Leaving Berlin Part 4 of 8: Things I’ll miss a huge amount

So I’m ‘home’, in lovely little Horsham. It’s a bit… dull. And my parents have stolen my old bedroom and given me theirs which is slightly odd.

I managed Saturday with only five tears. Two when I said goodbye to the last of the people to leave my fairwell lunch and three on the plane when we touched down in cold miserable England, so I think that’s good. It turns out the key is to think about two things: the super-short-term e.g. ‘what will I do tomorrow?’ and the super-long-term e.g. ‘where will I be a year from now?’. And whatever happens don’t think about Berlin and how awesome it is.

Certainly don't write about it... oh crap.

The Perfect Sunday: Frühstück

Berlin does breakfast like Michael does shouting in the faces of people he finds attractive – excessively. For a few euros you can normally well-acquaint yourself with at least three different cheeses, three different meats, a couple of different breads and some fruit. In Schwarze Pumpe, Chorinerstr there is a legendary Sunday buffet with eggs and sausages, cheeses, meats, salad, fruit, pesto, more pesto, ‘Helen I think you’ve taken all of the pesto there’ and various different breads, and it will cost 5€. At A-Horn, just over the river from Princenstr. U-bahn there are massive plates of all the same things which are served with freshly baked bagels of your choice: cheese, olive, tomato…

I miss rolling out of bed on a Sunday morning, reading a message from Sophie with a brunch suggestion, and heading to somewhere beautiful in Berlin to eat enough food to last until dinner.

Max’s House, Catanienallee – eating food, watching films and playing games

As winter started to descend on Berlin there were two beautiful weekends where the sun was out, the air was crisp, and you could forage through Sunday markets like a mouse preparing for hibernation, thinking ‘once the cold comes I won’t be back here until spring’.

On one of these weekends I met up with Kurt, and a new friend, Max, ate the aforementioned unlimited brunch at Schwarze Pumpe and spent a little time in Mauerpark Flohmarkt.

Wanting to get in from the cold Max invited us back to his nearby apartment to watch a film and eat soup.

It was around this time that I started my plot to kill Max and steal his apartment. Located on one of my favourite streets in Berlin, possibly my favourite at the time, I was incredibly jealous of his low cost two room flat. He was also one of the first real people I had met in Berlin. You know, he hadn’t just moved here, he wasn’t living with a family, or with anyone else for that matter, and he had a proper job. All this means that his apartment is actually full of things, like a real person! He didn’t sleep on a mattress on the floor, he didn’t cook in one pan, and best of all, he had a massive projector so we could watch movies on a giant screen.

The invitations to Max's house were repeated almost every weekend, and he would often cook, screen movies, and suggest we play board and card games.

The food we ate:

·        A massive thanksgiving dinner (and the subsequent leftovers from two turkeys)

·        Goulash

·        Carrot and ginger soup

·        Russian dumplings

It was also our Sunday games location where we whiled away hours and hours and… “oh dear, has it been eight hours already?” with our new love, Settlers of  Catan.

Max is an excellent host, and it’s been awesome hibernating all winter in his wonderful apartment. Despite the inspiration I got watching the Sopranos in his flat, I have decided it would be a little cruel to kill him and steal his apartment, because he uses his apartment powers for good and not evil. Also, because I don’t think I could manage it without getting caught. Mainly that actually.

Amazing, cheap and beautiful places to live

One of the best reasons to stay in Berlin or to live there in the first place, is the quality of accommodation. I love the intricate designs in the massive apartment blocks. I love the ornate ceilings. I love that no two buildings look alike.

But the best part is how affordable it all is. For 400€ a month I had my own flat, ten minutes from the city centre. It had a cute little kitchen; a pokey bathroom which I found out was installed after the wall came down and the buildings were sold; and a massive bedroom with a four-poster bed. All the furnishings were cute and inexpensive, picked up from local markets or online retailers.

