Hello with the pudding

You’ve never been to Berlin? Seriously? Well, you should come, I heard this blogger you like lives there. But in the meantime let me tell you some of the things I have experienced so you can imagine not only that you are here, but more importantly that you are in my mind. And be honest with yourselves, that’s the dream really isn’t it?

U-bahn

In Berlin, you can get around using the U-bahn (ooh-baan). This is like the Tube, only with no barriers, and very few people checking to see if you have tickets. To translate this into London terms, it’s the 29 bus. A guy in my German class from Malta was talking to me about London and he actually asked “oh, but what is up with the barriers they have on the underground?! It’s like your government doesn’t trust you to buy tickets!”… … …

It's also worth noting that you are not only allowed to drink beer on the U-bahn, you are expected to. If you don't like beer you can buy Prosecco in cans.

Jeden Sontag

Every Sunday, just like in England, bells ring all around the city from various locations. In England this means you should get up and go to church (I think, I used to sleep through it). In Berlin this means you should get up and go to Mauerpark. Sure, if you are of a religious persuasion you could go to church too, but then you might not get exactly what you want from Mauerpark.

Mauerpark is a big open-air market which sells everything in the world. As an example, here are some things you could buy in Mauerpark:

• A dress.
• A bike.
• A cuddly toy.
• A ring that turns your finger green.
• A electronic turkey carving knife.
• An ill-fitting hat.
• A massive table-top lighter in the shape of a duck
• A large wooden chest completely covered in fake hair (F-yeah, chest hair!)
• An entire box full of half-ruined black and white photographs of people you have never met.
• And of course, because you’ll forever be wanting otherwise, a pair of sunglasses with a used teabag hanging from one side.

Right next to the market, around 2pm, you can settle down at the little half-ampthitheatre set into the edge of a slope and watch karaoke. You could also perform in the karaoke if previous karaoke endeavours haven’t taught you it would be a bad idea. But you would probably be singing to around 500 people give or take. So it’s not for the timid.

Grafitti

Is everywhere. In most places it's like having things decorated for free, and for the most part it's very inspirational and creative.

Dins

A friend of mine asked me how long I thought it would take to eat at all the restaurants in Berlin. And we concluded that even if you set a certain reasonably high standard for all the meals you consumed, it would easily take four or five years to work your way round. I have been for, among others, awesome multicoloured Chinese dumplings, €3 per plate and share it all Vietnamese and eat it on a bridge and then dream of it all week Pizza. There is also a lot of ice cream, everywhere. You’re never more than 500m from ice cream... perhaps. Or maybe I’m never more than 500m from ice cream? Which means you’re never more than 1km from me?!

Milk

There is only one common size of milk. You can buy 1 litre of milk or 1 litre of milk.

Festival

There is always a festival, celebration or otherwise random artistic sort of party happening in Berlin. Sometimes it’s some live music happening on the fake beach on the River Spree. Sometimes it’s a parade which is finishing as you arrive, so you sit on the street and listen to some bucket drummers.

Sometimes it’s kicking off in the basement of an old brewery where a group of artists have created a space to question our notion of art. What is art? Is it a luxury or a human right? Who decides when it’s good and where do the people who make bad art find the time and money anyhow?

We watched some women dressed as prostitutes perform live improv in a street window. We went into a room where paper mache torsos with lights inside where held up like puppets by giant cogs, and where you could press buttons to make them move, and then, just behind them, was a live band. We went to the old brewery and there, in the basement, was a wall on which you could use your shadow to direct the downward flow of imaginary water. We sat in a make-shift bar which reminded us of a 1920s speak-easy and drank beer while watching a 30-minute German and Italian version of Madame Butterfly.

Parklife

Like inner peace and nirvana and all of that, Berliners are always trying to achieve that ultimate state of being in the park. They take barbeques, cook meat, eat cakes (sometimes that Helen has baked), and they never forget to drink beer. They sit, they chat, they watch the rest of Berlin sitting there too. When the time for being in the park has ended, they dream about it all day until they can again return there.

Pudding

Germans love pudding. And I mean, what Americans call pudding. Plastic pots filled with flavoured cream. All over the supermarket. Walls of it. Love it.

Letter to potential flatmates

Dear <<Person with advert for flatshare>>,

Hi! I just read your advert for a flatshare in <<insert district of Berlin>>. I love <<that district of Berlin>>! I apologise for writing to you in English when clearly we are speaking about a flat in the capital of Germany, but what can you do? I don’t even speak German! But I am learning very slowly.

I suppose I should write a little bit about myself. I find this hard because I don’t know what to say or as it happens, how to say it! Reading broken English translations of adverts in German confuses me and stops English speaking to me being natural – you know? I have with many other English people discussed this and it seems often to be a problem – yes!?

