Tales From a Wanderluster

Urban Exploration: Beelitz-Heilstätten (Sanitorium)

2013-04-17T14:24:00.000+02:00

According to Wikipedia, "Beelitz-Heilstätten, a district of the town, is home to a large hospital complex of about 60 buildings including a cogeneration plant erected from 1898 on according to plans of architect Heino Schmieden. Originally designed as a sanatorium by the Berlin workers' health insurance corporation, the complex from the beginning of World War I on was a military hospital of the Imperial German Army. During October and November 1916, Adolf Hitler recuperated at Beelitz-Heilstätten after being wounded in the leg at the Battle of the Somme. In 1945, Beelitz-Heilstätten was occupied by Soviet forces, and the complex remained a Soviet military hospital until 1995, well after the German reunification. In December 1990 Erich Honecker was admitted to Beelitz-Heilstätten after being forced to resign as the head of the East German government.

Following the Soviet withdrawal, attempts were made to privatize the complex, but they were not entirely successful. Some sections of the hospital remain in operation as a neurological rehabilitation center and as a center for research and care for victims of Parkinsons disease. The remainder of the complex, including the surgery, the psychiatric ward, and a rifle range, was abandoned in 2000. As of 2007, none of the abandoned hospital buildings or the surrounding area were secured, giving the area the feel of a ghost town. This has made Beelitz-Heilstätten a destination for curious visitors and a film set for movies like The Pianist from 2002, the Rammstein music video "Mein Herz brennt" and "Valkyrie" from 2008."

Some friends and I decided to take a trip out to this Sanitorium on Easter Day, one of the (hopefully) last snowy days of the year. It's about 45 minutes on the regional train from Berlin, so quite an easy and cheap journey if you get the Berlin Brandenburg Ticket!

Here is the entrance to the first building we entered, the campus is HUGE, so we only had time to check out the Northwest corner.

As soon as we enter we were greeted by these stairs...

...and this long, creepy corridor.

Inside this big circular room there was a lot of interesting graffiti.

We also found a surgical table and all this surgical equipment, including an IV fluid container, a syringe, gloves, tubes and scrubs. We're not sure if these were legit, or if maybe someone brought them in and left them there as part of a film project, as we didn't find this stuff anywhere else, but it was a bit creepy.

More graffiti in the room.

We continued wandering, but clearly we were not going up THESE steps!

Since the hospital was run by Soviets, all the official text all over the buildings was in Russian.

Maybe not the most comfortable sleeping space. I'm not sure what these rooms were for, but it looked like people had been squatting here at some point, as there were lots of mattresses strewn about the floor.

Someone left their mark.

Possibly the most uncomfortable-looking sleeping space. Note the egg containers?

No more electric.

Stained glass windows have seen better days...

Outside the entrance to the building, these buildings had lots of details and must have been absolutelz beautiful before nature took its toll.

Sometimes there was no real floor.

My urban exploring crew!

Must have been the children's room.

The Worst Toilet in Germany?

More Russian, this was above what must have been sinks or bathing basins.

We found an elevator removed and just left in the middle of the floor. We decided it was now a time machine. This is what you do in a time machine, clearly.

The boxes from some old drugs were still there and strewn about.

This room had tons of lists of drugs in Russian, charts and this old fridge, which I imagine was used to keep the medicine cold.

Cathy!

The lists of what we imagine must be drugs, but it's in Russian, so your guess is as good as mine.

I never claimed to be mature.

Some old wallpaper clinging on for dear life.

The ceilings of another building. The architecture of the buildings was really quite fantastic.

We went in another, likely older building. It looked like it had been through a significant fire. What was interesting, though, is that while all the other buildings had graffiti in German or English, the graffiti here was all in Russian. I imagine it must have been abandoned earlier while the Soviets were still using other buildings. If you look the dates here are 79'-80. I imagine, in that case, it was already abandoned then!

More Russian graffiti, 1972, 1977 and 2008.

This building was definitely quite decrepit.

This is what I meant by a significant fire. Parts of the hallway were totally black.

We're not sure what this room was, maybe a ball room, as it would have been quite fancy.

Antifa: Smash Facism

I found this entrance to a tunnel. No one wanted to go with me, but eventually Cathy and Karla came, and we realized the tunnel only led a short distance to the other side of the outside area.

The first room we stumbled upon after entering the older building where everything was in Russian. Lots of people were here!

There you have it. We definitely want to go back and explore the other sections, but with so many buildings and so much area to cover, we didn't have enough time in one trip!

Thirteen Schmerteen

2013-02-01T15:25:00.000+01:00

It's February, but I was always a procrastinator, so here you have it. So, what will 2013 bring? I hope to manifest some more employment so I can travel more and save up for another big travel adventure in a year or two. I accomplished most of my resolutions from last year, I got a bike and used it, stopped working with kids, made traditions, cooked a lot, though I didn't do so well studying my German flashcards. Deutsch.

This year my goals are also relatively simple:

#1 Go check out the women's rock-climbing group

#2 Make more alone time for myself (the opposite problem from last year)

#3 Write in my journal at least once a month

#4 Visit a new country (Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria, Israel, Iceland? I'm looking at you…we'll see)

#5 Find a cafe I can work in that's not on the other side of the city (needs free W-Lan, soymilk, power outlets and at least one vegan snack)

#6 No really, study German more. Memrise at least once a week, sign up for a German class (Spring?) once I get my act together.

#7 Finally get a library card here!

#8 Stop going places and doing things I don't really feel like doing just because everyone else is doing them. I am a victim of peer pressure, it's true.

I need to also write in here more. When I lived in Prague, the words seemed to just flow out of me, but somehow I find that in Berlin my head is always just filled with noise. I disallowed Google from finding this blog again so I can pretend it's safe to whine about my more personal woes as I please, ja? Okay!

How is Berlin? It's complicated. I hopped an impulse flight to Brighton last weekend, however, and as soon as the plane took off I felt calmer than I have in a long time, so now I'm feeling the urge for another longer solo travel adventure. I woke up there and sat in my favorite old cafe, where I used to write all my psychology essays, and wrote in my journal for two hours, wandered around my old city, looked at the sea and had a really nice and calm day, some much needed alone time with no fear of being interrupted by any sort of unpleasantness. I love Berlin and logistically it makes sense for me to stay here, but I need to change some things and I'm working on figuring out exactly what they are.

With such a huge party culture, it's pretty easy to feel isolated when you find, one weekend, that you're not interested in getting totally wasted, again, to head to the weekend's coolest party. Sometimes, with exceptions of course, I worry that maybe I have a lot of drinking friends and not so many friends who know who I actually am, or care. Of course, on the other hand, it's also partially my responsibility to let people know who I actually am, but hanging out drunk in huge groups all the time doesn't always allow for so much personal connection.

Berliners are really busy people, there is an endless amount to do here, to discover, lots of people to meet, and that is both awesome and totally overwhelming. It's hard to commit yourself to staying in on a Saturday night when there is always some once a year event every weekend, that you really just don't want to miss. So you go, and you go the next weekend as well, and then you realize you've been on the go so much you really haven't had the time to think about anything that's happened for more than 5 minutes in a long time.

I'm out of survival mode for the first time in 6 years, and that means I've achieved something. It means I have a job, I have a visa, I have a flat, a group of friends and some sense of security for all the things I need to live. It also means that my mind isn't taken up by these urgent survival needs, no moving plans, no visa applications for awhile, no flat viewings, Fulbright essays, German classes, or new jobs to get used to, etc., for the first time in a really long time, so now I actually have to think about LIFE. Oh dear.

Let's not get too emo though, friends. I've reached a turning point. Things are a lot better, existential crisis-wise, than when I used to write in here when I was 22. Life doesn't feel quite so unknown and scary, I feel a bit more confident in my ability to make decisions and have collected a lot more life experience. I generally know who I am, now, I know roughly what I want (or at least what I don't want) and I'm learning to realize my mistakes...maybe not always before I make them, but at least more quickly into the impending mess.

A lot of the things I've been spending my time on are not so mentally stimulating anymore. When you get unhappy it's just a sign you need to change something, stop lying to yourself, stop saying "should" and get your shit together. I made a pledge to myself that I will learn how to stay in one place for awhile and make things work. IT WILL HAPPEN.

The world is ripe with possibility?

Na ja, at least there are these big ducks down the street from my apartment.

Berlin By Boat

2012-11-23T19:52:00.001+01:00

Over the summer one Sunday I got to go on a dinner boat cruise around Berlin with my job. It was a five hour trip and we went all the way from Moabit out past Treptow towards Köpenick in the former East Berlin. I had never been out on the Spree River and it was a really nice new perspective of the city and a beautiful day. Here are some of my photos, so you can see Berlin from this angle as well!

Pulling away from where I work in Moabit.

We say this old school ship on the way

Berlin Hauptbahnhof, the main train station. I don't usually see it from this side!

People chilling by the river. Once spring hits Berlin, every green surface looks like this.

My favorite bridge, the Oberbaumbrücke separating Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain, the former West from the former East. I especially love that at night the sides are continuously playing Rock, Paper, Scissors against each other via light up signs.

This is also a regular occurrence. I am totally getting my own blow up raft for next summer. Love it.

Insel, a venue on a small island where various parties are held.

The view sailing towards Treptow.

It's getting dark and we've turned around. The view of the Oberbaumbrücke from the other side.

Here is the outside of one of the big clubs, KaterHolzig. This was funny to sail by as it was around 8 or so Sunday evening and the outside was PACKED with drunk dancing people. Oh Berlin.

Taking a break while they bring us back to the correct water level. Different parts of the Spree are at different levels, so sometimes they hold you in a small section while they add or take away water to level you with the next part of the river.

Berliner Dom

And that's that! One of the nicest boat cruises I've been on! I recommend everyone take a chance to see Berlin by boat if the opportunity ever arises!

Berlin Festival of Lights

2012-11-02T17:00:00.001+01:00

Now that I'm back in America for a month with limited responsibilities (albeit limited electricity, thanks Sandy!), I can catch up on blog posts! A couple weeks ago a bunch of friends and I went to check out the Berlin Festival of Lights. We took a walk around the center to see a bunch of lit up things and it was pretty! Anyway, the pictures speak for themselves...

We decided anything that was lit up was for the festival of lights. Including this.

We also found this exhibit of lollipop things, which wasn't so much about lollipops as it was Berlin history. The lollipops were markers on a big map of Berlin, which was painted on the ground.

Okay, this was really for the festival of lights.

Found this during our wander.

More lights!

