Beer?

Soooooo.... I really should try and keep this up to date!

So far... I went on a Couch Surfing "beer crawl" last weekend, which was rather crazy! Dividing into teams of three at the start line, each team buys a crate (20l) of beer, which is to be consumed on a walk through Berlin. Joining two Danish girls (Mette and Anne) to create a team, we set off merrily down Unter den Linden, with all the tourists staring in awe. However, being a team of girls soon took its toll, and as we gradually got further and further behind we stopped for a loo break (Mette and I running in together, with the doors managing to shut before Anne could get in with us). And of course we lost EVERYONE else!
No worries, we continued along through Tiergarten until we reached the Siegersäule, taking a break from the slowly decreasing in weight but still heavy Bierkiste. After Anne and I had dashed off for another "loo" break, Mette exclaimed that she had seen the others, and we went on a chase through the Tiergarten, unfortunately finding no one... But all in all it was still a rather amusing experience :)
Then on Sunday I met up with Mette and Nini (another Danish girl who had been on the beer crawl, but in another team, and hence got much nearer the finish line than we did...), and we went to Mauerpark, at first for the weekly karaoke session (which was unfortunately cancelled due to the rather bad weather), but also for the flea market, which is also a regular occurrence there.
This week, having still not heard from Humboldt-Universität, I took the advice of our Birmingham year abroad tutor and went into uni... Unfortunately the woman I needed to speak to wasn't in, and they were unsure when she would next be in, but the man, who was rather helpful all the same, promised to send me an email and let me know what was going on.
As I walked back to Alexanderplatz, through the roads full of tourists, I somehow managed to find Kim, another girl from Birmingham, who had arrived the night before. With the weather being infinitely better than the day before we took some time out to sit in a cafe in Alexanderplatz and have a catch-up on how everything was going. After this I got a call from Sara asking to meet up, and it turns out she has also found a WG! However, as she isn't going to be moving in until October, she was getting a flight back to Belgium the next day, and only coming back once her contract starts.
Upon my return to the flat, I had an email from Humboldt! However, upon reading, it appeared that I would be unable to study German for the first Semester, because due to the problems in my application I had registered too late! I would, however, be able to study music. After some frantic emailing and skyping, I decided to go back into the university the next day, where I went to the International office and explained my case - that I had registered on time, but had been registered for the Pflichtsemester instead of the Erasmussemester, and I was only late because it had been corrected so late on. The lady was very understanding and helpful, asking me for my number so that she could call me when I returned. Apparently they were still unable to find the date I actually applied by, but thanks to her we have (or so I believe!) managed to get me registered for both Germanistik and Musikwissenschaft.
That evening, with it being Kim's birthday, I met up with Kim, and we ended up back in my flat, watching some good old English comedy - Green Wing, with Baileys and Hot Chocolate. The perfect way to end the day!
Yesterday I met up with Mette and Anne again, and also met Mette's housemate (another Danish girl!), Anna. We went to attempt a bit of Jason Mraz stalking (having not managed to get tickets in advance). As we walked around the church we could hear him perfectly, even managing to get some teenagers (one on the shoulders of another) to attempt to take some photos for us! The security men didn't seem completely amused... Or convinced of our harmlessness!
Once the cold hit in we set off to meet two of Mette's friends in a pub. The pub (Das Hotel) was very cute, with there being no electric lighting, but instead loads of candles EVERYWHERE. And I mean everywhere. There were two toilets, and each was lit by two candles, and there was also a watering can with flowers in each. Very nice!
And tonight? Tonight we are supposed to be going out, though I'm not quite sure where to, but I think there was a whisper of Karaoke... Only time will tell!

SO many room interviews later...

So it's been a while...
Erm. Let's see... Amazing, the night after THE SNORER his friends were still in the room but he wasn't, so I'm not sure if they told him he couldn't stay or if someone complained.... But definitely a bonus!
Had rather a lot more WG interviews, dotted all over town (my legs are not loving the exercise...) and on Wednesday (the day before I was due to move out the youth hostel!) I got a text from one of the WGs saying I could have the room, and move in tomorrow (the Thursday). BINGO!
I spent the day in town, went on a free tour of Berlin (actually really good) with some nice Aussies I met at the youth hostel, and our tour guide turned out to be a Londoner as well, and had studied Art and French, making her also a survivor of the Erasmus experience. After the tour a few of the tourists (and I?) went for a drink with the tour guide in the cafe of the DDR museum. There were two American women there, turns out one of their sons is doing an exchange program at the Freie Universitaet at the moment. And EVERYONE you meet is heading south in the next couple of days for Oktoberfest. Jealous!
Anyway, I exchanged numbers with our tour guide - hopefully a good contact to have - and went back to the hostel to sort my life out for the move!
Arne came and picked me up in his car, which was nice and saved me a bit of a tram ride. We went out to a bar for one of his friend's leaving dos, which was nice, and hopefully everything is going to span out well!

