first dispatch from the fabulous European capital of Berlin. The background featured herein was inspired by my latest obsession, the New York art world/double suicides of Jeremy Blake and Theresa Duncan. Theresa's blog "The Wit of the Staircase" featured this exact template. You might want to check that out too. Slightly macabre, but, being a sucker for a good cult-ish conspiracy I was hooked by the sinister Scientology connection (and when is the Lan-mark forum going to have their very own scandal?). RIP.
Moving right along...
I've been in Berlin nigh on a week now, and seem to be adjusting quite well, thank you very much. I'm ensconced in a large but ostensibly overpriced apartment in Moabit, West Berlin, which used to be home to a large prison. Now it features a lot of Turkish delicatessens and cute little Fruhschtuck (breakfast) places and Kaffee Klatsches, and a lot of architecture in the 50s Brutalist style. The area is ghetto, but is becoming gentrified slowly, and the location is convenient. The Spree River is just a few blocks away, and you can follow its winding path through the Tiergarten all the way down to the Reichstag, their equivalent to a house of Parliament. On Sunday you can see all manner of bourgeois Berliners out for their stroll through West Berlin.
My landlady lives in the apartment with us -- she's some kind of freelancing nebulous consultant or other who, thankfully, is constantly traveling -- and takes on boarders of all nationalities and other cunning linguists. The 19-year old French architecture student living there now speaks five languages. With my rudimentary grasp of German and French, I might be intimidated if I could actually be bothered, or if they weren't so damn nice. Everyone is very very sweet and perfectly willing to slog through a conversation in any language, as I am willing to be their sparkling tour guide through Engrish as a second language.
At the moment I'm sitting in cafe in Rosenthaler Platz, which is just a hop, skip and a jump from Prenzlauerberg, my new favorite part of town. It's in East Berlin, which is more funky with cooler architecture. The way it was explained by my new Israeli architect friend (I've made so many), the East after the war, since they were poorer, kept more of the older structures. They just didn't have the money to rebuild. Whereas in West Berlin, everything was so decimated they had no choice but to rebuild and pumped all this money into scads of ugly ass buildings.
Anyway, I am looking at a new place in Prenzlauer Berg because I am quite dubious about my landlady, Frau Buschmann. I mean, she seems like a nice person , e.g. she professed worry as to my whereabouts the other night, thinking I had been attacked by a gang of skinheads or something, because she didn't see my shoes at the door (I had forgotten to take them off!) BUT, for one thing, she has asked me to water her plants -- she has a frigging nursery in the flat -- whenever she is out of town. I told her in no uncertain terms that I have a black thumb and have been known to kill plants with an over-the-shoulder glance. She said if I start stressing about the plants I can e-mail her and her neighbor will come and do it. Whatever. Oh, the guilt.
For another thing, turns out Frau Buschmann is a bit of a hypocrite as well. She has signs posted in the bathroom for the guests to please remove their hairs from the "flowing off". Well, I have found some ungodly items, of uncertain provenance, in that drain. They certainly weren't mine!
One other thing, will somebody please tell me why, when I live with two women, is there ALWAYS urine on the toilet seat? Again, I know it's not mine because it's not, but can something be said for basic cleanliness? No joke, yesterday I flipped up the toilet seat and there was a wig of human hair under there, clinging to the bottom of the seat. Not pubic hair, mind you, but head hair in a cluster ball about 8 inches in diameter. Scheiss. How could she have lost that much hair in one swell foop and not known it was under there? And how, prithee, did it get there? Talk about flipping your wig. I know she has hair extensions too, because there was a box of braids and curls on the top shelf in the bathroom. Maybe a few locks of this ersatz hair became dislocated somehow, ending up in the unlikeliest of places. But it looked damn real (replete with lint), and was a shock and a horror to this scribe. Not for the faint of heart. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
This all may sound dyspeptic, but hey, I'm working in the tradition of the great British Imperialist travel writers. At least I'm trying to learn the language! More on that later, as I attempt to describe my first few days studying a very complicated language -- without my usual rudder, English, to guide me!