Then Vojtech and I got convinced to buy a touristy light up thing, so we threw that up in the air a lot until it fell apart. I guess we got our 2 euros worth of entertainment with it! Here is Nicole throwing it into the sky!

My favorite thing to do in any city is just to walk around and look at things, and I like lights, so all in all a good combination!

Manhattan Without Lights: Aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in Lower Manhattan

2012-11-01T19:24:00.000+01:00

Yesterday Brian and I walked over the Manhattan Bridge to get to Lower Manahattan to visit some friends without power. All the subways were down (limited service just opened again today) and all public transportation, mostly buses at this point, is currently free. It was kind of crazy, as everything was closed and dark. Here's some pictures of our journey.

The line for the Fung Wah bus in China Town o get out of the city. This whole area is without any power. No elevators, sometimes no water, nothing.

Bank is closed today.

Even though all the shops were closed, a few decided to start little take-out stands out front to offer food to passers-by. A bit of the entrepreneurial spirit to go around...

Ouch.

Make sure you follow on Facebook! Hah.

No gas.

Only SOME snacks...!

Watch out Dane, we need to talk about yesterday...

Midtown has power, notice how everything close is dark, with the lit up buildings in the background.

The 3 lights are someone with a generator.

Normally all those windows would be lit up. If it wasn't cloudy, it'd be a good time to look at the stars in Manhattan.

The Divide: To the right is lit up, to the left, Lower Manhattan is dark.

Once you get to the Brooklyn side of the bridge, the lights miraculously start working again. Notice the rapid change in lighting. Crazy.

Hurricane Sandy in Facebook Statuses

2012-10-29T20:53:00.000+01:00

A summary in Facebook statuses of what Hurricane Sandy has done to my sanity and a rant about American Airlines....

- Well, guess I'm not going to America for a few days. Flight canceled. Stuck in a hotel in London, had to pay 15 pounds for WiFi because they think a 5 minute telephone call is long enough to rebook a flight. As of now my flight is rebooked for November 1st. Fuck. Could I maybe have gotten stuck in a city that's not so damn expensive? Let me downloading every TV show ever commence...

- This will be my night...and yes, I did open that beer with a DVD cover I found in the hotel room. And yes, I did have to walk across a highway in the rain to obtain said alcohol. #notanalcoholic

- Just going to dwell in the negativity a bit longer before I pull myself together. Today blows. I want to go back to Berlin.

- Also...there was an earthquake in Canada today? What the hell, is North America exploding?

- There are two beds in my hotel room. I am going to sleep on both of them. Nevermind that there is a gap inbetween. #shitbetterbelux

- Just encountered problem #1 with the hotel room: the ceilings are too low to jump on the bed. #wtf

- Apparently this is a four star hotel. That explains why there are no beer vending machines. #fuck

- I wonder how I can make friends with all the hundreds of other sad, canceled flight to NY people in the hotel. Is it inappropriate if I just walk around the halls carrying wine? That's how you make friends, right?

- There is a new wireless network that just popped up at the hotel called "Unicorn". It is not password protected. If I find them, we will date.

- Yesterday I was visited by a toilet ghost. The End is Nigh:

- Day Two of Hotel Prison: The Hotel Gods have appeased me and fed me veggie sausage and coffee with soymilk. Some people I talked to yesterday gave me a Wall Street Journal and it said the storm won't even hit in full force until late tonight or tomorrow morning NY time. So now I will try to be a productive human and work for a few hours, then begins the day drinking and re-calling of the customer service. If anyone wants a free place to sleep in London, hit me up. I seem to be on a bus route.

- Just waited 25 minutes on the phone to be told they only handle domestic flights, and am now re-put on hold for 30 minutes to speak to an international rep. #someoneisgettingbitchslapped

- No hotel paid for after tonight, not possible to sort on the phone (after being on the phone over an hour, mind you), means I'm heading back to the airport to sort it out in person. Wish me good not sleeping on the streets luck! Why do I always have such bad travel luck?

- New Plan: Fly to Boston tomorrow on stand-by. Hey Boston, how's the weather over there? If I get stranded there, can I sleep on your couch for one night before renting a car or something to NY.

- On the bright side, this hotel room has the most powerful shower I've ever experienced. Downside, didn't bring any razors or toiletries with me as I thought I'd be stealing my parents' stuff. Lesson learned.

How will the story end? Let's hope I catch that flight, my friends, or I won't even have internet to make Facebook statuses. Wish me luck and hope to see you on the other side of the pond!

Abandoned Eisfabrik (Ice Factory)

2012-09-24T14:21:00.001+02:00

A couple months ago while waiting for a Volksküche at Köpi to start, we walked across the street and explored this abandoned Eisfabrik (Ice Factory) on Köpenickerstr. The factory started producing artificial ice in1896. Since no electric or gas powered refrigerators existed in private homes, the ice was supplied in rods of about 20 × 20 cm, with up to 1.50 meters in length to breweries, pubs, homes, fruit dealers, etc.

The factory continued in GDR times after the Wall went up, under the VEB Kühlbetrieb and was officially abandoned by the Berliner Kühlhaus GmbH in 1995. One of the residential buildings was destroyed by bombs in 1945, the rest managed to somehow make it through more bombs and several fires. Though the building is apparently under protection of the treuhand Liegenschaftsgesellschaft, the old cooling houses have since been ripped down due to the fact that the area is now caught in the Mediaspree project, which wants to put up luxury apartments, office spaces, etc. along the Spree.

Quite centrally located at Köpenicker Straße 40/41, 10179 Berlin in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg section of Berlin, it was a cool urban exploring trip and easy to get to...while it lasts. Nevertheless, on to the photos:

We just walked in through the fence here.

Part of the floor in the building with the ice machine.

The actual machine that made the blocks, I believe.

Some artwork on the walls.

More artwork.

Marion and Erin meandering their way through the courtyard.

This door upstairs has seen better days...

Wall of the building in the courtyard.

Upstairs room turned into swimming pool. There were also people squatting/living upstairs with some dogs...not in this room though.

The roof! It was quite nice up here and you could see a lot of Berlin. Had it been a nicer day and had we had some beers, this would've been a good spot to drink them!

Carly taking a photo...I think.

More roof.

Karla and her sister visiting from Australia.

If you fall...you get wet.

Carly made it!

Karla's sister, Ella, Karla and Carly on the roof.

And out we go again!

In the abandoned lot outside the building we found someone had planted this garden. There was also some corn planed and some other things not in the photo. Urban guerilla gardening...yes! As we were leaving there were some people sitting in the lot at tables with white tablecloths preparing to eat as well...I wonder if this was their garden. I kind of loved it.

Poland For Lunch: A Day Trip to Szczecin (Stettin)

2012-08-03T17:01:00.000+02:00

It all started while sitting around at a bar one day, our friend Karla from Australia mentioned, "I want to go to Poland for lunch...just because I can." Coming from big countries like America or Australia, the chance to just "pop" over to another country for a day, or lunch, is quite a novelty. We decided to go for it. Szczecin is a two-hour train ride from Berlin, a smallish Polish town. The best part is things are open on Sundays there, there are pierogies and everything was super cheap. I took out the equivalent of 30 EUR and managed to get a full lunch with beer and appetizers, coffee, postcards, some more beers and fill a grocery bag with food. It was also generally a super fun day trip.

One good thing to know is that you can get a Berlin-Brandenburg group ticket for up to 5 people for 28€. For some reason Szczecin, though not actually in Berlin or Brandenburg, is included on this ticket (it's right on the border). Thus, the trip there AND back cost each of us less that €5,50 total. Hellz to the yes, I say!

I baked cake and made a HUGE container of coffee for the ride and we arrived at the train station for our 9am train on Sunday morning, July 8th. We were tired. Our friend Myriam managed to somehow go from a night out straight to the train station without sleeping and not die.

Marion, Myriam and Carly, who was visiting me. Tired at the main train station, Berlin Hauptbahnhof, but excited!

Carly was demonstrating that we got to touch a piece of Russia. Train stations are exciting!

Me demonstrating the parmesean cheese soap in the train toilet. Yes, I took pictures in the toilet.

We arrived! The first thing we did was eat, of course! Well, the first thing we did was walk around confused, exchange our money into the Polish currency, Zloty, get a map, and take the old tram into town. Anyway, above are some Polish salads. Some info from Wiki about Szczecin:

Szczecin (German: Stettin), is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. In the vicinity of the Baltic Sea, it is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland. As of June 2011 the population was 407,811.

Szczecin had quite the chaotic past, being taken over by Germany and Sweden at different points, a location of a few witchhunts and entirely fortified by walls in the 1600s. Apparently Szczecin also "was an important site of anti-communist unrest in the communist era." (Wiki).

Myriam with the pierogi. We went to Karczma Polska Pod Kogutem, where there were many pierogi options among other things. They had mushroom and cabbage ones without cheese or meat for me and also some with cottage cheese and something and some with meat. They were delicious. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed sitting on the patio and drinking some beers with our lunch.

Carly and June chowing down! Writing this is making me hungry all over again.

I found these pigs in the restaurant on the way downstairs to the bathroom.

After lunch, we took a wander to see the "sights", which there were not too many of. You can't really say Szczecin is the most beautiful of towns, though it does have some old nice buildings, a river running through it, etc. We thought this was funny...Franklina Delano Roosevelta street, guess FDR made an influence?

I believe the brown stone building used to be a Merchant Marine Academy. To the right is the river.

This happened.

The Church square.

Pretty old building! June, Myriam and Marion are enjoying the door.

I want to live in there.

I was complaining that there was not going to be vegan things...and then I found this poster. A vegan hardcore something from the USA at Teatr Kana. Of course. But then...

Let me mark the moment I found a cafe with soymilk in Szczecin! Sojowe mleko, bitches! I enjoyed that soy latte, for serious, and was shocked to find one in this small random Polish town. So, if you're wondering where to find soymilk in Szczecin, Kawiarnia Fanaberia (Cafe Fanaberia) is your place! Here are some reviews, if you're interested. The address is Bogusława 5 and there is another cute place called Teatr Maly next door that had beer and food. This area, Buguslawa Promenade, appeared to be the "hip" district of Szczecin. Anyway, Fanaberia had a little patio area out front and another area to sit in the backyard. They had lots of cakes and pastries and you could buy their tea and coffee, all presented with lots of fancy teapots and whatnot. They also had iced tea and apparently have really good hot chocolate, but it was way too hot to test the latter out.

Then we wandered more and found this building.

