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Published: September 18th 2007
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Berlin
Brandenburg Gate Last week was hectic. Let’s recap. Amanda and I moved in on Sunday. The toilet exploded Sunday night. Oh have I not mentioned that yet? Let’s start at the beginning. We began the move in on Sunday while our landlord was still moving out. As this was the case, and there was decidedly no “hiss” (elevator) at our apartment, hauling all our stuff up the stairs was super-fun. Considering that Amanda and I went for a run that morning, followed by a few sets of squats and lunges, then packing, then hauling up the stairs, we were wiped. Karin and Jojje drove us (in their very Swedish Volvo) to the apartment and we met Pete, Amanda’s friend along the way who donated a ton of towels and bedding left from a past student, we were overjoyed.
As our landlord packed and cleaned, we left him to go do some necessary shopping. He gave us directions to the store and expecting a long hike in front of us, we set out, backpacks at the ready. Amazingly, the grocery store is within the apartment block, and is cheaper than anywhere else we’ve shopped. We were (and still are) overjoyed! We bought the
Potsdamn Platz
Main Square in Berlin basics, and enough fruit and veg to last us a few days and headed back home (the whole five minutes) backpacks full!
We unpacked, set up the house and furniture the way we liked, put away the expensive looking Thai furniture from the living room, and added our own touches to make it more personal (Sarong covered couch anyone? It looks better, trust me.) We sat back and enjoyed the amazing view - it’s a three bedroom, two bathroom, full kitchen, dining room and balcony apartment, and roughly two and a half times larger than Karin and Jojje’s place, and their place is big, European wise, so to say the least, we’re grateful and excited for our new lives here.
… Then the toilet exploded.
Our landlord warned us that the water wasn’t working and would be fixed in the morning. Fair enough. However, he didn’t mention that there was a … gift of sorts in the toilet… and that trying to flush it away (not me! Amanda didn’t listen!!!) would cause… a great disturbance. The bathroom with the bathtub and washing machine basically blew up from the drain and there was a nice pool of specialness
Wurst in Berlin
Curry Wurst, or sausage things seem to be the thing in Berlin... everywhere. It was awful. The house still smells. We mopped, cleaned, and made it go away and the people came in the morning to fix it….
And it exploded again.
Course, they left us the mess which was just perfect, so we got to clean it again, spending nearly $12 to replace a mop head, and finally, after bleaching … well… the crap out of everything, we were satisfied that nothing could have lived through that. However, it took another three days before either of us was ready to use the washroom.
In the meantime, our neighbour decided to show us all the things our landlord hadn’t had time to. This included the (free) laundry when we feel like saving electricity and not doing it in suite; and … I nearly hugged him… the GYM!!!! He’s like, do you like the gym? I was a bit confused. I had been looking into spending a lot of money per month to go to a gym since exercise in winter here isn’t going to be happening outside. Since I don’t have that kind of money I was re-evaluating my ability to do cardio in an apartment living room. The possibilities were bleak to say the least. I was pretty depressed because I like working out a lot, and so when he said ‘gym’ I thought he might be referring to the Swedish word for middle school - ‘gymnasium’ thinking oh there’s a high school nearby, why would we need that, so I asked him to clarify, and he showed me the happiest place in our apartment block - the gym. it’s a four room gym with free weights, stair climbers and a range of machines that can do everything. I’m so happy, so, so happy. :D I’ve been there twice and will be back tomorrow.
We spent a good part of Tuesday partaking in the best Ikea idea ever. EVER. Ikea picks up students in a bus, ships them off to Ikea, feeds them meatballs for dinner (we’re starving students, I’m so serious), and then gives us free reign for two and a half hours, then drives us home, with our purchases, all for free. In this way, Ikea gets a ton of customers who are eager to spend their money on everything in sight, and we get shipped about and fed. it’s a great relationship; and the best part of all, it felt like we were back in Richmond/Coquitlam, chatty Asians on the bus and all. J Just like home.
We bought four sets of bedding, sheets, pillow cases, pillows, and comforters, as well as kitchen stuff, some bathroom stuff, mats, and candles for about $300. It was brilliant. I finally slept well after nights of sleeping with sheets and no pillows.
During all this we had a massive project due at school and were working crazy hours to try to get that done also. We were basically solving the problem of how to improve the facility manager’s life and it went well, all things considered! Our group of students grew by two, as two people from Bangladesh joined us, and on Friday we were assigned our next project, “Sustainable Transportation”.
Oh yes, and we bought tickets for Berlin, for the weekend.
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