We started in language housing. You can see Claire eating breakfast in our kitchen.
This was in the west part of Berlin where Friedenau and Wilmersdorf meet up and near the language school (IFS) - the hub for the summer Bosch activity. This part of Berlin is very residential and typical of most German cities, lots of families making use of the playground and near busy shopping corners, but quiet at night with few people out and about. It was an easy place to get our bearings and start getting our basic needs met. I learned about the all important step of "Anmelding" in Germany. You have register with the city every time you move and only with this all important piece of paper can you get anything else (bank account, library card, video rental card). You get to go the nearest city Bürgeramt, take a number and wait to have your number come up on the screen to go have the city clerk take the information off the form you just filled out and put it into the computer. They even asked about our parents and what they do for a living. Apparently this can take hours, but we lucked out on our first visit and only had to wait about 25 minutes. When I returned 3 weeks later, because you have to go in person with your rental contract everytime you move, I waited 65 minutes for my 5 minute transaction and got stung by a bee while waiting in line. Your Anmeldung is the magic piece of paper though because once you are official everything else falls in line. German bureaucracy, like any other country, seems to have mixed messages. We got detailed instructions on how to sort or trash which to me seemed forward focused in terms of resource management. And yet, when I went to change our address at the bank I had to sign six separate pieces of paper - three to cancel our old address and three to officialize our new address - go figure (at least it was recycled paper).The exciting part of being in Berlin for a whole year is that I can take in the cultural and historical sites at a nice slow pace. After we got our early business accomplished I spent a day exploring the well known main attractions: Unter den Linden, Brandenburg Tor, Alexanderplatz, Berlin Dom and the Museum Insel.
Brandeburg Tor Berlin Dom Marienkirche
I did the Gillian free tour and just checked things out to see what to visit later. In the German historical museum foyer they have a relief map of Europe and then a projection onto the map that shows the changing territories over the last 200 years. I watched the projection run through about three times trying to try make sense of European geopolitical history. Fortunately I've been reading and just finished an actual German history book. It's been a huge learning curve given that for most of my life I've focused on learning about the nations around the Pacific Ocean. I've always been much better about learning and making sense of history and politics when they are right outside my front door and I can actually see the places and landscapes of events.
Berlin has two nights a year for Lange Nacht of the Museums where they keep the museums open on a Saturday night until 2am and one ticket gets you into everything and use of the extra transportation. We hit the one at the end of August. The weather wasn't quite a warm, late summer evening but we bundled up and visited the Berlin Dome, climbed up to the cupola and walked around to get a great view of the city at night; checked out the Schwule museum which told about the gay male histroy of Berlin, but seemed to leave out the lesbians; explored a local museum about Kreuzberg (our neighborhood) and generally enjoy a night about town with a couple other Boschies and more Berliners than I can count. We're looking forward to year without papers to write or grade so we can continue to enjoy both highly publicized and small quirky events around the city.
I, of course, given my love of grocery stores have spent a significant about of my time in Berlin shopping to find the best prices and best looking produce. Not an easy task. Apparently much of the best produce in Germany is shipped to other places, hence the difficulty in finding kale and chard. To buy organic, "bio", or not; to shop at the farmers markets, Turkish market, big chains, small chains -so many decisions. Its interesting to re-evaluate all my shopping prejudices when all the stores are different and I have to carry everything home by foot. Somedays I enjoy the adventure, other times I wish for the efficiency of knowing exactly where to go for what. My favorite food find is all the pastes that you can get here - like pestos except with nuts, cheese, tomatoes, olives and all sorts of other yummy ingredients - slowly I'm beginning to have a better sense of 100 grams, at least to switch from 100 grams to 1 kilogram you only have to be able to multiply by 1o instead of 16. American students might have a better chance on the world stage of math and science if we just switched to metrics. I'll try sometime soon for some market and neighborhood pictures. The weather has been a bit more sunny lately so it might be time for some fall photography.