I think best of all I liked that it was all mine. My temporary pocket of Berlin that I could come back to each night. So one day I would like to have that again. I would like to make that for myself. Like Max has, like Sophie is starting to.

Leaving Berlin Part 3 of 8: Things I’ll miss a lot

I booked my flight yesterday. I leave next Saturday, 3^rd March at 7.15pm. This will not be a happy time. This will be a very, very sad time. But at least I know when I get back home there is the nice warm, loving comfort of two of the most supportive things in life. Macaroni and cheese. Hear that Mum and Dad? Make some macaroni and cheese ;)

Every Café and Bar in Berlin

Okay, admittedly, not every café is the same, but every good café, every bar I want to visit more than once comes with a trademark Berlin look. It’s made up of mismatched furniture that was bought in markets and bizarre pictures and would-be ornaments on the wall. In the daytime it serves tea and coffee and maybe some food and cake. By night it takes off its glasses, puts its underwear on outside its trousers and becomes a shockingly similar looking bar, selling beers and mixed drinks. And if it’s something really special, cocktails too.

This is free right?

Okay, so perhaps I should have titled this ‘Things that Berlin is not going to miss about me’. Sometimes you can manage not to buy tickets for public transport. Sometimes you can manage this for months on end. Sometimes if you have one unstamped ticket and bump into a ticket inspector he won’t mind. Sometimes if a ticket inspector stops you and you explain you’re visiting from England he’ll just make you buy a ticket. I’m just saying. Sometimes it works out.

In fact, while I’m mentioning reasons Berlin might not consider me the ideal citizen, I did make some noise pollution. My friend Max is an excellent, excellent host, and often invites us round to sit and chat, play board games or have a few beers. Nothing unreasonable or rowdy. Just five or six friends sitting in a living room chatting with some quiet music in the background. Anyway, his neighbour may have complained, repeatedly, about the noise... of my laugh. (I’m reliably informed that once he even attempted an impression). He is not happy. I think he will be happy never to hear that noise again. But as a special little treat I will be staying there for my last two nights in Berlin, which is pretty funny really... Hahahaha.

The Perfect Sunday: Mauerpark

Part of the perfect Berlin weekend is perusing the markets in Mauerpark. Last week, with Alex and Faith who were visiting Berlin, we played a little Mauerpark challenge. Faith, who had never visited the market before, challenged me to find a goat, a picture of  dead president, and a top hat. And goat aside we found that pretty simple (and we think we found a finger-puppet of a goat). This is the market of all things. All the things you could ever want and all the things you will never want and everything in between. Boxes and boxes of random junk, some hilarious, some tragic, some beautiful.

I can’t recommend it enough. I hate markets. I love Mauerpark.

Children are sort of alright really

I already wholeheartedly miss the majority of the children I used to work with when I was at the Kindergarten full time. And now I’m working once a week in kindergartens teaching English I’m going to miss a lot of those children as well. I miss Dion, who on my birthday pretended to handcuff me, drive me to a random location and shoot me. I’ll miss Alicia and Julika who like to pretend to be crocodiles and snap their jaws at me when we sing our jungle song. I miss Josef who would dress up as a ballerina every afternoon. I miss Elizabeth who liked to tell me I was a smelly monkey, and Olivia who drew me beautiful pictures.

But mainly, and most days, I just miss Manuel and Jose, the twins. We used to hang out all day every day. When I changed their nappies I would sing a song called ‘Nappy Time’, which always made them laugh more than I thought it was possible to make anyone laugh. The lyrics were ‘Nappy, nappy, nappy time, nappy time, nappy time!’. Eat your heart out Adele, where’s my Grammy? When they refused to fall asleep I would sit with them in the dark patting their backs until they fell asleep. I made sure they ate all their dinner, and I knew when they were full up, and when they were tired, and when they were sick.

When I grow up. I want twin boys just like Manuel and Jose.