At last, we all headed to the mall for our last hour before the train. Everyone else looked at clothes, but I headed straight for the supermarket. This was perhaps the biggest super market I'd ever seen in my life, and I'd gladly go back to Szczecin just to go there. There was an entire aisle of milk, where I found the beauty above, entire aisle of canned meat, another for yogurt, pasta, and half a refrigerated case filled with pierogies. It was epic.

After our shopping adventure we decided we better head back to the station to catch our 6pm train. Unfortunately the trams were not running so frequently and we arrived one minute after our train had left...running like idiots up to the platform. Oops. We had even attempted hitch-hiking to the station, but got turned down (there were five of us). So we managed to kill a couple hours until 8pm when the next train came, drank some more beers, ate some food in the station and played some games (I Spy anyone?). At least the train back was direct with no changes and we ended up having fun anyway.

We will surely go again, it was a great day trip, yummy food, cheap day out of Berlin and we had an awesome group that lead to never-ending giggles and adventures. Yay Szczecin!

Transgenialer Christopher Street Day: Alternative Pride in Berlin

2012-07-21T13:19:00.001+02:00

June 23rd was Pride in Berlin and we celebrated! Berlin actually has two prides, one is Christopher Street Day, the main one, and then there is the Transgenialer Christopher Street Day, the alternative one. We decided to check out the alternative one and marched with them the whole way from Treptower Park to Heinrichplatz to a mix of techno, pop, Bikini Kill and the Butchies, which took several hours. There was a big group of us, including some visitors and a friend from my German class at Smith College who lives in Paris. We kept bumping into other people on the way.

So far I've been to Northampton, MA Pride many times, Brighton Pride in England and Long Island Pride in high school. Somehow I've never been to NYC Pride, which is silly, but will happen one day. Anyway, what is different about this pride is that it isn't commercial at all. A lot of the big prides seem to be mostly stuff like "Coca Cola!!....with rainbow flags...Mercedes!!....with rainbow flags, etc.". Here they blasted lots of music and occasionally gave speeches, which I actually didn't understand much of besides the "Bioladen Prenzlauerberg Bourgeoise", but oh well. We had fun, then we wandered around the street fest afterwards for awhile, took a short break to recharge and get coffee and warmer clothes (for me), then came back and danced in the street until they shut everything down at midnight. Except for a mishap where I was gay bashed by a thorn bush in Görlitzer Park (maybe it wasn't the best place I've ever decided to pee...), it was a fabulous day.

I think the entirety of Berlin was covered in glitter. Did I mention my new obsession with glitter? One day I spent 22 EUR on Claire's just on different types of glitter. It's an addiction.

Pictures!

Ready to go!

Pride is clearly the time for ridiculous outfits. Some creepy guy asked me out for coffee on the way to my friend's flat, it went something like, "Du siehst so chic aus, lassen uns eine Kaffee trinken, ich wohn einfach um die Ecke!". Possibly the most inopportune time to hit on me, a lesbian, on the way to PRIDE in a ridiculous colorful outfit, wearing huge rainbow feather earrings, covered in glitter. Someone missed the memo about what day it was. Sorry dude, wrong team.

We'resoexcited!

Still excited.

Note the fantastic headband and pure unadultered excitement.

Yay gay! Unicorns! Rainbows!

If you join our group, you will get covered in glitter. Just a warning.

Happy!

I'm not sure what I'm doing here, but I like it.

"Homophobia fuck you in the knee!" Indeed!

This is the moment we got tired and tried to fix it. Being excited for so long will do that to you.

Please note the rainbow feather earrings, thank you.

Street fest! Lots of people!

Fahrradsternfahrt Or That Time We Biked on the Autobahn.

2012-07-13T18:23:00.000+02:00

On June 3rd we decided to do the Fahrradsternfahrt (literally bike star drive), which ended up being one of the most fun things I've done in Berlin so far. My friends Nicole, Marion and I biked about 25km through Berlin through major roads and on the Autobahn (highway), through a tunnel and all places that were normally dominated by cars, but were shut down for us during the ride. We took the shortest route, but all the various routes led to an environmental fest in the center of Berlin by Brandenburger Tor going from the very ends of the U-bahn (subway) lines out in the country (see the map of all the routes above). There was even a very ambitious group who left at 3am and biked all the way from Poland!

Afterwards there were a bunch of speeches and stands, where I overheard that there had been 150,000 participants and that this is currently the biggest bike demonstration in the world! I really thought it was just going to be a small critical mass type thing, but as we rode we picked up more and more people and by the end we were swarms of bikes filling up the highway in every direction!

For those who don't know, Berlin is a very bike friendly city, so much so that I was able to overcome my fear of biking around cars, buy myself a bike and have since become bike obsessed. I'm still not hardcore enough to fix my bike myself, except for something like putting air in the tires, but I think I've become bikesexual. I've started checking out bikes instead of the people riding them. My first thought after I bought my bike, having only ever ridden a bike around my small neighborhood when I was a child, was "Oh fuck, now I have to ride it home, maybe this was a bad idea." Now I'm considering buying a guest bike so I don't have to take the U-bahn when I have guests over!

Anyway, while there are many bike lanes all through Berlin separated from the street, there are still areas and streets that leave something to be desired. One example was leaving the bike happiness zone of our big bike ride on the highway to being thrown into the traffic in the center of Berlin with no bike lanes and construction forcing us to share tiny single lanes with cars on the way to get Mexican food after our trek. Okay, let's get to the important part....pictures!

Nicole and I biking on the highway.

The beginning of our journey at Alt-Tempelhof!

Here is the group in the beginning.

About to bike onto the highway and into the tunnel.

We've collected more people! We had to wait like 45 minutes for them to clear the highway at this point.

Biking through the highway tunnel! Blurry, but awesome!

And back into the light!

Biking on the highway!

Marion can bike without hands. I am jealous.

Fellow highway bikers!

There you have it! This next picture was from the Environment Festival and is completely unrelated, but here is a woman milking fake udders for your enjoyment...

So come to Berlin and bike with me!

May Day 2012

2012-05-21T19:10:00.000+02:00

On May 1st, we went to the May Day festival in Kreuzberg, which is this mix of riots and street festival. Here is some info taken from an article on May Day on the Exberliner Website (full article here):

[O]n May 1, 1987, a fight started between the police and the autonomists. Ulrike S. remembers watching the events from her flat on Lausitzer Platz, where she used to live with her small child: “The police attacked all of a sudden. Someone helped the women and children escape to the basement of a nearby café, where we waited for things to calm down. It wasn’t until late at night that someone came with a VW minibus and got us out of there. We couldn’t set foot in our apartment for three days because it was saturated with tear gas.” In the course of this Kiezaufstand (“neighborhood uprising”), a Bölle supermarket was burned to the ground. The ruins stood as a reminder of the event until a few years ago, when the enormous mosque opposite Görlitzer Bahnhof took their place.

The 1987 riots were so impressive that the following year, the Kreuzberg lefties decided to hold their own, “revolutionary” May Day demonstration. After the trade union demonstration in 1988, up to 10,000 people gathered at “O-Platz” (Oranienplatz) under the rallying cry “No liberation without revolution”. They marched down “O-Straße” with their arms linked together, their red flags and homemade banners flying, and their faces covered with black ski masks – the uniform of the old-school autonomists. This day, like so many May Days to come, ended in rioting.

...In 2001, with the summit siege in Genoa on the horizon, the conservative Berlin government banned the demonstration – which drove even more people out onto the streets for a massive illegal protest. More than 5000 riot police, brought in from across Germany, couldn’t keep the situation under control. Some 270 officers were injured; 289 people were arrested.

...When the prohibition failed, the city came up with a new strategy: it would fill the streets with party-goers, music, food and beer. This was “MyFest” – presented as an initiative by residents, but financed by the police. In 2005 and 2006, the demonstration was pushed out of the heart of Kreuzberg by MyFest, but soon a counter strategy emerged: the activists held a concert at the edges of the event, featuring well-known international musicians like Kenny Arkana, from France, and Banda Bassotti, from Italy. At 6pm, the demonstration started there and thousands of people joined in.

We ate vegan baked goods for breakfast that morning at Cupcake in Friedrichshain, walked around in the sun, wandered through the festival and hoards of people sipping margaritas and nibbling on street food and listened to various bands as we walked by until the crowds got a bit too much for us. Afterwards we headed to Tempelhof park in Neukölln to chill out and try to find this open air dance party we heard about. While we were sitting on the grass some guy offered to stretch me out on this swing thing, so I had to do it, right? Funny pictures follow. I got my first sunburn of the season and it was a beautiful day, quite perfect for my first May Day.

Rudy, Thea, Rikke and Aleks. Excited for May Day!

So many people

On the way to the park in the U-bahn

Myriam, smile so I can take a picture of these people doing crazy yoga!

Some guy stretching me in this swing thing, lolz.

Doesn't look awkward at all.

Walking to the Open Air party

And that was May Day in Berlin!

Teufelsberg - The Devil's Mountain

2012-05-17T11:21:00.001+02:00

We broke into an abandoned American spy station! A couple/few months ago we went to Teufelsberg, apparently the highest hill/mountain in Berlin where you can see the entire city. Here is some info taken from Wikipedia:

The Teufelsberg (German for Devil's Mountain) is a hill in Berlin, Germany, in former West Berlin. It rises about 80 meters above the surrounding Brandenburg plain, more precisely the north of Berlin's Grunewald forest. It was named after the Teufelssee (i.e. Devil's lake) in its southerly vicinity...It is an artificial hill with a curious history: It was heaped up after the Second World War from part of the rubble of Berlin, approximately 75,000,000 m³ (98,000,000 cu yd) all over the city, during the following twenty years as the city was cleared and rebuilt...

...The US National Security Agency (NSA) built one of its largest listening stations on top of the hill, rumored to be part of the global ECHELON intelligence gathering network. "The Hill", as it was known colloquially by the many American soldiers who worked there around the clock and who commuted there from their quarters in the American Sector, was located in the British Sector. Prior to establishing the first permanent buildings there in the very late 1950s, Mobile Allied listening units had driven to various other locales throughout West Berlin hoping to gain the best vantage point for listening to Soviet, East German, and other Warsaw Pact nations military traffic. It was also used to supervise the West Berlin Air Corridors. One such unit drove to the top of Teufelsberg and discovered a marked improvement in listening ability. This discovery eventually led to a large structure being built atop the hill, which would come to be run by the NSA (National Security Agency). At the request of US government, the ski lifts were removed because they allegedly disturbed the signals. The station continued to operate until the fall of East Germany and the Berlin Wall, but after that the station was closed and the equipment removed. The buildings and radar domes still remain in place.

