Hi everyone!
I am a student studying German and English Literature, and as a direct result of this perhaps unwise life choice I have ended up moving to Berlin for almost a year to ‘practise my German’ and more importantly immerse myself once and for all in this mad, tiring, hilarious, weird and endlessly changing place. I have now been here for a month (almost to the day) and already so far I have accumulated far too many stories and musings for me to torture my friends with over the occasional Skype conversation. ‘Oho,’ thought I, ‘this is the perfect time to start that blog you’ve always told people you’ve wanted to start just to sound interesting at dinner parties.’ And yes, I am afraid that is how I write. You will get used to it.
So here I am, in what many people call the coolest city in Europe. Certainly it is cool; I spend every day yomping from district to district and each one has something totally unique, which makes me think that perhaps the reason why Berlin is such an awesome city is fundamentally because it’s more like twenty-five fascinating little towns sellotaped together at the edges with some excellently quick railways. What am I doing here, you may ask? Let me give you the full story.
A few months ago, I began to work on ideas for what I was going to do for this year abroad. Was I going to study abroad? No, that would be like carrying all the stress and endless essays of my current university life into a different setting. Would I work? No, why would I use a year in a different country to sit behind a desk every day? I decided to go for the British Council assistantship scheme. It’s a cushy setup: you work as a language assistant in two schools in the host country, teaching for a piffling thirteen hours a week for a staggering 800 euros a month wage and a few thousand quid thrown at you by the British Council in case you accidentally spent all your ludicrous salary on gold-plated smoked salmon. Perfect.
I wrote my application, mentioning about two, three, maybe twelve times that Berlin was the ultimate city of my dreams. But I would settle for Dresden or Leipzig. I waited for a response. Eventually, it came: Bautzen. Bautzen is a small place in Saxony which is famous for prisons, concentration camps, the Sorbians, and mustard. Twinned with Dreux, a French town in which a friend of mine spent a painful and heart-achingly boring year of his life on the same assistantship scheme. Needless to say, I wasn’t keen and I pulled out. Having sent my CV to every single place in Berlin, it eventually found its way to a language school which specialises in teaching English to little children, from the age of 1 year old and up. Two high-pressure Skype interviews later, here I am, teaching the colours of the rainbow to people so small they can barely (and often are unable to) control their own bodily fluids. I sing, I dance, I perform small skits featuring a dolphin hand-puppet called Sushi, I play games, I blow bubbles…dignity and job-satisfaction in this position are low, but lord knows it’s not boring. Thus a lot of this blog is going to be focused on teaching, kids and language learning and general.
At the moment I am also searching for a new place to live, as my current flat is so far away from where I work that I am able to crochet entire garments during the hours I spend on the trains. Searching for a WG-Zimmer (a room in a Wohngemeinschaft, a flat-share) is a high-stress and high-octane process involving visiting the residences of complete strangers multiple times per day (thus completely violating everything your mum ever told you not to do) and hoping that one group of them find you nice enough to want to live with you. At the moment, of course, everyone wants to live in Berlin, and it’s practically impossible to find a place to live; a friend has just accepted a room that is just SIX square metres in size and has Winnie the Pooh printed on the carpet. Birds are given more space in the crappiest zoos. Hence a lot of what you read here will also be about finding a Zuhause (home) in Berlin and living there once that’s accomplished.
You will also read about the German language, about Berlin as a city, about German and Berlin culture (they are certainly different enough to separate), about my own private projects, which I will elaborate on in later posts, about everything I am reading, watching, listening to…I hope it will be interesting and that you will enjoy reading it. Ultimately, I hope you come to Berlin one day yourself. There’s nowhere like it.
Hey you!
I’m exited to hear about your future Berlin adventures, you know, from Haupstadt newbie to Hauptstadt newbie 😉
Moreover, you have been added to my blogroll on http://letzte-reihe-mitte.blogspot.com/. Consider yourself lucky 😉
Grüüße!