Summer in Berlin: off the top of my head

As per meutererin’s recent recommendation, I just re-watched Everything Is Illuminated... I like holding onto memories and oftentimes am left aghast when I’m told it’s better to leg go of a memory and then it will come back to you when you least expect it. I don’t know, if I don’t write something down or take a picture of it or have something to remember the event by, there is a big chance I can forget it. Especially when my most treasured memories are connected to travel and since I’ve done so much of the figural tramping by myself lately, I don’t want to take any chances.

So I kept a list of a few memorable things I did throughout July-September, much like the one I had for my first stay in Berlin.

1. My July flatshare at Kreuzberg 10969. I had a huge room across the apartment to myself, and a fantastic balcony for brunches. A perfect place for entertaining old and new friends. In that same flatshare I learned that some Germans like salads that include raw mushrooms, now I like them myself.
2. Visited Bread and Butter with Bernardo. I am no fan of fashion, but it was quite special to be at a closed fashion fair located on the grounds of the former Tempelhof airport. All those free drinks didn’t hurt, either.
3. Went to a gay bear wedding celebration.
4. Explored some of Berlin’s lakes. Got introduced to FKK (free body culture) there and quite liked it. Who knew almost everyone in the GDR was a nudist!..
5. Bought a bike and had to replace both tubes and tires on it, but it was liberating and breathtaking, riding a bike through Berlin. Very cool. I loved discovering new routes.
6. Was left soaking wet 4 times in the 4 weeks of July after cycling in thunderstorm. Not cool.
7. For August and September I returned to my already familiar vegan flatshare at Neukölln 12055. It felt like home. With my bar table and an armchair that I dragged all the way up to the 4th floor by myself (pffftt). Being vegan is easy in Berlin. Loved shopping at Maybachufer every Tuesday or Friday.
8. Juls stopped by and we had a fantastic extended weekend that resulted in her almost leaving with my invalid/back-up foreign passport and me keeping hers.
9. Had a 1-meter pizza with my friends and couchsurfers in Rixdorf, twice. You need to be 7 or 8 to finish it off. 
10. Briefly visited the Berlin Bierfestival on Frankfurter Allee with Bernardo. Turns out, a beer festival is just a place with a lot of drunken people and even more beer. Boooring. And no need to ever bother with Oktoberfest.
11. Played ping pong with couchsurfers on different occasions. The area around the Wasserturm in Prenzlauer Berg is perfect for it.
12. Re-established the Wednesday party in Schwuz as well as Soul Explosion in Festsaal Kreuzberg  as my favorite Berlin parties. Danced on the stage in Schwuz and felt all vain and good when people had their pictures taken with me (with me and my T shirt, the one that says, a bad day fishing beats a good day working).
13. Helene visited Berlin and thus me, twice. Fun memories. A lot of conversations about my favorite topics, reminiscing on Istanbul, exploring a couple of exhibitions together, seeing good films, talking life.
14. Also went to see the final installment of Harry Potter with Helene and her friend. That cost us 12 Euro per person. And I thought 12 Euro for some of the Berlinale films earlier this year was expensive!
15. Had a nice experience watching the All-German Sunday night TV series, Tatort, in a bar with Helene.
16. Volksküche!
17. Went to Milan, Turin and Nice with my mother and had my worst nightmare come to life, we missed her return flight. Bought a last-minute ticket for her to Berlin with me and she stayed with us in our vegan flatshare… Showed her Berlin and introduced her to a couple of restaurants. She is now in love with Berliner Schrippen. As much as I am in love with Laugenbrezeln, still.
18. Was on the beach in Nice in the evening of August 15, France’s Assumption of Mary holiday. Great fireworks from 3 boats in the sea.
19. Had an accident on my bike and almost broke a finger on 9/11.
20. Reconnected with Mandy. Hung out with Lindsay and Brandy, who I’d previously met in Istanbul and again Berlin. Got to know Adam, of Travels of Adam. Got a massage from Andrew “Magic Hands”, a Canadian IT guy and couchsurfer. And… got to know a few other great people.
21. Checked out a few modern art exhibitions/establishments. Oberbaumbrückegallerie, Based in Berlin, some Dutch exhibition.
22. Fell in love with Asiagerichte. And finally got over my love for peanut butter.
23. Kollektivabendbrot with Mandy. A small project café in Friedrichshain hosts a dinner once a week where random people bring food to share and hang out together.
24. Established Puschkinallee as one of my favorite places to ride a bike.
25. Experienced verkaufsöffener Sonntag. Let’s call it delayed gratification after all those Sundays when every store in town is closed.
26. Found Ian through Twitter and interpreted for a Whistleblowers documentary interview with Alexandr Nikitin, the one man who won a case against the FSB/KGB on the grounds of espionage and treason. 
27. After the bad weather that we had in July and August, September was perfect with its warmth and generous sun. 
28. One of my last nights in Berlin spent with Bernardo, Rainer, a bottle of vodka, maracuya juice and a bag of ice on top of a hill in Berlin’s Victoriapark. Only followed by an amazing night of dancing in Schwuz.

Sigh.

Cost of a 3-month trip to Europe

Ten days have passed since I finished my longest to date European tour and as always, being outside of Russia was a delight.