Leaving Berlin Part 2 of 8: Things I’ll miss somewhat

Ice Cream is everywhere

In the summer ice cream is everywhere. In the winter it packs itself away and rents out its space to other food shops. I remember the cold week in November when the ice cream died across Berlin. But we had a great run. I think the man in the middle of Zoologisher Garten who sold ice cream knew exactly what I wanted before I got there, on my way home from work at the Kindergarten. Always €1 or less for a scoop and of course an important part of your five a day (I assume they were always chatting about five scoops of ice cream?). There was pretty much every flavour you could imagine, white chocolate and nutella and straciatella. I guess what I'm trying to explain in some abstract and poetic way is that... I ate a lot of ice cream. And it was good.

Alexanderplatz

When I walk out of the U-bahn into the dull grey surroundings of Alexanderplatz I feel, not like I’m home, but like I’m close. It’s the place where all my journeys used to end and begin when I lived in Prenzlauerberg. Waiting for 28 minutes in the freezing cold in the middle of the night for the tram (while eating a cheeseburger), buying phone credit that doesn’t really work, saying goodbye to all the friends who came to visit. If what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, then maybe what doesn’t bug you too much makes you fall in love a little. And I’m a little in love with the faceless Soviet architecture and the massive store fronts. And that giant empty concrete space which is probably at its most beautiful when it’s not filled with Christmas markets or protestors, but when it’s just nothing.

The Canal

There is a beautiful bridge named Admiral Brücke where we sat in the summer and ate pizza or drank beers. People would gather in the evenings and play music, or just sit and chat, and it was a great hub of Berlin activity, and a great place to meet before going out for the evening, or going home.

In the winter the canal froze over and looked even more beautiful than before. People walked and slid across it and the bridge, no longer fit for sitting, saw its wrought iron walls adorned with snow.

On August 28^th 2010, the day after I decided to move to Berlin, I walked along the canal for the first time, in the sunshine, listening to stories about the city. And on cold, dark winter nights in Horsham last March I would just focus on the canal in Berlin, remembering why I was doing all these things, remembering why I had left London and what I was trying to propel myself towards. I just wanted to walk along that canal. And I guess, in a way, I got there. I live right next door… for now.

Grimmstr

Kryspin spent two months living in a hostel, or as he liked to call it his “four bed apartment near Warschauerstr.” Well quite, but all those beds were in the same room.

The search for a flat in Berlin is notoriously tough (and Kryspin is notoriously fussy about these things) but finally he found a beautiful flat in Grimmstr with two awesome girls, Andrea and Nicole. And then, at Christmas, when his dear friend Helen was homeless, and his flatmate Andrea had to leave it seemed only natural to swap one awesome flatmate for another and Berlin flirted a little with me by offering an incredible apartment for two months. I almost thought it wanted me to stay.

I’ve spent so many evenings in the kitchen chatting with the people who came in an out of the apartment, sitting in massive comfortable armchairs, playing games or watching television (or writing this blog right now). We threw a great party here one night, which is something I’ve not been in a position to do since I arrived in Berlin, and we played my first ever game of Settlers of Catan, German edition, courtesy of my friend Henry, who also brought cheese. Board games and cheese, beat that! (You really can’t).

But without a doubt the best thing about living here is living with Kryspin, who likes to sit in the kitchen for hours on end playing film trivia quizzes with me. He can’t type, or spell, and I don’t know any of the answers, but between us we manage to win. If by win you mean get more than half marks.

Leaving Berlin Part 1 of 8: Silly things I will miss a little

On Tuesday, at 2:40am (just imagine not knowing to the minute when someone typed something), my friend Jason commented on my blog link on facebook: “I hope someday you write about all the amazing fun times we've had between the C-Rex era and the leaving Berlin post. People are going to think it was all just shit in between, but we really had some awesome times!”

