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.
Showing posts with label Hamburg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hamburg. Show all posts
The Winds Of Change
The winds of change are in the air. Still in Hamburg, and still plodding along at work, but two events have taken place, which resulted in an admission of error and a decision to make a change to fix that error.
Event number 1 - a weekend sailing on the Baltic with some of my Berlin friends. Possibly the best way to chill and clear your head in northern Germany - or anywhere, for that matter. Sea air, good friends, German beer, northern German dice games at 1am, some good conversation, and a few days away from Hamburg and work - ah, bliss. Also inspiration from Harold and Maude to not worry so much about what other people think of you.
Event number 2 - one of these friends told me something that I had actually known subconsciously for a long time: I think too much. I over-analyse things. And not just the life-changing, monumental issues - the tiny stuff, that in a matter of weeks, days, or in many instances, hours, will have been long relegated to the file "Not worth remembering".
This leads me to a question: am I alone here? How many of you actually nodded in sympathetic agreement whilst reading the above admission? Changing my FB status alone to reflect this new mindset of "less thinking, more doing" resulted in a wall post and an instant message within half an hour. I welcome your comments.
Event 1 + Event 2 = Result: I am moving back to Berlin. Soon - within a fortnight. Reasons vary: work, friends & (substitute) family, and instinct/gut feeling/mindset.
First, the job is not at all what I thought it would be. I'm not someone who enjoys working completely alone. I need to have people around me both at work and in general with a similarly positive and enthusiastic outlook, for mutual motivation and support. I am also someone with ambition and direction. I need to know that both myself and the company I work for are going somewhere, that what I do at work actually has a purpose in the grand scheme of things. Hamburg doesn't fit the bill for me at the moment.
Second, my friends and one of my German families are in Berlin, and I truly miss them. Fair enough, I've only been in Hamburg for three weeks, which is definitely not enough to create a friendship group here, but I already have a circle of friends in Berlin, which is enough of a reason for me to seriously consider going back.
Third - I'm in a Berlin state of mind, to quote Mr Joel. I'm not finished with that city, and I want to maximise my time there. It's an incredible city and I feel just as much at home there as I do in my native Melbourne. Sounds strange to most of you, but I know at least Blonde Canadian knows how I feel. I need to go back there.
So, it will be "Goodbye Hamburg - nice knowing you", and a reunion with my beloved Berlin next weekend. That prospect alone is already giving me the motivation to continue through this week.
I'll keep you posted.
Event number 1 - a weekend sailing on the Baltic with some of my Berlin friends. Possibly the best way to chill and clear your head in northern Germany - or anywhere, for that matter. Sea air, good friends, German beer, northern German dice games at 1am, some good conversation, and a few days away from Hamburg and work - ah, bliss. Also inspiration from Harold and Maude to not worry so much about what other people think of you.
Event number 2 - one of these friends told me something that I had actually known subconsciously for a long time: I think too much. I over-analyse things. And not just the life-changing, monumental issues - the tiny stuff, that in a matter of weeks, days, or in many instances, hours, will have been long relegated to the file "Not worth remembering".
This leads me to a question: am I alone here? How many of you actually nodded in sympathetic agreement whilst reading the above admission? Changing my FB status alone to reflect this new mindset of "less thinking, more doing" resulted in a wall post and an instant message within half an hour. I welcome your comments.
Event 1 + Event 2 = Result: I am moving back to Berlin. Soon - within a fortnight. Reasons vary: work, friends & (substitute) family, and instinct/gut feeling/mindset.
First, the job is not at all what I thought it would be. I'm not someone who enjoys working completely alone. I need to have people around me both at work and in general with a similarly positive and enthusiastic outlook, for mutual motivation and support. I am also someone with ambition and direction. I need to know that both myself and the company I work for are going somewhere, that what I do at work actually has a purpose in the grand scheme of things. Hamburg doesn't fit the bill for me at the moment.
