Summer in the City

Another month, another milestone.  June had been the only month in which I’d not spent any time in Berlin, so that situation has now been rectified.   I’m now well and truly settled in the new flat.  I had been reluctant to move here initially but we had no choice – our rental contract on the other flat couldn’t be extended as the owner was coming back to Berlin and wanted to move back in.  However, I did quickly grow to prefer this one.  I think my concerns were that it was smaller than the other flat and open-plan.  I don’t have a problem with open-plan – I’m mildly claustrophobic so I like big spaces.  But I was concerned that it wouldn’t be practical if one of us wanted to work.  In the other flat I spent a lot of time in the kitchen where I’d made a desk out of the dining table and could get on with things without disturbing Alan or without him disturbing me.  It’s not been a problem though as we have a desk area and a kitchen dining area to work at, and also the sofa’s quite a useful workspace being large and L-shaped.  My other concern was a purely cosmetic one.  The flat was styled in a very masculine way with lots of black and red.  I looked around after we got the keys and thought we had made a mistake.  We’d rented the flat for nine months, until the end of January 2015, extending the duration of our intended stay by three months.  However, once left on my own – Alan very conveniently had a football match to go to that night – I set about rearranging things to make it more agreeable to me.  I removed the pictures – luridly-coloured photographs of a floodlit Brandenburger Tor and Fernsehturm – and put them in the hall.  Then I got rid of the red.  I removed a red throw, cushions and rug to the bedroom replacing the rug with the bedroom’s more neutral-coloured one.  I then found a couple of oatmeal-coloured throws in a drawer which I used to drape over a red chair.  The final challenge was the bedroom.  The bedding was a garishly-patterned purple, red, yellow and orange.  Luckily we’d bought some plain white bedding at the other flat because the dark brown and navy bedding there was depressing.  I’m beginning to wonder if it’s a German foible to sleep in ghastly-coloured bedding.  I know that all of our tastes are different and the flat is lovely and modern but it was just a bit too sterile and, as I say ‘bachelor-pad’ for me. 

I’ve been making acquaintance with the neighbours here too.  They seem very friendly in this house in comparison to the previous one.  I think the problem there was that a few of the flats were holiday lets so there was a constant turnover of new faces.  However, I think we had lived there long enough to be recognised and acknowledged by the neighbours when we passed them in the hof.  Some people were friendly but by no means all.  A couple of weeks ago I got talking to Franziska, who lives three floors up from us and that weekend she invited us to a barbecue in her garden.  The garden – attached to an old DDR-era datscha – was a ten minute bike ride away in the direction of Pankow.  It was a lovely, serene place to be at the end of a hot and dusty day in the city.  A table was set up under a vine-entangled porch, and beers cooled in a tub of water while Franziska prepared salads and picked strawberries and Tilo, her partner, took charge of the barbecue.  We sat talking until late into the night, Tegel-bound planes gliding overhead, before cycling back through the still hot but by then fairly quiet streets. 

On the subject of new acquaintances, I’ve acquired a tandem-speaking partner and last Thursday I met up with her at Messe Nord ICC.  From there we walked down to the Leitzensee where we had a drink and sat looking over the lake towards the Funkturm until sundown.  We chatted about all sorts of things and I’m not sure we got a lot of tandem-speaking done but I’m preparing some things I’d like to go over at our next meeting.

It’s been a month so far of  baking-hot temperatures and practically non-stop work.  I’ve taken another couple of sessions at the language exchange which I’m really enjoying doing.  I’m also revising hard for my TEFL exam.  I’ve now completed all of the work but, as I’ve got about eight weeks left I’m taking my time to go over the material again and practice getting my lesson plans done within a time frame.  I’ve also landed my first job.  It’s only a few hours here and there of freelance copywriting but It's a real job and I'm so pleased to be doing it.

Right now the city is firmly in the grip of World Cup mania – it seems as though every single bar, restaurant, café and even takeaway has installed screens especially for the matches.  We watched the Spain-Netherlands match at our local amongst a healthy sprinkling of fans from both countries and the atmosphere was fantastic.  Later, we're off to meet a bunch of friends to watch the England match.  I might even do a World Cup post before long. 

I already have a few posts in the pipeline, one on the literary scene in Berlin and a ‘favourite places’ post but finding the time to get them completed is proving to be quite a challenge!

The joys of jumping through German hoops

The last post was about what is really a straightforward bureaucratic procedure - registering with the ‘Burgeramt’.  However, not all of our encounters with German bureaucracy have been as plain-sailing.

In January we went down to the Job Center in Storkower Strasse to register as job seekers.  Things got off to a bad start when a receptionist sent us to the wrong department.  The hostility of the member of staff we spoke to when we got there was so demoralising that we were beginning to wonder what crime we had committed.  It took us two months to gather sufficient strength of will to try again.  When we did eventually make our way to the department that we should have been directed to in the first place, we were helped by a lovely lady who had minimal English but, with our minimal German, a passable conversation took place and we managed to get Alan’s name onto the system (I had to register at the Agentur in Charlottenburg because of my professional qualifications).  We then had to take away paperwork to be completed and returned by a certain date so we could be issued with a social security number each and given appointments for interviews.    

