This weekend is the second of two long weekends in a row in Germany, and as is tradition for Pentecost weekend, the Karneval der Kulturen parade took over western Kreuzberg, from Hermannplatz to Mehringdamm and the surrounding streets. For the last three years, I've watched this parade with various friends, taking photos of the outlandish floats and the dancers in feathered and glittered costumes, drinking capihirinas and strawberry punch all afternoon in the sunshine. This year though, especially since almost all of the friends I had previously visited the festival with had left Berlin, I decided to forgo the crowds of teenagers in skinny jeans and Ray Bans and families trying to push strollers through the hordes of people, and went up to Mauerpark for a spot of karaoke instead.
I've been working on a post on Bearpit Karaoke for a while, but the short version is that between April and November, Dubliner Joe Hatchiban loads his laptop and amplifiers onto his cargo bike and cycles over to the stone amphitheatre in Prenzlauer Berg's Mauerpark for several hours every Sunday afternoon, where Berlin's residents and visitors alike take to the stage and belt out all manner of karaoke classics. From tongue-in-cheek 80s number to Idol wannabes showing off what they can (or can't) do with Whitney and Mariah tracks, and rockers who don't care if they can't sing getting everyone singing along to Queen, AC/DC, Aerosmith and the Stones, there's something for everyone.
In the last few weeks, the fun police known as Berlin's city council has decided that karaoke should be restricted to a mere twelve Sundays per year, rather than every weekend. (There are plenty of German-language articles on it - this is one of the few English-language ones). Either way, watching and paticipating are completely free of charge, and it is one of my favourite ways to while away a Sunday in the sun. Considering this Sunday was one of the rare pre-announced karaoke dates, I had to go.
And that is how I spent my afternoon - in the sunshine at Mauerpark, with a Tyskie in one hand and a pen in the other, listening to Australians, Dutch, Germans and a surprising number of French singing all manner of songs. No one cared if they were in tune - as long as the crowd knew the song and the performer put in some effort, they were unanimously well received.
Toward the end, as people began to leave, I noticed that my favourite seat in the house had become vacant. A hill runs along one side of the park, and along with this being the location of the amphitheatre and a great place to toboggan in winter, there are also several large stand-alone swings along the path, one of which is directly behind the amphitheatre.
These were my favourite moments of yesterday, and possibly of the weekend: swinging high above Mauerpark, the golden sun sinking slowly into the northwest horizon, the sweet smell of heather and shisha on the breeze and the sound of someone belting out "Bohemian Rhapsody" on the stage below.
Bliss.
Showing posts with label Berlin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Berlin. Show all posts
The BVG - not just a transport network.
This post is one of those that resulted from a one-line note in my mobile quite a few months ago, on one of those rare days I didn't have a notebook with me in the underground. And yes, those days are indeed rare.
The BVG, as many of you know, is the city transport network for Berlin. It has its good days, its bad days, and its truly horrific days when major parts of the network strike, but in general, it leaves most of the other public transport networks I've had the pleasure (or, more often than not, the misfortune) of experiencing for dead. A spiderweb of trains, trams and buses connecting most areas of the city to most others, in a network so well thought out that the majority of Berliners choose to ride public transport over owning their own car.
Yes, the Berliners, and indeed ze Germans, are an environmentally conscious lot, which clearly gives public transport an advantage, but the BVG actually really is that good.
Living in a city which relies so heavily on public transport, you quickly learn to take a few select items with you every time you leave the house, so that you are not forced to endure the boredom of a: waiting for said transport, which to be fair is rarely more than about five or six minutes' wait (S-Bahn excluded, since they've been striking on and off for the better part of the last six months), or b: the ride in the public transport itself. One or two stops is tolerable, but then there's the walk to and from the station or bus stop, and add on a few minutes' wait, and heaven forbid you have to change once or twice in your journey, and that leaves you with at least half an hour of boredom which could potentially be alleviated by just one or two of a few small items.
My items of choice? For pure portability, an MP3 player, and usually at least either a book or my journal. Ultimately, I prefer to have at least two of these three items, to cater for battery failure or a particularly jittery driver impeding my writing or reading ability, but one will usually suffice. The problem is, choosing just one item leaves you open to the mercy of the choices of your fellow commuters. Choosing reading or writing material is practically begging for at least one of the kids in the train to play every single Turkish eurotrance or antagonistic German rap track that they have previously downloaded onto their mobile phone at the maximum volume that their Nokia can possibly pump out. Not pleasant.
The MP3 player is a better single choice, but then where do you look? If you're fortunate (that's a relative term, by the way) enough to be travelling by bus, or by tram, then you can quite happily while away the minutes staring out the window and watch the world go by.
Trains however, despite their inherent increased speed beneath the city from one rabbit hole to another, balance out this obvious benefit by removing all external visual stimulation. And so, should you have made the unfortunate choice to travel by train without bringing your own reading material, your only other option is to people-watch.
People-watching is where I get a large part of my inspiration for blog posts - so much so that I've actually got a series of posts in the works at the moment, the results of my observations while travelling around Berlin's underground network over the last two years. The characters of the Berlin transport network are truly unique, and there's never a dull moment in the train, if you know what you're looking for. More on these in upcoming posts though.
Occasionally however, you spy someone in the Ubahn who catches your attention, and even more occasionally, it's positive. You find your gaze drawn to them, not because of the Turkish eurotrash they're playing at volumes loud enough to wake the dead in southern Argentina, and not because you have the distinct impression that he or she hasn't indulged in personal hygiene for a period of years. No, sometimes, just sometimes, you catch a glimpse of someone you happen to find rather attractive. And suddenly, you're quite willing to delay the arrival at your destination a little just so that you can stay in their line of sight for a few extra moments.
Then before you know it, and most definitely before you're prepared to part with the welcome visual treat that he or she has brought into the usual monotony of a BVG ride, the yellow doors open and he or she has disappeared into the masses swarming on the platform. Just a few more moments later, as if nothing had happened, the doors close and you're on your way, back into your bubble of your MP3 player until you too finally reach your destination.
This happens on a regular basis - at least to me - and for the first few months of living in Berlin, I simply learned to welcome the opportunity for some eye candy to brighten up the hour ride from my old flat to Alexanderplatz. One day however, I noticed a poster on the inside of the train, advertising yet another service of the BVG, but unlike the others, this service actually had very little to do with transport and tickets. They weren't promoting the latest subscription deal for a yearly ticket, or kindly asking you to refrain from subjecting your fellow passengers to your choice of "music".
The BVG's latest promotional innovation was a dating service. Genius! Why didn't I think of that? Why just let the man or woman of your dreams get off at the next stop and disappear into the throng of communters on the platform? Find them again on the BVG website! Who knows - it could be the beginning of something beautiful!
The glaring problem here? How on earth to get in contact with him or her.
Simple. Register your details on the BVG website, and he or she can find you there. You can register your name, mobile number, your clothing and the clothing of the person you're searching for during the journey in which your encounter occured, the stations you travelled between, and of course the date and time of the encounter. Then, all you have to do is wait for them to register their details, remember what they were wearing at the time and the stations they travelled between, find you on the website, and bam - love!
It's foolproof! Nothing can go wrong!
Ok, BVG. I've got a tip for you. Stick to transport. Dating services are clearly not your strength.
The BVG, as many of you know, is the city transport network for Berlin. It has its good days, its bad days, and its truly horrific days when major parts of the network strike, but in general, it leaves most of the other public transport networks I've had the pleasure (or, more often than not, the misfortune) of experiencing for dead. A spiderweb of trains, trams and buses connecting most areas of the city to most others, in a network so well thought out that the majority of Berliners choose to ride public transport over owning their own car.
Yes, the Berliners, and indeed ze Germans, are an environmentally conscious lot, which clearly gives public transport an advantage, but the BVG actually really is that good.
Living in a city which relies so heavily on public transport, you quickly learn to take a few select items with you every time you leave the house, so that you are not forced to endure the boredom of a: waiting for said transport, which to be fair is rarely more than about five or six minutes' wait (S-Bahn excluded, since they've been striking on and off for the better part of the last six months), or b: the ride in the public transport itself. One or two stops is tolerable, but then there's the walk to and from the station or bus stop, and add on a few minutes' wait, and heaven forbid you have to change once or twice in your journey, and that leaves you with at least half an hour of boredom which could potentially be alleviated by just one or two of a few small items.
My items of choice? For pure portability, an MP3 player, and usually at least either a book or my journal. Ultimately, I prefer to have at least two of these three items, to cater for battery failure or a particularly jittery driver impeding my writing or reading ability, but one will usually suffice. The problem is, choosing just one item leaves you open to the mercy of the choices of your fellow commuters. Choosing reading or writing material is practically begging for at least one of the kids in the train to play every single Turkish eurotrance or antagonistic German rap track that they have previously downloaded onto their mobile phone at the maximum volume that their Nokia can possibly pump out. Not pleasant.
The MP3 player is a better single choice, but then where do you look? If you're fortunate (that's a relative term, by the way) enough to be travelling by bus, or by tram, then you can quite happily while away the minutes staring out the window and watch the world go by.
Trains however, despite their inherent increased speed beneath the city from one rabbit hole to another, balance out this obvious benefit by removing all external visual stimulation. And so, should you have made the unfortunate choice to travel by train without bringing your own reading material, your only other option is to people-watch.
People-watching is where I get a large part of my inspiration for blog posts - so much so that I've actually got a series of posts in the works at the moment, the results of my observations while travelling around Berlin's underground network over the last two years. The characters of the Berlin transport network are truly unique, and there's never a dull moment in the train, if you know what you're looking for. More on these in upcoming posts though.
Occasionally however, you spy someone in the Ubahn who catches your attention, and even more occasionally, it's positive. You find your gaze drawn to them, not because of the Turkish eurotrash they're playing at volumes loud enough to wake the dead in southern Argentina, and not because you have the distinct impression that he or she hasn't indulged in personal hygiene for a period of years. No, sometimes, just sometimes, you catch a glimpse of someone you happen to find rather attractive. And suddenly, you're quite willing to delay the arrival at your destination a little just so that you can stay in their line of sight for a few extra moments.
Then before you know it, and most definitely before you're prepared to part with the welcome visual treat that he or she has brought into the usual monotony of a BVG ride, the yellow doors open and he or she has disappeared into the masses swarming on the platform. Just a few more moments later, as if nothing had happened, the doors close and you're on your way, back into your bubble of your MP3 player until you too finally reach your destination.
This happens on a regular basis - at least to me - and for the first few months of living in Berlin, I simply learned to welcome the opportunity for some eye candy to brighten up the hour ride from my old flat to Alexanderplatz. One day however, I noticed a poster on the inside of the train, advertising yet another service of the BVG, but unlike the others, this service actually had very little to do with transport and tickets. They weren't promoting the latest subscription deal for a yearly ticket, or kindly asking you to refrain from subjecting your fellow passengers to your choice of "music".
The BVG's latest promotional innovation was a dating service. Genius! Why didn't I think of that? Why just let the man or woman of your dreams get off at the next stop and disappear into the throng of communters on the platform? Find them again on the BVG website! Who knows - it could be the beginning of something beautiful!
The glaring problem here? How on earth to get in contact with him or her.
Simple. Register your details on the BVG website, and he or she can find you there. You can register your name, mobile number, your clothing and the clothing of the person you're searching for during the journey in which your encounter occured, the stations you travelled between, and of course the date and time of the encounter. Then, all you have to do is wait for them to register their details, remember what they were wearing at the time and the stations they travelled between, find you on the website, and bam - love!
It's foolproof! Nothing can go wrong!
Ok, BVG. I've got a tip for you. Stick to transport. Dating services are clearly not your strength.
Back to basics.
You know, back in Australia, there was something that I absolutely loved doing. Something that made me forget about almost everything else.
Well, two things.
One is writing. Hence the blog.
The other is being around kids.
I was a Brownie Guide when i was a kid: I had the stylish 1980s brown and gold uniform, complete with school shoes on a weekend, and a whole collection of cool badges. The works. I was a Girl Guide too, but when I finished Guides, instead of moving on to Rangers, the next age group in the Guide movement in Australia, I switched from being one of the kids to being one of the leaders. Suddenly I was the one running activities, making pancakes on a Tuesday night in a local guide hall while a bunch of twelve-year-olds played Jacob's Ladder, coordinating holiday excursions to science museums, and weekend camps for thirty pre-teen girls, and I loved it!
I guess it was a natural transition for me. I had started babysitting when I was about twelve: the kids next door were about two or three years old at the time, and had a full-time nanny. I was over there a lot, helping out with the kids, and I also loved helping my aunty with my three young cousins, so as soon as I was old enough, it was logical that I take this on for myself: at one stage, I had four regular families I would babysit for.