We climbed through a hole in the fence and wandered around. There were actually lots of people there, which took away the whole "we're going to get in trouble" fear, even if it's apparently still illegal. The Americans used this place to spy on the Russians during the war, and, as they are also apt to do, completely abandoned it without cleaning up any of their shit afterwards. As you can read above, the entire hill/mountain is actually made of rubbish covered in dirt and the giant balls were used to pick up Russian radio signals. We climbed into one of the giant balls and the acoustics were amazing. People were playing flutes and singing opera and banging on shit. Check out the video below to get an idea! Here's one more fun fact I found on Wiki:

During the NSA Operations some other curious things happened: It was noticed that during certain times the reception of the radio signals was better than during the rest of the year. The 'culprit' was found after a while: it was the Ferris wheel of the annual German-American Volksfest Festival on the Hüttenweg in Zehlendorf.From then on, the Ferris wheel was left standing for some time after the festival was over. While there were rumors that the Americans had excavated a shaft down into the ruins beneath, that was never proven, and was likely based on reports that those who maintained equipment in one of the first enclosed antenna structures accessed the upper levels of the inflated dome via an airlock that led to a "tunnel" that was embedded in the structures central column. Speculation as to what might have existed within the highly restricted area frequently gave rise to rather elaborate but false rumors; one theory stated that "the tunnel" was an underground escape route.

Lolz Ferris wheels.

Without further ado...pictures!

On the way, best thing is you can get here via pub transit.

There were lots of holes in the fence that had been fixed up.

This was on the wall of an area filled with prison cells.

Going up? Good luck with that.

Graffiti

The background is an outline of Teufelsberg.

Marion standing by this random little fence in the building.

Has definitely seen better days, whatever this was.

June and Marion exploring.

Me really excited about this door going nowhere.

On the way up to one of the balls.

Marion and Myriam can fly!

View from the top. Balls!

The structures were covered in canvas.

Talk about doors going nowhere. Something REALLY interesting must have been in this room for them to cement it in there.


A sign advertising apartments that were planned to be built here...and then weren't.

And the promised video of inside one of the giant spy balls at Teufelsberg...

If you're in Berlin, you should definitely make a trip over there!

Glow in the Dark, Glitter, Mexican Food. Oh, and some updates.

2012-05-15T21:00:00.000+02:00

I got sucked into life, oops! What has happened, do I even remember? Here is an idea of what's been going on. Not chronological in any way:

- Made lots of friends! At some point I seem to have gone from knowing about 2 people to knowing about 2 billion. Okay, that is an exaggeration. Anyway, I host this bi-weekly Couchsurfing Queer meeting here and have made a ton of awesome friends and we go on lots of awesome adventures. so yay!

- Attacked the queer/weird/whatever party scene head on. So over winter I was pretty sure I'd never come out of my room again, but something about it ALREADY being light out until 9ish pm makes all of Berlin FLIP OUT. Now it's impossible to convince yourself to sleep and there is WAY too much to do. Highlights include going to Delta, this party with a blacklight room and a UV and glitter paint tent. The first time I went they crowded us in a small room and while I was wondering where the club was and why they were closing the door on us (were we going to be murdered?!) I realized the whole room was an elevator. Oh Berlin. Here is a glow the dark pictures stolen from a friend!:

Lilly and I

- Had a makeup/glitter explosion party before going to Blitz, this monthly gender-bending synth music party that people dress up for. More stolen photos!

Aleks and Marion

Lilly all decked out

- Joined a queer-fem stitch and bitch. I'll hopefully eventually one day knit a pair of socks! I'm about ready to turn the heel of my first sock, terrified! Here is my sock-in-progress. Knitting on the bus and u-bahn has led to a lot of people being really intrigued with me.

Sockstash

- Had a GIANT taco party. After bemoaning the lack of Mexican food here, we decided to take matters into our own hands, got about 13 of us together, all braved the grocery store together and made a FEAST of homemade guacamole, fried corn tortillas, black beans, dirty rice, salsa and salsa verde and pico de gallo, homemade margaritas. I ate so much I kinda wanted to die. It was sort of like having a family holiday. Hopefully we will do it again soon. Food and friend pics!

Black beans

Veggie ground meat

Dirty rice!

Nate and Mr. Lime

There may have been an incident of knocking over all these glass bottles with flowers on top of a mirror. It's what happens when the margaritas are strong.

My bouquet!

- Am trying to take on the finding-a-flat-scene. A good friend and I are trying to move in together and it is ROUGH. I have never lived somewhere where it's so competitive to find a flat. For one 2 bedroom flat often 50-80 people will show up to the viewing. We've already been looking for about 2 months now, so hopefully we'll be successful soon. Our flat application is 23 pages long. It's ridiculous.

- My friend Gulliver came to visit in February! We ate everything and ran around betrunken a lot. It was quite fantastic.

- I have two jobs now! I'm not teaching at all! As I already mentioned, I work as a Project Assistant in the office of a small university. I like it a lot and it's been keeping me super busy. We just moved offices and now I have my own desk! I also got a second mini-job through a friend making brochures for their work abroad program, which is pretty neat because I can do it from home. I'm also supposed to teach a 5-hour seminar, mostly in German, about intercultural competence. Should be interesting. Sounds more fun than teaching English though, which reminds me, I need to start researching what I actually want to teach. For all of you who've had required study abroad orientation sessions, do you remember any good activities or advice you care to pass on?

- I bought a bike! It was one of my sort of New Years Resolutions to start cycling in this city, so hopefully I'll make that a reality now. I got a pretty good deal and also bought insurance so if it gets stolen I get a new one. Since bikes are stolen a LOT in Berlin, I feel a bit better having this. Hopefully I'll get more comfortable with city cycling and won't get hit by 1000 cars.

There's a general summary. A couple more entries to come as they had way too many pictures to all fit in here!

Berlin Is Full of Things

2012-01-31T23:28:00.000+01:00

Wow, it's been almost six months since I've been in Germany. I find this absolutely ridiculous. It feels neither like I've been here that long nor like I haven't, rather it's like I'm in some parallel universe where time doesn't feel quite the same. Things are settled and then they're not. Crazy.

Let's see. I went to Prague for Christmas and New Years. Spent New Years Eve at the Meet Factory at an event thrown by the Prague Couchsurfing Winter Camp, which was cool because it meant everyone was open to talking to strangers. I talked to a lot of people, got a lot of free things (ex: champagne) passed to me, danced with random people and rocked the fuck out.

Happy New Year! Andrea, me and Nicole.

I went to Prague really homesick for it and it was great being there, but also really sad that most of the people I made all my memories in that place with were gone. I could feel their ghosts all around. Was very nice to see my friends that still live there though and I ate very well. My Czech and Czech pronunciation became all but non-existent though. Oops. At least I ordered coffee successfully in Czech my last day without being Englished.

I really like my job and though I only work part-time, it's kept me pretty busy. Since I last posted, I've even successfully expanded my visa to allow me to legally be a Project Assistant for this job! It really is like when I go there my brain slips into super-productivity mode and I forget there is an outside world for 7 hours. It's sometimes nice when there are 100 things like paying taxes, handing in more paperwork I should have already, my social life and my inability to just chill out that would otherwise plague my mind. I could use maybe 5 or so hours more of work per week, just so I can earn extra money to spend on traveling and fun things, but I really don't want to go back to work for a big language school again after the kita-contract nightmare. I'd love to just do coat check or something easy like that one night a week.

I've done pretty well on my intention to develop traditions here, though it is too soon to call them "traditions". Have so far checked out two pub quizzes and a music quiz and it's been a good excuse to get my different friends together in one place…and drink on a weekday. Although honestly, it is all too easy to drink on weekdays in these parts. Besides the occasional hangover, drinking doesn't really impact my life in a negative way, but I'm thinking of doing a "cleanse" anyway just to give my body a rest because half the time it just makes me feel sleepy. Sometimes I feel like going to a bar with people and drinking is something I do just because I'm not sure what else to do. While that's fine I would prefer to be more enthusiastic about what I do with my time instead of drinking just because it's there. After my birthday. Maybe.

Two weeks ago I went to a vegan brunch at a couchsurfer's flat in Steglitz. She cooked about 15 of us strangers TONS of vegan food and it was super nice and I met a few cool people. I also discovered a FRENCH vegan brunch I've been meaning to check out and will hopefully be attending another new monthly vegan brunch this weekend besides the one at the housing collective in Wedding I usually go to. I love brunch.

Last weekend went to some art openings with a friend as part of this festival called Transmediale. I saw a force field! Also went into a crazy room where these speakers made it feel like things were whispering in my head, so maybe now I know what schizophrenia feels like. Most importantly, I discovered this exists:

C-Base

It's the entrance to a co-working space/bar/hangout for computer geeks! It's exactly what a place designed by computer people looks like in my head and reminds me of the vibe I got from any hacking movie I've ever seen, with coffee tables made from archaic computers and all. All of my computer geek friends would pee themselves, basically. I peed myself and don't even fall into that category since I can't make Excel do what I want. Apparently there is a basement that has space capsule like things and more hangout space for members downstairs and if a non-member goes down they ring an alarm to alert everyone. I love that this exists. As part of the transmediale fest they were hosting an event and there were DJs with thes cool visualizations projected all over the place. I also didn't pay for a drink the entire night. I love art.

Last weekend I also went on this sustainable eco-tour of Kreuzberg hosted by a couchsurfer. We walked all over Kreuzberg and Treptow, spending over 3 hours outside in the freezing cold, but it was still really interesting and worth it. I found out about Give-Boxes, which are spread throughout Berlin and basically just these little huts where people leave stuff they don't want and can take stuff for free. I got a really pretty jar that now has my sugar in it! We also saw some squats, co-working spaces and I learned there is an animal farm in the middle of Görlitzer Park! I got to pet donkeys and sheep and almost get bitten by a swan! Exciting! I also learned there are fruit trees planted in the same park and that they plan to expand it. Free fruit! Yesterday I bought a table and rug from a woman who helped plant them!

Give-Box in Kreuzberg

Swan! Wants to eat me! Still cute!

This Friday I plan to finally check out the Dickes Bee food co-op after thinking about it and ogling the website for months. You work for three hours a month and in exchange get to order with them for cheaper prices for food, which has all been checked out for it's ethical and environmental implications. I think I even read something about oil cold-pressed in Kreuzberg, which is where I live! Yay local things for cheap prices! My mind was blown by the Park Slope Food Co-op in Brooklyn ever since I went with Brian and ever since I've wanted something like that in my life. I miss having a farm share, so hopefully this will solve my problem once the weather warms up a bit. They also have social events and such. I'm heading over there this Friday for their meeting, we'll see!