My interview was quite painless; the member of staff I spoke to was very helpful and spoke good English so it wasn’t as terrifying as I had feared.  She told me that I needed to have my qualifications to hand before anyone would employ me (I had left them all in England, not realising that they would be valid in Germany) and that I ought to have a qualification in TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), which I subsequently set about acquiring. 

Alan’s interview was very different and was conducted entirely in German.  He was told that there were plenty of jobs in his field but that without a competent knowledge of the language he could forget it.  She gave him the contact details for a ‘sprachschule’ in Charlottenburg which ran an ‘integration’ course, part of which involved teaching German to the level accepted by employers.  The whole interview lasted no more than ten minutes.

What followed was an epic wild goose chase.  Alan e-mailed the ‘sprachschule’ and received a reply asking him to go down for an initial assessment.  Once there he was asked to pay 900 Euros to register for the course.  A very helpful man said that he should be able to acquire a ‘social ticket’ which meant that, even though he was not claiming benefits, his lack of an income would enable him to have the course fees waived and would also afford him subsidised travel.  This would have been welcome as, with the course running daily for six months, transport costs would take a significant bite out of our budget.  He was told to mention the ‘social ticket’ at the Job Center so they could issue him with the relevant paperwork.  However, no one at the Job Center seemed to be aware of any such ‘ticket’.  The man at the sprachschule e-mailed Frau H who had conducted Alan’s Job Center interview and she sent him an e-mail asking him to call there the following day to sign for a form that would be waiting at the front office.  When we got there though, once again, no one had any idea what we were talking about and no form was waiting.  Our request to see Frau H was rejected.  Instead, we were ushered into a room where a truly horrible goblin of a woman basically coughed her way through telling us that they could not help before waving us away, whilst coughing like a consumptive into her scarf.  For the third time, Alan went back to Charlottenburg and this time, the helpful man wrote to the Job Center, requesting a letter from them to the Burgeramt, where the social tickets are issued.  Back again at the Job Center, we saw a very friendly employee who finally provided the letter.

We took this to the Burgeramt where the member of staff we saw insisted that, to receive a social ticket, you had to be in receipt of benefits and sent us on our way.  We were back at square one so we set off for home but, by sheer chance, we encountered a member of staff who was actually willing to help.  She accompanied us back to the Burgeramt where she went to have a word with the ‘chef’.  At last we managed to find out that, although there used to be a social ticket, it had ceased to exist in 2005.  The helpful lady explained very kindly that a Berlin pass granting subsidised travel was available but only for benefits claimants.  So, although we really were back where we started, at least now we were aware of the exact situation and would not have to waste any more time chasing a non-existent document.

Another process that proved less than straightforward was the sorting out of our health cover.  When we moved here we did some research and discovered that some sort of health insurance is mandatory in Germany.  Rather naively, I had supposed that the German national health system would be the same as that in the UK and that, as EU citizens we would automatically qualify for medical assistance should we require it.  So we went down to the offices of AOK in Schönhauser Allee to begin the process.  We were told there that we needed to acquire an S1 form from the UK which would enable us to receive medical care, the cost of which would be recovered from the UK if our National Insurance contributions had been sufficient to cover it (which they had).

We received the forms from the DWP and went back to AOK where we were issued with temporary health cards and informed that we would now be able to visit a doctor should we need to.

We were given paperwork that we had to attach photos to, sign and return.  We went down to the photo booth on Prenzlauer Allee and, for two Euros, had a strip of grim passport-type photos taken.  We put these in with the forms, corrected the spelling of our surname which AOK had managed to get wrong, and put them in the post.  The next day we were sent identical forms asking us to fill in our birth names and to supply photos.  We filled in the names but ignored the request for photos as we had sent them the day before and it was obvious that the forms had crossed in the post.  We then cycled down to drop them off in person at the AOK office.  When we got back there was another letter from AOK in our ‘briefkasten’ containing yet more of the same forms and another request for photos.  We went back to AOK the following morning, where the member of staff who dealt with ‘ausländer’ claimed not to have received the photos we’d sent.  I couldn’t see how this was possible as she did have the forms that we’d sent with them.  She also told us that as there was a problem with the spelling of our name, a problem which even production of our passports wasn’t sufficient to resolve, she would have to make some phone calls and would get back to us within two days.  She didn’t.  We waited for a week and then went back, with further sets of photos and were finally told that we could have our health cards.

We have found that, when faced with bureaucratic procedures here, the amount of help you get can often be down to whomever you happen to see on a given day.  Some officials have been inordinately helpful and have gone out of their way to help, whilst others have been as obstructive as it is humanly possible to be.  The amount of time wasted to-ing and fro-ing, and being given the wrong information seems an intrinsic part of the process – I’m just glad that we didn’t have the added bother of needing visas.

