berlin beginnings
Sunday, May 3rd, 2009by Mama
Berlin, Germany
We arrive at 7 on a Sunday morning.
Everything is closed and will remain so all day, apart from the flea market we zip off to later in the day (and manage to perhaps prematurely buy some Womo essentials like a big pot, bread knife and hand-crocheted-by-an-old-lady cotton cleaning cloths).
We negotiate the Metro, discovering how many stages we will pass through, who is eligible for what discount and where we actually need to go! It’s quite easy once you know how – but takes over an hour to find the nearest station and find out!
initial impressions:
*it’s a sunny day and people sit on the grass (there are no signs forbidding this!)
*there is a lot of graffiti, some of it quite artistic
*fire engines are plentiful, noisy and busy
*bike lanes abound….and, as pedestrians, we are (understandably) not at all welcome on them! it will take a few days to get used to
*motorists are Singapore-ish-ly polite….if you approach the curb, they stop for you
Over the course of the day we realise a good proportion of us are unwell, and not just suffering from lack of sleep. The vomitting all over the floor – two big heaves before making it to the bathroom – was the strongest hint.
Those who are well join in the Sunday Funday revelries taking place at our newest abode, a community hospitality project. Downstairs is a triangular Platz with a tree in the middle. Around the tree is a brick planter box, and the newly-arrived sunshine has sent the house residents crazy with ideas to turn it into a swimming pool for their “Australian Beach Party”. Tarpaulin is taped to the sides and healthy children are dispatched with buckets down five flights of stairs under the watchful supervision of beer-bottle toting completely irresponsible twenty-somethings! But there’s icecream and potato chips (and a responsible Grandpa too), so all is well and they are occupied for a serious amount of time. They retreat upstairs when the pool-filling is unsuccessful, and water-balloon-throwing out the window commences.
Apparently – judging by the peels of child and adult laughter – it is loads of fun.
Photos of the fun? Nope. No adults were upright enough to click the camera and the kids were too involved in the fun to play photographer.
Photos at the flea market? Nope. Too busy looking for bargains and trying to make German words instead of Polish come out of the mouth.
Photos on arrival? Nope. The bus station really wasn’t that interesting.
Photos of the house? Later. Promise.
rayres