I'm planning on finally starting German classes up again because I've been sort of emo and feeling like my German is stagnant and not improving at all. I could study myself for free, but I really just need someone to force me to learn vocabulary and use grammar concepts I avoid, so I think this will be good. Two evenings a week C1 course. I'm excited to have an excuse to sit in cafes and do my homework again, honestly. I justify the cost by thinking if I'm going to spend money, it might as well be for something productive like school, yeah? Yeah. This is also going to lead to more money spent on coffee. I need to buy a coffee grinder here. Fuck instant.

Still working on making friends. I know a lot of people, a lot of really cool people, but sometimes I still feel like I need to build a more solid group of MY people, who I have a lot in common with and a sense of us just *getting* each other. This involves getting to know some of the people in my life better and reaching out to other ones. Since my life was so stressful and crazy in the beginning, my social life sort of got put on the back-burner, thus it's time. I'm sick of being drunk and clubbing all the time (I say that, and I'll probably end up out dancing tomorrow, so ist das Leben). Regardless, it'd be nice to have more friends I could just chill with, without having to make all these formal plans because lately I just feel like doing silly nerdy things or drinking at someone's house and rolling around on the floor. This is the first time I've moved somewhere without a social network already in place. Most of my life it was school or university that provided a network of friends and in Prague it was my TEFL course that connected me to my first friends and their connections, so here I am really building up my life from scratch.

Our house-warming party is this weekend and it will be interesting. For one, I've never had all of my friends in one place together. My housemates and I also all seem pretty different, so it will be interesting to see our friends all combined with alcohol. You're officially invited if you're in Berlin!

Oh, and yesterday I was FINALLY successful with the German post and got my FIRST Christmas present from my parents. The first time they ALL got sent back. This time my Mom sent a smaller package to my job. When I got to work there was a letter saying I needed to go to the Zollamt (customs office) to collect it and that I'd have to pay for them storing it. I was super pissed and thought I'd have to go pay tax on it. I got to the office after work, which was way out of my way in Schoeneberg, and had to wait an hour and a half in a PACKED waiting room. Once I got in they made me open the box, then poked and unwrapped everything and asked me what it was. Not the way I expected to open my gifts. Luckily, I got to take everything home with me, even the sourdough starter that looked really sketchy and they didn't make me pay anything. When I asked them what the problem was, they said I was probably just a random spot check. I asked them, "So I'm just unlucky?" "Yeah, we apologize for that." Ugh.

Tomorrow I get to work from home, which is great because I can sleep late. For someone who only works 20-25 hours a week, I don't know how I manage to never have enough time to sleep. There is just so much more interesting stuff to do while I'm awake!

Goals For the New Year

2012-01-02T15:49:00.000+01:00

I'll make a post about my New Years in Prague soon, but before then I wanted to jot down a list of my goals for the New Year. I'm not usually a fan of New Years Resolutions per se, in fact, I think this is the first year I've even considered them. These are all smaller, more attainable things I'm planning on doing whether or not they're resolutions, so why not?

1. Cook 2 recipes from my cookbooks or internet bookmarks per month.

I have a habit of accumulating cookbooks and bookmarks, looking at them and then filing them away forever. There's actually some good stuff in there! Now that I'm more settled I need to get more serious about my food blog, as well.

2. Buy a bike and use it.

Berlin is the most bike-friendly place I've ever lived and relatively flat at that. Also, I hate being trapped underground on the U-bahn. With bike lanes almost everywhere I can't really say no and while my lack of knowledge about how to fix ANYTHING on a bike or what to look for when purchasing one (they were always something just sitting in the garage!) makes this somewhat intimidating to me, I'm doing it! Not to mention it's like getting paid to exercise as I won't spend as much on public transportation once it's warmer.

3. Make traditions in Berlin.

In other places I've lived my friends and I have always developed "traditions", or things we did every week/month like quiz nights, that served as a meeting place and really made it feel like "home". Now that my life is a little less hectic and I finally have an apartment, I need to get on the social aspect of things. There's an English-language bookstore near me with a quiz night I want to build a "team" for and I'd love to get back into rock-climbing if I decide it's affordable or maybe even find a gym near me. Why did I leave my rock-climbing gear in America again?

4. Study my German flash cards for 10 minutes at least a few nights a week.

I've gotten really lazy with this. Now that I can speak pretty good German I sort of just use the same words all the time and just ignore things when I don't perfectly understand them. I need to get back into writing down new words I hear and plugging them into Anki, my flashcard program. Plus, ten minutes isn't really that long!

5. Don't work with children.

Most of the drama I've experienced since I've been in Berlin has been from taking jobs that involve working with children. I think I can safely say now such jobs are not for me. Though there are 5000 jobs when children are involved...RESIST.

Attainable?

Stomping Grounds: I Haz Them

2011-12-18T15:40:00.000+01:00

A glimpse into adult life: New room, building IKEA furniture, desperate victory. Not sure who writes those instructions, but they have a sick sense of humor sometimes. Ah well. It's almost Christmas, how the heck did that happen? I really feel like I've been both here forever and that I've just arrived. I've been here four months and about a years' worth of things have happened, I'd say!

As you may interpret from the above picture, I finally found a permanent flat! Whew! It's in Kreuzberg in the Graefekiez (Graefe neighborhood). I'm walking distance from two different U-Bahn (subway) lines going two directions, a bus that goes to the main train station and a big park called Hasenheide, which I unfortunately will not make much use of until winter is over. In my neighborhood so far I've discovered a tiny little falafel stand called King of Falafel, run by one man who makes the falafel fresh himself and lays out each vegetable, hummus, etc. into the perfect place on the pita before rolling it all together into delicious perfection for 2,50 EUR. There is also Vegoloumi there (vegan haloumi cheese). My current obsession though is a place called Hamy, a thai food restaurant that has a tiny menu and two specials every day, always delicious with some sort of curry sauce and tons of fresh veggies on top. I have probably spent an entire paycheck on pineapple-coconut milk shakes and thai curries since I've moved in. Berlin has a lot of good food to be eaten.

Three months of searching have paid off in that I have an good-sized room with two big windows, big kitchen, living room with balcony, bathroom with bathtub and a guest WC. I live with 3 other women in a cool area for 300 EUR a month with utilities. While much cheaper can be found in Berlin, for where and what it is, I think I've done well. We're sitting on an old contract so somehow that's kept the gentrifying and thus rent-skyrocketing at bay. Now I just need visitors. It really needs to be spring so I can explore more. I have lots of plans involving myself and the future bike I'm going to buy. And food. And coffee. Graefestrasse and Dieffenbachstrasse, the former which I live on, seem to be filled with lots of cute bars, cafes, etc. with cool lighting. So pumped!

My new room was empty, which means I've been learning to do lots of things like buy and figure out how to get furniture into my apartment without a car or tons of money. I also painted my first wall (green!), bought my first screwdriver (fancy!) and drilled holes into the wall with minimal screaming to make a contraption with metal wire and hooks for curtains. I somehow didn't ruin everything! If buying furniture and painting a wall is not a sign of my commitment to stay in Berlin, I don't know what is! One of my new years resolutions is going to be to learn to be more handy. On this list is to stop being so scared of the power drill, install floating fake wood flooring over my ugly ass floor and to learn how to fix a bike and/or tell what's even wrong with it. I'll get back to you on this. Apparently I've lived a kept life until now.

On the job front things are...heated. I have two jobs. The first is an office job at a school that runs an executive MBA program for people in creative industries. I love this job and they're helping me expand my visa so I can do other things in addition to teaching. However, after my intensive Rostock course my teaching job decided to give me some classes in kitas (kindergartens). Normally there are two intensive weeks of required training for this, but they decided I was a quick learner and sent me off to teach my first day of classes after less than two full days of training. Actually I think I observed four 45 minute classes and taught one while being observed. While it is flattering and I did fine....I decided I absolutely hate teaching children. Give me grammar, rude adults with iPhones and forced company classes any day over this. Luckily I only teach Mondays right now, but am trying to get out of my contract as soon as possible without causing drama so I can go back to adult-land. You live, you learn, yeah? If I have to sing the Good Morning Song one more time I'm going to kill someone. Kudos to all you kindergarten ESL teachers out there, I don't know how you do it!

I am heading back to Prague for Christmas and likely New Years to stay with some friends and I'm pretty excited to be back on my old stomping grounds. I plan to eat a lot of langoše and trdelník before the Christmas markets are gone! The German Christmas markets are pretty epic (Germans are obsessed with Christmas), but I love me some fried things!

See you in Prague?

Back in Berlin for good!

2011-11-20T18:40:00.001+01:00

Berlin Dome

Wow, I am finally back in Berlin and my life is slowly coming together! I still need to find a permanent flat, but I even almost have a weekly routine schedule! So, updates!

#1 Flat

I thought getting a job would be the hardest thing here, but I managed to find two jobs relatively quickly and am still working (3 months later) on finding a long-term flat. Basically, my experience of my flat search is sort of like a really, really long tour of Berlin. I've stayed with two friends and in two sublets so far + my 7 weeks in Rostock. I have this current one until 1. December and we'll see what happens from there! The whole thing basically seems like an awkward, warped form of dating. I obsessively check the flat websites, send out lots of messages telling people about myself and responding to what they said about them, get answers to about 10% of my e-mails and invited to view about half of those answers. I go and get a tour, make awkward small-talk and sometimes make friends who want to bake cookies with me, but still no flat! Either the flat ends up being weird or I wouldn't want to live with the people! Though my budget is actually pretty reasonable for Berlin, I am being very picky with location. I really do want to settle in Berlin and moving is traumatizing so I'd rather wait out my future I-get-a-really-good-feeling-about-this room in a flatshare (WG). Hopefully I'll get something soon as I just want to unpack, buy lots of things you wouldn't while living out of a suitcase (re: spices, curry paste, kitchen appliances, boots that take up space, big sweaters). I've been in Germany three months now and still feel so unsettled on this front!

The difficulty is in part because there are three years' of people looking for one year of flats! Something with the German school system changed so that two years of people are going off to uni (and hence looking for flats) at once. On top of that, men no longer have to do a required 9 months in the military so a whole year of guys is added in to this mix as well. Competition!