Burger - no relish

I have spent most of my time over the last few days concentrating on getting my TEFL course completed as it looks like being my most realistic chance of getting work.  I lost three days last week because of the move, so since Thursday I’ve been working pretty much flat out.  Although I’ve now completed nine of the ten units that comprise the course, I’m only 64% of the way through it.  The remaining 36% is covered by the final unit, which focuses on grammar.  There’s a lot to do, but I’m trying to get it completed by next Wednesday, as I’m flying to England for a few days then. 

On Monday, I worked until just before midday when we set off for the Bürgeramt for the second time since we moved here, to register our new address.  The Bürgeramt is part of a complex of sturdy brick-built, ivy-clad blocks, each dedicated to a particular bureaucratic function.  Wide cobbled pathways dotted with old-fashioned street lamps run between them.  But despite the ‘Victorian’ visage, there is an air of neglect – some of the buildings are in need of re-pointing, and the grounds are choked with weeds.  It makes me think of Satis House – even without the abandoned brewery, I can easily imagine the young Pip playing miserably amongst these sombre edifices.

To get there we had to walk past the old flat and I noticed, as I looked up at the balcony, that since the owner returned she has taken the patio furniture out from wherever it had been hidden.  I'd been very sad to leave that flat – it had, after all, been my first home in Berlin – but I’ve got used to the new one now and I actually prefer it.  We’re very fortunate to have our own terrace as most of the flats in the house don’t even have a balcony.  It’s leafy in the hof and surprisingly quiet considering that it’s right next to the S-Bahn tracks and trains come by every couple of minutes – in fact, the end of the platform at Prenzlauer Allee station is just a few feet away from our door.  In the front of the building there is a Russian shop/café with a lively and very friendly proprietress who gives us chocolates every time we buy something.

Back in the Bürgeramt, we took a ticket, numbered 307, from the machine and found a place on the seats that line the corridor to wait our turn (when your turn arrives, your ticket number appears on a prominently-displayed screen.  The latest ticket number on the screen was 161, so we realised that we had quite a wait ahead of us).  We were among the very last of the day's customers as they stopped issuing tickets just after we got there.  The offices close at 3.00, so it makes sense, otherwise the corridor would be clogged up with people who would have no hope of being seen. 

The waiting was reminiscent of an airport departure lounge but with no shops or bars to distract us.  I thought that maybe they could install a few retail outlets in there to give people something to do to pass the time – create a sort of Bürgeramt shopping mall.  Perhaps I should approach them with a proposal to open a Bürgeramt coffee shop.  The prospect of being able to pick up a cup of coffee or a bite to eat would help enliven a fatiguing three-hour wait, I think. 

The wait, an inherent part of an unavoidable obligation, was endured with patience and a little industry.  Some had brought work with them and sat, highlighters in hand, going over papers.  Some (myself included) had books.  Others were focused on their mobile phones – texting, playing games, or surfing the net.  Mothers wandered up and down the corridor pushing prams, trying to keep babies content.  The tinny buzz of music from half a dozen headphones added its drone to the sounds of tramping feet and the bell that announced the display of each new number on the screen.  That bell had such a melancholy timbre – bi-syllabic with a downward inflection on the second syllable.  It put an image in my mind of an old church in a forlorn village, maybe in Francoist Spain, the mournful clang of its bell reminding the cowed population of the dismal authority it represents. 

I began to mark milestones as the ticket numbers appeared on the screen.  The first one was when number 200 was reached, then 207 because that meant there were a hundred people in front of us.  I looked at the time my ticket was issued: 11.58.  At 12.58, exactly fifty people had been seen, so I calculated that it would be about a quarter to three before 307 would finally flash onto the screen and that doom-laden bell would toll for me.

It was a neutral enough environment – the walls were painted an inoffensive pale yellow with woodwork in light green; the floors a practical, hard-wearing stone.  I wondered whether much thought had been given when deciding on the colour scheme to the best way of ensuring that calm prevailed.  It was a fine day; the windows were opened, and the sound of children’s voices came drifting in from the park outside. 

As the afternoon proceeded, the numbers began to thin out.  After exactly two hours, a hundred people had been seen according to the screen.   I realised that there were only four people behind us in the queue.  By this time I was feeling restless, and started to fantasise about being outside, either in the park or sitting at a pavement café with a nice piece of apple cake in front of me.  I also wanted to get back to my work. 

Finally, at ten to three, our number appeared and we made our way along the corridor to the room number indicated alongside it, to go through what is basically a five-minute process.  When we left, the corridor was deserted and silent.  Business was over for the day.  Still, now that particular bureaucratic commitment has been addressed, we can set about tackling the rest.

Haus 6 - The Burgeramt building

 

Time to move on...