Oh Jason. We really, really did. The time between when this blog ended last year and Christmas was the best three months of my life. Steph and Cat were my first visitors to Berlin, and I remember thinking after an amazing weekend with them that it could only go downhill. But little did I know, two of the people we met on the Thursday when I dragged them from the airport to a bar*, would go on to be two of the best friends I’ve ever had, and that the following weekends would just get better and better and better.

I’ve tried to remember everything that makes Berlin so addictive and enjoyable, a patchwork of things that happened in that time, but I’m sure I’ve forgotten far too many things to mention.

So, part one: Silly things I will miss a little. I can live without them, but they have made things fun.

Prosecco

Prosecco in a can! More specifically Prosecco in a can at Another Country Berlin Bookshop where we go every other Tuesday night to do a quiz, and sometimes on a Friday to eat an amazing dinner. Prosecco in the supermarket for €1,50, which British friends marvel at when they come to stay. Prosecco in Sophie’s beautiful flat, sitting on her big black chairs, finishing off our make-up, debating where to eat dinner. Prosecco on the Kjosk Bus parked outside Gorlitzer Bahnhof which only costs €6 for a bottle, and which you can drink while teaching strangers how to play poker. I will miss being in a city of free-flowing Prosecco. It has been the best of times and the worst of times. I raise a glass to that! (Of Prosecco).

Dürüm Doners

When you are on your way home after a long night of partying like it’s 2009 (because that’s when you had a job) you really need a salty, sobering, meaty snack-meal. Chicken would be nice. Salad would be great. Some sauce would probably help that all mesh together a little better. Roasted vegetables and cheese would be a great addition. But more than anything, wouldn’t it be great if it was all wrapped neatly into a biteable little bundle that you could hold in one hand? Gone are the days of open plated meat that lays strewn across your kitchen the next morning, for here in Berlin is the delightfully neat and tasty Dürüm. Many thanks to Dom Walton for the late night introduction on a street corner to this delicious snack. I would like to note that while my consumption of this meal has probably been weekly, Kryspin has other ideas about when and where it is appropriate to eat a kebab, namely, at any time.

Sneak Preview Cinema

Back in Prenzlauerberg in October I didn’t have any internet in my flat and I would sit all day in a little café on Hufelandstr. Eva would be there playing on their piano, I would be liking things on facebook and the waiters would be eying us with the sort of contempt that always pushed me and my English café guilt into buying another coffee. On a rainy Thursday we decided we desperately needed to leave and couldn’t think of where to go but the cinema. It was then that we discovered that in Potsdamer Platz you can pay €5 to see a film on Thursday evening and the very best part is you have no idea what the film will be. It will be in English, and it will not yet be released in Germany, and the excitement of sitting in the cinema waiting and wondering has been enough to bring us back almost every week. I’ve seen many films that I would never have otherwise seen, and for the most part they have been pretty enjoyable. But mainly I just like the point when the lights descend and I squeal ‘OMG, what’s it going to be?’, Eva replies ‘I have no idea!’ and Sophie says ‘Shh! We’re in a cinema’ ;)

*This is a complete fabrication. No one has ever dragged Steph or Cat to a bar. They have always gone keenly, probably leading the way.

Leaving Berlin: Introduction

There are a lot of things I’m fighting to stop myself from thinking at the moment, because they upset me too much. But I thought I would take a stab at explaining them, at least to myself, and then putting them here, should anyone care to read them. To round off the tale of my (first) Berlin experience, I wanted to make a list of all the things I like about Berlin. And this serves as an introduction to that. I apologise that it’s probably a bit too serious for the internet.

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The time I have dreaded more than anything has finally arrived – I can’t feasibly stay in Berlin any more. Without full-time employment. Without enough money to pay rent coming in. Without enough potential prospects for future jobs.

I guess additionally, in terms of the bigger picture, there is not enough justification for bleeding dry whatever resources I might have (parents) chasing a part time job or little pieces of work here and there which won’t help me in the future.

