B

Looking west over ex-railroad yard from Apartment

Our apartment in Berlin was on the top floor of a six-storey building that had two large (one-bedroom!) and one small (studio) apartments to each floor. The two large apartments ran the length of the building, from the street back to a small garden. Ours was the "large" one-bedroom, with living room on the street and bedroom in the back. From our front or living room window we looked over what before the war were the railroad yards for the Anhalt Station, of which only a token piece of its front entrance wall remains. Sometime after arrival we saw a photo of Adolph Hitler arriving with great pomp at Anhalt.

Now, or at least now in winter, the first impression was of a large weedy lot. As we got to know the area at night we could make out in the west parts of Potsdamer Platz and the tall Mercedes building just off the Ku'damm, about 3 km west. At first we could not make sense of that strange thing in the middle of the horizon; later we learned it was a windmill; we even visited it at the Technik Museum.

Our apartment was in the Kreuzberg section of Berlin, on Möckernstrasse. a 25 minutes walk (1.5 km) southwest of Checkpoint Charlie, 30 minutes from Unter den Linden, 30 minutes (2.25 km) southeast of Potsdamer Platz, and within a five-minute walk of one U-Bahn/S-Bahn (subway/metro) station, Möckernbrücke, and a ten minute walk of another, Mehringdamm. (see maps). Gerry found it an easy walk to Tempelhof Airport, only 2.5 km away; it was once the main airport and now home only to the smallest of low-cost airlines. We mostly traveled the town by bus, sometimes, to our surprise, double deckers, where we really liked to grab the two front seats on the top deck in spite of the swaying about that the top deck always seems to do. We rode buses and subways rather prolifically having invested in monthly passes which allowed us unlimited travel.

Kreuzberg itself is now an up-and-coming area of Berlin that was just within the boundaries of the Western part of the city, but so close to the East that it was never very much developed during the Soviet era. Now it is popular with younger people and has become quite a night-clubbing center according to Lonely Planet Berlin, although we never bothered to verify the fact. We are just not clubbers. Too much smoke and often too much noise.

First view of sparsely furnished living room

The fruits of our first expedition to Aldi

We found the apartment on line in Craig's List. As it seemed to meet our needs we sent an email and were pleased to learn it was being rented by a bi-lingual German-American (or American-German; we're not sure which) who happened to be in New York City. He had been renting his place while living temporarily in Greenwich Village and wanted to fill in a gap between a much longer-term tenant who was moving out in January and his own return to Germany in April. After several emails, for the price of a tube ride we went to Manhattan (we were in Jersey City) and sealed the deal. Tyson as he's called told us that we have to pick up the key from one of the neighbors on arrival, although it was unclear until we did arrive which neighbor. As you can imagine, we accepted this arrangement with some reluctance and half expected that it would not work.

Coming from New York our plane arrived in Berlin late and then we spent longer than expected at the airport. We began to worry more about locating the right neighbor. We took a bus from the airport, got off at the wrong spot, were lost for 20 minutes, shivered as we waited to get back onto the same numbered bus, and then went on to Unter den Linden near Wilhelmstrasse. There, in what was now complete darkness and increasing cold, we hailed a taxi to take us the remaining couple of kilometers to our new apartment. The last step confused both us and the female, Turkish, taxi-driver: odd and even numbers are on the same side of Möckernstrasse!

We had only the vaguest of instructions from Tyson on how to find the neighbor. Paying the taxi we piled our bags near the door and tried to find the bells that corresponded to the two names we'd been given. We could only find one of the names and there was no reply, so in desperation we started pressing every bell hoping someone would take pity on us. And suddenly we heard the buzzer to indicate that the door had been unlocked. In Jan went to explore and hope to find 1) the apartment, and 2) someone to give us a key. Although there was an elevator, Jan decided to climb the stairs hoping that the kind person who had opened the door would be on the landing waiting to rescue us. When she finally reached the fifth floor, there was Herr Höffner (as we later learned) and in his hand was a set of keys. He was expecting us and so all of our immediate problems were solved.

In we went and made a quick inspection. The French have a word for it: déception. Unfortunately, it wasn't really what we expected from the word furnished: We had been told there would be no pots and pans, dishes or cutlery in the kitchen and that there would probably not be much in the way of bed linen. Add to that what we already knew — there was no radio, no TV, no books — and the place was pretty bare. But we couldn't spend too much time worrying about that. Our airport delays meant that we'd not had proper meals all day and in our rush to get the key we hadn't stopped to eat. So now we set out to buy something. Fortunately for us we found the Aldi supermarket and brought back enough to eat. (On the way to the store we'd passed a single other source of food, an "imbiss" or sausage bar. It was as good as closed; happily the owner gave us some bread that otherwise he'd have thrown away.)

Seeking the elusive "radio"

The next day we began our own "Operation Overlord" — for us the invasion of the local flea markets. In spite of both having colds, off we went and were happy to come home with plates, cups, knives, forks, spoons, a kettle, two saucepans, and a frying pan. A couple of days later, we found a discount home furnishings store and added glasses and pillows to our collection. Another purchase got us a nice radio for € 5. Our last such purchases were some sheets so that we could have guests and some wine glasses from another flea market so that we could enjoy drinking our Aldi wine out of a nice glass. We had arrived. We were bei uns.