#2 Jobs

I have two jobs now! Job A is still at the same school that gave me the intensive course in Rostock, but now I've picked up a few classes in Kitas (Kindergartens) around Berlin. I really don't have much experience with little kids, but they've given me a couple classes with slightly older children they said were especially fabulous and thought I'd be a great fit for, so we'll see how it goes. One of them is reaaalllyyy far outside Berlin and will take me 1.5 hours each way to and from for a 45 minute class. I got a giant tote bag full of material, flash cards, stories, CDs, ideas for games and an overview of what should be taught by the end of the month so I think I'll be okay on that front. I was invited to observe a class last week and got some surprise observed teaching. Basically I walked in and the teacher handed me some color flashcards and a stuffed animal and said, "Plan an activity with these colors and work in some conversation with this cuddly toy! I'm going upstairs to get the kids right now, be back in a minute!" Terrifying, but I did well and survived somehow. Mostly I'm just concerned about setting routines for the class in the beginning and making sure everything doesn't explode into pandemonium, as disciple is an area I need to improve on as someone who's mostly taught adults and/or older over-achieving preteens.

Job B is with a school that teaches CEOs and other high-ranking people from creative business industries (marketing, advertising, TV, radio, etc.). My job here is actually not teaching, but stalking people online and entering lots of info into their database to get more students, plus some help with their social media sites/Google Ad-Words stuff. I actually got this job through a friend from my university in the States, who knew someone who knew someone in Berlin. My main bosses are all American and really chill and the atmosphere in the office is cool because it is a constant switch between English and German happening all around me. Though data entry is perhaps not the most exciting thing in the world, it's actually nice compared to the uncertainty and performance aspect of teaching as for this job I am in the same place all day and have a relatively simple task. They're also writing me letters to allow me to expand my visa so I'm allowed to do more than just teach and the office looks out over a river and some really cool old-looking factory buildings in Alt-Moabit/Tiergarten.

Both of my jobs seem to really like me, which is great. Job A even said once I get my visa expanded they would maybe like to have me help with stuff in the office as well. I'm super pumped about this as I want to eventually go into a career in educational management (a.k.a. I want to work in an educational environment, but in the end not as a teacher/professor…ideally in the study-abroad industry). I have a good mix of teaching and positions that are giving me more experience behind the scenes of teaching, so I feel like my future is looking alright, and both jobs have expressed interest in giving me more responsibilities in the future. Right now the teaching experience is also great as I feel like I need to throw myself into teaching before I can advise other people on such things!

#3 Life

Life is overall good! Happy to be back in Berlin, though am glad I did the course in Rostock. I just find Berlin much more inspiring overall. My only issue now is the flat search and wanting to just start getting my life feeling settled! Once that happens I'll be much more open to visiting friends and traveling a bit more. Wish me luck!

I've been going to a lot of Volksküche (The Peoples' Kitchen) with friends, both in Rostock and now back in Berlin, and I love them. Basically you go, often to a housing collective or squat, and for 2-3 euros you get a three course meal. Everyone eats the same thing and occasionally it's dumpster-dived, but always delicious, usually vegan and super cheap! I went to one last weekend for vegan brunch and there were literally 20 different dishes and delicious coffee with organic soymilk. Mmm. Overall there is a lot of good food to be had in Berlin!

Speaking of dumpster-diving, I was invited to go with someone in Berlin soon. Will be an adventure! Free food!

Friend Tine, me and friend's flatmate at a Vokü in Rostock

Besides that, notable things are having my visa card stolen from the mail and 1500 EUR charged on it = successful first time at the Berlin police to make a police report, all in German! Luckily I got the money back a few weeks later. I've also been to the roller derby twice in Berlin! Basically this is girls on skates beating each other up. I'm still trying to learn the rules, but so far I'm pretty content just watching people fall down on skates to music while drinking beer and watching the mascot (called the "I Don't Care Bear"). I guess I should watch the movie with that girl from Juno...


Bad blurry picture of the roller derby: Berlin vs. London

Bis bald (until soon)!

Teaching in Rostock Updates!

2011-10-30T16:38:00.001+01:00

Wow, have I been busy! Teaching an intensive course for 7 weeks is taking it's toll! I'm really rather getting the hang of it though. We have quite the little routine. Warmer, review the grammar we did yesterday, new grammar lesson, textbook activities and then English trivia or music quiz with the occasional test or field trip thrown in. My life is sort of boring as all I talk about is teaching or looking for a flat, which is all I do lately. I'm quite looking forward to just sleeping an entire week when I'm done, sitting around on the internet in my pajamas, drinking tea, watching horrible TV and cooking the extravagant meals I haven't had time to cook with this job!

Speaking of teaching, I've collected a few good anecdotes. First, during a lesson on modal verbs, I had my students write "Dear Abby" letters asking for advice and then I switched the letters and had them answer each other using "should", "could", etc. I have the younger class. I'd say most of my nine students are in their early 20s or 30s. Hence, these were the result:

"Dear Abby, I want to be an erotic film star, but my friends say I am too square to do this. They tell me I should be an erotic film producer instead. What should I do?"

"Dear X, I think you should be an erotic film star and then afterwards you can produce erotic films if this doesn't work. After both, you'll be so horny you could do anything!"

and

‎"Dear Abby, Every time I go to school I get beaten up by six very tall boys. I have a very big mother and I think it's because I'm ugly. I'm very tired of this, what should I do?"

"Dear X, I think they are right. You should go to the doctor and get a new face. After this maybe this problem won't happen anymore. I hope this advice could help you."

We've been working on thus huge list of vocabulary for the past few weeks that the students are supposed to know by the end of the course. Yesterday to switch things up I decided to send them on a scavenger hunt throughout Rostock in teams to take pictures of as many items in their list as possible and label them with the English words they relate to. I thought this would be a good activity before our vocabulary test that we had today. Anyway, here are some more beauties:

collision

suicide

So that is that. Two weeks left and eight teaching days (the next two weeks are only four days each). I'm definitely excited to get back to Berlin, but my trip to Rostock has been a better experience than I expected and I think this was exactly what I needed to do. Just looking at myself at the beginning of the course and now I see a big difference. Before the course I was having teaching nightmares and now it only really takes me 30 minutes to an hour per night to prepare for my class. Though there are definitely things I would do differently now in retrospect and things I need to work on, I feel like I've become a much more confident teacher and person because of it all. So there!

Next on the list is to find a long-term flat in Berlin...wish me luck! I am so over flat searching!

First Week in Rostock and Couchsurfing in Hamburg

2011-10-04T19:23:00.000+02:00

I survived the first week! It's been interesting to say the least, I think I'm finally beginning to get the hang of my routine. Though I normally live in Berlin, my boss asked me if I could teach an intensive English course in Rostock. I said yes, so now I teach 9 students who're currently training to work for Deutsche Bahn as the people who collect and sell tickets, check the tickets on the train, etc. As part of their training they're required to take a 6 week intensive English course. After that, they have to take Swedish and Danish. Crazy, huh?

As such, I'm here in Rostock until November 10th. For those not in the know, Rostock is in eastern Germany in the north. I teach 8 teaching units a day (45 min each), 5 days a week from 8am to 3pm. It is a LOT of class a day and I think we're all still a bit in shock! Sometimes it feels like too much as the students tend to be pretty done with learning for the last hour and a half or so. However, now that we've started to do English trivia at the end the spirits have raised a bit! Since the students are required to take the course, there are 1-2 that seem that have absolutely no desire to learn English and sit on their iPhones while everyone is doing group work, which can be frustrating. However, there are also some really motivated and funny students in the class, so I'll take the good with the bad. Every day gets a bit better as we all get used to so much English all the time!

I was told the students were all beginners, but in reality I have the younger class and they've all had English before. Thus, we're going through the textbook a lot quicker than anticipated and I've spent a long time each night planning my own material. It's kind of exhausting at times to plan for 8 teaching units a day when I get home, but I know I'm going to be a much stronger and confident teacher by the end of it. The first week was definitely up and down, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it and know I'll be happy for this "teaching boot camp" experience at the end! Luckily there is another teaching here with me whose taught these courses for many many years and he's given me a ton of great worksheets and ideas, which I am eternally grateful for.

Did I mention I'm teaching English in the German language? At least mostly. Oh yes. My German has improved so much since I've been here. Sometimes I feel really bad if a student asks me a question about grammar in German and I don't understand, so hopefully by the end of the 6 weeks I'll have my German grammar vocabulary down.

All I have to say is thank goodness for TEFL Worldwide and the internet. There are so many great resources online. Since I only have my own accent (duh) and the students need to practice with as many accents as possible since they'll likely be working with tourists, I can download listening dialogues in British English and the like. The book "Learning Teaching", which I had to buy during the TEFL Worldwide course, has also been immensely helpful. I've been reading that for ideas and advice during several of my "oh my gosh how am I going to teach this?!" freakouts. I still feel like I'm at the beginning teaching stage most of the time, so I tend to obsessively plan my lessons and end up spending way too long worry about every detail. The book sometimes describes me exactly and while sometimes it sucks to realize you made a teaching mistake, it's nice to know I made a normal teaching mistake and have suggestions for how to do it better next time.

First week behind me, I headed into Hamburg for the weekend, which is 2 hours away. It was a 3-day weekend for the reunification of Germany and the weather was absolutely beautiful. I used Mitfahrgelegenheit for the first time, which is basically organized hitchhiking/rideshare. You can buy group tickets here, where it's the same price for up to 5 people. Thus in this area people often buy a group ticket and post on the Mitfahrgelegenheit website to gather up people so we all pay less. I got to Hamburg for a mere 6 EUR and had an awesome ride with three German girls and a woman from Khazikstan who now lives in Germany. We all spoke German the way up and shared some good stories. I learned the phrase "Einmal in, alles din" (literally "one time in, everything inside") from the woman from Khazikstan about how she got pregnant at 17, which is my new favorite German phrase (even though it's a bit grammatically incorrect). I also made a friend in Rostock as one of the girls in our ride group normally lives in the city, so yay! I love that things like this exist in Europe and the community aspect of it all. Not only did I get a super cheap ticket, but met a lot of cool people to hang out with on my ride to Hamburg!

Found this in the train bathroom on the way to Hamburg!

Over the weekend I couchsurfed with two vegan girls in Hamburg. I should also give a shout out to how much I love couchsurfing. I met up with one of my hosts for delicious vegan burritos in the Schanzenviertel, explored, chilled in a park with my Kätt's friends and watched people slack-lining, cooked a nice vegan meal for dinner (and introduced everyone to rice crispy treats with some vegan marshmallows I brought from home) and then ended up a a party at a local dorm. Again, it's so cool that websites like this allow me to go to a city where I don't know anyone and end up in someone's flat, meeting their friends and leaving with new friends of my own.

Chrissie and Kätt (my hosts) with our dinner!