And I’ll admit it. I want things. I want to be able to go shopping occasionally and buy nice clothes, and by clothes I mean make-up, and by nice I mean MAC. I want to gradually accrue miss-matched furniture so that I can piece together a little life around me. Maybe something resembling a home, that truly belongs to me and that I don’t feel can be ripped from underneath me at whim. I don’t want to wake up worrying where I will be living or how I will ever repay student debts or own anything of value.

I also want to be able to plan holidays. I want to know that before I am 30 I can stand in the one place on earth I want to see the most. When I’m reduced to tears by pictures of tiles on the walls of buildings I want to know I’ll be able to touch them. (For shame, that really happens quite a lot when I start thinking about Central Asia). I want to plan those excursions, holidays and tours and know that they’re within my reach, some day.

And I’m 27. And it started. I went to work in a kindergarten and it started to, you know, tick tock, tick tock. Children are sort of alright really. And some of them desperately need older people to help them learn about the world, feed them and clothe them. We call some of those people parents and I think I have the responsibility to be one someday. So when and if I’m ever lucky enough to convince all the people you need to convince that I should be a parent to one or two of those parentless children, I need some sort of a life to be able to offer them.

And begrudgingly it’s all financial. I feel like Berlin has taught me two crucial life lessons:

1. Money is not important. Art is important. People are important. And I am important, to myself. My happiness and emotional well-being are much more important than money. Finding out about new people in my life, forging strong friendships and spending time with the people I love is so much more important than money.
2. Money is really important. You can’t do anything without it. I’m not actively endorsing it as a construct or system, I’m just acknowledging that in the world where I am living, it’s essential. Even when the things which you are most passionate about are not expensive or even material, you still need to eat and sleep and wash whatever clothes you might wear to keep yourself warm and, you know, not naked. And, the things I want, the things I’m missing, they cost money.

But on the other side of the coin I don’t have, I’m happier here.

In London I remember feeling uncomfortable about leaving the house, uncomfortable about talking to people I didn’t know because I thought they would only be thinking about how unattractive I was. And in Berlin I don’t. I feel better about myself, physically. I don’t think about the future anymore in terms of ‘when I’m thinner’. If I really wanted to be thinner, I’d be thinner. Suddenly, being in a more mixed crowd, with actual real live straight men too, the understanding of beauty I used to have seems ridiculous, it doesn’t seem to play a part in my day to day life. It would be relevant if I wanted to be a model, but I can’t really understand how I thought it was so important walking out of the house on a Monday morning. I can’t understand how it stopped me wanting to get out of bed, or occupied so many of my thoughts…

In London I was limited. I believed very firmly in my own failings, as a person, and professionally. Falling at so many hurdles in Berlin has reinstalled my low self-esteem to an extent, especially with regard to my professional capabilities. But back in the summer I genuinely started to dream again. I started to believe it was possible for me to achieve things. Maybe I could learn a new language. Maybe I could write a book. Maybe I could write a book in that language… wait, not that. It didn’t get that far-fetched. But, like a child, I believed in my right to try and my right to hope.

After thinking about everything a little bit and putting off thinking about everything a lot, I decided that I need to do something responsible for my future. The first step in that chain is to stop haemorrhaging money in Berlin, and aim towards returning with a more stable and long-term footing, so that I won’t ever, ever have to feel like I feel right now, and leave again.

Clarkey Bear to the temporary insufficient rescue!

The First Place We Could Find

(Where I lived after these things happened)

Disclaimer: All characters and events below are exaggerated for the purpose of (my) entertainment.

On Monday 25^th July Eva came home from work, threw her bag down violently on the floor and burst into tears and screamed ‘I have to leave this torturous place!’. As she pulled out large clumps of hair she sobbed ‘I’m loosing my mind! The stress is too much!’

