Listen, Listen, Listen
Well, today was my last day at work and I fly back to London tomorrow – so that I can begin the wonderful and not at all long, arduous and drawn-out process of getting myself a visa for Mother Russia. For my final post aus der Haupstadt I thought I would steal a format used by numerous TV shows when they’re running out of ideas for new stuff. So here it is, a sort of highlights reel, if you will, of my last six months here. Enjoy and please note this is all meant as a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek reflection on my first semester abroad, I obviously don’t mean any offence by any of what is written below!
10 things I have learnt this semester:
1) German efficiency is a lie! This seems particularly true in Berlin. I must say that in a way I was glad to be delayed by a full hour on my way back from Copenhagen to Berlin due to the snow. Given how much the British press lambasts us for not being able to deal with such weather conditions it was quite nice to see that actually plenty of other places aren’t able to deal with it that well either.
2) ‘Na?’ seems to be a question. I’m still not entirely sure what the most correct response is but I’ve made do.
3) The Germans have some great ways of saying ‘no’, my favourite being ‘Nööööööööööö’…add Ö’s to taste 🙂
4) The Germans seem to have a word for most things, at least as far as the various items you might find in an office are concerned. Whilst working I realised that for a lot of things, we simply don’t have English words. We’ll just point at the thing we want, throw in some adjectives like ‘tall’, ‘thin’, ‘small’, ‘plastic’ followed by ‘thing’ or ‘thingummybob’ etc etc. German, however, has come up with words for most of these things. Makes sense, really, when you think about it.
5) The concept of a bacon sandwich is clearly lost on anybody who isn’t British. Indeed, my literal translation of ‘bacon sandwich’ into ‘Speckbrötchen’ thoroughly confused one colleague and was even enough to illicit the response of ‘Ach, ihr Engländer und euer komisches Essen!’ Na ja…danke sehr 😛
6) The English have a reputation abroad. As well as being stereotyped as eating weird food and surviving every working day on many cups of tea (well OK, I guess I’ll give them that last one) it turns out we have another not quite so desirable reputation abroad. Apparently all Erasmus-students (that is to say, all ENGLISH Erasmus-students) are thought of as loud and drunken. This is supposedly a reason why so many of us found it so difficult to find accommodation here. I had always assumed such a stereotype only really existed in places along or in the Med (the most obvious example being Ibiza) but it turns out our reputation has stretched far and wide…
7) Pfand is one of the best ideas I’ve heard in a long time. Having now lived here for a reasonable length of time I have been able to fully appreciate just what a brilliant system it is and definitely one we ought to try implementing back home in Blighty. For more on what’s so great about Pfand, see here (https://ayearawayfromblighty.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/pfand-aah-saviour-of-the-universe/).
8) A language degree is the degree that just keeps on giving. What I mean by this, is that if you have at least one language at a relatively good level, you can simply keep on learning more languages. It gets gradually easier the more you learn and certainly learning another language from the same family as one you already know (i.e. if you know German, try something like Dutch or one of the Scandinavian languages) is really not as difficult as you might think. In an increasingly international job market, having just one language other than English marks you out from the pack and if you can demonstrate that you can pick up further languages with relative ease then you’ll already be three steps ahead of your fellow graduates.
9) Drinking beer in an art museum is perfectly acceptable. Well, OK that’s not completely true but it was certainly the case during the Lange Nacht der Museen which took place here back in August. If you’re ever in Berlin when this event is on, make sure you go. Trust me, there’s nothing quite like swigging a cool Beck’s in the Guggenheim whilst watching a live art installation – ooh, get me with the culture!
10) The Germans love their BIO-Essen. Seriously they absolutely love it here, there are dedicated shops for it and everything. On more than one occasion, when asked ‘Do you have this BIO/organic food in England, too?’, I have had to rather sheepishly admit we often tend to just take the piss out of such people and call them pretentious…Regardless, though, I’ll take a full fry-up over lentil soup any day!
5 things I will miss:
1) The randomness/craziness that is Berlin. Whether it’s people blowing enormous bubbles (see below) or a woman yelling German profanities at an Ampelmann (true story), this city is certainly far from boring.
2) Lidl – for the plain and simple fact that it is unbelievably cheap. One week I managed to do an entire 7-day grocery shop for 13€!
3) Green beer. The famous ‘Berliner Weisse mit Waldmeister’ is something everybody who comes to Berlin should try. It is so tasty and I can imagine it’s incredibly refreshing in the summer – perhaps I’ll have to come back here and test my theory out!
4) Currywurst. Another Berlin speciality and a damn fine one at that. A friend who doesn’t normally like either beer or sausages came to visit a little while ago and I managed to convince her to try both a Currywurst and a Berliner Weisse. And she liked both of them! I’d call that a win for Berlin.
5) Meine Mitarbeiterinnen. Falls ihr dies lest, dann vielen, vielen Dank für alles/tusind tak for alt/dziękuję bardzo dla wszystkeho/thank you! Es war ja super, mit euch allen zu arbeiten 🙂
5 things I will not miss (in the interest of fairness):
1) The U-/S-Bahn system. As a born and bred Londoner I’ve spent the best part of the last twenty-one and a bit years complaining about the Tube – as every good Londoner does. Never again will I moan about having to wait a full five minutes for a train! I’ve been to enough big cities now to realise that the Tube is actually one of the best systems in the world and – I am proud to say – a hundred times more efficient than the system here in Berlin.
2) Lidl – yes, I know I just said I will miss it. And indeed I will miss how cheap it is. What I won’t miss is the fact that it’s such a haphazard affair just going shopping there and another till won’t be opened until the queue at the only open one stretches out of sight…
3) That Mensa-smell. The actual Mensa itself is a great concept and one I sort of wish we had in England – the only cheap alternative we have for lunch in the centre of Bristol is Sainsbury’s £1 sandwiches. However, the smell of said Mensa will stay with you for most of the day but I suppose we can’t have it all ways, can we?
4) Certain neighbours. Apparently playing music with the bass up so high that it makes my entire flat vibrate until three in the morning is perfectly acceptable. Another neighbour enjoys doing what I can only assume are various DIY projects about the house almost every Saturday and likes to start these projects at around 7am…
5) The over-enthusiasm of the gritting lorries here. This has only really been a problem since the first snowfall back at the beginning of December. On several occasions I’ve been forced to vacuum my hallway because of the sheer amount of grit which comes in with me. This grit then stayed on the streets long after the snow had melted yet when the second snowfall arrived a couple of weeks ago, the lorries were out and at it again. And despite all of this I still had to help an old lady the other week who fell over on one of these over-gritted sections of pavement…
So that’s it for Berlin. For now, at least. I’ll be back writing again once I’m in Siberia – provided I don’t get arrested somewhere along the way! And, as promised, here is a picture of some enormous bubbles for your visual enjoyment.
Lovely bubbles!
Bis später!