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.