Over Three Weeks In

Here’s the long and short of my life. I moved to Germany this January and I am in Berlin for pretty much the whole year. I have a nice office at the Museum für Naturkunde, access to a ton of fishes that were prepared before there were animal rights, and a super cheap, super nice apartment to live in when I am not in the office. Bummer is that I don’t get to share it with everybody the way I would like to, but I make due and took some pictures. They are already up on facebook and myspace.
This afternoon I will go to a neighborhood called Kreuzburg where I will vote early in the democratic primary (I still do not know for whom) and then will be like a tourist and hang around that neighborhood with my new friends Steffi and Florian. Steffi is my age, almost done with her PhD and was dying for somebody to arrive her age almost finished with her PhD… we were fast friends which is really nice and makes the whole, “Hey, you’ve just moved across the 2nd biggest pond on the planet, to a country where they don’t always speak your native language and none of your friends or family are ever likely to step foot on.,” a lot easier. Florian helps me a lot with my German and in return I help him with his English when he asks -- great to sit next to him. It’s been over three weeks already and I understand a lot more german than I did when I got here, I have more confidence when I try to speak german, but it still doesn’t make it any easier with the communication is not affective… Allow me to tell you a short story about my near breakdown yesterday…

Picture it, 6:25pm on a Friday night… about the time that MOST stores in my neighborhood shut down for the evening. I was sick all day and really tired. I decided to go to the bank and make a deposit so I could pay my bills here… Problem was, I had no English option on the ATM machine and could not remember the word for DEPOSIT. So, I decided I would go to the teller man and ask him, “Sprechen Sie Englisch?” He said a resounding, “NEIN!” and I did my best German to ask “Wie sagt man Deposit?” How does one say, Deposit? And I even did a little sign language to indicate money goes in… That did not work. So I said, “Wo sind die Tickets?” And made sign language for deposit slip… he pointed me to a table. I went to the table and thought, maybe I could look at the deposit slip, and figure out the word for DEPOSIT… NEIN! But then a young guy from the bank came over and said, “Kann ich Ihnen helfen?” JA! DANKE!!! And I started talking to him in English… “I just need the word for deposit, I can do it on the machine in there, I’m sorry I am not speaking german, I’m so tired.” Well, the word is einzahlen. Good to know. I made my deposit, walked outside, and almost started crying right there on the sidewalk. GRUMBLE…

So I walked to a grocery store, bought Sauerkraut und Gourmet Kateschinkenwürfel (no they don’t sell cat waffles here – it’s one of the many variations on pork that exist in Germany)… I went home and made dinner with the two and tried to relax. I still felt ill (krank) but I felt better. Most things have been really straightforward though. Setting up the bank account was no problem, finding a great apartment was no problem, cell phone – well that was a problem and still is… just not gonna happen. The landline will get hooked up on 20. Feb and you can call me at that number then…

OK, back to Berlin. I really REALLY like the city. I know that I only spent two hours in SF so I cannot compare it really, but Berlin is awesome. It is my Philadelphia+ and I like it better than New York because the buildings are not as tall so there is more sunshine. IT’s really bizarre. I work in the former East Berlin and I live in the former West Berlin. It is a 25 minute walk each day and it is a pretty clear mark between the two halves still. Mostly because the building that I work in still has bullet holes all over it. It is dirty and dark and fascinating.

They started reconstructing the ruined wing that goes between the museum collections and the building I work in. That is, they starting that two weeks ago, yes that is 60 years after it was blown up in the first place.

The neighborhood I live in on the other hand is fairly posh… I live across the street from a discrete plastic surgeon and a discrete dentist, a shoemaker is down a little further as is an interior design firm, also, some type of biomedical research lab is right next door. I see them each morning with pipettes and other scary equipment through the window. The trainstation is really close and i am walking distance to the equivalent of Central Park called Tiergarten. I enjoy the contrast. Makes me really appreciate what I have.