THE SNORER

I take a brief interlude in my WG search to moan for a while about THE SNORER.
Last night four new Australian guys joined our room in the youth hostel, all well and good. However, at 1AM I was woken up by the snoring coming from one (THE SNORER). As, it appears, was everyone else. At 2.45am another from the group returns, rather drunkenly, to the room. The Aussie guy in the bunk above THE SNORER asked him to do something about the noise, at which point drunk guy falls VERY LOUDLY to the floor. Nope, still snoring away. He throws a proper (and pretty full) travel rucksack at him. Nope. At 3.15 I left the room for an hour and a half to sleep on the floor in the women's toilets. I returned to the room around 5am, as this is apparently the time when all female visitors in Germany need to pee, and he's still going strong. So yay, loads of sleep for my three interviews today!
The WGs today were rather nice though, all have said I should be able to practise, none are smokers. All going well. A definitely more positive outlook (if one of them chooses me...).
We'll soon see!
Right, I'm off to bed before THE SNORER takes over the room once more...
Bis bald :)

Saturday and Sunday - days of relaxation?

I can never remember where I left off...
I scabbed dinner of Irena and co. on Friday night, then we went for cocktails (obviously in the local Indian restaurant...). Walked home and zonked.
Saturday. I met the first WG girl (having only met her mum the first time), and she's a musician, plays cello, and really nice. Unfortunately I can't actually afford that rent...
Decided to discover some of the streets of Berlin and wandered round the area for a while, ended up buying a German SIM (will hopefully make the whole WG process a lot cheaper!) and met another woman about a room in her flat in the evening. The flat was very nice, quite far away from town and with her and her son, near a park (in which I got lost on the way). One day I'll also learn to write down the surnames of the people I'm visiting (they're on all the bells in the flats here). (Also definitely just took a quick time-out to write down the ones for Monday!) So yeah, it was nice, but quite far away and not with students...
Today I went to church, a bit of a crazy attempt to meet new people. Wasn't quite the type of church I was looking for - turned out to be a cinema screening room, and a modern day worship church, so that was a bit different!
Met up with Sara for a nice picnic lunch in Alexanderplatz, whilst being "serenaded" by a man on his guitar, which was actually rather pleasant! Decided to walk down Unter den Linden (and got distracted by the book stall outside Humboldt-Universitaet!), got free hugs by the Brandenburger Tor, and then walked through Tiergarten Park (where apparently you're allowed BBQs!) towards the Siegesaeule. Followed by a walk back through town and to our respective youth hostels :)

Still looking...

Breakfast was a good experience yesterday, I met two nice Swiss girls who are here sightseeing, and they even accepted my feeble attempts at German!
However, the search for a WG seems to get ever harder...
I visited three more (still on a productive spree...), the morning one was ok, with a man and sometimes his young daughter, and he has told me I should be able to practise there through the day. The second, with a graffiti artist, was much further away and took me forever and a police officer to find (my map doesn't stretch that far...). Then, upon arrival, I couldn't remember the man's surname, and so hazarded a guess on the bell system (and scored!). However, when I got in the building there was a courtyard and four separate buildings, each a likely candidate for this WG. My guessing the second time round wasn't quite as accurate, but luckily the kids in the apartment I rang on were pretty helpful and I soon found the right door. However, this apartment again wasn't quite my cup of tea - smoking, up a zillion flights of stairs and far from the uni. I hopped back on the U-Bahn and headed off to what seems like the furthest West part of Berlin (bound to be even more expensive!).
Again upon arrival I hadn't a clue as to the guy's surname, but children seemed to be my saviours again as one of the kids in the building let me into the stairwell. From then on I appear to have no shame anymore as I just gradually climbed the stairs ringing on doorbells! But again it eventually paid off, and I found the WG in question. A lovely and recently (/still in the process of being) renovated WG, the rooms were huge and everything seemed lovely. The cheaper (but still expensive) room turned out to have been rented already, but the two guys offered to show me the other slightly larger, and even more expensive room. Being so far away (=travel costs) and still so expensive would never fit with me, though the guys did kindly offer me half rent for the rest of this month if I didn't find anything by the time I had to leave the youth hostel. But I'm still hoping. Maybe today is the day...

