Wool, Wine and Fairylights.

Ach yet another late update! I'm rubbish. Anyway.

Quiet Sunday. Outside a grey expanse of snow swirling. Inside the steady warmth of the stove. Feeling fragile after people filled parties, I've baked banana bread and drank enough tea to turn me into a teapot. Later on we'll make Glühwein, watch something christmassy, eat cake and KNIT.

Knitting is probably one of my more exciting stories to tell. Believe it. Our guerilla knitting group has grown to four people, and we are well on our way to completing project 1. Probably one of the most ridiculous moments of my life was having my photograph taken for the Bild Zeitung. We knitted beards, (yes - as in facial WOOL) and invented Pseudonyms in order to remain partially anonymous. I mean, this is the BILD. We also refused to discuss our street art. It is, of course, Top Secret.
We've found sponsors for our idea, and have bags of beautiful, free, wool! Amazing.

Other wintery tales…you may have heard already about our various WG Catastrophes. They make quite a collection. Our roof decided to leak the day prospective new housemates came to our door. A kitchen that rains inside like outside is a pretty big disaster, it is distressing to watch a roof so epically fail in its responsibility. However, our Kitchen is now beautifully dry and it looks like the ceiling won't collapse - though it does have a huge ominous stain. After this, a series of minor dramas took place. Our bathroom window is broken. The piece of wood nailed to the gap seemed to keep the worst of the elements out…until heavy snow. I've never had a shower until now where the shampoo was buried in snow. We tried to light a fire in the Kitchen stove in order to ward off damp…and successfully smoked out the entire flat. That chimney is definitely not clean. 2 hours of messy ashiness later (thanks to Joseph) and we now have warmth in our kitchen! Exciting. Our latest hazard involved hot ashes and a plastic bin…words cannot adequately describe the extent of the ugly, ugly smell. Just don't do it.

However, I can say with confidence that all is now ok, life moves on and I am very certain of this flats general safety : )

University is great. I feel much more relaxed and stress free. The classes are so much more flexible than at Leeds, really allowing you to decide your direction of focus. Dahlem is a picture book place of snow, trees and houses with a golden glow. The Caféte is full of beautiful people, music, and Glühwein to ward off the viscous cold.

The legendary Berlin Weihnachtsmärkte do not disappoint. Stalls laden with beautiful handcrafted gifts, woollen wonders, biscuits and Stollen breads alongside (yet more!) delicious Glühwein...

Thanks to Hannah Clarke, I found this beautiful video. Green grass! It feels like a long time ago, in this monotone world.


Little Big Berlin from pilpop on Vimeo.


Snowy love.
N xx

Boddinkietz

Only here will I begin a Sunday in the early afternoon, eating breakfast in the middle of the road. By Boddinstr U-Bahn you will find a motley crew of people, chairs, and teapots outside on the island between traffic lanes. Passers by might stop to grab a bite of croissant or balcony neighbours might offer some eggs. Today was probably our last outdoor HermannFrühstück, but plans to take it onto the ring S-bahn in winter are already afoot. I feel lucky to live where I do, with my old WG opposite and Evan's two houses down.

Following Frühstück I'll maybe bake a cake, drink coffee, raid a Flohmarkt, more tea, cycle into the sunset on Templehof's ghost runways. I've started knitting everywhere I go: U-bahn, queues, pubs. Our weekly stitch and bitch sessions are touring the bars of Berlin, and have some guerrilla plans in the process. I've found the most brilliantly emerald green coat imaginable and feel like an "Ampelmädchen" as I skip this city for its stories.

Universität properly begins tomorrow. I'm all matriculated, zedat-ed, filled out and signed every coloured sheet of bureaucratic crap and am so so ready to get on with the business of learning. It seems a lot more relaxed here - I get to spend this week just wandering into the classes to figure out which ones I want to stick with. I'm already falling in love with my daily train journey. Zipping from east to west and south, from grungy grimy Neukölln to the intellectual greenery of Dahlem. I love the JFK institute of North American studies, the students are all cool, the volunteer run cafe has more sofas than floor and is strung with beautiful bunting. Perfekt.

I have a lot more that I want to talk about - some snippets of Neukölln histories and upside down bars but this will have to wait for another update. Which will be sooner. Promise.

Ich liebe euch.

xx