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

Days Like This

Brilliant blue skies!

My Berlin holiday of no responsibilities is drawing to a close, and so I am leaf crunching and worry free in this beautiful Autumn. Next week I'll get to meet even more people, students mostly, pick modules, meet tutors, buy books. It's exciting. I can't wait to get back into the rhythm of studies.

The days are blending into a long mishmash of sleeps, sunlight and cycle rides. I can't really remember what I have done in any sort of coherent chronology so will settle for a collection of tales...

My sewing machine exploded. That was dramatic. I don't mean bits of flying metal, but it did give an ominous dull bang and then filled my room with smoke and the smell of burning rubber. That same day, my key snapped in half inside my bicycle lock thus stranding it in Kreuzberg. Bicycles are brilliantly clever and efficient, but the moment you lock its wheel to the frame it is nothing but a jumble of irritatingly heavy and awkward bits of metal. I had to carry it from Kreuzberg to Neukölln which isn't fun, but the lovely bike man broke it open for free.

Last weekend I bit the bullet and forked out a whopping €28 for Bonobo, Fink, Lou Rhodes and Cinematic Orchestra only to be brutally disappointed. I thought a lineup like that couldn't fail to be incredible. How wrong I was. I realise now that expensive nights demand expectation, and more often than not the best things in life are the Kostenlos accidentally discovered treasures. Take for example, last night. After making friends with the flat downstairs, I ended up in a basement party with the most incredible jazz trumpeting feet stomping soul singing live band, the place packed with all sorts of beautiful interesting people, dirt cheap drinks, incredible visuals. I made a million friends spoke loads of German and have maybe found myself a new housemate. And it cost me €2. I didn't even have to pay for drinks after making friends with the people behind the bar. (Unfortunately the police spoilt the fun around 4am.)

Bonobo, however, lacked his orchestra and served a dish of mediocre banality. Fink's line up consisted of ONE song. Lou Rhodes frequently depended on the hissing shushers in the crowd, and sang songs deploring all the death in the world which was embarrassing at best. By the time Cinematic Orchestra rocked up I was too hot, tired, and pissed off to stay any longer.

What else. The lovely Anna Donne visited, and I had an awesome weekend with her and the Sedgwick Jell family (parents inc.!). Highlights included the discovery of the epic Spielwiese, a cafe dedicated to boardgames. What more can I say. I also hosted a housewarming Kaffee and Kuchen, and filled this tiny WG with all sorts of brilliant people. It was crowded and chaotic but full of coffee and delicious cake. Oh, and I invested in a teapot so now I really do have everything.

I'm really looking forward to a parcel of forgotten essentials that is on its way from England.

Postcards and letters are in the pipeline. Apologies for being so typically Nikki disorganised.

I miss you all, love you more, and can't wait to show you this city!

N xx

Silk Inside a Chestnut Shell

I've had chestnut shells literally hit me as I cycle beneath, my bicycle basket catching the plunder. The trees are turning gold, the breeze smells cool, every day that golden sun sinks a little lower. I'm rattling round on my wheels, enjoying every bit of brilliant sunshine while people continue to be moodily prophetic about the coming winter.

So so, where have I been, what have I seen. I'm in my new WG and making it home. I know I'm only here for a year but I didn't realise how important pretty spice jars are to me, and have already mustered a collection from the Flohmarkts. I've built myself a loft bed in this tiny room, and am even fairly sure of its being safe. I've made curtains out of beautiful indigo blue silk, filled a wall with maps and magical photography, and acquired important things such as a chair and a sewing machine. I've made a world to escape to in in this city's madness.

The past week or so…stumbling across outdoor electro parties, climbing up walls and through windows into empty buildings, overwhelmed by the turkish markets, the flohmarkts with their dens of junk, learning how to knit, eating cake, drinking Kaffee.

One of the best restaurants I have ever been to: http://www.lavanderiavecchia.de/

I will probably take you when you come visit.

This weekend is looking set to be a good one, what with friends from England visiting and Bonobo teaming up with Cinematic Orchestra…

As always, please send me your stories.

Liebe Grüße

N xx

Here, there and everywhere

Four walls to call my own

I am gradually moving from nummer 40 to 226, my more permanent home. For €100 a month I will be living in a tiny but beautiful room, complete with its own wood burning stove to keep me warm in winter. I'm terrified. But also enough of a romantic to play the part of the ragged student. If you fancy sending me love by snail mail, e-mail me for the address.

