What I Love (so far): Addendum

1. The city after Donnerwetter

Monday night God turned the sky into a bucket. He flipped it over and wouldn't stop dumping. I woke to thunder claps, and rain that fell too thick for raindrops. I didn't know it could fall like that. Then I drifted back to asleep and dreamt of life-sized posters of Käthe Kollwitz.

In the morning my parents helped me bring my bigger suitcase to the sublet. How it happened that the two of them, ages 67 and 74, were the ones to hoist the monster-case up three flights, I don't know. I was futzing with the house keys and weighed down by a backpack and another bag — but still. I should be ashamed. Instead I laughed and conducted them up the stairs like a traffic cop. Fortunately they were smiling.

Pretty soon, I was not. Smiling. The cable connection the subletter (-lettee?) had set up for me only worked for her own junky PC, not my Vaio. I was desperate to post the blogs I had saved on my laptop, not to mention I type like a cripple on German keyboards. Bad enough that it was cable, not wireless, and I'd be forced to sit on a hardback chair at a tiny falling-apart desk. I had already fought and failed to hook up at Hotel Am Zoo and now suspected my laptop was to blame. I felt sick.

My parents had sunk into one of the bulbous sofas, paging through a Berliner weekly for cultural offerings, while I fumed at the computers, wishing I had pocketed one of Parenting.com's IT guys for the trip, or better yet, my coworker Jesse, who knows everything and beats me at Boggle every time.

Then my mother turned into that thing she turns into when someone has a problem she wants to solve but can't: a human hovercraft emitting a stream of unsolicited suggestions. Rendering me of course only more annoyed, rendering her of course only more determined to solve the problem that was not hers, rendering me of course even more annoyed... "Would you just go!" I said. "Go to the museum, go to lunch, do whatever. I can't do anything until I deal with this. I need to be alone." I waved at my dad who stood a safe distance away. "Papi figured that out ten minutes ago!" He nodded sagely. "Please go away."

The hovercraft twisted its exhaust pipe into a knot. I held my breath. Long ago, the potential for Donnerwetter would have been real. However, a certain lightness has crept into my dealings with the hovercraft over the years. A touch of humor. "Okay," it said now, appearing unoffended. "I just wanted to hear it from your own mouth."

And then they were gone.

Because the subletter had left behind no phone number for the T-com service, I thought I'd U-bahn it to the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz and grill the guys there. Thank God for fate, though, which landed me in front of an Internet station just three blocks away. This is not unusual in Berlin. You can find an Internet station as far as you can spit (the ubiquitous easyInternetcafé™ especially, having partnered with the equally ubiquitous Dunkin' Donuts — and isn't that exactly why you came to Berlin, to eat a dozen glazed jellies while blinking at the orange-branded screen of one of hundreds of computers?). Anyway, this station was different because you could use your own laptop. A cable connection. Perfect. "I think there's something wrong with my laptop," I told the pastey guy behind the counter. He plugged me in, and Voila! I was, surfing baby, surfing. 

One ColaZero and two hours of blogging later, I was downright glückselig. I asked the guy what I should do about the home connection — was there someone I could call? "Me," he said. "I can come over, figure it out." He was jacked up on something, caffeine or crack, but hell, when fate hands you a techie, you do not hand him back. I told him I'd come by later in the week, then I breezed out of there (Nothing wrong with my Vaio! My own neighborhood IT guy! My friends finally alerted to my blog!) and onto the U-Bahn.

I emerged at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. I had been here on Friday, but something seemed different today. I walked the Alte Schönhauser Strasse to Monsieur Voung's, where I knew for sure I'd get a decent meal in this gastronomically retarded town, when suddenly I realized: The city was CLEAN. The streets were sparkly. The cobblestones were smooth. No dog shit. Barely a cigarette butt. Those buckets of Donnerwetter had swept the ick away. Even the people seemed prettier.

I ate my Wan Tan soup (num!), then meandered around Mitte, which I had also visited on Friday. My parents and I had been to the famous Hackesche Höfe, where I'd eaten the mealiest Gazpacho of my life;  the whole place had become so hyper-touristy and sanitized, I wanted to cry. But this time, oh, this time, I found the other Hackesche Höfe. The ones hiding on Sophienstrasse, and not yet modernized beyond recognition. I stumbled onto the street — so quaint, so curvy, so full of the cutest shops and studios ever (see below) — that I was like, oh yeah, this Berlin.

And I sort of fell in love. Again.

2. Shiny (Tiny) Happy (Wooden) People

Would you just look at these things? Would you?

The photo sucks, but try to imagine them up-close and in-focus. Try to imagine standing in a store surrounded by thousands. Most no taller than 3 centimeters. How can you not love them? How can you not want to move in and stay? How can I not? If my sublet doesn't lose it's funny odor (more on that later), this is where you'll find me:

Erzgebirgskunst Original
Sophienstrasse 9
10178 Berlin-Mitte

No doubt.

Comments

[Julie]

Hey -- what's up with the funky sublet? I thought you were landing in a family apartment, all shiny clean and full of brand new Ikea furniture? Or perhaps that's what it used to be like before der subletter moved in and warmed it up for you?

[Julie]

P.S. LOVE the new IT guy.

[Lilan]

Ah, the family aparment with the new ikea furniture is tutzing. :-( So Berlin had to be a sublet. Too bad you can't tell from photos that a place smells funny and that all the furniture is about to bust. rrr