Gerry at Control Central ("The Living Room")

A later trip to Aldi. A dose of photo phobia

After the first week life settled down. It spite of its being zero or below nearly every night we were tasty warm inside. The radiators really worked well. We couldn't find any way to get broadband internet so we settled for dial up access. It is amazing to contemplate, but the cheapest access for us was to dial the USA. The cost/minute using the phone card we got was well below that of any local provider, including our own AOL which would have charged us much more for using their "roaming" service.

We got to know the Aldi and were very pleased with its quality/price ratio. We didn't like having to bring our own bags (or pay exhorbitantly for them) but that is part of the reason the prices were low (and it is partially due to Germany's horrible recycling laws.) Once in a while we tried another store but their considerably higher prices usually sent us right back to Aldi. Lidl was the exception. It was slightly "more" than Aldi: slightly more selection, slightly more quality, and slightly more money gone. If it had been within walking distance rather than a long bus ride we'd have been there more often.

At an outing to the nearly nearby American Library (it has mostly German books; it is named after the donors) we got the chance to subscribe to the Berliner Zeitung. It started showing up everyday in the mailbox and we enjoyed our daily efforts at deciphering German. On the radio we got at the flea market we would catch the news successively in English (BBC), French (RFI), and German (local). We also stocked part of the shelf/cart that posed as furniture with a handful of German novels and a bilingual dictionary for Jan and a variety of magazines for Gerry, all from a second-hand street market. We added to it the huge tome of George Schulz's memoirs of serving as Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State and we were in business. (Jan found the later fascinating; Gerry abandonned it in Paris never having finished it.)

Shortly after being settled we began to receive guests. We'd happily sent out invitations but were surprised to have so many accepted. But that is a story for another page.

Rear of our Apartment Building

The Locksmith Fixes the Mailbox

We did have one morning of excitement at home: One day our bell was rung, a surprise itself, and in answering the door, we found we had an eight or nine year old German girl visiting. We learned that she was our neighbor from two floors down; she had set off for school and having slammed the door closed realized she'd forgotten her school books — and, worse, her keys. Since she couldn't get back in she was knocking on doors looking for anybody home to help her open the door, which she was convinced could be done using a coat hanger through the mail slot. Unable to convince her at first, Jan patiently went with her until she understood the futility of the exercise. Then we suggested she come into our flat, we call her mother, and while waiting she have a glass of milk and a cookie. The girl reluctantly agreed; she did eat the cookie, but wouldn't touch the milk. While she waited for mother she acted as if either a) her mother would eat her or b) we would eat her. But in the end there was a happy reunion.

Our other "excitement" was more like having a throbbing tooth than being "exciting". On our trip to the palaces at Potsdam Gerry's keys slipped out of his pocket. (We're sure it happened there because Dinah noticed something shiny on the train seat but didn't know it was Gerry's keys.) This caused a major inconvenience: We had had two keys to the apartment but only one to the outside common door. For the next week we had to rely on somebody else opening that outside door.

Fortunately for security, but unfortunately for us, key duplication was strictly controlled. We went through the management agency to get new keys but they acted very slowly. After a week and our patience being gone (that's putting it mildly), Jan took her apartment key to a local locksmith and innocently asked him to duplicate it. He did. That having worked we borrowed Herr Höffner's outside key (he was mostly invisible except when we needed him) and within a few hours had ours replaced. And thus we were whole again and could come and go at will.

Except — we didn't have a mail box key. (Fortunately, the newspaper stuck out of the box.) To "solve" the problem we (Gerry!) kept hoping we'd find another key we could duplicate. That didn't pan out so on our last day we had to call our now "personal" locksmith. He drilled out the old and installed a new key within an hour. Since then, however, we have found a safer way to carry keys: we hang them on a badge holder that hangs around the neck like a necklace. Tucked inside a shirt, it is impossible to lose.

The supermarket closest to the closest bus stop

Now to the question you really wanted answered but were afraid we wouldn't get to: Why Berlin? We ended up in Berlin by default. It was the only place we found that fulfilled all of our requirements: an interesting place to be, within our budget, and not too expensive to get to. Sublets are our preferred form of accommodation for longer-term stays. It usually means the apartment will be furnished (but not always!) and the rent affordable because people renting the apartment they usually live in are more interested in finding someone trustworthy than making lots of money.

When we arrived in the US in December, 2004, we had already arranged with Veronica to rent her apartment in Paris for April, May, and June, 2005. As we expected to spend only the month of December in the US, we looked for somewhere in Europe to stay for January, February, and March. As it turned out, we spent both December and January in the US, partly because it took us so long to sort out our personal affairs and find replacement laptops and partly because it took us that long to find somewhere to go. And because we like New Jersey and were happy renewing our old ties.

Packed and Ready to Go to Paris

Waiting for the Bus to the Bus Station