Berghain, Beers and Spytowers

Berghain, the infamous factory of Sound. With one of the biggest soundsytems in Berlin, three floors of booming bass and hour long queues this place will go down in clubbing history. The night here doesn't start till the sun is rising. You are unlikely to get in. What did I think? Yes, it is epic for what it is, but I'm really not sure I quite get it. I mean, clubbing on this scale generally. After two hours I was already feeling old with aching ears and feet. The place seemed a bit too preoccupied with its own elitism, and the hardcore electro can get tiresome to the bones after hours of bass with no twists or turns. Maybe I need to work up to the Berghains of Berlin. Go once.

A beer a day keeps the blues away. Here, it is perfectly acceptable to wander through the streets and onto public transport with a beer in hand. Totally standard prep for a night out. The local Späti are numerous and a half litre of "Sterni" will set you back around 80 cents. But the place isn't staggering with drunks, rather there seems a much healthier relationship with alcohol. You only need to be 16 to buy beer or wine, so I think you get much less abuse of strong spirits.

There is nothing better than spending your evening up an abandoned spytower. This place, Teufelsberg (literally translates as "Devil's Mountain") is contstructed on layers of history. (I really recommend reading the wiki article). A huge edifice of humanity's insanity it was pure magic to sit on the edge and stare out over the City, forests, lakes, and watch that blazing sun melt into a horizontal horizon. Go there. Or if (when) you come visit, insist I take you.

A bit of Britain in Berlin...

I am passportless. Not entirely sure how, but probably happened at the fairly eventful LunaLand festival at Spreepark. And abandoned themepark is a good place to have a party, but copious amounts of gin lead to losses. The week went downhill from there. I got caught without a ticket on the U-bahn (it was in my passport...) so that's another fine, my bike broke, I lost myself in a rainstorm. However, I did get to check out the Embassy. It's not that exciting, after a serious of security checks I was ushered into a dingy office with a crinkled portrait of the queen and a confused looking Oak tree in the yard. It could have tried a bit harder.

I think that's all I have that you'll be interested in. I've had more people coming to stay, every day meeting new people, slowly tuning into this new language, new world.

Speak soon!

Tschussi

N x

Talk to my FACE!

Just a quick note, Skype is amazing. The other night the light from my red room reflected onto my family's faces! From Berlin to Exeter, magical. I am nikki.nikkers gimme a bell over tinternet : )

A Red Room With a View

For someone who has no responsibilities, I appear to be quite busy. It's already been a week since I last wrote here, and everything is going in new directions. I've moved into a room for a month, a beautiful, big and very red room (I'll get some photos soon). I live in a WG that is divided between two apartments one above each other, the upper having the kitchen, spacious Wohnzimmer and Balkon. We're on the top floor and coffee time on the balcony is perfect for watching the world go by and the miniature dramas play themselves out on the busy street below. Coffee happens a lot.

This week has been full of french, as various friends from Switzerland descended on the city. I've had people staying with me which has been really cool, my first proper visitors you could say. The blend of languages has been interesting, rather than move from English to German then to French I've opted to blend them all into one mishmash of confusion. So that's fun! I'm also planning on teaching my flatmate Englisch in return for Spanish lessons - and I'm living with two spanish men for the rest of the year - so I'm going to learn German with a spanish accent?! Total papperlapapp!

Today I have just signed up for German classes. Four hours a day, Monday to Friday, for one month costs €110. Pretty good, I think it's cheaper because I'm going to be living here for a year so the government subsidise the classes. I've also been working as a babysitter for a french family so that's a tidy bit of money for the occasional night in of film watching. Perfekt!

Really exciting, I have acquired a Praktica Kamera MTL3, an old manual SLR from the DDR. It's beautiful. I've been inspired by how auf Deutsch you "Foto machen" (make a photo) rather than "Foto nehmen" (take a photo). So now, I consider each photo carefully, I'm aware of the light and composition, I take notes on the settings used for each photo and then I'll get them developed into real objects. They'll probably all be crap. But then I'll learn and get better. I love thinking about all the people who've made photographs with this camera, all the stories that it has seen and the places it has been.

So a few places I have been:

Bar 25 though highly recommended by various people this turned into a complete disaster. After we missioned it there on a Sunday night, queued for a ridiculously long time, the bouncer with his red clipboard refused to let us in. Why? Apparently we were too young. Oh you're all over 20? Well, you're still not getting in. I felt outraged at having my finest most polite German rejected. My understanding of this place is that is has some 'reputation' to uphold and therefore decides on a whim who to let in, and apparently we were too foreign and too big a group for them. I'm not sure I want to go to a place that acts so high and mighty, with its red clipboard.