First day there...

After what seemed like the shortest summer ever, I finally got myself packed and on the coach (yes, coach!) at Victoria. My first coach was possibly the best coach I've ever been on - amazing seats, no annoying armrests (linking back to Strasbourg and Prague) and just altogether lush! Plus I managed to get a double seat to myself, and those who have travelled by coach with me before know just how much I need that extra seat - being short is useful when you can sleep over the two seat with ease! However, the young kids soon arrived... As a trained coach user, I still managed a few hours sleep, waking up when we reached the tunnel (much to my surprise as I was under the impression we were taking the ferry!), but not quite managing to sleep again afterwards (mainly thanks to the REALLY loud French woman sitting behind me on her phone for a ridiculous amount of time late at night!). Having arrived in Brussels I got off and searched for my next coach for a while, finally realising that I had to find the Eurolines office and swap my boarding pass for another one and then wait. The wait seemed to get longer and longer, until 23.00 had definitely passed and our coach hadn't been called yet... But eventually our number came up and we all moved towards the coach.

This coach, however, different vastly from the first. The coach driver made us each pay €1.50 to put our luggage underneath (despite our tickets saying that our two pieces of luggage were included in the price), and every single seat on the coach was taken. The man behind me was ridiculously tall, making it impossible for me to recline my seat, and also therefore to sleep comfortably. I ended up in the most awkward position, sleeping bent over with my head resting on the armrest, resulting in a crazy neckache!

We eventually arrived in Berlin at 09.45, and I dragged my suitcase to the nearest metro station, waiting at the top of the escalator along with another girl for the people to stop coming up so we could go down. When it became inevitable that the stream of people coming up was not going to stop, the other girl (much more gracefully than I, I must say) carried her suitcase down the stairs, with me slowly dragging mine down behind her. I soon discovered that this girl, Sara is also on her Erasmus year, at the Freie Universitaet, and is from Belgium. We got confused by the U-Bahn together (the lines have changed...), and agreed to meet up that evening.

After dumping my suitcase in the youth hostel, I moved on to Alexanderplatz to meet Irena, Alex and Francesca, who kindly brought my laptop to Berlin for me on their short break here. After wandering round for a while, we went for lunch in an Italian restaurant, where neither Irena or I seemed able to finish our food (quite a feat for the restaurant, I can tell you that!). I left them after lunch to return to my youth hostel, booking into my mixed dorm of 8. Shortly after this I went to view a room in a 2 person WG, where the other girl is also a musician, and is about to start studying cello at the Hochschule. Sara, the other girl, was unfortunately not there, but her mum showed me round the flat (which is nice, but possibly more than I can afford) and then took me to the nearest S-Bahnhof.

Having taken the S-Bahn to Alexanderplatz, I walked to Humboldt-Universitaet, to ask a few questions in the office. The lady was very nice, but unfortunately couldn't tell me whether or not I would be able to attend the Sprachkurs (the real reason I arrived in Berlin so early). She gave me a number to call, which I did so accordingly, and the woman on the other end was unfortunately less able to help, telling me that the Sprachkurs has been fully booked for ages now, and there was no way I could possibly take part in it.

Returning to the youth hostel somewhat less chirpy than I had left, I eventually took my (much needed!) shower, before checking how my other WG-applications were going. One of the WGs I was due to visit that evening turned out to have already been rented out, so I turned up to the other, still somewhat hopeful. After the long walk in the rain (having, of course, accidentally left my umbrella in the youth hostel!) I finally found this WG at the top of a block of apartments. Whilst this WG was much cheaper than the first I visited, it was very much a smoking WG, something which I'm not overly sure I could stick with for a whole year...

I walked back to Alexanderplatz, where I met Sara and two Belgian friends she met in her youth hostel, and we went to find something to eat. Overall, whilst I have at least met a few people, it has definitely enlightened me as to the complexity which comes with life in Berlin and WGs.... So, today I continue my search...

Bis bald!