Berlin, 2012-07-17

Almost routine today: waking up, noticing it’s raining and waking up shortly after because of the bright sun. Weather in Berlin is highly unstable and weather reports are generally not to be trusted. If they say it will be raining, it rains as much as there will be sunshine shortly after. And then rain again. I blame those fast moving clouds! I packed my bags but left for a short errand without them.

I had spotted a little Wild-West-themed shoe store on Oranienstraße the days before and today I had the time and nerve to go in. ”Hello! I’m sure you can help me: I’m looking for some new ankle-boots.” I was the only customer and the owner looked like a mix of today’s Iggy Pop and Neil Young. He was proficient, showed me around the store and got me in no-time what I had been looking for. Interestingly the same brand that I had seen a few weeks earlier in Salzburg, only a hundred bucks cheaper! Black smooth leather with a flat heel, sturdy yet elegant and discreet. They even were comfortable. He gave me some shoe-shiner for free along with them and urged me to get a rubber-sole fixed by a shoe-maker so they wouldn’t be walked through after three months.

I headed home, put the shoes in a corner, grabbed my bag and camera and left for the subway. I grew a little bit bolder in photographing people but only hasty and almost unnoticed. I don’t feel like getting into a conflict with somebody who doesn’t like their picture taken. As I strolled up Weinbergsweg like so many times before, it again started to rain. I was lucky to catch my table in the Café Napoljonska again where I feasted on a huge breakfast with scrambled eggs, pancakes, freshly-squeezed juice, much coffee and a heavenly Lütticher waffle. I read a bit more of Lovecraft and again got busy with writing the script to my tutorial while the weather outside just was borderline between sunshine and showers.

Tonight I will meet with Esther and Georg for a farewell-coffee or two for I’ll be leaving tomorrow with way too much luggage, I can tell already. I never thought that I would thank Facebook, but after a little status update asking who would be happy to pick me up from the airport I was surprised that after half a day I got enough replies and will now be transported home by our happily-bearded classmate known as Schranzl.

6:14 p.m.

Oh, the bliss of having an internet-connection on the go! Again I could research for my tutorial, look up stuff and, most importantly, I could chat some more with Conny. She also asked me whether I was duly bored out but all the mind-work for my tutorial left little space for me to just zone out and indulge into boredom. Although I am close to it. Shortly I will leave for the meet-up and hopefully the clouds will have opened up again for a short window of sunshine that I can venture down to the subway station.

11:47 p.m.

I timed my departure perfectly and was at 7 p.m. sharp on time. But I was the only one and so I decided to free me from the burden of my backpack with notebook and all electronic gadgets inside. When I returned with my only my camera, I spotted Georg and Esther from afar. Two teeth had recently been removed from Georg’s mouth and he still showed a little bulge in his cheek, maybe also he wasn’t quite sticking to what his dentist had told him: “Two days I should refrain from smoking, alcohol and caffeine. So yesterday was day three and I had two shots of Whiskey, some vine, coffee and a smoke and it started bleeding like crazy again. Throwing in the painkillers afterwards wasn’t that good of an idea either…”.

We decided to stroll towards Mitte and look for a nice café along the way. We ended up on Moritzplatz in the Prinzessinengarten, a lovely public gardening project in an empty building site. The entrance was inconspicuous, overgrown with vines. Two kids were playing foosball in an open hut, the surroundings suddenly looked like a backyard in Bulgaria, charming nonetheless. Suddenly Esther looked at her phone and was a bit embarrassed to tell us that she had almost forgotten that another friend of hers from the old times was visiting her in Berlin. “I am so sorry but I gotta go. Hannah just arrived and will be there in an hour.” Georg and I didn’t mind tagging along and so we returned back along the Oranienstraße where Esther got some organic vegetables because she wanted to cook instead of going out.