I've never really had a favourite age group: school age, toddler, early high school. You can have a lot of fun with them all. But working with kids in general is what I missed in Germany. I didn't notice it for a while. For the first year I was here, I was teaching anyway, so I didn't really want to spend my hours away from school with kids. I went on a few church youth group camps, but I didn't have the regular contact that I got used to in Australia, and when I finished up at the school, that was pretty much the end of my regular contact with kids.
I guess it was a natural transition for me. I had started babysitting when I was about twelve: the kids next door were about two or three years old at the time, and had a full-time nanny. I was over there a lot, helping out with the kids, and I also loved helping my aunty with my three young cousins, so as soon as I was old enough, it was logical that I take this on for myself: at one stage, I had four regular families I would babysit for.
I've never really had a favourite age group: school age, toddler, early high school. You can have a lot of fun with them all. But working with kids in general is what I missed in Germany. I didn't notice it for a while. For the first year I was here, I was teaching anyway, so I didn't really want to spend my hours away from school with kids. I went on a few church youth group camps, but I didn't have the regular contact that I got used to in Australia, and when I finished up at the school, that was pretty much the end of my regular contact with kids.
After a few months, I realised something was missing, but I couldn't put my finger on what exactly it was. It wasn't until the opportunity practically fell into my lap that I realised what I'd been missing.
A friend of mine had been working at a community centre in southern Berlin for a couple of months, tutoring a group of about eleven children two nights a week in English, German and multiple other subjects. She asked me if I might be interested in taking over her hours there, since her own workload had significantly increased to the point where she couldn't keep up the twice-weekly commitment. "Sure, why not?"
After the first hour there two weeks ago, I knew this was something I wanted to do. Something I needed to do. This was the something I had been missing.
The kids are a mixed bunch. They all have African backgrounds, but almost all of them were born in Berlin, which makes their German better than mine in terms of slang, but I still have the upper hand when it comes to spelling, and surprisingly enough, articles and gender.
There's Laura*, a pint sized powerhouse who has all the personality of Queen Latifah and demands to be the centre of attention of all of the other kids, despite the fact that she's the youngest and the smallest. Or more likely, because of both of these factors.
There's Rene*, one of the youngest boys, who cannot decide if he wants to be the cool slacker, or if he actually wants to use his intelligence for good, not evil, and give some of the other kids in his class a run for their money.
And there's Tanja*, my secret personal favourite, described recently by the friend I took over from as "the kid you would most want your own child to be like" - charismatic, confident, intelligent - someone you just know has a very bright future in front of them.
But all of them have this strange yet wonderful ability to make me check my baggage at the door. Once I step inside this makeshift classroom, it's all about these kids for the next two hours: making up homework for kids who forgot theirs (either deliberately or not), explaining the solar system in German to a fifth grader, quizzing a twelve-year-old on the countries of the world, and simultaneously helping T revise for an English vocabulary test the following day while helping her friend M complete a written assignment in German at the same table.
Never underestimate the power of a group of kids to make you forget whatever's getting you down for a whole two hours. Even if it's only two hours, twice a week. That's four hours more than before.
A friend of mine had been working at a community centre in southern Berlin for a couple of months, tutoring a group of about eleven children two nights a week in English, German and multiple other subjects. She asked me if I might be interested in taking over her hours there, since her own workload had significantly increased to the point where she couldn't keep up the twice-weekly commitment. "Sure, why not?"
After the first hour there two weeks ago, I knew this was something I wanted to do. Something I needed to do. This was the something I had been missing.
The kids are a mixed bunch. They all have African backgrounds, but almost all of them were born in Berlin, which makes their German better than mine in terms of slang, but I still have the upper hand when it comes to spelling, and surprisingly enough, articles and gender.
There's Laura*, a pint sized powerhouse who has all the personality of Queen Latifah and demands to be the centre of attention of all of the other kids, despite the fact that she's the youngest and the smallest. Or more likely, because of both of these factors.
There's Rene*, one of the youngest boys, who cannot decide if he wants to be the cool slacker, or if he actually wants to use his intelligence for good, not evil, and give some of the other kids in his class a run for their money.
And there's Tanja*, my secret personal favourite, described recently by the friend I took over from as "the kid you would most want your own child to be like" - charismatic, confident, intelligent - someone you just know has a very bright future in front of them.
But all of them have this strange yet wonderful ability to make me check my baggage at the door. Once I step inside this makeshift classroom, it's all about these kids for the next two hours: making up homework for kids who forgot theirs (either deliberately or not), explaining the solar system in German to a fifth grader, quizzing a twelve-year-old on the countries of the world, and simultaneously helping T revise for an English vocabulary test the following day while helping her friend M complete a written assignment in German at the same table.
Never underestimate the power of a group of kids to make you forget whatever's getting you down for a whole two hours. Even if it's only two hours, twice a week. That's four hours more than before.
20 years later: tracing the scars of the Wall - former checkpoint at Heinrich-Heine-Straße.
Recurring visa issues have forced my work hours down to 20 hours per week, and while this is frustrating and somewhat inconvenient in terms of paying bills and enjoying this amazing city, it does have its benefits, one of which being that it leaves me with a bunch of free time during the week. So earlier this week, having finished work at 12.30, I decided that it was far too nice a Monday afternoon to spend it inside learning French and Italian vocabulary, and traded the language books for sunglasses, an MP3 player and my bike.
There are still a whole lot of places in and around Berlin that I want to explore more, so this particular afternoon I chose to venture north into Kreuzberg, specifically the area around Heinrich-Heine-Straße underground station.
Since this year is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and since I'm a bit of a Berlin history nut, I've made it my mission to visit each of the East Berlin/West Berlin checkpoints before the summer is over. Heinrich-Heine-Straße is one of the two within about 15mins ride from my flat. More about Heinrich Heine in another blog post.
So I ventured over to this particular border crossing, and like many of the others, there's very little of it left. So little, in fact, that had I not found it on the offical website of Berlin city, I never would have known it existed. The watchtowers are gone. There are no wall fragments here. The only marker is the double row of paving stones crossing the street at the place where this now busy north-south thoroughfare was once truncated by the "anti-facist protective barrier" as it was referred to by the government of the GDR (former East Germany). You could quite happily cruise on past, completely oblivious to the fact that for twenty-eight years, Berlin's streets, underground network, its rivers and lakes, and most heartbreakingly, the lives of the Berliners, were severed in two by this wall.
Today, twenty years after reunification, the scars marking where the wall cut through the city are in various stages of healing. Some, like Checkpoint Charlie and Bernauer Straße, have been preserved exactly as they were, and the adjoining museums offer visitors a glimpse of what life was like in divided Berlin.
But other scars have begun to fade. Some, like the former train checkpoint at Friedrichstraße station, have retained the original structures. Most however are like Heinrich-Heine-Straße though; the Berlin Wall has been reduced to a thin line of cobblestones crossing the street, and life in Berlin takes place on both sides of the pavers as if nothing had ever happened.
There are still a whole lot of places in and around Berlin that I want to explore more, so this particular afternoon I chose to venture north into Kreuzberg, specifically the area around Heinrich-Heine-Straße underground station.
Since this year is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and since I'm a bit of a Berlin history nut, I've made it my mission to visit each of the East Berlin/West Berlin checkpoints before the summer is over. Heinrich-Heine-Straße is one of the two within about 15mins ride from my flat. More about Heinrich Heine in another blog post.
So I ventured over to this particular border crossing, and like many of the others, there's very little of it left. So little, in fact, that had I not found it on the offical website of Berlin city, I never would have known it existed. The watchtowers are gone. There are no wall fragments here. The only marker is the double row of paving stones crossing the street at the place where this now busy north-south thoroughfare was once truncated by the "anti-facist protective barrier" as it was referred to by the government of the GDR (former East Germany). You could quite happily cruise on past, completely oblivious to the fact that for twenty-eight years, Berlin's streets, underground network, its rivers and lakes, and most heartbreakingly, the lives of the Berliners, were severed in two by this wall.
Today, twenty years after reunification, the scars marking where the wall cut through the city are in various stages of healing. Some, like Checkpoint Charlie and Bernauer Straße, have been preserved exactly as they were, and the adjoining museums offer visitors a glimpse of what life was like in divided Berlin.
But other scars have begun to fade. Some, like the former train checkpoint at Friedrichstraße station, have retained the original structures. Most however are like Heinrich-Heine-Straße though; the Berlin Wall has been reduced to a thin line of cobblestones crossing the street, and life in Berlin takes place on both sides of the pavers as if nothing had ever happened.
Beggars can't be choosers. Except in Berlin apparently.
I just have to share this anecdote.
Last Saturday, having been rostered on to work the weekend shift, I got to work about 5mins early, and as is usual for me on a Saturday, I had sacrificed breakfast time for snooze time, so by the time I actually got to work, I was indeed rather hungry, having not eaten since the night before. I knew I would be on my own at reception from 9.30am until 3pm, so if I was going to get food, it would have to happen on the way to work.
There's a bakery next door to my building, so I ducked in before going into the school and got myself two bread rolls and something called a "Nußschnecke" (loosely translates as a "nut snail", a scroll with ground nuts sprinkled over it), with the intention of making some lunch at work using the meagre ingredients of the two aforementioned bread rolls, the margarine that a colleague is generous enough to share with me, and my sacred jar of Vegemite.
But as luck would have it, this particular Saturday turned out to be one of those that wasn't ever really what you'd classify as busy - rather just constant. Every fifteen minutes or so, a rumbling kind of noise from my hungry stomach would remind me that I hadn't eaten, and I would think of my breakfast provisions in the kitchen, but every time I went to get up from the desk, either the phone would ring, a student would come to ask for help, or a prospective student would walk through the door, none of which I could really ignore.
Eventually it got to be 3pm, and having long since given up on the idea of having breakfast at work before going home, I put my Vegemite, the two bread rolls and the scroll into my backpack and headed on home.
Sitting on the train a few moments later, headphones in, my focus completely on writing legibly in my journal despite the arythmic rocking and jolting of the train, I did notice a very grotty pair of sneakers walk past me in the carriage. They belonged to a homeless man, a Strassenfeger vendor - one of the two Berlin street magazines: similar to The Big Issue. He did his usual spiel of having not been employed for over six months and being now authorised to sell this particular publication, and continued on to ask for donations of a few Euros or maybe something to eat or to drink. Usually I don't bother, but I've seen this guy on the train almost every day for the last few weeks, and he never seems to sell any of his newspapers.
So I took pity on him. I reached into my bag, pulled out the delicious Nußschnecke and beckoned him over. "Das können Sie ruhig haben, wenn Sie möchten," I told him politely, and handed him the bakery bag.
He half smiled. "Danke," he replied. "Wirklich, danke schön", he repeated and continued down the carriage to the door a few metres away.
When he got to the door, he took a peek in the bag. Then he turned and looked at me. "Was ist das?" he asked me, a quizzical look on his face.
"Nußschnecke," I told him.
"Na, das ist ja schön," he told me sarcastically, with an equally disdainful look. "That's great."
I was confused. I'd just given him food, and he was giving me attitude in return.
"Ich mag keine Nüsse. Hast du was anderes?"
I couldn't believe it. I'd just handed this guy my delicious Nußschnecke, my completely delectable nut scroll, out of pity for him and his situation, and he had the nerve to turn around to me and tell me, using the informal form of "you" no less, that you only use for children and people you know pretty well, that I should give him something else.
He doesn't like nuts.
Boo freaking hoo. That's the last time I give a homeless guy a nut scroll. Or food in general, for that matter. Soup kitchen, sure. Homeless shelter - absolutely. But no more of my food to the train beggars, if that's the thanks I get. Charming.
Last Saturday, having been rostered on to work the weekend shift, I got to work about 5mins early, and as is usual for me on a Saturday, I had sacrificed breakfast time for snooze time, so by the time I actually got to work, I was indeed rather hungry, having not eaten since the night before. I knew I would be on my own at reception from 9.30am until 3pm, so if I was going to get food, it would have to happen on the way to work.
There's a bakery next door to my building, so I ducked in before going into the school and got myself two bread rolls and something called a "Nußschnecke" (loosely translates as a "nut snail", a scroll with ground nuts sprinkled over it), with the intention of making some lunch at work using the meagre ingredients of the two aforementioned bread rolls, the margarine that a colleague is generous enough to share with me, and my sacred jar of Vegemite.
But as luck would have it, this particular Saturday turned out to be one of those that wasn't ever really what you'd classify as busy - rather just constant. Every fifteen minutes or so, a rumbling kind of noise from my hungry stomach would remind me that I hadn't eaten, and I would think of my breakfast provisions in the kitchen, but every time I went to get up from the desk, either the phone would ring, a student would come to ask for help, or a prospective student would walk through the door, none of which I could really ignore.