Now on to week two! Before I leave I want to couchsurf in another city in the area and hopefully check out Copenhagen!

Visa Success!

2011-09-23T12:52:00.000+02:00

I have finally gotten my visa! My appointment wasn't until October 4th, so I decided to brave the Ausländerbehörde before that because my job needed me to start working sooner (and money is always nice). I woke up at 4:30am on September 12th and made the trek over there. By 5:45am I was waiting outside the doors, an hour and 15 minutes to go before they opened. There were already 6 or so people in front of me and 30 minutes later the line was curving down the pathway. For those not in the know, the Ausländerbehörde is the immigration office in Germany. Berlin apparently has the biggest one in the country, which isn't surprising. In Berlin, all of the language schools (except one that I know of) hire people on a freelance basis. This means you can apply for a freelance visa and are then responsible for buying your own health insurance, paying your taxes, etc. and don't ever work for just one school. On the bright side, you don't owe any taxes until you've earned 8000 EUR and can then deduct all your expenses (i.e. health insurance, transportation, books, etc.) from that. Doing my German taxes sounds terrifying, but luckily I don't have to think about it just yet!

In any case, the Ausländerbehörde is definitely a humbling experience. I am really happy my German is okay because you would be lost there without it. First you have to go stand by the right door, which is decided by which country you're from. When the doors open, everyone RUNS inside to try and grab a number to be seen for a visa. I have heard from terrible storing about people on crutches getting shoved over, etc. but my experience thankfully wasn't so bad. I ran to the second floor, which is where it said I should go as an American on the sign and found the area for my section of the alphabet. Luckily, I got the third number. Then begins the waiting. About an hour and a half later I'm called in and give the woman my documents. These include my application forms, proof of my health insurance, my Anmeldung (proof that you have registered your living place) bank account statements to prove I can support myself, letters from 2+ schools saying they're interested in hiring me, a monthly budget I created to show I can afford to live there, a letter from one school saying I'd make a certain amount each month, copies of my TEFL certificate, diploma, etc. plus probably 5000 other things. I had researched and obsessed about it all year, so felt pretty prepared when I got there. When the person behind the counter looked through my documents and said, "Na, super!" I let out a sigh of relief. Maybe I will be able to stay in Berlin after all!

Another hour and a half of waiting and they call me back in, give me a card and tell me to go downstairs and pay 50 euros to a machine. When I come up, they hand me back my passport with a shiny visa inside! In less than 5 hours! Success!

Since then I've been teaching a couple Nachhilfe classes, which is basically homework help for kids having problems in English. They're pretty laid back and chill, so I really like them. On Sunday, I'm moving to Rostock in eastern Germany by the Ostsee for 6 weeks to teach an intensive English course. I am pretty nervous about this, as I'll be teaching 8 or so hours a day, from Monday to Friday, which I've never done before. Also, I still haven't found a place to live during this time, so I may just end up in a hostel for six whole weeks. Luckily, my job is paying me a little stipend for living expenses since they really needed a native speaker for this course. I should be a pro by the end of it and will get a lot more practice speaking German, as I don't think there are as many English speakers there. I just have to think of it as facing my fears. I'll be teaching some employees from Deutsche Bahn English for dealing with customers and their jobs. Even the textbook I'm using is written by Deutsche Bahn, which is kind of funny.

I've recently been reunited with all my TEFL Worldwide books and notes, which is perfect timing. When I moved away from Prague, I left them with a friend because I didn't have space. Last January when I was visiting Germany from America, I transported them from Prague to Berlin and just picked them up again here last week. After 2ish years off teaching (except for my volunteer position as a teaching assistant), I feel a little rusty. I forgot how much I did during the TEFL course in Prague! Pretty sure all my notes are going to come in very useful for finding ways to add to my lessons in Germany and refreshing my brain!

Perhaps a post about my job interviews next. Or maybe about how I ordered "vegan almond shits" instead of "vegan almond cookie". Awkward!

Au-Pair Drop-Out

2011-09-10T16:03:00.000+02:00

(credit ukaaa)

Now that I am safely sitting far away in my sublet, I can write about this on the internet. Basically, my au-pair experience sucked. The 5-year old basically had free reign and was allowed to hit me, spit in my face, call me an asshole, hit me in the eye with a foam sword, etc. with very little consequence. I felt the family wanted another older, more responsible child instead of an adult employed by them. They didn't respect my time and though I asked several times and sat down with them to explain that I'd like some kind of schedule so I could make plans and have friends, they just assumed I would stop whatever I was doing for them and generally only told me my hours the day before or the morning of, which just made me really anxious.

Honestly, except for joking around with their oldest son and playing with the cute dog, I started to hate everything about my au-pair job. The first time I visually appeared upset in front of the family was after I cut up some fruit for their 5 year-old and his friend and brought it upstairs. I told them they needed to wash their hands first and they refused and spit in my face. Now I'm not talking cute stick-your-tongue-out whatever, they literally covered me with spit. I herded them to the bathroom, where they still refused to wash their hands and when I went to go help, I got the door slammed in my face. Meanwhile, the Mom was downstairs, doing god knows what, while I was getting completely disrespected by her child. Eventually I just told them, "Alright, if you treat me badly, you're not getting any fruit and I'm going downstairs now". I stormed downstairs, put the plate on the table in front of the Mom and asked, "I don't know what you want me to do! They spit in my face and refuse to listen." Her reply was just, "Do you like kids? They're just being 5 year-olds."

This was the general response. Now let me tell you, if I had ever spit in a babysitter's face when I was a kid, hit someone or was generally as bratty as her kid, my parents would've grounded me for a week, taking away any TV privileges, no friends over, no phone, etc. My parents rarely ever touched us, but when we were bad we generally had to write a LOT of apology letters to whoever we wronged and had a stern talking-to. I said to the Mom, "I know I need to learn how to better deal with him, but what are the consequences when he acts like that?" The answer was nothing. No consequences. Apparently this behavior was completely acceptable and didn't warrant any punishment.

Fuck. That.

I got yelled at for such things as putting the tea cup on the wrong side of the place mat and they made me mow the entire backyard lawn, which is definitely not an au-pair job. When they asked me at a later date if I would mow the front lawn, and I inferred that I would not care to, the mother made it seem like that was preposterous and asked me, "Well, what DO you want to do?!". The last straw occurred as I was attempting to get the lawn mower to work, crying hysterically in their front yard. I think my exact thought was something like "Fuck this shit, I'm leaving." I almost texted the host Mom "I quit" right then and there, but realized I probably needed somewhere to sleep first.

We had a date to talk last Sunday, where it was decided that it was not a good fit and I was leaving. They said I could have until mid-September, which they later revoked this past Wednesday when they told me I had to be out Friday (2 days later). Now, I am a relatively independent person, but there are plenty of 18 year-old au-pairs who don't know anyone in the country, don't speak any German and who have never lived abroad before. The fact that they would just shove someone off like that is absolutely ridiculous.

To add insult to injury, yesterday before I moved out I asked about getting paid. They said they would only pay me for 2 of the 3 weeks I worked, because the last week I was in-and-out looking for jobs and flats. When I explained, "Well, what am I supposed to do? You told me to get out so I needed time to find somewhere to go!" Her response was that the chores and errands I did for them were payment for being able to sleep there. Honestly lady? You people are fucking rich. I'm pretty sure 70 euro extra for the week would not have broken the bank. My general thought is that them choosing an au-pair that didn't "fit" is mostly their responsibility. They brought a woman over an ocean from America. If they are so particular, they should have asked me more questions about myself, actually taken the time to Skype with me, etc. They fucked up and made a wrong decision and I was left in a shitty position in a foreign country, so I definitely should have been paid for the last week.

Anyway, I'm now happily sitting in a sublet in Kreuzberg, far away from them. After a few interviews, I have a job as a freelance English teacher and am making my first attempt at the visa on Monday morning, so wish me luck! I will be going to Rostock in East Germany for 6 weeks starting September 26th to teach an intensive English course and then coming back to Berlin November 10th, after which I'm staying forever! I'm sure I'll be back some weekends as well. Now I just need to find an awesome flat for November!

I wish I could just find a long-term flat now and stay here, so I could finish getting settled and make some friends, etc. but it will be an adventure, right? And earning a paycheck will definitely be nice.

So get ready for some hopefully less emo posts, now than I have escaped from indentured servitude and am no longer quite as prone to random fits of hysterics! Yes!

Vertragulous

2011-08-29T16:43:00.001+02:00

I feel like I should update after my last super emo post. That same night I figured I should just suck it up and lay my demands out on the table, so I stayed up late writing a 2-page word document in German of what I thought all my responsibilities were and also quoted my contract and and wrote out some suggestions for how I thought the different clauses should play out in real life. The next morning I brought my computer upstairs and presented it to my host Mom for discussion. We ended up having a pretty good conversation, where I brought up several important things:

I'm supposed to get four evenings off a week. My entire first week I worked every night (including the weekend) until at least 8:30pm. Host Mom said she didn't know that was in there. She printed it off the internet, but apparently didn't read it. Anyway, now I'm definitely going to make sure and peace out after Abendbrot four times a week and forego getting beaten up and verbally abused by the 5-year old (who continues to call me "Opa", which means "Grandpa").

I also accrue 2 days paid vacation time a month, so 24 days for the year. This means I am so going to Brighton and London to visit my friends and wherever else calls to me!

If I work an extra night I get another night off, or an extra night off the next week.

Basically the main consensus was that if I feel like I'm working too much or over my 30 hours, I should just say so and they'll sort it out. That's good, I guess, but I really wish they would keep track of it as it puts me in a sort of awkward position to be like, "hey, I'm tired of this and you keep giving me too much stuff to do, bye!" I am happy to hear that they respect my need for me-time, however.

Anyway, I went out into Berlin Friday and Sunday and that was good. I've sort of realized that I generally feel the craziest when I'm here in Kleinmachnow with not much to do. It's definitely beautiful here, but I feel really isolated from the world, especially during my awkward hours off in the middle of the day when no one else is free. I want to be in the hustle and bustle of the city with other people my age being social! I will definitely be happy when my German course starts October 10th, as maybe then I'll feel like I actually have some purpose to my life besides watching every single episode of "So You Think You Can Dance" on the internet. Also, I seriously need to make friends. Preferably friends who aren't going to leave in 5 minutes and actually live here. Or rather, a nice balance of au-pair + other friends, as it is nice to be able to vent with other au-pairs in the same situation as me. I'm just so tired of having to re-make friends every year after 6 years of switching countries and I really do want to stay here and make this my home somehow.