Second-guessing myself has always been a hidden talent of mine, and in this case I applied it ruthlessly to the situation. If only I'd taken the flat in Helmholtzplatz. But no, I'd gone along with the advice of a relative, who suggested that it might behoove me to pay a few (100) extra Euros a monthtake a place closer to the Sprachenschule, in the former West Berlin. Besides this would allow me to focus on my writing instead of spending all that time traveling.
And so it was that I was deposited by a city bus in Moabit, perhaps the most brutal and least fashionable of Berlin nachbarshafte, home of the real Berliner, on a frosty January afternoon , trundling through the cobblestone streets burdened with an oversized coffer.
I scanned the resident listings, through watery, jetlagged eyes. My head was throbbing. I pulled out the scrap of paper on which I had scrawled the name of the proprietress. There it was: Buschmann. Up and down the columns of names I glanced, to no avail. I squinted at the buildings around me. Something was amiss. I must just not be able to focus properly, too jetlagged, I thought. Desperate, I kept looking up and down the list in a textbook iteration of the definition of insanity. Nearly throwing up my hands in frustration, I wanted to collapse crying in the street, but frigidity forbade. There was a grungy hostel on the first floor: should I check in?
I tried to dispel from my head the idea that perhaps someone was playing a practical joke on me. Feeling hapless as hell, I lugged my suitcase clumsily into a Turkish-run corner store. They had internet and telephone service. Remembering the number on the scrap of paper, I fumbled in my pocket. The gentleman at the front desk yelled at me for using the wrong telephone. "Number 3!" he bellowed. Charmed. Wedging my suitcase between me and the glass partition, I dialed thenumber from the printed e-mail. An insouciant voice, with a tone of affected worry, answered:
"Brian, Brian, where are you? I've been waiting for over an hour! Are you lost?!" came the sing-song voice, in threatrically overdone tones of concern.
"I'm at the internet place on the corner of Wilhelmshavner Strasse" I said weakly.
"Well, you are right next door!" she cried.
"I was just there and I didn't see the name on the list."
"Right next door! Number three!"
I hung up, unable to explain or fathom the communication breakdown. Gathering my things, I stumbled out the door and walked down the street. In the doorway of the next building a portly fraulein with coke bottle glasses and a mound of wispy hair stacked on her head.
Moving right along...
I've been in Berlin nigh on a week now, and seem to be adjusting quite well, thank you very much. I'm ensconced in a large but ostensibly overpriced apartment in Moabit, West Berlin, which used to be home to a large prison. Now it features a lot of Turkish delicatessens and cute little Fruhschtuck (breakfast) places and Kaffee Klatsches, and a lot of architecture in the 50s Brutalist style. The area is ghetto, but is becoming gentrified slowly, and the location is convenient. The Spree River is just a few blocks away, and you can follow its winding path through the Tiergarten all the way down to the Reichstag, their equivalent to a house of Parliament. On Sunday you can see all manner of bourgeois Berliners out for their stroll through West Berlin.
My landlady lives in the apartment with us -- she's some kind of freelancing nebulous consultant or other who, thankfully, is constantly traveling -- and takes on boarders of all nationalities and other cunning linguists. The 19-year old French architecture student living there now speaks five languages. With my rudimentary grasp of German and French, I might be intimidated if I could actually be bothered, or if they weren't so damn nice. Everyone is very very sweet and perfectly willing to slog through a conversation in any language, as I am willing to be their sparkling tour guide through Engrish as a second language.
At the moment I'm sitting in cafe in Rosenthaler Platz, which is just a hop, skip and a jump from Prenzlauerberg, my new favorite part of town. It's in East Berlin, which is more funky with cooler architecture. The way it was explained by my new Israeli architect friend (I've made so many), the East after the war, since they were poorer, kept more of the older structures. They just didn't have the money to rebuild. Whereas in West Berlin, everything was so decimated they had no choice but to rebuild and pumped all this money into scads of ugly ass buildings.