Eventually it got to be 3pm, and having long since given up on the idea of having breakfast at work before going home, I put my Vegemite, the two bread rolls and the scroll into my backpack and headed on home.
Sitting on the train a few moments later, headphones in, my focus completely on writing legibly in my journal despite the arythmic rocking and jolting of the train, I did notice a very grotty pair of sneakers walk past me in the carriage. They belonged to a homeless man, a Strassenfeger vendor - one of the two Berlin street magazines: similar to The Big Issue. He did his usual spiel of having not been employed for over six months and being now authorised to sell this particular publication, and continued on to ask for donations of a few Euros or maybe something to eat or to drink. Usually I don't bother, but I've seen this guy on the train almost every day for the last few weeks, and he never seems to sell any of his newspapers.
So I took pity on him. I reached into my bag, pulled out the delicious Nußschnecke and beckoned him over. "Das können Sie ruhig haben, wenn Sie möchten," I told him politely, and handed him the bakery bag.
He half smiled. "Danke," he replied. "Wirklich, danke schön", he repeated and continued down the carriage to the door a few metres away.
When he got to the door, he took a peek in the bag. Then he turned and looked at me. "Was ist das?" he asked me, a quizzical look on his face.
"Nußschnecke," I told him.
"Na, das ist ja schön," he told me sarcastically, with an equally disdainful look. "That's great."
I was confused. I'd just given him food, and he was giving me attitude in return.
"Ich mag keine Nüsse. Hast du was anderes?"
I couldn't believe it. I'd just handed this guy my delicious Nußschnecke, my completely delectable nut scroll, out of pity for him and his situation, and he had the nerve to turn around to me and tell me, using the informal form of "you" no less, that you only use for children and people you know pretty well, that I should give him something else.
He doesn't like nuts.
Boo freaking hoo. That's the last time I give a homeless guy a nut scroll. Or food in general, for that matter. Soup kitchen, sure. Homeless shelter - absolutely. But no more of my food to the train beggars, if that's the thanks I get. Charming.
Kangaroos, koalas, wombats... and giraffes?
Germany has something of a reputation for being environmentally friendly, and despite Berlin's population being comparable to Melbourne (approximately 3.5million), the German capital is amazingly compact - it's perfect for cyclists, and the vast majority of residents rely either on their bikes or on the admittedly quite incredible public transport system - the BVG.
Compared to other public transport systems I've experienced around the world, especially the dog's breakfast that is metlink, the Melbourne public transport disaster, Berlin's BVG is a masterpiece. It's not perfect - after all, it's run by humans - but it's a bloody lot better than anything other public transport system I've seen.
In the carriages, again, a testament to German efficiency, 20cm TV screens broadcast news, sport, weather, Hollywood gossip and events and in and around Berlin to the commuters. For almost the entire month of February 2009, Australia was making headlines around the world for all the wrong reasons - cyclones and floods in the north, earthquakes, a disastrous oil slick, and in my home state of Victoria, the worst bushfires in recorded history, just kilometres from my home city. Unfortunately I was reminded of this hellfire around my home every morning and every afternoon on my commute to work.
Anyway, one particular morning on the way to work in late February, Australia was yet again the focus of the news: this time it was the heatwaves in southern Australia. The screens are in pairs - usually one display shows the story, and the other a related photo. Sam the Koala had been a favourite photo for recent weeks, so I was rather surprised to see a story about Australia that wasn't accompanied by the grey, fluffy, bushfire survivor.
What was even more surprising was the photo chosen to accompany this particular story.
Sam hadn't been replaced by one of his fellow marsupials - he hadn't even been replaced by a dingo, or an emu, or a crocodile, or a fruit bat, which at least would have counted as Australian.
He had been replaced by a freaking giraffe.
Huh???
Compared to other public transport systems I've experienced around the world, especially the dog's breakfast that is metlink, the Melbourne public transport disaster, Berlin's BVG is a masterpiece. It's not perfect - after all, it's run by humans - but it's a bloody lot better than anything other public transport system I've seen.
In the carriages, again, a testament to German efficiency, 20cm TV screens broadcast news, sport, weather, Hollywood gossip and events and in and around Berlin to the commuters. For almost the entire month of February 2009, Australia was making headlines around the world for all the wrong reasons - cyclones and floods in the north, earthquakes, a disastrous oil slick, and in my home state of Victoria, the worst bushfires in recorded history, just kilometres from my home city. Unfortunately I was reminded of this hellfire around my home every morning and every afternoon on my commute to work.
Anyway, one particular morning on the way to work in late February, Australia was yet again the focus of the news: this time it was the heatwaves in southern Australia. The screens are in pairs - usually one display shows the story, and the other a related photo. Sam the Koala had been a favourite photo for recent weeks, so I was rather surprised to see a story about Australia that wasn't accompanied by the grey, fluffy, bushfire survivor.
What was even more surprising was the photo chosen to accompany this particular story.
Sam hadn't been replaced by one of his fellow marsupials - he hadn't even been replaced by a dingo, or an emu, or a crocodile, or a fruit bat, which at least would have counted as Australian.
He had been replaced by a freaking giraffe.
Huh???
Permission to heart Berlin until at least 2012!
It's official. After having submitted my application for a work permit and German residency in early March, and being told that the processing time would be six to eight weeks (yes, and I'm the Queen of England - just excuse me for a moment while I polish my crown...), Australis now has two pretty new pink stickers in her funky blue passport with a kangaroo and an emu on the front.
Might not sound like much, but these two stickers mean that yours truly has (finally!!!) been granted permission from the German Immigration Department, which I like to call "Höllenbrut" (roughly translates to "Hellspawn"), to remain a resident of the poor but sexy capital of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland until May 2011.
On top of that, the Federal Employment Office approved my work permit until 2012, so technically, it's a two-year residency, with automatic renewal for a third year, and as the icing on a truly stupendously amazing Kuchen, after three years, this permit becomes permanent. As of 2013, I'm a permanent resident of Germany, with unlimited employment rights. UNLIMITED!!!
Who knew it would only take two phone calls and five emails a day for the last two weeks to get an answer from them?
Oh, and in case you're curious, just because they gave me a visa today, and a two-year one at that, doesn't mean they're no longer hellspawn.
Telling an expat, and one from Australia no less, a country that is not only on a different continent, but a mere thirteen time zones and 14,500km away from Germany, and therefore a destination for which travel plans, let alone permanent relocation arrangements, require months of planning and lots and lots of €€€ (and even more $AUD), that the processing time for their residency application will take approximately six to eight weeks maximum, then proceeding to ignore all contact attempts from said Australian applicant, including but not limited to calls, emails, faxes and smoke signals, until four working days before their previous visa expires (ELEVEN WEEKS after the initial application was submitted), is beyond cruel and unusual torture.
Then, imagine my disbelief when the case worker assigned to me had the nerve to tell tell me today with typical German bureaucratic attitude "It was completely unnecessary to call and email us every day in the last few weeks. We were going to contact you eventually. You just need to learn to be patient."
The steam coming from my ears could have powered Puffing Billy for a good few months.
The Ausländerbehörde still = Höllenbrut.
(German Immigration = Hellspawn.)
But I have a visa, and that's reason enough for beer o'clock. As an added bonus, tonight I'm heading out to the movies with a friend: "Wolverine" - in English (yay!), Hugh Jackman looking incredible, and all of this with my mate Hans. Good times are in store.
Might not sound like much, but these two stickers mean that yours truly has (finally!!!) been granted permission from the German Immigration Department, which I like to call "Höllenbrut" (roughly translates to "Hellspawn"), to remain a resident of the poor but sexy capital of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland until May 2011.
On top of that, the Federal Employment Office approved my work permit until 2012, so technically, it's a two-year residency, with automatic renewal for a third year, and as the icing on a truly stupendously amazing Kuchen, after three years, this permit becomes permanent. As of 2013, I'm a permanent resident of Germany, with unlimited employment rights. UNLIMITED!!!
Who knew it would only take two phone calls and five emails a day for the last two weeks to get an answer from them?
Oh, and in case you're curious, just because they gave me a visa today, and a two-year one at that, doesn't mean they're no longer hellspawn.
Telling an expat, and one from Australia no less, a country that is not only on a different continent, but a mere thirteen time zones and 14,500km away from Germany, and therefore a destination for which travel plans, let alone permanent relocation arrangements, require months of planning and lots and lots of €€€ (and even more $AUD), that the processing time for their residency application will take approximately six to eight weeks maximum, then proceeding to ignore all contact attempts from said Australian applicant, including but not limited to calls, emails, faxes and smoke signals, until four working days before their previous visa expires (ELEVEN WEEKS after the initial application was submitted), is beyond cruel and unusual torture.
Then, imagine my disbelief when the case worker assigned to me had the nerve to tell tell me today with typical German bureaucratic attitude "It was completely unnecessary to call and email us every day in the last few weeks. We were going to contact you eventually. You just need to learn to be patient."
The steam coming from my ears could have powered Puffing Billy for a good few months.
The Ausländerbehörde still = Höllenbrut.
(German Immigration = Hellspawn.)
But I have a visa, and that's reason enough for beer o'clock. As an added bonus, tonight I'm heading out to the movies with a friend: "Wolverine" - in English (yay!), Hugh Jackman looking incredible, and all of this with my mate Hans. Good times are in store.
Mr Bauhaus Trolley Man
4.22pm on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon in January in wintry Berlin.
I'm working a split shift, so I have a few hours before I have to be back at work for round two. I've had enough of not having curtains - my room is on the third floor, and has a huge bay window, which is really great for the sunshine and natural light, but my room looks out onto a courtyard: 30m away on the other side is another apartment building also with bay windows on every floor, and next to that is a high school. Yes, not only can my neighbours stare right into my room, but on weekdays, about ninety students can watch my every move from the comfort of their classroom. *shiver*.
Anyway, there's a hardware store around the corner from me, so I ventured down there into the testosterone paradise that is the German hardware store, Bauhaus.
It's no Bunnings - the standard of service at the two DIY worlds are poles apart, and Bunnings' range is unparalleled, but Bauhaus isn't far off.
I wander around for a few minutes and eventually find the curtain rods and rings, without any help from their staff - all of the high school students I have ever taught showed more enthusiasm towards learning the past imperfect tense than German service staff show towards, well, service!
After a short period of deliberation, I decide to just note down some prices to compare with the Swedish homeware haven. Any excuse for an excursion to Ikea.
As I return towards the entrance to the store to continue on my journey around Berlin, preparing to brace myself for the subzero temperatures outside, I see something which brings an immediate grin to my face.
An older gentleman, perhaps in his late 60s or early 70s, is also making his way out of the store with a trolley laden with paint tins, curtain rods and various other items which suggested a spot of redecoration was in his very near future.
That's not the entertaining part.
The entertaining part is that suddenly this gentleman in his late 60s or early 70s suddenly takes a run-up of a few steps, leans forward, puts his entire weight on the trolley and coasts blissfully along through Bauhaus for about ten metres. His momentum starts to wane, so he repeats his run-up again and coasts a few more metres, before using his feet to brake just half a metre before the concrete steps down to the carpark.
Between Trolley Man and Oma Chuck Taylors, it is clear that even Berlin's senior generation has not lost its ability to embrace their inner youth, even if they only let it show when they're reasonably sure no one is watching.
Reason #43623 why Australis hearts Berlin.
I'm working a split shift, so I have a few hours before I have to be back at work for round two. I've had enough of not having curtains - my room is on the third floor, and has a huge bay window, which is really great for the sunshine and natural light, but my room looks out onto a courtyard: 30m away on the other side is another apartment building also with bay windows on every floor, and next to that is a high school. Yes, not only can my neighbours stare right into my room, but on weekdays, about ninety students can watch my every move from the comfort of their classroom. *shiver*.
Anyway, there's a hardware store around the corner from me, so I ventured down there into the testosterone paradise that is the German hardware store, Bauhaus.
It's no Bunnings - the standard of service at the two DIY worlds are poles apart, and Bunnings' range is unparalleled, but Bauhaus isn't far off.
I wander around for a few minutes and eventually find the curtain rods and rings, without any help from their staff - all of the high school students I have ever taught showed more enthusiasm towards learning the past imperfect tense than German service staff show towards, well, service!
After a short period of deliberation, I decide to just note down some prices to compare with the Swedish homeware haven. Any excuse for an excursion to Ikea.
As I return towards the entrance to the store to continue on my journey around Berlin, preparing to brace myself for the subzero temperatures outside, I see something which brings an immediate grin to my face.