Speaking of, I really need to find more than one Master's program to apply to in the Berlin-area! Ahhh!

One Week In

2011-08-25T10:26:00.000+02:00

Things that I want:

1. A written list/schedule of what I'm supposed to be doing every day, so I have some sort of structure and know what is expected of me.

2. To know what days/times I have off more than 1-2 days before so I can actually make plans with my friends and not feel so isolated out in the suburbs.

I've been here a week and these things are really stressing me out. Though I may just be interpreting her intonation wrong since I don't always understand 100% what my host Mom is saying in German, I feel like she sometimes thinks I'm a bit dumb for not doing something she told me days ago in a list with 10 other things. Usually I'm given a long verbal list of all the things I might have to do, but sometimes she just does them and sometimes she is all "I'm late for work you really need to brush his teeth with him!" How am I supposed to know what I should be doing if sometimes I'm asked to do it and sometimes it's done by somebody else and no one says anything to me? I've asked for the past several days if we could sit down and write down what exactly my responsibilities are and when I need to do them, so I'm not always so shell-shocked, but no one seems to ever have time. We were also supposed to talk about my au-pair contract because there's a lot of things written in it about how many nights off and days off I should be getting and can request off, that I'm pretty sure I'm not currently getting. Mostly I just need to know when I'm actually supposed to be working so I'm not always following people around, stressed that I should be doing something.

I'm supposed to be in charge of getting the 5-year old dressed and brushing his teeth in the morning and sometimes getting him ready for bed. I have not even once been able to successfully get him to brush his teeth. Every single time he runs away, grabs a toy, hides. I take the toy away, he screams at the top of his lungs and slaps me. I say "Nein! Du darfst nicht mich schlagen!" in my best stern voice and hold his hands, let go, and he slaps me again. Yesterday I got spit in the face and also hit in the face with a small plunger. When I try to make him food after school he will purposely grab a bottle of water and pour it on the floor in front of me. I'm trying really hard not to let it get to me and hold it against him, but I can't help but dread when he comes home from school and really do not enjoy his company. At least the parents back up whatever I say to him, but if this doesn't get better in a few weeks I think I'm going to seek other employment because I can't deal with this for a year. They want me to eventually bike with him alone to his kindergarten, but he absolutely does not listen to me so I'm terrified he'll just bike into the middle of the road in front of a car with me, not to mention I'm still not super fast on my bike as I'm not used to biking all the time, so while I totally don't mind riding the bike and enjoy it, I can't keep up with him and he doesn't listen if I say to slow down. It's just frustrating because the Mom tells me to simply take his toy away and pick him up, but it's not so easy when he's racing around a couch, kicking, slapping and spitting at me.

Luckily the other kids are fine, sometimes they want to watch TV a bit longer and I have to turn it off on them, but they generally listen to reason or will joke around for 5 minutes and then do what they're told. I knew going in I didn't have much experience with the really young kids, but I didn't think it would be this bad.

I'm at a low point and I'm going to give it a month to see if I feel better about everything. I'm just really frustrated and feel like I have no control over anything and no ability to have my own life. I feel like I have a lot of sporadic free time during the day, but never quality free time where I can actually meet with people and be social. I don't need to always be out partying, but I can't always just sit here alone as it makes me feel a bit trapped. I just found out the family's first au-pair only stayed 3 months. The most recent stayed a year, but it seems she didn't really go out much as the host family seemed really surprised that I wanted to go to a club with my friends on September 3rd and said I'd probably have to walk the dog, even if I come back at 3am, as they go out sailing that day (or something). Their last au-pair is married and still lives here, so maybe that explains it.

We'll see. I really don't want to have to leave, but if I end up continuing to feel so crazy I might have to. I've only been here a week, so I imagine it will get better. Besides the 5 year-old and the family not being very good at clearly delegating responsibilities, things are good. They let me get whatever food I want from the store, are paying for German classes all year even though they don't have to, I get to be really active and feel generally pretty healthy, I like the breakfast and Abendbrot routine. The Dad taught me how to fix my flat tire on my bike this morning and while it's sort of isolating out here, it is beautiful and I like all the bike paths. I like their dog, taking her for walks and speaking Dog-German (yesterday I let her off the leash and she ran in someone's house, oops) and I like how the oldest son is very understanding and takes time to explain to me how things in the family work and what I should be doing, tells me when he wants time alone to do his stuff, etc. The fact that I speak German from mornings to evenings is very helpful too, as I do really need to be fluent by the end of the year. I just really need more of a balance between work and life and to be given a better idea of what I should be doing and a more solid schedule. I know the family is stressed in the morning getting ready and running around between afternoon activities, but I get stressed because I feel like they think I suck since everything is always told to me quickly as a side-comment.

So there you have it.

Living in the German Suburbs

2011-08-22T23:17:00.000+02:00

So I live in Kleinmachnow, a short bike ride from Zehlendorf, about 20-25 minutes from Berlin center. I'm definitely not in the center of all the action. Okay, I'm actually in German-yuppie land where all the rich families live, but I've been coming up with a list of pros to this. Namely:

One - I can get all my awkward biking skills up to par before all the cool people in Berlin see me. Two days ago I almost hit a dog on the bike path and had to come to a screeching halt. Yesterday I almost hit an old German couple because they didn't hear me yell "Entschuldigung!". I should probably buy a bell.

Two - I can become a runner before all the cool people in Berlin see me being lapped by little old grannies. I've been meaning to start running for awhile, but saying that I am currently more of a walker with short running breaks, I did not want to make an ass of myself in Northampton this year with all the crazy running people who run even if it's thunderstorming outside. Yesterday morning I took a path through the woods that ran along a river, past horses and chickens. You can't really go wrong with that. We'll ignore the fact that many middle-aged women and an old couple lapped me. You win some, you lose some. I will try to keep it up and get better. When I came home I immediately chugged apple juice and ate bread with vegan nutella smeared all over it and my host Mom and her friend laughed at me. The bread had WHOLE wheat berries in it…healthy!

Au-Pairing is definitely an interesting job and I've been very up and down with it. Sometimes I love it and think I'm doing a great job, other times I feel like I'm fucking everything up and the host family hates me (Example A: Setting off the house alarm and having the host Mom discover a pile of puke in the house because I let the dog eat grass during a walk, all within a 1-minute time span). I imagine that's normal though. The kids are generally very good and the oldest often helps me with the others and explains how things work. I'm learning how to deal with the five year old, as most of my experience is with older children so I have NO idea how to work with the little ones. He already shot me between the eyes with a nerf gun, smacked me, called me a man (which I didn't even realize until the Dad yelled at him), hit me in the eye with a foam sword, and tried to rip my clothes off in front of his parents. I never knew getting someone to go to bed and brush their teeth could be so difficult, but this will hopefully get better once he stops testing me. I hope I learn quickly how to deal with him better, as it is a bit embarrassing having a 5-year old own me on the daily.

Yesterday I was taking a shower and all of a sudden I hear someone saying "Hello! Hello!" I turn around, completely naked and in the midst of shaving, and another one of the kids is staring at me. I either didn't lock the door correctly or they have a key. Regardless, I'm not sure how that meant "Come in!". My German also doesn't work in panic situations, so after yelling "Close the door! Close the door!" I just got a blank look and more extended seconds of awkwardness, but eventually I got to continue my shower, albeit a bit shellshocked. So yes, the kids have already seen me naked and it's only my fourth day.

Other fun moments involve me putting my shoes against the wall neatly and finding the dog spooning one of them twice in the same day. Also, a conversation with the oldest (12 years) that went something like this:

J: *blah blah blah things in Berliner Deutsch I don't understand*
J: Die waren Berliner Schimpfworte. Du weisst keine Schimpfworte auf Deutsch.
Me: Weiss ich doch, aber ich kann kein Berliner Deutsch.
J: Ich weiss Englische Schimpfworte…"Fuck You"
Me: No, we do NOT say that.

*Sigh*

I was really afraid my German would be horrible when I got here as I haven't spoken any German all summer, but it came from some crevice of my brain and I've basically been speaking German from when I wake up to when I go to bed. For the first time I actually notice myself remembering conversations in German, which is interesting as earlier even if my conversation was in German I'd remember it in English. I feel like I'm learning so much everyday and am much more comfortable speaking it, even to new guests that come in the house and the kids' friends, etc. The only time it's difficult is when I'm trying to disciple the kids and their grammar is better than mine.

Starting in October I'm beginning a C1 level German class that meets four days a week from Monday to Thursday from 9am to 1pm. Holy crap. It might kill me, but one of my priorities really is to become fluent and I should be able to finish all the classes this year, thereby finishing all the levels. It's crazy that I took French 8 years and can't speak it at all, but German a bit less than a year and a half and I'm conversing with my host family solely in German. I'm going to have no life when it starts, however.

Currently sitting at Goodies in Berlin. My host Mom had work in Berlin today so she drove me in with her, which was nice. I need to buy a monthly ticket though as I've already spent a fortune on tickets for transportation within Berlin. Already stocked on on instant noodles at the Asian supermarket and am maybe going to the vegan store in Kreuzberg later to get some more essentials to bring back to the suburbs. Nom!

Bis bald!

Oh hai Deutschland

2011-08-18T11:16:00.001+02:00

After an summer camp filled summer at Bryn Mawr College and Princeton University, I just arrived in Kleinmachnow, Germany, which is right outside Berlin, and where I'll be spending the year as an au-pair! Get ready for some updates to this here blog now that I'm back abroad! So far I've toured my family's giant beautiful house and have unpacked my room. They even gave me my own bathroom! Tonight I'm going to take a test at a language school to see what level of German I am and enroll in a German class. I've been speaking to the family in German over e-mail, but I was afraid my spoken German would be completely gone when I got off the plane. Turns out it was hiding somewhere in a corner as I just spewed out lots of things for a couple hours. Whew. Pretty sure all genders and cases have been thrown to the wind, however. Anyway, here's to hoping I get in an advanced course!

Still haven't met the kids, but I imagine they get off school soon. They are all boys and I believe they are 5, 9 and 12. I was greeted by handmade signs from them in my room, so hopefully they will like me!

It still hasn't hit me that I'm in Germany again. Finally. I think I feel more normal than I felt this entire year. I think I've just mastered the art of packing and getting my way around airports. I managed to only get hit with a $25 fine for being 21 pounds over the weight limit! I win! While my suitcase was heavy, I managed to get here with only one suitcase and a backpack. I have come a long way. A little over a year ago I was lugging two giant heavy backpacks back to America. Have I learned my lesson?

Anyway, it's nice to be excited about life again!

Bis bald!