As previously mentioned in the post on my travel expenses for a 10-day trip in 4 European countries, I split my expenses into the following categories:

accommodation – this includes the rent that I had for my room in Berlin plus expenses for Couchsurfing (zero), the best travel experience in the world

food – all things grocery

entertainment – umbrella term for a lot of things and could include: movie tickets, coffee&cake or alcohol at cafés and bars, entrance fees, any street food I might leave on – basically any purchase that in a perfect cost-saving world I could do without

transport 1 – airport buses, intercity buses, intercity railway tickets and any single- or multi-trip tickets in any of the destinations I’ve been to (transportation prices in Europe are just too unfair!)

transport 2 – monthly tickets in Berlin

airfare – flight tickets

IT – USB Wireless, SIM-card, emergency laptop adapter…

clothes – it used to be the major spending category, however in the recent months I have found myself to start thinking material possessions like clothing are exuberant and not as important as my travel experiences (although it doesn’t mean I wear shabby clothes, I just don’t shop for the sake of shopping)

other – anything that couldn’t fit into the above category, might include things like shampoo, toothpaste, books, presents, etc.

And without further ado, here’s how much was spent on this 85-day trip (in EUR):

How to find a place to live in Berlin

Renting a room in Berlin

I have been asked the flatshare question several times for the past month or so, so I figured the best way to do this would be to write the answer down as this might be useful to those about to undertake an apartment search in Berlin.

I decided back in November that I would like to extend my trip to Europe now that I don’t have a desk job anymore and can dispose of a one-year Shengen multi-visa.

Like in most other spheres, one has to do some research before taking action. Initially I only briefly looked at the prices for apartments and rooms and set my limit to 300 EUR per month for a room. Later I lowered that to 200 EUR monthly as everything around 300 EUR turned seemed to be overpriced compared to other offers.

Basically there are two ways to find a room in Berlin:

• Internet
• Friends and acquaintances

The latter would seem the easy way out and had I had an enormous amount of friends in Berlin, that would’ve been prone to work. However, having been 3 times in Germany and not once in its capital, I only had one friend in Berlin who I’d met in Russia several years prior to that at a youth parliament. She asked her friends here in Berlin if anything was available and at the time there was nothing, however later when I’d already found the place, she said something came up, so this option is definitely not to rule out. Also, she graciously offered me to spend several nights at their flatshare if I wouldn't find anything before starting the trip.

Internet is as always a source of both useful information and garbage, in the end I’ve found the following sites useful for my apartment search

• Craigslist
• Couchsurfing
• WG gesucht
• Immobilien Scout 24
• WG Company

Craigslist – I would say it’s tourist-oriented (or perhaps even American tourist-oriented). A lot of ads are in English, the prices are generally not low, it’s half vacation rentals and half flatshares. A lot of scams, but you can see them from miles away either in the actual ad or later when you receive a reply or replies and it’s obvious the sender hasn't read your message at all and suggests you pay via a money wire first and then they will send you the keys with UPS.

Couchsurfing – the devoted member that I am, I couldn’t not look there. Long-term stays and rentals are not what CS is about, but I’d say it’s not impossible to find something there, but you better personally contact somebody who you think might be willing to have you stay for some a couple of months than posting in groups.

WG gesucht would seem the be the most popular place to search. It has the most offers, also pretty user-friendly.

Immobilien Scout 24 is highly advertised on most flatshare sites, but I think it’s mostly apartments for one/couple/family, not WGs. Most are not furnished.

WG Company is where I found my flatshare. Extremely basic interface, but the lowest prices, no vacation rentals offers, not tourist-oriented for the most part. Obviously this is the one I’d recommend most.

In general it’s best for you to (also) be able to speak German, but it’s definitely not obligatory, some flatshares actually wish to speak English (mine, for instance), most young people speak English quite well and it’s not unusual to live in an apartment with people from Portugal, Italy, UK, Finland, etc.

I also have to tell you that I keep hearing that it was unusual to find an apartment via the web without having seen or talked to the person and I quite agree, but I was dead set on already having a place to stay upon my arrival, so I just ploughed my way in, I would say. In the course of two or two and a half weeks I sent out approximately 50 inquiries, about 40 of which never even earned me an answer. I did it the Couchsurfing way though, most of them anyway, it wasn’t just a copy-paste message to the entire planet, but it was a little bit personalized and aware of questions or remarks in the WG offer. You don’t have to bare your soul there or come off as pretentiously interested, but a personal touch will definitely receive more attention than a robotic message.

Apartments are divided into 3 categories, namely:

• Zweck-WG / “flatshare with an aim”
• “flatshare without an aim”
• something in between

"Aim" means you all live together to save money and there’s a high chance that it’s the one thing you have in common. Having no aim means it’s either friends living together or people with similar interests who like to cook together, go out and share their lives with each other. Something in between is a mix both and it seems it’s what most flatshares are or become after having been the first option.

In the end I had two flatshares interested in me. I had a skype webcam interview with a group of people in a WG with a view on the TV tower who later chose somebody who wanted to stay for a longer period; and the one where I live right now. I ended up paying only 100EUR a month and yes, that includes all utilities and Internet. I was a bit baffled too, honestly. And they agreed to have me here after only two emails. That had me worried a little bit, because it just didn’t seem real and I even wanted to pre-book a cheap hotel for a couple of days, but it all worked out perfectly in the end. I live in Neukölln near the Ringbahn which means I can be in any other district of the city within minutes. Plus, there’s a direct bus to the central station (less than 30 minutes) and Schönenfeld Airport (less than 40 minutes) and several supermarkets within walking distance. Also, cappuccino starting at 1EUR in nearby bars/cafes. Plus, I quite enjoy my flatmates, on the one hand, they mind their own business, but on the other hand, we can chat and hang out together and all of it is very relaxed and stress-free. I’m quite delighted.

And before I forget:

This German life: the perfect WG