On our way back a guy on Oranienplatz towards Naunynstrasse a bicycle stopped with screeching brakes just behind our group of three. It was Nico, an old-time acquaintance of Georg from Salzburg who also lives in Berlin now. We exchanged our evening plans and he said that he might drop by at Esther’s later on, where we ended up a couple of minutes later. Esther was handing Georg weird presents from Japan and told him all the entertaining little anecdotes that happened to her, like the “Is vintage”-reply she got after trying to connect with her Japanese hosts by stating that she liked to watch the TV-animé Mila Superstar. Suddenly she shrieked: “Ouch! I cut my finger. Damn! Is the skin to protrude that way? Ew!” It looked awful. I ran down to fetch two band-aids for Esther and as I returned she was sitting on the floor, her hand wrapped in toilet paper, a small red dot visible in the tissue. ”Will it grow back?” she asked me. Yes, Esther seemed really worried. ”Do you feel the tip of your finger?” – “Yes.” — “So you severed no nerves at least. Did it feel like you hit a bone?” – “No?” – “Then it’s alright. Just put a bandaid over it and leave it a lone for a couple of days.” Yes, I was really certain of myself giving good advice.

Then the door bell rang and Hannah arrived with a big backpack with beer-bottles jingling inside. We all introduced ourselves, Esther got some friendly pity from Hannah for her injury and Hannah assured her as well. “Don’t worry. You sit there and just tell me what to do and I’ll continue cooking for you, all right?”. She went on to cut the leek but with the first cut she also cut her thumb. At first I thought she was just being funny but she really was hurt and so there was an occasion for the other band-aid I had brought. In the meantime Nico arrived and we all agreed that the cutting was a sign to eat out.

Again on Oranienstraße we settled for a nice little oriental takeaway shop that even had some rickety benches and tables out on the street where the five of us took seat, Esther ate hummus, Hannah and I had a very tasty falafel sandwich and we all chatted a bit. Georg wasn’t feeling well and soon said his good-byes, and as we left to return to Esther’s place also Nico departed. “I don’t know about you but I really would love something sweet,” I said as we walked along the Adalbertstraße. I always had ignored the tacky “Fruit-Döner” shop for I thought it was just ridiculous, despite the joint always buzzing with customers. When Hannah saw it, she was just on fire and bolted in towards the counter, only to be completely overwhelmed with the possibilities. There were different sauces, fruit, sweets and ice cream you could get your waffle with, a waffle folded in the middle like a döner, hence the name. It took me about five minutes to some up with a selection of ingredients while Esther and I smirked as we overheard Hannah’s spluttering talk with the guy taking the orders. When she was told that she could have more than one kind of fruit and more than one kind of topping it almost blew her mind.

In the end I settled for a waffle with white chocolate topping, fresh strawberries and bananas with Snickers bar fragments, chili seasoning (I like it hot) and a scoop of lemon ice cream. No cream, thank you, I’m on a diet! Once we received our orders and sat on the street we all were just completely out of our fricking minds because of the sheer glut of ingredients. Hannah, who has a very strong Viennese accent, put it into words that are almost impossible to translate into English: “Olfaktorisch ur-leiwand, gustatorisch die Härte!” (something like “Olfaktory like totally awesome, gustatory da shit!”) Shortly after we finished reveling in our dessert, Hannah’s old-time friend Joe appeared. He’s also from Vienna and arrived two days ago for his new life as a research assistant in Berlin. At least now he knows where to get some good desert.

We decided to head back to Esther’s once again and sit on the veranda on the roof with a beer and in my case some roasted barley tea Esther brought from Japan. The air was cool, almost chilly and I kept myself warm by holding one of the tea candles that provided us with a little light. So the three of us sat on the roof and exchanged funny stories from our lives while a little fat mouse was watching us. Esther was a bit worried that it might live in the community kitchen behind the door. Esther told the story of her life in Mozambique where the she lived in was constantly haunted by noisy mice at night. “At least mouses are cuter than the rats you see in the early hours running along the Donaukanal in Vienna” Hannah stated, “Or the rat corpses floating in the Donaukanal,” Joe added. “Vienna is a very morbid city…” I concluded. We sat there a while longer but Berlin’s summer nights obviously get very cold and over the clear sky soon a blanket of thick clouds was put. As I am writing these lines it’s raining once again. I hope it wanes when I leave this place in nine hours with my bags.

Oh crap! I should pack!

Almost routine today: waking up, noticing it’s raining and waking up shortly after because of the bright sun. Weather in Berlin is highly unstable and weather reports are generally not...

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