It’s a sad Sunday – our last day in the Prenzlauer Allee flat and the end of the first part of our odyssey.  I will miss this flat – I love the fact that it’s at the front of the house, and I’ve spent many hours either out on the balcony or inside with the doors open, just to feel that connection to the street with its constant procession of people, traffic and swishing trams.  The tree directly outside our window is now finally in leaf – I was beginning to wonder whether it was dead as every other tree along here has been green for weeks.  I’ve not been able to see the Fernsehturm from my balcony since the leaves came out and now this one is beginning to obscure my view of the späti across the road with its abundant display of fruit and vegetables.  When I first got here it was the day before Halloween and the city was decked out in its Autumn finery – our tree still had a few brown leaves clinging tenaciously on, but they soon succumbed as the winter unfolded.  Actually, winter was fairly innocuous by Berlin standards – there were a couple of weeks of minus thirteen-fifteen temperatures at the end of January, but apart from that it was nowhere near as murderous as it could have been.  The snow arrived and disappeared, and now it’s beautiful spring.

 

View from the balcony one January morning 

Tomorrow we’ll be moving to Kanzowstrasse which is literally just across the road so at least we’ll be staying in the neighbourhood that has become so familiar to us.  I wouldn’t have minded living in a different area of the city but finding a flat anywhere proved next to impossible.  We found the new one almost by accident – a good job really or we might have been sleeping on the street tomorrow. 

Although I’m sad about leaving here (it was inevitable that I’d feel that way – it’s in my nature to do so), I’m looking forward to the move, and there have been one or two things in the Prenzlauer Allee flat that I’ve had to accept rather than enjoy.  We all have different tastes and living with someone else’s furnishings and gew-gaws has made me very aware of what I like and what I don’t like.  Two of the walls in the bedroom, for example, are painted a claustrophobic shade that I can only describe as dark teal.  The depressing ambience created by such an unpleasant colour was not helped by the fact that the duvet covers were all brown and black, so one of the first things we did after settling in was go out and buy some white bedding which at least helped lift the gloom.  Also - and I find this both baffling and disturbing - there are no curtains or blinds in the flat.  That’s not a problem at the front as I always like to see outside – back home in the UK, I only pulled down the blinds last thing at night, even in the depths of winter.  However, the bedroom is overlooked by about twelve other flats around the hof and as I’m not an exhibitionist, a solution had to be found.  This came in the form of several metres of fabric from the Turkish Market which I inexpertly fashioned into a blind and stuck up with double-sided tape.  It proved a rather inelegant expedient and a bit of an irritation as it falls down on a regular basis but at least it enabled us to preserve our modesty.

Secondly, for a small flat, it has a staggering amount of bric-a-brac including a practically museum-sized inventory of coloured glassware: a collection of bottles in blue glass, four or five vases in brown glass, assorted tealight holders in purple glass, plus odd bits and pieces in red, green and more purple.  I consigned all but the tealight holders to a cupboard in the kitchen.  For me, unnecessary ornamentation is just clutter – I’m not given to adorning every shelf, windowsill or nook and cranny with pots and vases. 

Much more of a concern than all the nick-nacks though has been the fact that we have no internet here and have had to rent a surfstick for the last six months.  This, at times, has been a real nuisance as the connection is very sporadic – on countless occasions, one of us has been in the middle of an online task and the service has been lost.  When we’ve had to do anything for which a reliable connection is essential, we’ve taken the laptop to a bar or café and worked there. 

Still, internet problems and glassware aside, it’s a lovely little flat – an Altbau with high ceilings and polished wooden floors – and it’s in a fantastic location at the less gentrified end of Prenzlauer Berg (if such a thing is possible).

I'm relieved that the new flat has wi-fi, so we won’t have to trundle off to a cafe every time we need to do something important.  It’s on the ground floor but it has its own little terrace so we’ll still have an outdoor space – a very important consideration for me.  It doesn’t overlook the street but is next to the S-Bahn tracks.  I don’t think proximity to the trains will be a problem as I grew up in a house that had a railway line practically at the bottom of the garden.  As the flat is only a few hundred yards from where we live now, we will be able to move quite easily – I think three or four trips on foot with our cases should do it.

So, as the second part of our Berlin adventure is about to begin, it’s time to take stock and look at what I’ve achieved so far:

Even though I’ve not been able to find a job, I’ve completed the first level of a German language course and embarked on a TEFL course for which I’ve now submitted and passed three projects (it’s ironic that I’m now a distance learner as, before the move, I spent eight years facilitating distance learning opportunities for prisoners).  I’ve also taken two sessions at the language exchange we’ve been regulars at since we arrived, and Darren, the regular teacher, has asked me if I would take the session once a month.   This has been hugely enjoyable.  The participants – in normal circumstances my fellow tandem speakers – have been very supportive and it’s helped keep my teaching skills from getting rusty.

I’ve become a convert to social media, having opened a Twitter account and started a blog.  This might sound like it’s all a bit late to the party but working in the prison, my colleagues and I were always warned about the security implications of social media, so I just didn’t bother.  That’s all changed now and I’ve even had an article published on a football website.  I’ve also begun to concentrate in earnest on getting some writing done.  I’ve had four partially completed novels on the back-burner for about ten years and never really had the time to get any of them anywhere near acceptable.   

