This post was delayed due to being illegally written on my work laptop

    “The city’s ok, but the architecture’s a little Gaudi…” OMG architectural pun FTW Scarcely a week since I was enjoying the exotic luxury of a Dutch desk, I’ve returned from yet another business trip, this time to the much more envy-inducing city of Barcelona. Even packing my bag, I knew things would be different. This time, I would need nothing more than two thin cotton dresses, heavy-duty suncream and some unspeakably elegant beaded designer sandals – well, I managed to provide the first two at least. And yes, arriving in Barcelona was pretty much the sexiest thing ever;...

Amsterdam: come for the sex and drugs, stay for the hamburger vending machines

“Ooh seeds, how nice, I’ve been meaning to get some more nasturtiums OH.”  I am a ‘do stuff’ assistant rather than a ‘look pretty and take notes, doll’ assistant, and as the ‘do stuff’ assistant for a tourism company, this is going to involve a lot of business trips. The phrase ‘business trips’ alone conjures up elegant, luxurious images of people in fine tailored suits, sipping champagne in a quiet plane cabin, soaking in a broad sea of extra legroom. Unfortunately, as the economy is dying and midday champagne is the first step towards alcoholism, ‘business trips’ more often involve...

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Nobody move…don’t…even…breathe…this could collapse…at….any…time…

And just to add the cherry to the cake, on my way home I find a glorious example of German product naming. Just be sure to wear these when trimming your bush. Wow, you guys. Like boy HOWDY. These last few days have honestly been an emotional rollercoaster (hand gesture). I’ll be honest: my time in Edinburgh, as the first three days of my new job, couldn’t have been more doom-laden. I put on a happy face in my airport blog post, but frankly I was deeply morose, and it wasn’t just because my Kindle has finally bitten into the...

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Och aye, Edinburgh!

I went up a small mountain while making notes on business strategy. LIKE A BOSS. *sob*. I am writing this entry in Edinburgh airport, waiting for my flight back to Berlin. And in order to give you the emotional background to this post, you should know that I have just discovered huge zany geometric shapes all over the screen of my beloved Kindle that are definitely not supposed to be there. I am writing this post in the midst of abject sorrow. But why the heck are you in Edinburgh, you might ask? I thought you were going to Berlin...

It’s official!

Good news, everyone! From now on, you’ll be able to find Guten Morgen Berlin via a real, shiny URL: www.gutenmorgenberlin.com. You can now also email in any comments, requests or questions to the new Guten Morgen Berlin email address, ampelfrau[at]gutenmorgenberlin.com. Please feel free to email if you need tips about Berlin, have any other questions or simply want to suggest a theme for a future post – I’d love to hear from every last one of y’all! Peace out.

Feelin’ the buuuuuuurn

Sadly this isn’t my gym. This is evidently the branch of Superfit where Tron was filmed. Exercising in general doesn’t really work out well for me. When I arrived in Berlin, I had no choice but to go running – in public – which was fine, apart from two serious issues: the first being the unbelievable complaints and funny looks I get when I have to do that bouncy-joggy-boingy thing at pedestrian crossings, and the second being the horrendous shinsplints that jogging on uneven surfaces seems to give me. Ow. I missed the gym. I missed the cross-trainer, and the...

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Berlin: lower your standards to live the high life

This shop is so epic the entire building has a beard worthy of Thor himself **Click here to like the Guten Morgen Berlin Facebook page!** When I first told my friends in Berlin of my plans to move back, they made concerned noises. “That’s great, but are you sure you really want to?” they asked. “You know that jobs here are scarce and hard to get hold of, right?” At the time I tossed my head back and laughed in a debonair manner. Jobs were scarce in Berlin? They should try living in the UK, where people print their CVs...

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The magic of Berlin’s old ladies

Probably the work of another Berlin Old Lady. She didn’t want the poor little thing catching cold. Apologies, first of all, for taking so long to write another post. This last week has been rather a whirlwind as I have been negotiating a rather complicated and interesting job offer, the results of which I will reveal here as soon as I know what the HECK is going on. In my Verzweiflung, writing a new entry kept slipping my mind, and the time I had put aside to do so on Friday was engulfed instead by my attempt to make miniature...

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How to hack your Zwischenmiete

Now if only there was a way to hack the extreme temperature fluctuations between ‘molten lava’ and ‘ice-water’. For the unemployed graduate looking to drift around a German city for an aimless while, the right ‘Zwischenmiete’ is a crucial tool in your belt. ‘Zwischenmiete’ essentially means ‘between-rent’, which is what happens when a person in Berlin pops off to another country or a work thing in another city or something and rents their flat – plus furnishings and all the trimmings – to a happy-go-lucky travellin’ type. It’s a perfect arrangement. Internet, washing machine, mattress and everything come included in...

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Die Vögel (The Birds)

Berlin wildlife: sparrows and techno-beetles. In the UK, you might see the occasional pigeon. Wandering along the high-street…picking up bits of old chip in Burger King carparks…limping one-legged around train station platforms like a pathetic Richard III impression…making obscenely loud noises on your windowsill in the wee hours of the morning…accidentally flying down your chimney…clustered under picnic tables in parks…dumbly standing on a car roof…dumbly standing on the spikes put on buildings to repel pigeons… Yes, pigeons are everywhere. There is a reason why we call them flying rats, and it’s not just because they are like little hors d’oeuvre...

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