Not wanting to reveal my secret alter-ego as the international Clarkey Bear of intrigue and mystery, I rushed into my bedroom, did that superman thing where I rip all my clothes off and am still wearing some sort of uniform which I imagine know to look something like this:

Then I opened a new tab at superhero speed (in Google Chrome, the search engine of superheroes) and found exactly what we needed. A short term let in Prenzlauerberg! It was available in a week and had two rooms, plus it would only cost us 250 euros each for the whole month. I would have rushed to tell Eva about it immediately, but remembering using my super intelligence that my disguise must not be foiled I changed back into regular person clothes. It took quite a long time actually. And I fell over.

Hufelandstraβe

Eva telephoned the number at the bottom of the advert and before you can say ‘Hi, my name is Eva and I’m calling about the advert you placed online’ (in German), and then write down the details and get a bus and a tram across the city, we were looking around the flat. It was an incredibly cute little flat which the current tenant had been living in for three years. The flat itself was nice enough, but the street is beautiful, wide, cobbled and lined with trees. Restaurants, cafes and second hand shops spilling quirky chairs and tables onto the pavement, tall square apartment blocks above them - similar enough to create a symmetry, but each adorned with a different pattern of balconies, flowers, carvings. Prenzlauerberg is the reason I fell in love with Berlin, and two years later it still looks pretty damn good. (Obviously my photos don't)

It's a street of Kings and less well known superheroes, and I'm sitting in it right now, writing this in a cafe.

The Second Place I Ever Lived in Berlin

In Berlin, you sublet your apartment out all the time to anyone who wants it. If you’re moving somewhere else, you sublet your apartment. If you’re going abroad to study for a few months, you sublet it. If you’re going on holiday for a few weeks, you sublet it. If you’re probably going to be out clubbing until 5 or 6am you give your keys to a stranger on the street so that they… okay, not quite that. Most short-term sublets seem to happen when someone is going abroad/to another part of the country to live for a short period of time – which is great because you’re guaranteed furniture, internet, maybe a TV and probably somewhere that looks pretty good too.

This was not most sublets. In this case the current tenant was ending her lease and moving somewhere new and taking all of her things from the apartment. ALL OF HER THINGS. Obviously this included the sink from the kitchen. Yes, yes, the sink from the kitchen.

Yes, quite. My bed was on the floor. There was a pleasant desk however which looked out onto a courtyard. I could sit there searching for jobs and listening to the beautiful piano music that echoed around the building - one tenant seemed to love playing the soundtrack from 'Amelie', and it made me feel as though I was in a foreign film about a struggling superhero trying to make it in Berlin.

One day, out of nowhere, the soundtrack changed to distressing screams. At first I thought a baby was crying, or that a couple was fighting, but they would last four or five hours at a time and came from only one, adult voice. I never did find out what happened to this wailing neighbour, but after four days she went quiet. I did, however, telephone the police and alert them to her apparent distress. I used excellent phrases such as 'There is a woman who has been screaming, seit, vielleicht, vier Tage'. Well I guess it beats using no German at all?

Still, I think Eva and I agreed that external crazy person for a couple of days beat internal crazy person for two months. And the furnishings just made us feel like struggling artists living in a squat. Albeit a squat we had to pay for.

It's a Wonderful Life

On Tuesday

I got up from my mattress on the floor of our squat-like apartment, dressed and got all of my things ready to go to work. My little holiday felt like it was over before it even started and suddenly I was awake again at 8.00am and waiting for a tram. The tram, however, didn’t arrive, and after twenty minutes watching more and more ambulances drive up the road to where I suppose it must have stopped, I walked to another tram station, knowing I’d be late for work.

On the train I encountered the second ticket inspector I ever saw in Berlin and had to pay the fine on the spot for riding without a ticket as I realised that, as well as some unvalidated tickets, I had left my keys at home.

I got to work and aside from the fact that I had to borrow someone else’s keys to lock up everything went relatively well. It was nice to see the children again, although the twins were at home. I was due to finish when the KiTa closed at 5.30 and I was waiting with two brothers whose mother always waits until the last moment to collect them. The woman who interviewed me finished a meeting in the next building and came over to me and explained ‘I don’t want you to be worried, but someone it coming in tomorrow to see if they want your job’.