I’ve been to a few literary events, including a couple of Dialogue Books’ literary lounges at Soho House and the launch of the second series of tiny publications from Readux Books.  Meeting other writers has been an absolute delight and has also given me the confidence to apply myself in greater earnest to my own writing projects.  I’m now busily trying to get one particular piece completed, but I’ve a long way to go yet, especially with so much else to concentrate on. 

But Berlin cannot help but inspire creativity – it is a constant shot in the arm and living here has made me realise how badly I want to stay.  Our initial plan was to live here for a year.  We managed to extend this by three months, so our contract for the new flat runs until the end of January rather than the end of October.  I always loved Berlin as a visitor and was prepared for the possibility that its appeal might wear off if I came to live here full time.  In fact the opposite has happened – to have to move back to the UK would seem almost like a death sentence now.  We have started to build a life for ourselves here; we have met some wonderful people – Germans and ex-pats alike – and need only to find some form of employment that will enable us to stay here permanently.

A Good Vintage...

Of the (admittedly few) things I had to sacrifice on moving to Berlin, I’m happy to say that my penchant for vintage shopping wasn’t one.   Most weekends in England, I would devote some time to exploring the vintage shops either in Digbeth in Birmingham, Hockley in Nottingham or further afield, and much pricier, Brick Lane in London.  I also spent many a Friday afternoon rummaging in the charity shops of my native Burton with my mum.  Berlin, to my great delight, has its share of vintage and second-hand stores, often concentrated in particular areas; Friedrichsain, Kreuzberg and Neukölln all have vintage enclaves.  The concept of recycling and reusing is ingrained in the city’s psyche – the many bars where the furniture looks as though it came from skips, and the custom of leaving no longer needed goods out on the street for passers-by to give new homes to are just two examples – so it’s the perfect environment for the cultivation of a thriving vintage scene.  As with everywhere else though, quality and value can vary enormously. 

The Kleidermarkt group has four vintage shops – ‘Garage’ in Schoeneberg, ‘Colours’ in Kreuzberg and two branches of ‘Made in Berlin’ in Mitte.  The Made in Berlin shops carry some appealing and good quality stock but it is a little pricy (a similar item can be much cheaper in Garage or Colours) and it’s a long time since I did anything but browse in them – I think the last thing I bought was a black trilby about three years ago during the Tuesday afternoon ‘happy hour’.  Garage, opposite the Croatian embassy in a cul-de-sac near Nollendorfplatz, is a real destination shop.  It is huge and a visit here can take up hours, but there are some great finds if you have the time to root them out.  All sorts of people shop in here; I once saw a girl jumping up and down and going into raptures over an old wedding dress, and on another occasion I spotted a bearded man disappearing into the fitting room with an armful of dresses.  On my last trip here I tried on about twenty leather jackets before buying a white pleated midi skirt, a black 80s-style top and a red belt, spending a total of €11.  The belt came from the ‘kilo’ section which is always worth a look; the clothes here are priced according to weight at €19.99 a kilo.  Whatever your purchases weigh, you pay the relevant amount.  It’s best to be cautious though because, although there are bargains, there is also some tat, and a lot of heavier items – bulky tweed skirts, leather etc. are on the kilo section’s rails.  Every time I’ve been in Garage, they’ve had a particular item on offer.  For example, one week all skirts will be a certain price, another week all blouses will be half the ticket price and so on.  They also have tubs full of hats and scarves, handbags, belts and other accessories.

Colours, in the corner of a hof just off Bergmannstrasse (they certainly make finding these shops a challenge, although there are signs on the street pointing the way), is similar in kind to Garage with a kilo section and item-specific special offers.  The prices are also reasonable.  If I had a favourite I would have to say Garage, with Colours an extremely close second.  Each of the stores has a weekly ‘happy hour’ with generous discounts, details of which can be found on the Kleidermarkt website: http://kleidermarkt.de 

 

The entrance to Garage

In general the second hand shops around Prenzlauer Berg are off-limits because the prices are in the extortion bracket, but I usually pop into ReSales http://www.secondhandandmore.com/  – a chain of second hand stores – at least once a week.  There is a branch on Prenzlauer Allee, and another on Shönhauser Allee which  I’ve bought a few things from  – a black tube skirt, an oversized black T-shirt, belts and scarves, but I think my favourite buy was a floaty green and blue dress for €4 which looks like the kind of thing you’d wear at a 1930s garden party. 

One place I always like to visit if I’m down that way is Paul’s Boutique in Oderberger Strasse http://www.paulsboutiqueberlin.de/  There are always plenty of trainers here – I picked up an Adidas pair for €10 – and brands such as Fred Perry and Ben Sherman are well-represented.  They also have lots of T-shirts and sensibly-priced vintage dresses.  It’s suitably cramped inside as there’s a lot of stock for the amount of space, and there are more rails sprawling out onto the street.  It’s always fun delving around in here; good music, friendly staff and lots to investigate. 