An older gentleman, perhaps in his late 60s or early 70s, is also making his way out of the store with a trolley laden with paint tins, curtain rods and various other items which suggested a spot of redecoration was in his very near future.
That's not the entertaining part.
The entertaining part is that suddenly this gentleman in his late 60s or early 70s suddenly takes a run-up of a few steps, leans forward, puts his entire weight on the trolley and coasts blissfully along through Bauhaus for about ten metres. His momentum starts to wane, so he repeats his run-up again and coasts a few more metres, before using his feet to brake just half a metre before the concrete steps down to the carpark.
Between Trolley Man and Oma Chuck Taylors, it is clear that even Berlin's senior generation has not lost its ability to embrace their inner youth, even if they only let it show when they're reasonably sure no one is watching.
Reason #43623 why Australis hearts Berlin.
The hint of summer in the Hauptstadt
In the last five minutes, I have managed to ascertain that spring has indeed finally sprung, for good, in Berlin.
I got home from tutoring tonight around 6pm. On the way home, I had been basking in the brilliant late afternoon sunshine streaming in through the windows of the tram, and by the time I got home, I was so energised by the sudden intake of Vitamin D that I abandoned my thrilling plans of burying myself in my blog or making some dinner while the sun was still relatively high in the sky, considering it was 6.30pm, and after a light-speed costume change, I jumped on my bike and wound my way through the narrow cobbled back streets of Neukölln to Görlitzer Park. I had spent most of Sunday there with a friend of mine, just chilling, dozing, soaking up the rays, and have since decided it is indeed one of my favourite parks in Berlin, if only for the people watching opportunities. Almost as good as Riga International Airport (More on that to come in a future entry).
Anyways, tonight I ended up back at Görlitzer Park, and no sooner had I cruised to a halt, claimed my two metres squared of grass and taken a drink of water, than I suddenly heard my name being called. Berlin is a city-sized village: one of my friend's former flatmates and one of his mates were on the grass only metres away. I hadn't seen them in ages, so I scooted over and hung out with them for a while.
As the sun began to sink lower toward the western horizon, taking with it the blue skies and leaving in its wake the first of the evening's stars, I remembered that since I had no lights on my derelict but trusty bike, I would have to leave before it got really dark - the German police are renowned for issuing on-the-spot fines for non-lit bikes, and I neither had the money nor the inclination to have my day spoiled by the Polizei.
As I made my way through the winding streets on my way back, I was treated to one of my favourite smells in the world: the smell of Berlin on a summer night. It wasn't quite as perfectly Berlin as it will be in a few months - June, July and August are the ultimate - but it was definitely there.
The deliciously hunger-inducing aroma of chicken and lamb slices sizzling in spicy marinades on döner kebab rotisseries around Neukölln, and the occasional wafts of perfumed smoke from the water pipes being smoked out on the pavement shisha bars all over Neukölln and Kreuzberg.
Australis hearts Berlin. Man, does she heart Berlin.
I got home from tutoring tonight around 6pm. On the way home, I had been basking in the brilliant late afternoon sunshine streaming in through the windows of the tram, and by the time I got home, I was so energised by the sudden intake of Vitamin D that I abandoned my thrilling plans of burying myself in my blog or making some dinner while the sun was still relatively high in the sky, considering it was 6.30pm, and after a light-speed costume change, I jumped on my bike and wound my way through the narrow cobbled back streets of Neukölln to Görlitzer Park. I had spent most of Sunday there with a friend of mine, just chilling, dozing, soaking up the rays, and have since decided it is indeed one of my favourite parks in Berlin, if only for the people watching opportunities. Almost as good as Riga International Airport (More on that to come in a future entry).
Anyways, tonight I ended up back at Görlitzer Park, and no sooner had I cruised to a halt, claimed my two metres squared of grass and taken a drink of water, than I suddenly heard my name being called. Berlin is a city-sized village: one of my friend's former flatmates and one of his mates were on the grass only metres away. I hadn't seen them in ages, so I scooted over and hung out with them for a while.
As the sun began to sink lower toward the western horizon, taking with it the blue skies and leaving in its wake the first of the evening's stars, I remembered that since I had no lights on my derelict but trusty bike, I would have to leave before it got really dark - the German police are renowned for issuing on-the-spot fines for non-lit bikes, and I neither had the money nor the inclination to have my day spoiled by the Polizei.
As I made my way through the winding streets on my way back, I was treated to one of my favourite smells in the world: the smell of Berlin on a summer night. It wasn't quite as perfectly Berlin as it will be in a few months - June, July and August are the ultimate - but it was definitely there.
The deliciously hunger-inducing aroma of chicken and lamb slices sizzling in spicy marinades on döner kebab rotisseries around Neukölln, and the occasional wafts of perfumed smoke from the water pipes being smoked out on the pavement shisha bars all over Neukölln and Kreuzberg.
Australis hearts Berlin. Man, does she heart Berlin.
Reason #8324 why I heart Berlin
Unlike my last blog entry, which was a work in progress for about a year, this one is about two hours from start to finish: experience, contemplation, commitment to a blog entry, formulation and publication.
I've been off work sick for the last few days - throat infection, so nothing drastic enough to keep me bed ridden: just bad enough that I was, for all intents and purposes, mute for the weekend. Brilliant. I was forced to communicate either via whispers (not great in a room full of people), a notebook (writing takes an amazing amount of time, and by the time I had written my witty comment down on my notebook and shown it around, the conversation had long since moved on. Grr.), or via Skype (very effective simply due to the speed of communication available, but slightly ridiculous when talking to a friend who is in reality sitting on the sofa on the other side of the room, only two metres away).
Anyway, today I was feeling much better - the drugs had been working, I had my voice back (partly), and on top of all that, I got a marvellous night's sleep and awoke to the first day of spring in Berlin, albeit halfway through March, but better late than never.
So after breakfast, I got my camera, mp3 player, sunglasses and hat, and lugged my new bike down all six flights of stairs (no lock-up facility in the basement, and also no lift in my building), and set off to discover undiscovered corners of Berlin.
Karl-Marx-Straße, the infamous Sonnenallee, Treptower Park, the Soviet Memorial, the Archenhold Sternwart (where a visitors' information board proudly announced that Albert Einstein had held his first lecture in Berlin on his newly discovered "Theory of Relativity" right here), then into Kreuzberg, one of the suburbs of inner Berlin which was split into two countries for 28 years by the Wall, and is now the thriving heart of Berlin's punk and alternative scene, in addition to being my favourite neighbourhood for drinks, shisha and general great nights out.
I began to make my way home - since it was St Pats day and all, I had various pubs to tour later in the day with my Irish flatmate and various other expats from the Emerald Isle, and had stuff to do before that. Coasting down an unassuming street, I noticed a metal display board at the side of the street, and slowed down to have a better look.
The site was the location of a tunnel built in 1962, through which 29 people escaped from East Berlin to West Berlin.
Bam. A subtle reminder (if I needed one) that Berlin has only been a reunified city for twenty years, and that East Germany and West Germany existed in my lifetime: these escapes were in the lifetimes of my parents, from a regime which was only brought down in 1989.
Love this city.
I've been off work sick for the last few days - throat infection, so nothing drastic enough to keep me bed ridden: just bad enough that I was, for all intents and purposes, mute for the weekend. Brilliant. I was forced to communicate either via whispers (not great in a room full of people), a notebook (writing takes an amazing amount of time, and by the time I had written my witty comment down on my notebook and shown it around, the conversation had long since moved on. Grr.), or via Skype (very effective simply due to the speed of communication available, but slightly ridiculous when talking to a friend who is in reality sitting on the sofa on the other side of the room, only two metres away).
Anyway, today I was feeling much better - the drugs had been working, I had my voice back (partly), and on top of all that, I got a marvellous night's sleep and awoke to the first day of spring in Berlin, albeit halfway through March, but better late than never.
So after breakfast, I got my camera, mp3 player, sunglasses and hat, and lugged my new bike down all six flights of stairs (no lock-up facility in the basement, and also no lift in my building), and set off to discover undiscovered corners of Berlin.
Karl-Marx-Straße, the infamous Sonnenallee, Treptower Park, the Soviet Memorial, the Archenhold Sternwart (where a visitors' information board proudly announced that Albert Einstein had held his first lecture in Berlin on his newly discovered "Theory of Relativity" right here), then into Kreuzberg, one of the suburbs of inner Berlin which was split into two countries for 28 years by the Wall, and is now the thriving heart of Berlin's punk and alternative scene, in addition to being my favourite neighbourhood for drinks, shisha and general great nights out.
I began to make my way home - since it was St Pats day and all, I had various pubs to tour later in the day with my Irish flatmate and various other expats from the Emerald Isle, and had stuff to do before that. Coasting down an unassuming street, I noticed a metal display board at the side of the street, and slowed down to have a better look.
The site was the location of a tunnel built in 1962, through which 29 people escaped from East Berlin to West Berlin.
Bam. A subtle reminder (if I needed one) that Berlin has only been a reunified city for twenty years, and that East Germany and West Germany existed in my lifetime: these escapes were in the lifetimes of my parents, from a regime which was only brought down in 1989.
Love this city.
The Button Bag
button bag. /bΛtn bæg/. noun.
1. The convergence of stylish accessory and wearable conversation piece in a spectacularly alternative, slightly bohemian and completely unique hessian shoulder bag with the ability to bridge international cultural & linguistic barriers and built-in travel bragging rights for the owner.
And I am the proud owner of the only one.
Let me explain. To tell the full story, I have to take you back in time to mid-August 2007. Location: Sarajevo, Bosnia.
I had been on the road for a few weeks, just me, my passport and my backpack, exploring Eastern Europe for the first time. The previous four years had consisted mostly of travel or work in various countries in Western Europe, and in September of 2007, I was due to continue that trend by taking up a position as a teaching assistant at a high school in southern Berlin. My curiousity surrounding the mysterious lands which had for so long remained in the shadow of the Iron Curtain had finally got the better of me, and I had decided that enough was enough: five weeks before I was due to start work, I dumped my winter stuff at a friend's place in Berlin and set off a five-week "Magical Mystery Tour" of the no-visa-required-for-Australians countries of south-eastern Europe.
Bosnia (ok, technically "and Herzegovina too") was the fifth country on my tour; prior to arriving in Bosnia, I had explored the grey concreteness of Slovakia, visited the Paprika Museums and thermal baths of Hungary, rowed on the most beautiful mountain lake ever in Slovenia, partied until dawn with fellow backpacking expats on the beaches of Croatia, and had slowly started to get used to the Eastern European mindset. From Bosnia, I would be heading further east toward Serbia, Bulgaria and the Black Sea, before finishing up the tour in Romania, then returning to "reality" in Berlin.
Bosnia had in just two days claimed the enviable title of being my favourite country on the tour, and Sarajevo without a doubt the crown of my favourite city of the five weeks so far. It achieved this status within two days, and by the time I left, Sarajevo's status had been elevated to the rank of "One of Australis' Top 5 Cities". (In case you're interested, the others are Melbourne a clear #1, Berlin the runner up at #2, Istanbul a close third, and Marrakech scraping in at fourth - Sarajevo is number 5, just above Fes.)
I would happily have spent an entire week in Bosnia, but unfortunately, the two days I had in Sarajevo were all my time budget would allow for, and after a day of walking around Sarajevo from one historical site to another, which were most inconveniently situated at least five kilometres apart, I was ready for a Pivo or two, and began to make my way back to the hostel for beer and börek, starting to contemplate exactly what form my Bosnian souvenir would take.
My policy for souvenirs so far on that tour had been a self-imposed minimalistic one: a postcard from each country, and if I really liked the place, a pair of earrings. Yes, yours truly has an earring problem.
Bosnia was however the exception to the souvenir policy. For two reasons.
Number 1, I loved the place. At that time, I hadn't yet been to Turkey or Morocco, and Sarajevo had a taste of the East - of Asia and of the Middle East - that I found mesmerising, intoxicating and most definitely addictive, and I resolved to return; in the meantime, a truly stupendous souvenir was in order.
And the second reason? In addition to my large backpack, I'd been carting a small day pack around for a few weeks. The experiences of the previous three weeks had instilled in me a whole new level of awareness of my personal security, and my small daypack just wasn't doing the job. I had noticed along the way that a satchel was without a doubt a better alternative in terms of protecting the contents of my bag from the increasing creativity and pickpocketing talents of the gypsy street urchins.
However considering I only had two more weeks on the road, a new bag wasn't really a priority, especially since I had already experienced the problem of finding one that I liked enough to part with my Bosnian Convertible Marks for, and also finding one that I hadn't already seen in every tourist-targeting, "typically-Eastern-European" bazzaar I had meandered through in the previous three weeks. In spite of this hurdle, the lack of versatility noted while wearing a backpack as a satchel had caused me to contemplate the notion of investing in a shoulder bag at some stage.