Club der Visionäre was much more of a success. Friendly bouncers, good tunes. Slightly more expensive than standard Berlin bars, more like english prices with just over €2 for a beer.

Last night I went to a cool, grungy, and magical bar next to Samariterstr 32. Recommended for comfy sofas, cheap beers and great wall art.

I highly recommend this excellent blog for stories of hidden gems in Berlin.

So, I think that's it for now. Email me your stories please. Come here for New Year's Eve, it's going to be out of this world.

Bisous,

N

Finding Feet

Where am I now. Well, still sleeping in a hammock. I feel a bit like I have jumped into Berlin and am still trying to find my balance. My summer has been crazy busy, I always felt behind with everything, now I have these long days which I'm not entirely sure how to fill and haven't yet found a corner to call my space to escape to.

Anyway, a gem of advice:

http://www.bvg.de/

Travel. If you come for a week or more then bite that bullet and get a travel ticket. It's incredibly tempting here in Berlin to outwit the ticket collectors and avoid paying. However, they are smart and not at all lenient with foreigners. You soon develop a minor phobia of suspicious looking men who travel in pairs. I found myself a bit jumpy every time I'd get on the train or pull into the station. After messing up the whole monthly ticket shenanigans I now have a beautiful, mit Fahrrad, travel pass. It cost a whopping 72 oiros. However, with a bit of perspective this is actually not so bad at all. This covers all U-bahn, S-bahn, bus travel which goes on all night and the trains are 24 hours at the weekend. The service is excellent, with very little wait. And I find myself zipping all over the city with a bike in tow. Wunderbar.

What have I been up to. Meeting lots of people, which is good, so I'm starting to feel I actually have some friends here. The city has a certain rhythm which I definitely haven't mastered yet. Many will generally start their day in the afternoon, but not really emerging into the world till early evening. Bars, socialising will fill up that sun-sinking period. It's at around 2/3 am however that the city really comes into life; the streets fill up in seconds and everywhere is buzzing. This is about the time that I start to flag and feel confused at the bright eyed energy of everyone else. They then will wander home with the rising sun, probably get breakfast en route to the sound of bird song, and sleep till the afternoon.

Soo:

http://www.rosis-berlin.de/
First club recommendation. Really cool venue, not massive but full of character. Found on Revalerstr it's at the heart of Berlin's night life. Check out the djs in advance though.

Find free classical musik, outdoors, every Sunday evening throughout summer at the Bode Musuem on the Musuem Island in Mitte.

Yesterday, I went to this place: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flughafen_Berlin-Tempelhof and it put me in mind of this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8626000/8626927.stm

Utterly magical. A giant, empty, Airport in the city centre! Not just any one, but the very first of giant city airports. Planes no longer roar along the runways, rather kite riders fly past the cyclists, rollerbladers and skateboarders. My friend Jakob is very skeptical that the place will last with it's increasing limitations to access and the competition in the area for expensive housing projects. However, I am so delighted that it even exists in the first place and really excited that it is right next to my future home. It was a beautiful evening, sat in the long grass with a beer and the brilliant sun throwing out long dramatic shadows behind us.

I think that there is an awareness of Berlin changing. Last night we were sat at Admiral Brücke, full of students, the ground sparkling with bottle top lids. The air buzzed with conversation in the warm evening. Around 23:00 the police came, with about 4 or 5 vehicles, to shift us all on. There was a feeling of frustration, that the police here are increasingly strict and perceiving a situation that hadn't arose.

Right. Now I'm off to try and fix my bike which is already having problems. Oh dear. Luckily, I have met a bike enthusiast.

Liebe Grüße, und bis Bald!

xx

Der zweiten Tag

First blog post, second day in Berlin. Getting here was ok - I got a lift with my friend's parents who were on their way to Poland. First time driving in Europe, but no fatalities so all ok. Life has been pretty mad this past two days. I have been emailing A LOT of places asking them to let me move in, and luckily after the first four visits I found somewhere. With a cool bunch of people, who love to cook together, eat a vegetarian/vegan diet, and are a mixture of students and graduates. Plus it is in the happening place of Neukölln. So I'll be moving in there on the 17th of August...until then, I will be sleeping in a hammock in somebody's kitchen. As you do.

I have eine Handynummer: (email me for the digits)

And a beautiful, upright, single gear (!) bicycle.

What more could you want?

Liebe grüße!

xx