Internet Blues

It's been a very business-like week so far, getting to grips with the practicalities of Berlin life.  I started my language course on Monday.  It's an intensive two-week course, three hours a day Monday to Friday.  The fantastic bakery across the road provides a welcome interlude at breaktime, and at less than two euros for coffee and a doughnut, it could prove a serious danger to my health.  I'm hoping that the fact that I either walk or cycle (depending on the weather) to and from class will counteract the effects of the daily sugar overload.
On Tuesday afternoon we went down to the local Burgeramt to register as residents in the city.  This was a fairly painless process and definitely not the nightmare of Kafka-esque bureaucracy I'd been led to expect.
Wednesday we had a problem with our internet availability.  We have no Wi-Fi in the flat so we're renting a surfstick from the estate agents who we found the flat through.  We have somehow exceeded our download limit and now have no internet (apart from on Alan's phone) until 4th December.  This brought a couple of immediate problems to light.  We are going to Mallorca on 5th December for a little pre-Christmas treat instead of buying each other presents.  As it's online check-in, we took the laptop down to Wohnzimmer - one of my favourite bars - on Helmholtzplatz to do the checking-in and will go to one of the copy shops to print out the boarding passes.
Last night we went to the language exchange at the St Gaudy Café for the second time.  It was very busy and lively but I got the chance to inflict my terrible grasp of the language on the two Germans I was sitting with.  They were very kind though, and one gave me his e-mail address and said he'd be happy to meet us for more language exchanging.
As we've no internet at home, I'm writing this post in Beakers, which, I think I've said before, is my favourite bar in the city at the moment.  It's so cosy, atmospheric and friendly.  I've just had a smoked salmon and brie sandwich placed in front of me so that's my signal to sign off.
Until the next post.  Tschuss!