It was this dilemma which was occupying my mind while wandering around the marketplace, trying to find my way back to my hostel. As usual, I'd got lost in the narrow winding alleyways of the bazaar.
I got to the end of an alleyway, which looked like every other alleyway in the bazaar, turned a corner, and suddenly in front of me, in a narrow lane I had somehow never discovered before, was a small textile store. It was in the shadows of the neighbouring buildings, and the front window was dusty, but through the glass I could see a number of shoulder bags: two were embroidered with traditional Bosnian patterns, and one was a hessian shoulder bag covered in all manner of buttons. I had had my eye on something typically Bosnian, and initially considered one of the woven bags, but half an hour later, I left the store with a little less Bosnian currency and the button bag.
This is where the best part of the story starts. Up until then, as far as I was aware, this was a completely normal bag. Yes, it was covered in a myriad of buttons of different sizes, shapes and colours, but aside from that, it seemed to be your average slightly bohemian shoulder bag. Right?
Wrong.
The button bag is, as my previous definition stated, "the convergence of stylish accessory and wearable conversation piece in a spectacularly alternative, slightly bohemian and completely unique hessian shoulder bag with the ability to bridge international cultural & linguistic barriers and built-in travel bragging rights for the owner."
It's all of that, and so much more. As if that's not enough, you even can carry stuff in it!
Ok, I admit it: the "stylish" part is debatable, especially if you consider that style is subjective - the Button Bag certainly doesn't compete in the league of Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, or Gucci. I'm not sure I'd want it to.
But the rest of it is completely true. It is most definitely alternative and bohemian - it's not the kind of thing you'd see sold at David Jones or Myer at Chadstone, or in Macys in New York City: more the kind of thing you'd see in an alternative chic store along Brunswick St in Fitzroy or around the area of Friedrichshain or Kreuzberg in Berlin.
Unique? Yes. The elderly woman behind the counter who sold me this wonderful souvenir made it herself, using a selection of buttons she had taken from her own collection, built up over the previous twenty years in her time as a tailor and seamstress.
Travel bragging rights? Absolutely. But we'll get to that.
It's the "ability to bridge international cultural and linguistic barriers" that turned out to be the bag's greatest strength.
Who knew that a humble shoulder bag could be such a conversation starter? The strength of this conversation starting ability is all the more proven by the fact that it has not only started conversations between myself and random strangers in Australia, where everyone's your "mate" and everyone will quite happily have a good old natter with someone they met less than five minutes ago, have no idea of their name and most probably will never see again in their life, but also in Germany, a country whose folk are not exactly renowned for their friendliness toward strangers in public. Or indeed at all.
I have actually lost count of the number of interactions or conversations which have been instigated by a random stranger's interest in my button bag - whether it be in the bus, the train, at the market, at the Department of Immigration while applying for my visa and work permit, at the post office, or just about anywhere at all. There are also varying levels of interest. The lowest is a vague glance, usually followed by the infamous double take. This occasionally leads to level two, in which the person who has noticed the Button Bag attempts to attract the attention of the person accompanying them and direct it toward my bag. Level three involves the two of them starting a conversation about the bag, which is rather entertaining for me to watch, as they talk about my bag, which usually leads to level four, in which they make eye contact with me and smile politely, continuing their conversation while marvelling at my fabulous accessory. This usually leads to level five; the conversation.
The conversation typically involves two questions:
1. "Did you sew those on yourself?" The more bohemian the neighbourhood or the asker, the more tempted I am to say "Yes, I have collected buttons all my life and sewed them all on to an otherwise mundane hessian shoulder bag." In Berlin, that's an entirely feasible answer, but I remain proud of the fact that at last count, the replies are as follows: "Yes, I did it myself" - 0. "No, I bought it like that" - quite possibly in the hundreds by now.
My negative answer to the first question is typically followed by this question:
2. "Where did you get it?" Remember how I mentioned the "travel bragging rights"? This is where that comes into play. Whenever I am asked this, and I answer with a casual "I bought it in Sarajevo a few years ago", I am usually greeted with an expression of wonder at my extensive travel experiences, quickly followed by confusion as the asker considers the question "Why on earth would anyone travel to Bosnia - voluntarily?"
Usually by this stage, we've arrived at either my or the asker's train station, one of us is next in the queue for Turkish bread at the market or there is a rather annoyed postal worker behind the desk demanding that we pay attention to her, and we bid each other good day and go our separate ways.
But the attraction of the button bag has worked its magic on yet another person.
And I am the proud owner of the only one.
1. The convergence of stylish accessory and wearable conversation piece in a spectacularly alternative, slightly bohemian and completely unique hessian shoulder bag with the ability to bridge international cultural & linguistic barriers and built-in travel bragging rights for the owner.
And I am the proud owner of the only one.
Let me explain. To tell the full story, I have to take you back in time to mid-August 2007. Location: Sarajevo, Bosnia.
I had been on the road for a few weeks, just me, my passport and my backpack, exploring Eastern Europe for the first time. The previous four years had consisted mostly of travel or work in various countries in Western Europe, and in September of 2007, I was due to continue that trend by taking up a position as a teaching assistant at a high school in southern Berlin. My curiousity surrounding the mysterious lands which had for so long remained in the shadow of the Iron Curtain had finally got the better of me, and I had decided that enough was enough: five weeks before I was due to start work, I dumped my winter stuff at a friend's place in Berlin and set off a five-week "Magical Mystery Tour" of the no-visa-required-for-Australians countries of south-eastern Europe.
Bosnia (ok, technically "and Herzegovina too") was the fifth country on my tour; prior to arriving in Bosnia, I had explored the grey concreteness of Slovakia, visited the Paprika Museums and thermal baths of Hungary, rowed on the most beautiful mountain lake ever in Slovenia, partied until dawn with fellow backpacking expats on the beaches of Croatia, and had slowly started to get used to the Eastern European mindset. From Bosnia, I would be heading further east toward Serbia, Bulgaria and the Black Sea, before finishing up the tour in Romania, then returning to "reality" in Berlin.
Bosnia had in just two days claimed the enviable title of being my favourite country on the tour, and Sarajevo without a doubt the crown of my favourite city of the five weeks so far. It achieved this status within two days, and by the time I left, Sarajevo's status had been elevated to the rank of "One of Australis' Top 5 Cities". (In case you're interested, the others are Melbourne a clear #1, Berlin the runner up at #2, Istanbul a close third, and Marrakech scraping in at fourth - Sarajevo is number 5, just above Fes.)
I would happily have spent an entire week in Bosnia, but unfortunately, the two days I had in Sarajevo were all my time budget would allow for, and after a day of walking around Sarajevo from one historical site to another, which were most inconveniently situated at least five kilometres apart, I was ready for a Pivo or two, and began to make my way back to the hostel for beer and börek, starting to contemplate exactly what form my Bosnian souvenir would take.
My policy for souvenirs so far on that tour had been a self-imposed minimalistic one: a postcard from each country, and if I really liked the place, a pair of earrings. Yes, yours truly has an earring problem.
Bosnia was however the exception to the souvenir policy. For two reasons.
Number 1, I loved the place. At that time, I hadn't yet been to Turkey or Morocco, and Sarajevo had a taste of the East - of Asia and of the Middle East - that I found mesmerising, intoxicating and most definitely addictive, and I resolved to return; in the meantime, a truly stupendous souvenir was in order.
And the second reason? In addition to my large backpack, I'd been carting a small day pack around for a few weeks. The experiences of the previous three weeks had instilled in me a whole new level of awareness of my personal security, and my small daypack just wasn't doing the job. I had noticed along the way that a satchel was without a doubt a better alternative in terms of protecting the contents of my bag from the increasing creativity and pickpocketing talents of the gypsy street urchins.
However considering I only had two more weeks on the road, a new bag wasn't really a priority, especially since I had already experienced the problem of finding one that I liked enough to part with my Bosnian Convertible Marks for, and also finding one that I hadn't already seen in every tourist-targeting, "typically-Eastern-European" bazzaar I had meandered through in the previous three weeks. In spite of this hurdle, the lack of versatility noted while wearing a backpack as a satchel had caused me to contemplate the notion of investing in a shoulder bag at some stage.
It was this dilemma which was occupying my mind while wandering around the marketplace, trying to find my way back to my hostel. As usual, I'd got lost in the narrow winding alleyways of the bazaar.
I got to the end of an alleyway, which looked like every other alleyway in the bazaar, turned a corner, and suddenly in front of me, in a narrow lane I had somehow never discovered before, was a small textile store. It was in the shadows of the neighbouring buildings, and the front window was dusty, but through the glass I could see a number of shoulder bags: two were embroidered with traditional Bosnian patterns, and one was a hessian shoulder bag covered in all manner of buttons. I had had my eye on something typically Bosnian, and initially considered one of the woven bags, but half an hour later, I left the store with a little less Bosnian currency and the button bag.
This is where the best part of the story starts. Up until then, as far as I was aware, this was a completely normal bag. Yes, it was covered in a myriad of buttons of different sizes, shapes and colours, but aside from that, it seemed to be your average slightly bohemian shoulder bag. Right?
Wrong.
The button bag is, as my previous definition stated, "the convergence of stylish accessory and wearable conversation piece in a spectacularly alternative, slightly bohemian and completely unique hessian shoulder bag with the ability to bridge international cultural & linguistic barriers and built-in travel bragging rights for the owner."
It's all of that, and so much more. As if that's not enough, you even can carry stuff in it!
Ok, I admit it: the "stylish" part is debatable, especially if you consider that style is subjective - the Button Bag certainly doesn't compete in the league of Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, or Gucci. I'm not sure I'd want it to.
But the rest of it is completely true. It is most definitely alternative and bohemian - it's not the kind of thing you'd see sold at David Jones or Myer at Chadstone, or in Macys in New York City: more the kind of thing you'd see in an alternative chic store along Brunswick St in Fitzroy or around the area of Friedrichshain or Kreuzberg in Berlin.
Unique? Yes. The elderly woman behind the counter who sold me this wonderful souvenir made it herself, using a selection of buttons she had taken from her own collection, built up over the previous twenty years in her time as a tailor and seamstress.
Travel bragging rights? Absolutely. But we'll get to that.
It's the "ability to bridge international cultural and linguistic barriers" that turned out to be the bag's greatest strength.
Who knew that a humble shoulder bag could be such a conversation starter? The strength of this conversation starting ability is all the more proven by the fact that it has not only started conversations between myself and random strangers in Australia, where everyone's your "mate" and everyone will quite happily have a good old natter with someone they met less than five minutes ago, have no idea of their name and most probably will never see again in their life, but also in Germany, a country whose folk are not exactly renowned for their friendliness toward strangers in public. Or indeed at all.
I have actually lost count of the number of interactions or conversations which have been instigated by a random stranger's interest in my button bag - whether it be in the bus, the train, at the market, at the Department of Immigration while applying for my visa and work permit, at the post office, or just about anywhere at all. There are also varying levels of interest. The lowest is a vague glance, usually followed by the infamous double take. This occasionally leads to level two, in which the person who has noticed the Button Bag attempts to attract the attention of the person accompanying them and direct it toward my bag. Level three involves the two of them starting a conversation about the bag, which is rather entertaining for me to watch, as they talk about my bag, which usually leads to level four, in which they make eye contact with me and smile politely, continuing their conversation while marvelling at my fabulous accessory. This usually leads to level five; the conversation.
The conversation typically involves two questions:
1. "Did you sew those on yourself?" The more bohemian the neighbourhood or the asker, the more tempted I am to say "Yes, I have collected buttons all my life and sewed them all on to an otherwise mundane hessian shoulder bag." In Berlin, that's an entirely feasible answer, but I remain proud of the fact that at last count, the replies are as follows: "Yes, I did it myself" - 0. "No, I bought it like that" - quite possibly in the hundreds by now.
My negative answer to the first question is typically followed by this question:
2. "Where did you get it?" Remember how I mentioned the "travel bragging rights"? This is where that comes into play. Whenever I am asked this, and I answer with a casual "I bought it in Sarajevo a few years ago", I am usually greeted with an expression of wonder at my extensive travel experiences, quickly followed by confusion as the asker considers the question "Why on earth would anyone travel to Bosnia - voluntarily?"
Usually by this stage, we've arrived at either my or the asker's train station, one of us is next in the queue for Turkish bread at the market or there is a rather annoyed postal worker behind the desk demanding that we pay attention to her, and we bid each other good day and go our separate ways.
But the attraction of the button bag has worked its magic on yet another person.
And I am the proud owner of the only one.
More tourist capers...
Sometimes I wonder if I work at an English school or a branch of the Berlin Tourist Information Centre.