As things you can say to someone go, that’s pretty worrying. Especially when they finally found a job in Berlin, moved a load more of their stuff over from England, agreed to let an apartment for the next three months and booked for various guests including their family to visit them.

I called my Mum and she reassured me it would all work out for the best. ‘Helen, in a few months when you have a much better job you’ll be glad this happened.’

On Wednesday

I was placed in the impossibly awkward situation of showing someone around and explaining to them where things go and which twin is which while wondering what on earth was going on. My colleague, who I work with everyday, was placed in the impossibly awkward situation of having to explain to me why I was being fired because my boss didn’t want to have that awkward conversation with me.

It turns out my boss had been telling everyone I work with, and the parents of the children, that I was qualified in child development or something along those lines, and had suddenly found out that I’d been lying to her. Maybe she’d always been looking at that copy of my CV and degree certificate I gave her from a really long distance and finally got close enough to read them.

At midday my colleague asked what I needed from my boss and I explained that if I was having my contract terminated I needed it in writing. I got the letter hand delivered about ten minutes later.

I don’t so much mind about the work itself. As much as I was enjoying it, it’s hardly as though it was my dream job. And it’s a long commute. And at least it gave me the chance to stay in Berlin a little longer and earn some euros for the first time in my life. But I feel really sad about leaving the children. When I picked up one of the twins to carry him into the other room he gave me a little kiss on the cheek and then looked in the other direction as though he was pretending it wasn’t him.

I went home and moved all of my things into the new apartment which I will move into on Sunday. Then I went back and slept in the empty apartment we were leaving and sort of felt like everything in Berlin was falling away from me all of a sudden.

I phoned my Mum and she enthused about my new apartment and how great it would finally be to have my own place.

On Thursday

I left work and went to Sophie’s with the rest of my belongings. I have a two week notice period to work out and I actually didn’t feel too bad at work. The mother of the twins mentioned to my colleague that she needed some help with childcare and took my number and I started to feel like things might work out for the best. If not with that, then with something else.

I travelled later in the evening to the new apartment to exchange money for keys, until I found that I didn’t have the means by which to get any money from the bank. I bought a top-up voucher for my phone and waited and waited until I could call my parents, but the credit never loaded. Eventually I turned up at the apartment without the money and with no way of contacting anyone to help me out. Thankfully the girl whose apartment I am subletting was really supportive and rescheduled to Saturday.

On Thursday night my throat was painful and I couldn’t sleep. Then…

On Friday

I woke up feeling awful again and again, at 2am, at 4am, at 6am. Eventually at 7.30, when the KiTa opened, I called and told them I wouldn’t be coming in. They told me I would need a doctors certificate to support that I was unwell. That's great, but I don’t have a doctor in Berlin and I haven’t finalised the details of my health insurance. I travelled for just under an hour to work, where they refused to let me in because they didn’t want to catch whatever I had. They explained where I could find a doctor nearby. I went to the doctor who told me I had a throat or maybe chest infection and that I would need a course of antibiotics. She signed me off work for the rest of Friday and Monday.

I tried later that evening to withdraw money and found that my card was denied. I couldn’t reach any of my money and I was so panicked that I wouldn’t be able to get to it for Saturday.

I called my Mum and she came up with a whole host of different ways I could withdraw money, people my Dad could transfer money to, and then spent some time on the phone to my bank where she obtained a number I could call for free from Berlin to discuss the issue.

This week

I really wish I had my own apartment to go back to this week and a bed to sleep in. I wish I still had a job, and I wish I had my own money. I wish I hadn't been stopped by a ticket inspector or caught the flu. But until those things sort themselves out I'm fortunate enough to have the best parents. I know when I feel like I want to give up on Berlin and on myself they’ll help me find the strength to keep on trying. And if Berlin gives up on me, they never will.