Anyway, I am looking at a new place in Prenzlauer Berg because I am quite dubious about my landlady, Frau Buschmann. I mean, she seems like a nice person , e.g. she professed worry as to my whereabouts the other night, thinking I had been attacked by a gang of skinheads or something, because she didn't see my shoes at the door (I had forgotten to take them off!) BUT, for one thing, she has asked me to water her plants -- she has a frigging nursery in the flat -- whenever she is out of town. I told her in no uncertain terms that I have a black thumb and have been known to kill plants with an over-the-shoulder glance. She said if I start stressing about the plants I can e-mail her and her neighbor will come and do it. Whatever. Oh, the guilt.
For another thing, turns out Frau Buschmann is a bit of a hypocrite as well. She has signs posted in the bathroom for the guests to please remove their hairs from the "flowing off". Well, I have found some ungodly items, of uncertain provenance, in that drain. They certainly weren't mine!
One other thing, will somebody please tell me why, when I live with two women, is there ALWAYS urine on the toilet seat? Again, I know it's not mine because it's not, but can something be said for basic cleanliness? No joke, yesterday I flipped up the toilet seat and there was a wig of human hair under there, clinging to the bottom of the seat. Not pubic hair, mind you, but head hair in a cluster ball about 8 inches in diameter. Scheiss. How could she have lost that much hair in one swell foop and not known it was under there? And how, prithee, did it get there? Talk about flipping your wig. I know she has hair extensions too, because there was a box of braids and curls on the top shelf in the bathroom. Maybe a few locks of this ersatz hair became dislocated somehow, ending up in the unlikeliest of places. But it looked damn real (replete with lint), and was a shock and a horror to this scribe. Not for the faint of heart. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
This all may sound dyspeptic, but hey, I'm working in the tradition of the great British Imperialist travel writers. At least I'm trying to learn the language! More on that later, as I attempt to describe my first few days studying a very complicated language -- without my usual rudder, English, to guide me!
Second-guessing myself has always been a hidden talent of mine, and in this case I applied it ruthlessly to the situation. If only I'd taken the flat in Helmholtzplatz. But no, I'd gone along with the advice of a relative, who suggested that it might behoove me to pay a few (100) extra Euros a monthtake a place closer to the Sprachenschule, in the former West Berlin. Besides this would allow me to focus on my writing instead of spending all that time traveling.
And so it was that I was deposited by a city bus in Moabit, perhaps the most brutal and least fashionable of Berlin nachbarshafte, home of the real Berliner, on a frosty January afternoon , trundling through the cobblestone streets burdened with an oversized coffer.
I scanned the resident listings, through watery, jetlagged eyes. My head was throbbing. I pulled out the scrap of paper on which I had scrawled the name of the proprietress. There it was: Buschmann. Up and down the columns of names I glanced, to no avail. I squinted at the buildings around me. Something was amiss. I must just not be able to focus properly, too jetlagged, I thought. Desperate, I kept looking up and down the list in a textbook iteration of the definition of insanity. Nearly throwing up my hands in frustration, I wanted to collapse crying in the street, but frigidity forbade. There was a grungy hostel on the first floor: should I check in?
I tried to dispel from my head the idea that perhaps someone was playing a practical joke on me. Feeling hapless as hell, I lugged my suitcase clumsily into a Turkish-run corner store. They had internet and telephone service. Remembering the number on the scrap of paper, I fumbled in my pocket. The gentleman at the front desk yelled at me for using the wrong telephone. "Number 3!" he bellowed. Charmed. Wedging my suitcase between me and the glass partition, I dialed thenumber from the printed e-mail. An insouciant voice, with a tone of affected worry, answered:
"Brian, Brian, where are you? I've been waiting for over an hour! Are you lost?!" came the sing-song voice, in threatrically overdone tones of concern.
"I'm at the internet place on the corner of Wilhelmshavner Strasse" I said weakly.
"Well, you are right next door!" she cried.
"I was just there and I didn't see the name on the list."
"Right next door! Number three!"
I hung up, unable to explain or fathom the communication breakdown. Gathering my things, I stumbled out the door and walked down the street. In the doorway of the next building a portly fraulein with coke bottle glasses and a mound of wispy hair stacked on her head.
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