Take the 3rd of September for instance.
Within half an hour that afternoon, I was asked for directions by three separate tourists. The first was your standard backpacker couple: a Canadian couple, who were most impressed when I asked them where in Canada they were from, having figured that out from their accents. Credit for that to my sister's boyfriend, and various actual Canadian friends. Anyway, they wanted to get to a particular hostel, and were still more impressed when I told them the tram number, the time it would take to get there, and the stop name - all of which I only know because this particular hostel also happens to be an Australian-themed sports bar which broadcasts, among other things, the AFL Grand Final, and serves VB.
The second was an American couple, from Sacramento, California. They needed a post office, and also wanted to get to Checkpoint Charlie (about an hour's walk from our building, but about 8mins on the underground). I recommended they get the tram (which they insisted on calling a trolley-car) or walk to Friedrichstrasse station - about 15mins, then get the underground to Checkpoint Charlie - three stops, no changes required. The husband seemed quite happy with this, and began to move away, but the wife seemed to take my offer of information as an invitation to ask me more touristy questions than I had ever asked one single individual in my life. She seemed to consider me her personal Berlin travel consultant, and had me cornered outside the building for about 10mins, asking me about train connections to Potsdam from Zehlendorf where they were staying, about how much admission to the different theatres would cost, and if I would recommend watching movies in English at Potsdamer Platz.
I resisted the temptation to respond with a curt "Do I look like I work for Berlin tourist information?". My actual answers? 1 - no idea; check the BVG transport map. 2 - no idea; check the internet or ask the concierge at your hotel. 3 - no: too expensive - wait for the free inflight movie on the way home.
I then blatantly looked at my watch, glanced longingly (a rare occurrence) at the door of my office, and politely excused myself to return to work. He had long since got the point, and finally she did as well. Ah, freedom.
The third... the third was Chuck from Virginia, USA. Chuck would have been about the same age as my two grandfathers - mid 80s. Both of them are still very astute and intelligent individuals; age hasn't significantly affected their minds. If it weren't for the physical effects of aging, they and their respective wives would still be travelling around the world and having a marvellous time.
Chuck on the other hand... well, Chuck reminded me in many ways of some of the residents at the nursing home where my late great-grandmother spent the last six years of her life: barely able to comprehend a basic sentence, his reading skills all but gone, and very slow in his movements. He had been separated from his tour group, and having seen that we're an English school, figured that we could help him. Like the previous couple, he was supposed to be at Checkpoint Charlie. However, where I needed only a few moments to explain to them where to go to get the train and where to get off, Chuck could barely see where I was pointing to on the map I'd printed out from Google for him, let alone understand the process for buying a ticket for the train or which station he needed to look out for.
I was so tempted to walk him down to the train station, buy the ticket for him, and wait for the train, but unfortunately, I was actually supposed to be working. So I gave Chuck the map, wrote the station name on the map in large letters, and pointed him in the direction of the station.
I just hope he made it ok.
Take the 3rd of September for instance.
Within half an hour that afternoon, I was asked for directions by three separate tourists. The first was your standard backpacker couple: a Canadian couple, who were most impressed when I asked them where in Canada they were from, having figured that out from their accents. Credit for that to my sister's boyfriend, and various actual Canadian friends. Anyway, they wanted to get to a particular hostel, and were still more impressed when I told them the tram number, the time it would take to get there, and the stop name - all of which I only know because this particular hostel also happens to be an Australian-themed sports bar which broadcasts, among other things, the AFL Grand Final, and serves VB.
The second was an American couple, from Sacramento, California. They needed a post office, and also wanted to get to Checkpoint Charlie (about an hour's walk from our building, but about 8mins on the underground). I recommended they get the tram (which they insisted on calling a trolley-car) or walk to Friedrichstrasse station - about 15mins, then get the underground to Checkpoint Charlie - three stops, no changes required. The husband seemed quite happy with this, and began to move away, but the wife seemed to take my offer of information as an invitation to ask me more touristy questions than I had ever asked one single individual in my life. She seemed to consider me her personal Berlin travel consultant, and had me cornered outside the building for about 10mins, asking me about train connections to Potsdam from Zehlendorf where they were staying, about how much admission to the different theatres would cost, and if I would recommend watching movies in English at Potsdamer Platz.
I resisted the temptation to respond with a curt "Do I look like I work for Berlin tourist information?". My actual answers? 1 - no idea; check the BVG transport map. 2 - no idea; check the internet or ask the concierge at your hotel. 3 - no: too expensive - wait for the free inflight movie on the way home.
I then blatantly looked at my watch, glanced longingly (a rare occurrence) at the door of my office, and politely excused myself to return to work. He had long since got the point, and finally she did as well. Ah, freedom.
The third... the third was Chuck from Virginia, USA. Chuck would have been about the same age as my two grandfathers - mid 80s. Both of them are still very astute and intelligent individuals; age hasn't significantly affected their minds. If it weren't for the physical effects of aging, they and their respective wives would still be travelling around the world and having a marvellous time.
Chuck on the other hand... well, Chuck reminded me in many ways of some of the residents at the nursing home where my late great-grandmother spent the last six years of her life: barely able to comprehend a basic sentence, his reading skills all but gone, and very slow in his movements. He had been separated from his tour group, and having seen that we're an English school, figured that we could help him. Like the previous couple, he was supposed to be at Checkpoint Charlie. However, where I needed only a few moments to explain to them where to go to get the train and where to get off, Chuck could barely see where I was pointing to on the map I'd printed out from Google for him, let alone understand the process for buying a ticket for the train or which station he needed to look out for.
I was so tempted to walk him down to the train station, buy the ticket for him, and wait for the train, but unfortunately, I was actually supposed to be working. So I gave Chuck the map, wrote the station name on the map in large letters, and pointed him in the direction of the station.
I just hope he made it ok.
Lightbulb moments
Today was a brilliant day. Today, I had the rare opportunity of being reminded of exactly why I love to teach, and how much I miss teaching regularly.
It didn't start out that way. For the first five hours of my six hour shift, I was practically chained to the front desk - fielding calls, making appointments, answering questions, with brief sojourns into the kitchen to make coffee for clients.
At the start of the final hour, a colleague emerged from a meeting to relieve me - not a moment too soon. I had just got off the phone with a particularly challenging student, and in the ten minutes that she talked at me, six students had gathered at the reception counter demanding my immediate attention, a prospective client was asking for information on an English course, not to mention the incoming calls on the other line.
Five minutes of teamwork, and calm was restored. I seized the chance to escape from behind the desk, and headed into the back of the school to check the state of the main classroom. After refilling the pens and cleaning an explanation of possessive pronouns off the whiteboard, I ventured into the computer lab. Everything looked to be in order, and I was just about to leave when I heard my name being called.
I turned around, and saw the eager face of one of the newer students smiling at me over his computer."Hi, L. What's up?"
He was working on a grammar exercise practising the conditional mood, but despite having read the explanation and asking one of the other students for help, he still didn't understand. The memory of sitting in a university tutorial room in Clayton with two of my best friends trying to get our heads around the very same topic in German was still fresh enough in my mind that I could sympathise with his confusion, so I pulled a chair over, sat down next to him at his computer, and opened up the grammar book.
For the next fifteen minutes, we worked through the explanation and some of the activities. He seemed to be getting it, so when we got to the end of the page, I asked him to explain it back to me. To his amazement, he did it perfectly. When he finished, the look on his face is one that I will never forget. The golden moment of comprehension. The lightbulb moment. The "Aha!" moment. That expression was all the thanks I needed.
He looked at me, smiling, and said thank you. "No worries," I replied, and stood up, heading for the door. What happened next was the icing on the cake. The student he had previously asked for help had got up from her computer and was standing next to L; I heard her ask him in German to explain to her what I'd just explained to him, and you can imagine how proud I felt of him to hear him pass on the explanation.
That one fleeting moment made my day all that much better. The knowledge that I had been able to help a student understand something which previously had been a mystery to him, and seeing the realisation on his face when he discovered he had figured it out, was invaluable. It reminded me that regardless of the office politics, the problem students and the unrelenting chaos of the reception desk, the most rewarding thing about teaching for me is, and always will be, moments like that: having the opportunity to take the time to help a student understand that which was previously shrouded in mystery and confusion, and to use that feeling of achievement to encourage and motivate them to continue learning.
Those rare golden moments of realisation are the reason I teach. You can never see them coming, and you can go for days or even weeks without experiencing a moment like that, but when you do, for one blissful moment, it makes everything else seem trivial; somehow, it makes all the chaos, all the late nights and early mornings, and all your extra effort worthwhile.
More trouble with English...
And what did I tell you? Yes, “The Trouble with English” has a sequel.
Walking down the cleaning product aisle in a discount supermarket on an ordinary Wednesday afternoon, in an area of Berlin where the vast majority of residents are Turkish immigrants (just off Hermannplatz, Neukölln for those who know Berlin), I notice a Turkish guy, I’d guess in his mid 30s, standing in front of the toilet paper, muttering to himself and shaking his head. “Einfach unglaublich, wie viel das alles heuzutage kostet.” Translation not really necessary: mostly just complaining about prices, and just desperate for me to take the bait and show solidarity with him in the face of the international capitalist conspiracy against the average consumer.
And sure, he seems nice enough, but I'm not interested; I’d had a challenging day at work, was tired beyond belief, and completely not in the mood for small talk or being chatted up in front of the toilet paper.
I am however awake enough to remember that my t-shirt – out of pure coincidence – is a Gallipoli commemorative t-shirt with an Australian flag on the right side of the chest.
So I do it: I call his bluff, and play my foreigner trump card. “Sorry, I don’t, ich nicht speak Deutsch”, while inwardly cringing – even the most linguistically challenged could have managed better than that. But desperate times…
And you’d think I would have learned from Homeless Dude. Never judge a book…
“Oh, sorry. I thinked you is German. Where you come from? You live here, or on a holiday? That flag on your shirt is England, isn’t it? My cousin - ”
Bugger. Again.
This guy’s English was about the level of my Italian, but he had more front than Myers. Translated from Australian slang, that means he was damn confident. And someone with a little bit of language and a lot of confidence can be really, really annoying. He just wouldn’t shut up.
Eventually the topic of toilet paper led him into a conversational corner, which for some reason prompted him to share with me the contents of his shopping basket. Apples, Nutella, and black hair dye.
“How old are you thinking I looks today? Looks at mys hair. How old do you thinking I looks today?” Without waiting for an answer, he charges on. “Maybe 40, 45, I think I looks today, like old mans.”
Sure, he’s got a few stray grey hairs here and there. Whatever. Get to the point so I can get out of here.
“But tonight, I change – I will be young again, I will go to the bathroom – ”. I really don’t want to know any more; it’s at this point that I begin my retreat. I step past him as he continues, very obviously looking at my watch, and backing away from him towards the opposite end of the aisle. “Sorry, I really have to – ”
“Tomorrow,” he interrupts, continuing undaunted and taking a step towards me, “I look again 20 years!”
“Um, ok…” I'm now at the end of the aisle, and have again reached that point where I feel I've been subtle enough for long enough. I take a deep breath and spit it out before he can interrupt me. “I'msorrybutIhavetogo.”
Suddenly he gets that look on his face. That “sad puppy” look. And had he not invaded my perfectly alone shopping experience, I might have caved and forgiven him. But I was past the point of caring. Before I could give myself a chance to backpedal and untrample his feelings, I gave him a generic “you know how it is” smile and disappeared around the end of the aisle behind the fabric softener.
But I know without a doubt that I’ll try it again. The convenience of the linguistic “Get Out Of Jail Free Card” is irresistible. Besides, it either works like a charm or leads to great material for blog posts.
Walking down the cleaning product aisle in a discount supermarket on an ordinary Wednesday afternoon, in an area of Berlin where the vast majority of residents are Turkish immigrants (just off Hermannplatz, Neukölln for those who know Berlin), I notice a Turkish guy, I’d guess in his mid 30s, standing in front of the toilet paper, muttering to himself and shaking his head. “Einfach unglaublich, wie viel das alles heuzutage kostet.” Translation not really necessary: mostly just complaining about prices, and just desperate for me to take the bait and show solidarity with him in the face of the international capitalist conspiracy against the average consumer.
And sure, he seems nice enough, but I'm not interested; I’d had a challenging day at work, was tired beyond belief, and completely not in the mood for small talk or being chatted up in front of the toilet paper.
I am however awake enough to remember that my t-shirt – out of pure coincidence – is a Gallipoli commemorative t-shirt with an Australian flag on the right side of the chest.