Second, my friends and one of my German families are in Berlin, and I truly miss them. Fair enough, I've only been in Hamburg for three weeks, which is definitely not enough to create a friendship group here, but I already have a circle of friends in Berlin, which is enough of a reason for me to seriously consider going back.
Third - I'm in a Berlin state of mind, to quote Mr Joel. I'm not finished with that city, and I want to maximise my time there. It's an incredible city and I feel just as much at home there as I do in my native Melbourne. Sounds strange to most of you, but I know at least Blonde Canadian knows how I feel. I need to go back there.
So, it will be "Goodbye Hamburg - nice knowing you", and a reunion with my beloved Berlin next weekend. That prospect alone is already giving me the motivation to continue through this week.
I'll keep you posted.
The flatmate
I am the first to admit that I have never lived in a share flat before - in Germany, they're known as WGs. Well, not for longer than a month anyway. I've seen my fair share though from hanging out with friends in Berlin, and crashing on various couches - from small WGs with only one or two flatmates, to the relatively huge, with up to five flatmates. I've heard about a lot of different styles of flatmate, from the socialites to the hermits, from the cleaning freaks to the slobs, and everything in between.
My new flatmate though - strictly temporary, so don't get all worked up that I haven't yet sent a Hamburg address out to everyone - is... well, interesting. He's about in his mid 30s, I think, Bangladeshi, and works the afternoon/night shift in a restaurant on the harbour in Hamburg. He cooks a lot of curry - understandable, being from that area - but the way I knew wasn't by him telling me. Rather, by the yellow stains in the kitchen. Not just around the stove from the night before. No. These are stains that have been there for months, if not years. I know - I tried to scrub, and started to destroy my fingers before making any impact on the stains. And it's not just a few. They're all over the stove, on the rangehood, on the counter, on the side of the fridge adjacent to the stove, on all of the light-coloured utensils, and on the bottom of all of the crockery.
And then there's the cutlery. Most people use the cutlery drawer, some people use a cutlery dispenser or a rotating hanging contraption for their forks, spoons, etc. No. In this flat, there is a bucket half full with water on the kitchen floor: every utensil in the kitchen was in this bucket of water when I came into the kitchen to cook on the first night I was there. No idea if they're clean or dirty or somewhere in between. I removed my jewellery from my right hand, gritted my teeth and reached in to grab some essentials: one fork, one sharp knife, one wooden spoon, and a normal spoon. None of the crockery matches, so after having washed all four of these carefully with hot water, detergent and a scourer, I put them in the drawer and made note of their identifying marks.
Like I said, this place is temporary.
My new flatmate though - strictly temporary, so don't get all worked up that I haven't yet sent a Hamburg address out to everyone - is... well, interesting. He's about in his mid 30s, I think, Bangladeshi, and works the afternoon/night shift in a restaurant on the harbour in Hamburg. He cooks a lot of curry - understandable, being from that area - but the way I knew wasn't by him telling me. Rather, by the yellow stains in the kitchen. Not just around the stove from the night before. No. These are stains that have been there for months, if not years. I know - I tried to scrub, and started to destroy my fingers before making any impact on the stains. And it's not just a few. They're all over the stove, on the rangehood, on the counter, on the side of the fridge adjacent to the stove, on all of the light-coloured utensils, and on the bottom of all of the crockery.
And then there's the cutlery. Most people use the cutlery drawer, some people use a cutlery dispenser or a rotating hanging contraption for their forks, spoons, etc. No. In this flat, there is a bucket half full with water on the kitchen floor: every utensil in the kitchen was in this bucket of water when I came into the kitchen to cook on the first night I was there. No idea if they're clean or dirty or somewhere in between. I removed my jewellery from my right hand, gritted my teeth and reached in to grab some essentials: one fork, one sharp knife, one wooden spoon, and a normal spoon. None of the crockery matches, so after having washed all four of these carefully with hot water, detergent and a scourer, I put them in the drawer and made note of their identifying marks.
Like I said, this place is temporary.
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