 

Paul's Boutique

 

Recent years have seen the emergence of a more ‘upmarket’ version of the vintage/second-hand store – light, bright interiors, often with in-house coffee shops, and carefully selected and neatly-displayed stock which eliminates the need for rummaging.  Such places are havens of tranquillity and very pleasant shopping experiences but for me all of this departs from the ethos of vintage shopping.  I love walking into a shop that looks like a jumble sale, where stock is piled chaotically, the fitting room is an insufficiently curtained-off corner, and DIY fashionistas explore in earnest.  There are still plenty of shops like this but thrift-store prices are becoming a thing of the past.   It’s one thing paying a sizeable sum for a genuine vintage gem but too often I’ve seen chain store cast-offs that were probably cheaper when new. 

It’s a similar story at the weekend flea markets with which Berlin abounds.  They are great for atmosphere and people-watching, as well as general browsing, particularly the ones at the Mauerpark and Boxhagener Platz, but bargains are scarce and they can get crowded.  I often visit the one at Arkonaplatz (Sunday 10.00 – 6.00) not far from the Mauerpark.  It’s smaller and less commercial than its neighbour and the range of wares covers the spectrum from abject tat to covetable vintage.  There were some beautiful kimonos last time I was there but not in my price bracket I’m afraid.  There is also a nice little market on the third Sunday of the month along the Maybachufer in Kreuzberg.

O.F.T. www.ohnefragetoll.de/  in Chausseestrasse is a shop with the feel of a flea market.  It’s a lovely, ramshackle shop selling not only vintage clothes but furniture, lighting and all sorts of wares from days gone by.  It’s worth a visit just for the atmosphere – the staff are friendly too.

 

O.F.T. 

Charity shops tend to be thin on the ground in Berlin, the ‘Humana’ shops and a couple of branches of Oxfam being rare exceptions.  Humana http://www.humana-second-hand.de has thirteen shops around the city, some of which are huge, practically warranting a day out.  At the Frankfurter Tor branch, the accent is on vintage.  Spread over three floors, the store is a mecca for Friedrichshain hipsters and bargain-hunters alike.  I bought a black dress from here which can be worn by itself or over a T-shirt as a pinafore, in perfect condition, for €9.  The branch in Eberswalder Strasse is much smaller, so far more manageable but likewise focused on vintage.  I often pop in here if I’m in the area.  There is a daily happy hour between 11.00 and 12.00 when a 20% discount applies across the board.  Items I’ve picked up here include a couple of ‘granny’ dresses, a sparkly 80s-style batwing-sleeved jumper and a pair of vintage ski pants.  I ended up cutting the stirrups off the ski pants and turning them into trousers but I like the high-waisted style of them.

 

Humana - Eberswalder Strasse

The two Humana stores along Karl Marx Strasse in Neukölln are also worth checking out, and the almost warehouse-sized branch at Alexanderplatz is fun to while away an hour or so in – much more so than the monstrous ‘Alexa’ mall nearby.
Although I’m not a fan of vast, impersonal malls, I do shop in high-street chains – shopping for ‘new’ is unavoidable – but it is so much more fun when you can put together an original outfit or ‘look’ or when you unearth a special item that remains a beloved staple for years.  There are also ethical and environmental benefits in buying re-cycled clothing and, if using charity shops, an obvious philanthropic aspect.  I have my favourites – there are many more besides those I’ve mentioned here – and although good, affordable vintage becomes increasingly harder to find, Berlin remains a great place for shoppers from the ‘create-your-own’ mould.

Some not-very-professionally-styled pictures of some of the things I've bought from vintage and charity shops in Berlin:

 

Sparkly black jumper, skirt with 'Staffordshire knot' pattern

and Converse boots all from Humana, belt fromReSales

 

 

Skirt and belt from Garage, T-Shirt and trainers from Paul's Boutique

(I think the T-Shirt was a sample as it was brand new and still had the tags attached)

Screen Test

This post is later than I intended it to be as I got sidetracked writing about football but here goes.

In February, the 64th Berlinale film festival opened with a screening of ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ at the Zoo Palast in Charlottenburg, kicking off twelve days of film-related festivities.  Red carpets were laid, and cinema lovers, critics and Hollywood heavyweights alike came to town.  Berlin’s association with film goes right back to the birth of the moving picture as it was here, in 1895, that the brothers Max and Emil Sklandowsky screened the world’s very first films to a paying audience.  In the early years of the Twentieth Century, there were prestigious film studios at Weissensee, the most famous product of which is arguably ‘The Cabinet of Dr Caligari’ (1920).