So I do it: I call his bluff, and play my foreigner trump card. “Sorry, I don’t, ich nicht speak Deutsch”, while inwardly cringing – even the most linguistically challenged could have managed better than that. But desperate times…
And you’d think I would have learned from Homeless Dude. Never judge a book…
“Oh, sorry. I thinked you is German. Where you come from? You live here, or on a holiday? That flag on your shirt is England, isn’t it? My cousin - ”
Bugger. Again.
This guy’s English was about the level of my Italian, but he had more front than Myers. Translated from Australian slang, that means he was damn confident. And someone with a little bit of language and a lot of confidence can be really, really annoying. He just wouldn’t shut up.
Eventually the topic of toilet paper led him into a conversational corner, which for some reason prompted him to share with me the contents of his shopping basket. Apples, Nutella, and black hair dye.
“How old are you thinking I looks today? Looks at mys hair. How old do you thinking I looks today?” Without waiting for an answer, he charges on. “Maybe 40, 45, I think I looks today, like old mans.”
Sure, he’s got a few stray grey hairs here and there. Whatever. Get to the point so I can get out of here.
“But tonight, I change – I will be young again, I will go to the bathroom – ”. I really don’t want to know any more; it’s at this point that I begin my retreat. I step past him as he continues, very obviously looking at my watch, and backing away from him towards the opposite end of the aisle. “Sorry, I really have to – ”
“Tomorrow,” he interrupts, continuing undaunted and taking a step towards me, “I look again 20 years!”
“Um, ok…” I'm now at the end of the aisle, and have again reached that point where I feel I've been subtle enough for long enough. I take a deep breath and spit it out before he can interrupt me. “I'msorrybutIhavetogo.”
Suddenly he gets that look on his face. That “sad puppy” look. And had he not invaded my perfectly alone shopping experience, I might have caved and forgiven him. But I was past the point of caring. Before I could give myself a chance to backpedal and untrample his feelings, I gave him a generic “you know how it is” smile and disappeared around the end of the aisle behind the fabric softener.
But I know without a doubt that I’ll try it again. The convenience of the linguistic “Get Out Of Jail Free Card” is irresistible. Besides, it either works like a charm or leads to great material for blog posts.
Blue and Gold Addiction.
Sweden. Population just over 7 million. Currency: Swedish Krona. Member of the EU. Famous international exports include ABBA, Pippi Longstocking, H&M, a hilariously funky Muppet chef, magnificently tall blue-eyed blondes with wonderfully Swedish names like Astrid or Hjalmar, and surnames with cool accents and lots of 's' like Ångström or Påhlsson.
And Ikea.
That wonderfully addictive Swedish DIY paradise in its golden and blue magnificence. A magical world where perfect household organisation is only a Malmö wall-mounted storage system with in-built rail-mounted wire baskets and convenient hooks away, and all your interior design dreams would become blissful reality if only you could manage to put it together.
As most of you know, I've recently moved into a new flat. Well, a new share flat. The extent of the furniture in my room on arrival in that new flat included a loft bed frame, a bamboo lounge chair, an ancient armchair and a pair of wooden TV tables inherited from the previous resident of my room.
That was all the excuse I needed to venture to Tempelhof in southern Berlin, the closest of the three Ikea superstores. I even did a re-con visit, trekking across town one Friday night after work in the rain to obtain a copy of the renovator's bible, the coveted Ikea catalogue, in preparation for my planned excursion the following day.
Over a coffee the next morning, I perused the pages in search of bargains that not only would fit my extremely tight budget, but also turn my room from four walls and a floor into a living space.
Then that afternoon, I joined forces with my Berlin best friend and one of her flatmates, and together, the three of us took on the two-storeyed homeware haven of Ikea, Tempelhof.
The design ingenuity! The innovation combined with affordability! The coolness of bold colours and unpronounceable names! It’s an adult’s toystore!
We spent four hours there. I could have bought half the store. As it was, I had to show considerable restraint in only buying what I did. I mean, who can’t find a use for 100 tea candles for a few Euros, or a stylish yet reasonably priced wicker laundry basket, or a brightly coloured floor rug? On this particular visit however, I showed remarkable restraint in only buying a few things.
A mattress – clearly essential, considering the previous three nights I’d been sleeping on all of the winter clothes I had in Berlin carefully folded into a makeshift bed so that the wood of the base wouldn’t be so uncomfortable.
A desk – DIY of course. But considering my Lego skills as a child, and the fact that my reputation with a previous employer for assembling furniture faster than any other colleague led to my then-manager designating an hour per week on my roster to constructing display models of new stock, I knew I wouldn’t have a problem. Give me an Allen key and a Phillips head screwdriver, and I'm good to go.
The piece de resistance however, was my sofa bed. I’d had my eye on a few sofa beds advertised in Buy/Swap/Sell websites in Berlin, and I really wanted an Exarby. Comfy, cheap, and chic. But as it turned out, this store was out of stock. They did however have a fantastic alternative. Sign up for the Ikea loyalty card, and for the punishment of receiving the aforementioned renovator’s bible, otherwise known as the quarterly Ikea catalogue, conveniently delivered to your house, in addition to the occasional special offer email… you would get a €99 sofa bed for the bargain price of €49!!!
Yes, I bought it. And I love it.
Hello, my name’s Australis, and I'm an Ikea addict.
And Ikea.
That wonderfully addictive Swedish DIY paradise in its golden and blue magnificence. A magical world where perfect household organisation is only a Malmö wall-mounted storage system with in-built rail-mounted wire baskets and convenient hooks away, and all your interior design dreams would become blissful reality if only you could manage to put it together.
As most of you know, I've recently moved into a new flat. Well, a new share flat. The extent of the furniture in my room on arrival in that new flat included a loft bed frame, a bamboo lounge chair, an ancient armchair and a pair of wooden TV tables inherited from the previous resident of my room.
That was all the excuse I needed to venture to Tempelhof in southern Berlin, the closest of the three Ikea superstores. I even did a re-con visit, trekking across town one Friday night after work in the rain to obtain a copy of the renovator's bible, the coveted Ikea catalogue, in preparation for my planned excursion the following day.
Over a coffee the next morning, I perused the pages in search of bargains that not only would fit my extremely tight budget, but also turn my room from four walls and a floor into a living space.
Then that afternoon, I joined forces with my Berlin best friend and one of her flatmates, and together, the three of us took on the two-storeyed homeware haven of Ikea, Tempelhof.
The design ingenuity! The innovation combined with affordability! The coolness of bold colours and unpronounceable names! It’s an adult’s toystore!
We spent four hours there. I could have bought half the store. As it was, I had to show considerable restraint in only buying what I did. I mean, who can’t find a use for 100 tea candles for a few Euros, or a stylish yet reasonably priced wicker laundry basket, or a brightly coloured floor rug? On this particular visit however, I showed remarkable restraint in only buying a few things.
A mattress – clearly essential, considering the previous three nights I’d been sleeping on all of the winter clothes I had in Berlin carefully folded into a makeshift bed so that the wood of the base wouldn’t be so uncomfortable.
A desk – DIY of course. But considering my Lego skills as a child, and the fact that my reputation with a previous employer for assembling furniture faster than any other colleague led to my then-manager designating an hour per week on my roster to constructing display models of new stock, I knew I wouldn’t have a problem. Give me an Allen key and a Phillips head screwdriver, and I'm good to go.
The piece de resistance however, was my sofa bed. I’d had my eye on a few sofa beds advertised in Buy/Swap/Sell websites in Berlin, and I really wanted an Exarby. Comfy, cheap, and chic. But as it turned out, this store was out of stock. They did however have a fantastic alternative. Sign up for the Ikea loyalty card, and for the punishment of receiving the aforementioned renovator’s bible, otherwise known as the quarterly Ikea catalogue, conveniently delivered to your house, in addition to the occasional special offer email… you would get a €99 sofa bed for the bargain price of €49!!!
Yes, I bought it. And I love it.
Hello, my name’s Australis, and I'm an Ikea addict.
The trouble with English...
I have to admit, one of the things I love about being fluent in two languages and having skills in a further two is having the option to codeswitch, to switch into the another language and plead foreigner when people bug me – gypsies, beggars, salespeople, people handing out fliers on the street, or wanting you to sign their petition for/against [fill in the gap].
In Australia, it works like a charm – while Australians do learn languages at school, and the classics of French and the like feature, the focus is logically on Asian languages. On top of that, with the exception of people from non-English-speaking backgrounds, most people’s skills extend to a vague high school level and rarely any further. Brilliant.
In Germany, it doesn't work quite so well. Sometimes, yes, the pure shock of receiving a quick “No, thanks” to their casual icebreaker is enough to cut people off at the pass and they let you walk by. But other times I’m reminded that having English as my default switch language in Germany, or in the majority of countries in Europe, if not the world, does not have the same power that German does at home. Possibly because English is the most studied language on the planet (the often-quoted statistic that the number of native speakers of English is vastly outnumbered by the number of people learning English in China is astounding but true). By the way, my backups of French and Italian also often feature in people’s linguistic repertoire here – and their language level is almost always better than mine, so aside from the fact that my usual attire of jeans, Cons and a hoodie is nowhere near chic enough to pretend to be a Parisienne or a Florentine, I'm also linguistically out-skilled.
So the default switch remains English. And sure, sometimes you can get away with it – either because the other person’s English isn’t up to the level required or they just can’t be bothered to translate their sales pitch on the spot. Or because my Australian accent freaked them out a little.
Other times though, you weigh up the odds, and you decide to play that card, thereby calling someone’s bluff that they don’t speak English, or at least not enough to continue annoying you…
And it blows up in your face, usually in a rather spectacular fashion.
Example 1. Mid July, 2008. Sitting at a pavement table with a good friend of mine in Berlin at a cheap burger place in Kreuzberg, a very “uni student” area (cheap, alternative, and just a little grotty), happily chatting away in English over some delicious potato wedges, mayo and ketchup.
Enter random homeless guy.
He’s holding his beer as if someone might try to wrench it from his grasp at any moment, smells like a brewery and looks like he hasn’t showered in months, possibly years, but his German is remarkably non-slurred. He stands at one end of our table and starts making small talk with us – complaining about something or other, and just begging for us to start a conversation with him. Neither of us are really interested, and after politely nodding and smiling and making small talk with him in German for a few minutes, we switch back to English and continue our own conversation, hoping he’ll take this as a subtle “Please go away” signal.
He doesn't. To our horror, he takes a seat and follows our lead, switching to surprisingly fluent English. Turns out this guy lived in England for a good few years, studied at some university there (Oxford comes to mind, but I can’t remember exactly), and apparently retained his language skills.
Bugger.
For the next twenty minutes or so, we are subjected to his ramblings on all manner of topics which he thought essential to discuss with us, including an apparent dislike of America. Oh, and he also decided to bring up the Australian government’s treatment of the Aboriginal community, which he then compared to the slave trade in America. It was obvious that he had very little information about the situation or the history, and I ceased talking to him at this stage. He continued talking to, or rather at, my friend for a while, insulting America all the way. By the way, she’s American, which he knew.
We kept hoping he’d run out of steam and leave of his own accord, but he never seemed to. So, as soon as we’d finished our beers, we bid him goodnight (yeah, we’re too polite and subtle for our own good – need to learn some of that German directness), and made a run for it. He got up after us, and made a move to follow us for a few minutes, but fortunately we wove our way through the evening pedestrian traffic on Oranienstrasse and lost him.
I have no doubt that this will not be the last blog post on the dilemmas of code switching into English. Stay tuned…
In Australia, it works like a charm – while Australians do learn languages at school, and the classics of French and the like feature, the focus is logically on Asian languages. On top of that, with the exception of people from non-English-speaking backgrounds, most people’s skills extend to a vague high school level and rarely any further. Brilliant.
In Germany, it doesn't work quite so well. Sometimes, yes, the pure shock of receiving a quick “No, thanks” to their casual icebreaker is enough to cut people off at the pass and they let you walk by. But other times I’m reminded that having English as my default switch language in Germany, or in the majority of countries in Europe, if not the world, does not have the same power that German does at home. Possibly because English is the most studied language on the planet (the often-quoted statistic that the number of native speakers of English is vastly outnumbered by the number of people learning English in China is astounding but true). By the way, my backups of French and Italian also often feature in people’s linguistic repertoire here – and their language level is almost always better than mine, so aside from the fact that my usual attire of jeans, Cons and a hoodie is nowhere near chic enough to pretend to be a Parisienne or a Florentine, I'm also linguistically out-skilled.
So the default switch remains English. And sure, sometimes you can get away with it – either because the other person’s English isn’t up to the level required or they just can’t be bothered to translate their sales pitch on the spot. Or because my Australian accent freaked them out a little.
Other times though, you weigh up the odds, and you decide to play that card, thereby calling someone’s bluff that they don’t speak English, or at least not enough to continue annoying you…
And it blows up in your face, usually in a rather spectacular fashion.