So, about me. Well I am pretty clean. I like to clean things sporadically rather than to a specific schedule. I am, however, pretty untidy. I like to give a flat that wonderful lived in feel with papers on the table, clothes strewn over furniture, bags on the floor of every room and make up on the couch. In fact, speaking of make-up, I love make up. I like to apply it in every room, and will probably relocate household mirrors to facilitate this. I often find I stain the sofa/bed/worksurface with make up and, depending on the quality of the product, it can be difficult to remove!

I like to eat cereal. I like to eat it as soon as I wake up and then also, constantly throughout the day. Any cereal is good and I will of course provide this for the flat. If there is any available when you are in the kitchen you may help yourself, but this is unlikely as I will probably have eaten it all. This also means I always buy milk.

In terms of clothing I mainly wear one dressing gown. It is pink with little hearts on and if I forget to wear undearwear I cannot guarantee that I won’t flash you.

I like the social aspect of a flatshare as I can be pretty talkative. When you get in and want to chill out and watch TV I will be there to ask you inane questions about your day and will take no social cue from your one-word answers.

On an average day I like to wake up around midday, potentially later, somewhat irrelevant of whether I have a job which starts earlier than this. When I am not working I tend to position myself somewhere in the living room, maybe in front of the television, in the dressing gown, with the cereal, and then ignore the television and watch something on my laptop. You might think I could do this in my own room, but if I did, how would I annoy you with inane questions as soon as you walk in through the door?

I like to bake cakes and cookies. They taste good when they are finished. However, the specific recipe I follow includes steps such as:

·        lightly dust the living room floor with a layer of flour

·        whisk violently until tables and workstations are coated in cake mixture.

So! If you like the sound of all this you should get in touch! My German number is <<number>> and I am available all of the time to come and look around your flat, laugh awkwardly throughout the whole appointment in the hope that this will somehow endear you to me and respond to your questions in broken English as though I’m patronising you!

See you soon!!

Helen

Ich bin allergisch gegen Polen

Two bad things that can happen when you move to a new country:

One: Your laptop cable can break. Now, perhaps you have a more appropriate brand of laptop, and you might be able to find a charger. But I don’t. I have a Dell which works with no ‘universal’ chargers. So I became isolated from the world. From my friends. From job applications and adverts for flatshares. I fell into a dark pit of despair and all I could do to combat my inevitable demise was drink and meet people and explore Berlin!

Which is awesome.

Eventually my father (happy father's day!) posted me a replacement charger. I remembered I really needed to write a blog entry because it’s somewhat overdue, but instead I put that off and continued with the awesomeness. What can I do? It’s in my blood now. Along with the alcohol.

Two: Pollens. There are many pollens in Berlin and none of them are particularly fond of me. Or maybe that’s unfair. They have, perhaps, made the greatest effort of all things in Berlin to involve themselves in my life. They fly into my nostrils and into my eyes with their friendship assault and I repeatedly reject them. Poor pollens.

These things might be, er, sort of issues. But without a doubt the thing I’m finding hardest in Berlin is that everyone here insists on speaking to each other in some funny language which I don’t completely understand. Sure, some of it sounds similar to how normal people talk, but for the most part it’s pretty incomprehensible. I don’t know where they get it from, must be some sort of continental thing.

Essentially it makes it difficult to do daily tasks like purchase food at the supermarket, order food in a restaurant, or buy ice cream at an ice cream parlour. Conscious of not wanting to be one of those offensive English speakers who talks loudly and slowly or just points at things they want and mumbles I seem to have concluded the best policy is never to speak to anyone.

This policy tends to result in me wandering through the streets until there is something I need so much (food, antihistamines, a laptop charger, ice cream) that I’m forced to communicate.

In my limited defence I am currently attending a German class for three hours a day, and this ‘German’ is becoming a little more tangible in my mind as a language. The problem is inside the classroom we’re only asked to say the things which we’ve been taught how to say, and in the real world the requirements are somewhat more far-reaching.

When I was 17 my then boyfriend and I were waiting impatiently in MacDonalds late at night. It was taking that ‘this is not really fast food’ amount of time that’s completely unacceptable because you’re never in MacDonalds for the quality. A man walked in, sauntered over the counter and asked ‘what’s ready?’ The boyfriend turned to me and said ‘that man is my hero’.

As I sit outside Burger King in Merringdamm at 1am realising I haven’t eaten since midday, I turn the phrase over and over in my head in practice, before walking in, shuffling over to the counter, pointing at the nearest picture and mumbling ‘das?’ to which the response is a sigh and a ‘eat in or take away?’

Oh well. I’ll learn.