During the Weimar Republic, and up to the end of World War II, the German film industry was based at the Ufa (Universum Film AG) studios at Babelsberg which produced such classics as Fritz Lang’s ‘Metropolis’ (1927) and Josef von Sternberg’s ‘The Blue Angel’ (1930).  The studios achieved a global reputation, but their association after the war with the Nazi propaganda that had been produced there under the control of Joseph Goebbels, resulted in their decades-long decline.

These days the Babelsberg Studios are once again big business and in recent years film in Berlin has enjoyed something of a renaissance.  The 1998 Tom Twyker film ‘Lola Rennt’ (in English, ‘Run Lola Run’) is now a cult classic.  ‘Goodbye Lenin’ (2003) was widely acclaimed for its bittersweet portrayal of a son’s desperate attempts to maintain the fiction – following the fall of the Berlin Wall and Germany’s subsequent reunification – that the DDR still exists for the benefit of his dangerously ill mother, a fervent Party member who has been in a coma and knows nothing of the historic developments that have taken place.  This film is one of my favourites; the story itself is implausible but it manages to retain its humour whilst exploring issues such as love and loss, truth and deception, and the impact of reunification on the citizens of the DDR.  The 2006 film ‘The Lives of Others’, about a Stasi surveillance operation and its resultant tragedy, deservedly won multiple awards, including an Oscar.

Not surprisingly, there are cinemas of every stripe in the city, from vast multiplexes to tiny independent kinos whose theatres are not much bigger than a good-sized living room.  The vast majority of non-German language films shown are dubbed, this being the preferred method when presenting foreign language films to German audiences.  It was strange to me at first, and even a little comical, catching an English film on TV, and seeing the likes of Miranda Richardson and Jeremy Irons speaking out-of-synch German.  Unfortunately, my language skills are still unequal to the task of trying to comprehend an entire movie so I always look out for screenings of undubbed English language films.  Where a film is shown in its original language with German subtitles, the initials OmU (Original mit Untertiteln) will appear in the listings either after or alongside its title.  Finding non-English foreign-language films with English subtitles is a bit of a challenge as naturally subtitles are almost always in German.  English subtitles, where included, are indicated by the initials OmEU.

The cinema at the Sony Centre, Potsdamer Platz, http://www.cinestar.de/de/kino/berlin-cinestar-original-im-sony-center/ screens undubbed English language movies – essentially mainstream and Hollywood fare (we saw ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ here on New Year’s Eve).  As far as cinematic experiences go, this is indistinguishable from any other bland multi-screen complex where popcorn is available by the bucketload.  It’s reasonable enough though if seeing the movie is your prime goal.

More intimate are the independent cinemas which can be found in practically every neighbourhood and often show films in their original languages.

Some of the city’s cinemas have historic or architectural interest, for example, the atmospheric Kino International on Karl Marx Allee, and the Babylon in Rosa Luxemburg Strasse with its Art Deco flourishes.  Listings for both can be found at www.yorck.de/

During the Berlinale we went to see the French film ‘Dans la Cour’ (with English subtitles) at the Friedrichstadt-Palast.  This venue is known primarily as a show place but it is rather plush and not a popcorn bucket to be seen.  There was a bar but drinks could not be taken into the auditorium which meant that they had to be rushed.  They were also on the pricey side.

The film was a delight – a depressive former singer (Gustave Kervern) takes a job as a caretaker in a Paris apartment house and develops a friendship with retired Mathilde (Catherine Deneuve) who has psychological problems of her own.

I was genuinely starstruck to see Deneuve (a Berlinale regular) herself attend the screening, along with Kervern and members of the production team.

In more humble surroundings, I went a couple of weeks later to see the Ken Loach film ‘Land and Freedom’ at the Lichtblick Kino www.lichtblick-kino.org/ on Kastanienallee.  Loach was awarded an honorary Golden Bear at the Berlinale, and in recognition of this, cinemas throughout the city screened a selection of his films during the succeeding weeks.  As ‘Land and Freedom’ is probably my favourite, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to see it, especially at such a charming kino.  The theatre is miniscule – about thirty seats – and there is a tiny bar area in the front serving a limited range of bottled drinks, and snacks such as salt sticks but thankfully no popcorn buckets.  ‘Casablanca’ is shown here every Saturday at midnight.

A couple of evenings later, we went to see ‘I used to be Darker’ at Brotfabrik www.brotfabrik-berlin.de/front.html a lovely venue – kino, theatre, gallery and bar all housed in a former bread factory – hence the name.  It’s slightly swisher than the Lichtblick and with twice the number of seats, it’s still pint-sized, but a great option for catching the occasional English language film.  Brotfabrik is situated on Prenzlauer Promenade on the renamed Caligari Platz; an information panel on the platz calls our attention – in English as well as German – to the one-time importance of ‘Filmstadt Weissensee’ just a kilometre or so away.

In the summer, there are several ‘freiluft’ – open-air – kinos around the city, where it’s also possible to see English language films.

For a further exploration of German film there are a couple of good museums:  I recommend the Babelsberg Studios at Potsdam www.filmmuseum-potsdam.de/en/381-859.htm and the Film and Television Museum at Potsdamer Platz www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/de as excellent places for film buffs to while away a couple of hours.