Example 1. Mid July, 2008. Sitting at a pavement table with a good friend of mine in Berlin at a cheap burger place in Kreuzberg, a very “uni student” area (cheap, alternative, and just a little grotty), happily chatting away in English over some delicious potato wedges, mayo and ketchup.
Enter random homeless guy.
He’s holding his beer as if someone might try to wrench it from his grasp at any moment, smells like a brewery and looks like he hasn’t showered in months, possibly years, but his German is remarkably non-slurred. He stands at one end of our table and starts making small talk with us – complaining about something or other, and just begging for us to start a conversation with him. Neither of us are really interested, and after politely nodding and smiling and making small talk with him in German for a few minutes, we switch back to English and continue our own conversation, hoping he’ll take this as a subtle “Please go away” signal.
He doesn't. To our horror, he takes a seat and follows our lead, switching to surprisingly fluent English. Turns out this guy lived in England for a good few years, studied at some university there (Oxford comes to mind, but I can’t remember exactly), and apparently retained his language skills.
Bugger.
For the next twenty minutes or so, we are subjected to his ramblings on all manner of topics which he thought essential to discuss with us, including an apparent dislike of America. Oh, and he also decided to bring up the Australian government’s treatment of the Aboriginal community, which he then compared to the slave trade in America. It was obvious that he had very little information about the situation or the history, and I ceased talking to him at this stage. He continued talking to, or rather at, my friend for a while, insulting America all the way. By the way, she’s American, which he knew.
We kept hoping he’d run out of steam and leave of his own accord, but he never seemed to. So, as soon as we’d finished our beers, we bid him goodnight (yeah, we’re too polite and subtle for our own good – need to learn some of that German directness), and made a run for it. He got up after us, and made a move to follow us for a few minutes, but fortunately we wove our way through the evening pedestrian traffic on Oranienstrasse and lost him.
I have no doubt that this will not be the last blog post on the dilemmas of code switching into English. Stay tuned…
Reflections on the year
It’s amazing how a few months can completely change you.
Take today. Got home from work, and for some reason decided the mountain of papers I had dumped on the black wooden TV table I had inherited from a previous resident of my share flat could no longer remain there. So over pasta and Lidl’s attempt at bolognese sauce, I got comfy on my new Ikea discount sofa, and I began to sort them.
There was all kinds of stuff in there – photos of my family and my friends, postcards from Turkey, Morocco, most of eastern Europe and many other places, brief pages of scribbled dot-point notes which had since turned into lesson plans for my jungle-like year 9 classes, CDs people burnt for me, official-looking letters from German companies calling me “Frau _____ ” (or, more often that not, “Herr ____ ”: I don’t get it – my first name is not exactly uncommon in Germany) and handwritten ones from both of my grandmothers in Australia (the latter being a much more welcome sight in my letterbox than the former)… and a stack of notebook pages covered with scribbled diary entries from the last year.
It’s been just on a year since I moved here. Never been away from Australia that long before. And it’s going to get up to 18 months before I get back home. And in the last year, a whole lot has gone down – old friends, heaps and heaps of new friends, new accommodation times three, getting used to calling one of the most vibrant and lively cities in the world my home, and a hell of a lot of travelling.
I guess my point is just how much I love the way travel changes you. How much you learn about your world and about yourself. And it doesn't matter if you’re backpacking through former Soviet states or remote villages of northern Africa, or living and working in a vibrant European capital. Main thing is being away from what you’re used to, and becoming completely self-reliant – knowing that your family isn’t just around the corner. Actually, that home, family and most of your friends are just about as far away as physically possible while remaining on this planet.
You’re on your own – flying free, and without a safety net, and while it can be really scary at first, the feeling discovering you have what it takes to make a life for yourself overseas, and to make it work, is its own reward.
Hope I'm this cool when I'm 80.
Funkiness and octogenerians don't have to be mutually exclusive.
I think this could only happen in Berlin though. The city where you could wear anything at all, and you would fit in. Seriously, anything goes here. Emo, goth, punk, street übercool, preppy, don't-care, fashionista/fashion victim, indie, bohemian. Or a mix of all of them. All at once. I haven't seen that in any other city. Ok, yes, I have seen all of that in other cities, but not all at once, and not without some strange looks and negative comments from passers-by.
Anyways, to the point. U Bahn Johannisthaler Chaussee, south-eastern Berlin, 13.45 today. I'm on the way to my local WiFi cafe. I get off the bus, head down to the platform, and join the throng of people waiting for the train, passing the time by surfing through tracks on my iriver, day-dreaming and people-watching...
I glance toward the stairs coming down from the street above, and see a pair of stockinged feet in navy Chuck Taylors. Nothing unusual. I turn my head the other way, then look back a moment later. Walking past me is a grey-haired lady around my grandmother's age, immaculately dressed in a scarlet red jacket and skirt, a complementary silk scarf around her neck, her jewellery and makeup elegant and stylish.
And navy Chuck Taylors on her feet.
As she walks further down the platform, she attracts the attention of most of the others on the platform. Some raise their eyebrows, others nudge the person beside them and subtly (or not so subtly) point.
I, like the others, watch her continue down the platform. Yet unlike the others, mine is an expression of deep admiration and respect.
I can only hope that I'm that cool when I'm 80. You go, Oma.
I think this could only happen in Berlin though. The city where you could wear anything at all, and you would fit in. Seriously, anything goes here. Emo, goth, punk, street übercool, preppy, don't-care, fashionista/fashion victim, indie, bohemian. Or a mix of all of them. All at once. I haven't seen that in any other city. Ok, yes, I have seen all of that in other cities, but not all at once, and not without some strange looks and negative comments from passers-by.
Anyways, to the point. U Bahn Johannisthaler Chaussee, south-eastern Berlin, 13.45 today. I'm on the way to my local WiFi cafe. I get off the bus, head down to the platform, and join the throng of people waiting for the train, passing the time by surfing through tracks on my iriver, day-dreaming and people-watching...
I glance toward the stairs coming down from the street above, and see a pair of stockinged feet in navy Chuck Taylors. Nothing unusual. I turn my head the other way, then look back a moment later. Walking past me is a grey-haired lady around my grandmother's age, immaculately dressed in a scarlet red jacket and skirt, a complementary silk scarf around her neck, her jewellery and makeup elegant and stylish.
And navy Chuck Taylors on her feet.
As she walks further down the platform, she attracts the attention of most of the others on the platform. Some raise their eyebrows, others nudge the person beside them and subtly (or not so subtly) point.
I, like the others, watch her continue down the platform. Yet unlike the others, mine is an expression of deep admiration and respect.
I can only hope that I'm that cool when I'm 80. You go, Oma.
Warm summer nights on Berlin balconies...
This is one of the many things that I absolutely love about summer in Europe – the happy middle ground between an English and an Australian summer. The sun definitely has some warmth and strength in it, but you can quite happily sit in the sun for hours without frying; unlike in Australia, it’s not enough to enslave the general populus to air-conditioning to escape daytime highs in excess of 40°C and then force them into seasonal insomnia due to overnight lows only a few degrees under 30°C.
Today, for example, I spent mostly on my balcony, chilling out, reading up on the complexities of English grammar and pitying all those who had to do real work. I had both windows and the door open, I turned my speakers to face the balcony, took my laptop outside and inflicted the entire neighbourhood with my “Road Less Travelled” playlist while I was working: mostly the stuff that I've got from a variety of sources but hadn’t had a chance to listen to. Among the artists? Tocotronic, Die Ärzte (their new album and a lot of their back catalogue), Die Toten Hosen, The Wombats, The Decemberists, The National, Vampire Weekend, Interpol, The Hoosiers and Sunrise Avenue. Eclectic, I know.
I did venture down the road to Aldi around 7pm for salad ingredients, then returned to the balcony to eat a home-made spinach pizza with a crunchy salad while watching “Traumschiff Surprise” on DVD as the sun slowly made its way toward the north-western horizon, leaving the sky streaked with a thousand and one shades of pink, orange and red. It’s currently 10.30pm, and it is just now getting dark, and the night chorus of cicadas is starting up, although not to the volume that we’re accustomed to in Melbourne.
I love Berlin, I love summer, and I really love summer in Berlin.
Today, for example, I spent mostly on my balcony, chilling out, reading up on the complexities of English grammar and pitying all those who had to do real work. I had both windows and the door open, I turned my speakers to face the balcony, took my laptop outside and inflicted the entire neighbourhood with my “Road Less Travelled” playlist while I was working: mostly the stuff that I've got from a variety of sources but hadn’t had a chance to listen to. Among the artists? Tocotronic, Die Ärzte (their new album and a lot of their back catalogue), Die Toten Hosen, The Wombats, The Decemberists, The National, Vampire Weekend, Interpol, The Hoosiers and Sunrise Avenue. Eclectic, I know.
I did venture down the road to Aldi around 7pm for salad ingredients, then returned to the balcony to eat a home-made spinach pizza with a crunchy salad while watching “Traumschiff Surprise” on DVD as the sun slowly made its way toward the north-western horizon, leaving the sky streaked with a thousand and one shades of pink, orange and red. It’s currently 10.30pm, and it is just now getting dark, and the night chorus of cicadas is starting up, although not to the volume that we’re accustomed to in Melbourne.
I love Berlin, I love summer, and I really love summer in Berlin.
The Middle
There is this one song that I absolutely love. I just heard it on the radio in Hamburg, about an hour before the end of my last shift here, and before I head over to my beloved Berlin tonight. It’s by a relatively unknown (in Australia anyway) group from Arizona in the USA, and the first time I heard it, I loved it. I loved it so much I bought the album, which I also loved, so much so that I have since bought their entire back catalogue, and seen them live recently. I was not disappointed. This first album happened to be their best ever album, as acknowledged by many of their other fans, not just by me.
This one song though, I absolutely love. It’s so positive. The other reason I love it is because somehow, I only ever hear it on days that something very significantly positive is happening. And no, it’s not because I hear the song that I imagine the rest of the day to be positive.
Example 1: I get into my car in late 2001 after handing in a philosophy essay that had taken me weeks and weeks to write, although it was only worth a minor percentage of the final assessment. Philosophy was a subject that I really loved, but just didn’t come easily to me; I put in the work because I enjoy figuring things out. Anyway, I get into the car after having handed it in, turn on the radio, and I hear this song immediately. Two weeks later I get my grade for the essay: a High Distinction and a commendation from the head of department.
Example 2: I got home from uni one afternoon in 2004, turned on the radio, and this song gets played. I’m instantly in a brilliant mood, and I go to open my mail. I find an acceptance letter for a program to go to Germany for a year and teach English in a high school there as an assistant.
Example 3: I head into the foreigners’ office in Berlin, Germany, to get my Working Holiday visa. I’ve been listening to the radio all the way in, and I’m sick of it. I turn on the 100% shuffle mode on my MP3 – this creates a random playlist of all the songs in my MP3, regardless of the number of times songs have been played. The first song I hear, just before my number is called – yes, this song. And the visa? I get it, with no problems, and the surprise here - less than 2hrs waiting time!
Example 4: and now, just as I'm preparing to leave Hamburg, of course, I hear this song.
The song is “The Middle” by Jimmy Eat World, and I completely love it.
This one song though, I absolutely love. It’s so positive. The other reason I love it is because somehow, I only ever hear it on days that something very significantly positive is happening. And no, it’s not because I hear the song that I imagine the rest of the day to be positive.
Example 1: I get into my car in late 2001 after handing in a philosophy essay that had taken me weeks and weeks to write, although it was only worth a minor percentage of the final assessment. Philosophy was a subject that I really loved, but just didn’t come easily to me; I put in the work because I enjoy figuring things out. Anyway, I get into the car after having handed it in, turn on the radio, and I hear this song immediately. Two weeks later I get my grade for the essay: a High Distinction and a commendation from the head of department.
Example 2: I got home from uni one afternoon in 2004, turned on the radio, and this song gets played. I’m instantly in a brilliant mood, and I go to open my mail. I find an acceptance letter for a program to go to Germany for a year and teach English in a high school there as an assistant.
Example 3: I head into the foreigners’ office in Berlin, Germany, to get my Working Holiday visa. I’ve been listening to the radio all the way in, and I’m sick of it. I turn on the 100% shuffle mode on my MP3 – this creates a random playlist of all the songs in my MP3, regardless of the number of times songs have been played. The first song I hear, just before my number is called – yes, this song. And the visa? I get it, with no problems, and the surprise here - less than 2hrs waiting time!
Example 4: and now, just as I'm preparing to leave Hamburg, of course, I hear this song.
The song is “The Middle” by Jimmy Eat World, and I completely love it.
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