The Lichtblick Kino

 

The bar at the Lichtblick

 

Brotfabrik

 

Kino International

 

Catherine Deneuve and colleagues from the Berlinale film 'Dans la Cour' on stage at the Friedrichstadt-Palast after the screening

 

The Beautiful Game in Berlin

On Sunday 16^th March, we went down to Schwalbe bar in Stargarderstrasse to watch a televised football match between SpVgg Greuther Fürth and  1. FC Union Berlin.  Holing up in a bar to watch a televised match or, on a dark winter Saturday afternoon, the ‘Konferenz’ – the German equivalent of Soccer Saturday – has become a favourite pastime since we moved here.  The Konferenz is gripping – whereas on Soccer Saturday, the action is conveyed verbally to the viewer by members of a studio-based panel and an army of reporters stationed at various grounds, the Konferenz actually switches to the matches themselves, showing each goal and each significant bit of action.  Although Schwalbe is a bar for followers of F.C. Koln, Freiburg and Union, the clientele generally includes supporters of just about every Bundesliga team, who cheer noisily or drop their heads into their hands depending on how their team is progressing. 

Whether live in the stadium or on TV in a dedicated sports bar, watching football in Germany is a delight.  It is also something that an increasing number of English fans are embracing.  Often, but by no means always, the motivation for fans’ defection to the Bundesliga is purely economic.  When one considers that a season ticket for F.C. Bayern can be bought for not much more than two match day tickets to a high-profile Premiership fixture, the attraction becomes even more understandable.

Once, in a bar in Birmingham, I got talking to a local who was wearing a St Pauli T-shirt.  He explained that, although a life-long Villa fan, he could no longer justify the cost of a game.  It was, he said, more rewarding for him to travel to Germany to watch the 2. Bundesliga side.  Pauli, with its famous anti-racist/sexist/homophobic stance, is a popular choice of club for many who look to Germany for fulfilment of their footballing needs, and its left-leaning ideology has long attracted followers of an anarchic or alternative bent.  The club had an avowed commitment to eradicating prejudice and discrimination long before the footballing authorities acknowledged a need to act and long before the well-intentioned but largely ineffective ‘kick it out’ type campaigns were established.   Although based in Hamburg, the appeal of Pauli is far-reaching.  Here in Berlin, it is common to see people walking around in clothing which bears the distinctive St Pauli skull and crossbones motif.

However, nearly every German club seems to have a British following of some sort.  Berlin itself is home to two clubs which regularly attract a decent number of British fans – Hertha BSC, a top-flight club which plays its home games at the monumental Olympiastadion in the far west of the city, and 1. F.C. Union, which can be found further East in the suburb of Köpenick.  Many English fans have found their way here and, for one reason or another, chosen to follow Union rather than their better-known rivals.  There is a unique and captivating atmosphere at Union which has to be experienced to be properly appreciated.

During the Cold War, Union remained in the shadow of BFC Dynamo, whose stature (under Stasi patronage) in East German football, was massive – the club won the league on ten consecutive occasions between 1979 and 1988.  Union was a solid, working class club with an outspoken resistance to Stasi authority which made it a natural enemy of Dynamo.  In the years since reunification, Union has worked its way up to a respectable position in 2. Bundesliga, although its progress has been gradual and not without difficulties.

One of the most impressive things about this club is the close links it has with its supporters.  Union fans are passionately devoted to their club.  In 2008, aware that the stadium was in need of modernisation that the club’s finances could not stretch to, fans donated their labour and rebuilt the ground themselves. 

On the pitch, results are almost of secondary importance – the real raison d’etre for the fans is simply to support the team through thick and thin.  This ethos has proven very attractive to a number of British fans, whether Berlin-based ex-pats or visitors who have attended a game at the club’s Stadion an der Alten Forsterei and been so enchanted with the experience that they regularly return.

Mark Wilson and Andrew Cherrie are British fans living in Berlin.  Together, they founded the excellent website ‘Union in Englisch’, which features news, match reports, and general information for English-speaking ‘Unioners’.  It is a labour of love and a fantastic forum for anyone interested in finding out more about the club.

A regular feature on the website is ‘My first time’ in which fans recall their first visit.  In February, I wrote about the first time I went to an Union match (against Bochum in August 2011) which was published on the Union in Englisch site.  To read it, or just to learn more about 1. F.C. Union, go to www.union-berlin.com/

Another interesting article, by online magazine Sausages and Caviar, can be found at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd9UDyu8E98

Schwalbe www.schwalbeberlin.de/ is in Stargarderstrasse, a few minutes’ walk from the S- and U-Bahn station at Schönhauser Allee.

Another good venue for televised football is FC Magnet Bar http://www.fcmagnetbar.de/  in   Veteranenstrasse, Mitte.

 

Union in Englisch sticker 'You go to football, we go to Union'