Orli, Just Breathe : Live in Berlin

Showing posts with label Live in Berlin. Show all posts

May 16, 2015

Six months two weeks, and one ER visit

On Wednesday I started writing a post about how we've crossed the six months benchmark, which means we are officially not new here anymore. I wanted to write about how crossing this six months benchmark, silly as it sounds, really does make a difference. How there has been somewhat of a change in the air lately.
Everyone sees and feels change in different places, different instances in life. For me, I think it was last Sunday when I found myself sitting at this very computer typing a very long and detailed response (for some reason I can't seem to write shortly)... On Facebook. To a stranger. I just couldn't help myself. Now don't get me wrong, I like Facebook as much as the next totally addicted person, but actually participating in public discussions with, well, people who are totally wrong? This is where I draw the line. Until last Sunday it seemed. So I figured there can only be one explanation for something so strange - I miss writing.
Which in turn can only mean one thing - I have turned a corner. So I did the math, and sure enough - it's the six months benchmark. Also it's spring, which means sunshine (And spring coats, which I adore, but have no relevance here).

So I tore down the "Haven't cried in XX days" sign from above my little corner of tears (also known as the sofa in my bedroom, which doubles as the perfect place to watch TV and the weekend's breakfast corner), got on the treadmill (yes, I know, I'm a sucker for punishment) and sat down to write this post.
But I forgot the cardinal rule - Never ever write about how well things are going.
I know, it's crazy, but how else can you explain the fact that not two hours after I started this post, and was in the middle of writing a "we are adapting to life here" sentence I found myself in the ER?
I have no one to blame. Really, I brought it on myself.

Just so you know - an ER in German is Rettungstelle

Calls from school are one of the scariest things there are for parents, especially the prone to anxiety type to which I will be the first one to admit I belong, and so I manage to teach every person in every school the kids attend, to always start the call (or letter or email) with a very clear "everything is ok". In this instance I didn't even get a phone call. Imagine yourself walking down the street in a heated discussion with a five years old about the correct colour for his next MineCraft sheep (don't ask. Just don't ask. You'll get a two hours long response) when a stranger stops you and says "are you Ron's mum? I am his football teacher. Ron is in the car and we are on the way to the hospital. He had an accident" (ok, he wasn't a complete stranger, I vaguely remember seeing him around the school, but as names and faces were never my strong suit, in that moment he seemed like a stranger).
He had to repeat himself three times before I could actually understand all the words.
A German ER looks nothing like any ER I have ever seen, including those on TV. It looks exactly like you'd imagine any German establishment should look - big, clean, quiet and ruthlessly efficient.
To this day, this is the only German establishment I've seen that was actually true to all German stereotypes.

Ron was not extremely happy with my insistence to photograph every thing. On the other hand, he also didn't want me making idiotic jokes. So what is a person to do?

In the past six months and two weeks we have been fighting our way through the German bureaucracy. It had gotten to the point in which we've decided it's all actually a test. They test you to see when the endless and needless bureaucracy will break you. This is how they check how serious you are about living here. Well, we are rarely serious (ok me. Hidai is a very serious person) but we don't do breakable, so we adapt and learn how to live here.
Ever so slowly we manage to claw our way through the significant cultural differences, the language barriers, and our bottomless todo list.
But an ER? In German?

Getting the splint fitted

I have been studying German religiously for the past eight months, and have reached the point in which I can think of the words I want to say, and sometimes I can even string them together to a really simple sentence. Hey, the other week I managed to tell a Taxi driver to take a different route. I rock in German. Until they answer. I swear when they (and that includes everyone I come in contact with) talk, it sounds nothing like the German course. It's like it's a whole different language. One I do not understand at all. Add the child with the swollen and bleeding hand, the child who doesn't like unknown situations, and the husband on the way to the equation and you can understand how when they said "Ron D to room 5a" what I heard was "Ron D to asdf sertst aefasf". Eventually the doctor found us wandering the halls trying to find room asdf sertst aefasf.
At least I know my English has improved enough that I can use it in this kind of situations, but I guess I have Yon to thank for that more than my amazing knowledge of the English language. That is what happens when you visit a hospital every 3 months.

This is what Yon did while Ron was getting treated

It took them less than two hours (which I think in hospital-time is the equivalent to 20 minutes) to determine Ron's hand is not broken (told you we don't break easily) and all he needs is a splint for a few days to let the hand rest so the swelling will subside. He chose a bright red bandage, Arsenal colours after all, and I thought about how apt it all is - Just like Ron's hand, all I needed too was somewhere to hide for a little while while I recuperate. Because I might not do breakable, but I most definitely do wonderfully intense panic attacks complete with chest pain and inability to breathe.
And like Ron, I also chose red.
I bought a bright red sofa for it.

East side gallery - sunny adventure

We had 16 degrees last Sunday. Sixteen. And sunny. Staying at home felt like a crime or at the very least a waste of the finest day we've had since we've arrived here. You can never have a good enough excuse to staying home on a sunny day - we've already learnt that in London, and it seemed the same is true for Berlin. It seemed like the whole city was out, enjoying a rare day of real spring.
We decided to head over to the East Side Gallery to cover the last bit of the wall we have yet to see. The East Side Gallery, just in case you are exactly like me and have no idea what it is, is a 1.3 km of the Berlin wall which is covered in Graffiti and paintings and is one of Berlin most famous symbols and the world's longest open art gallery. It represent peace and reunion. It is also a very good place to let the kids loose.

The problem with taking the kids out to see some artsy type of things is that they really don't like it. They get bored, the get whiney, they start touching things and the question "can we go now?" starts showing up every 30 seconds. Not ideal for walking around a museum. It's not that I don't believe in forcing the kids to do things they don't like to, it's just that it ruins all the fun when you have to run after Yon and make sure he doesn't break a 300 years old sculpture (true story). Add to that the staying-at-home stir crazy, and you get two kids who desperately need a place to run, and two parents who desperately need them to run somewhere else.

The East Side Gallery seemed like the perfect place to achieve it all - let the kids run around, not have to shout at them about touching forbidden things, and see some art and history at the same time. And it only took us three hours and four change of clothes to get to leave the house. Who knew it will be so hard to get everyone into their spring collection?

Kids in spring collection

Half an hour, 2 trains and one pair of lost sunglasses later, we have managed to get to the East side gallery, which apparently has two sides - the one everyone takes photos of, and the one we went to. But our side had a park, and the view of the Spree, and most importantly - no cars.
And in the photos you can hardly even see all the broken bottles and leftover food bits that were spread around the park. I have no idea why, but after a certain age where young people see "cool" and "trendy" and "up and coming" all you can see is - really really dirty. Gosh, I am old.

To be honest I am not a big fan of graffiti as an art form. I have always been more of a museum kind of girl, but the East side Gallery is quite impressive. The amount of time and effort that went into creating each of those paintings is amazing, and as for the message of peace an unity - how can I resist?

Yon touching the blue. He only touched the blue for some reason.

Ron said he relates to this one, as he still misses Daisy from London :)

Kids and wall

Had to put this one in, because....Well, I look so skinny!

It is a wonderful place to visit, and I can understand why it is a must in each and every one of Berlin tour guides. It is just that it is such a shame that people take advantage of the fact that it is graffiti and outside and there is no scurity and think it is ok to draw and write on top of other people's work.

Of course we toured the more famous side as well, where the graffiti was much more political and opinionated than on the other side. And also in much worse shape.

The kids had a lovely time, Yon enjoyed walking around touching the walls and reading everything, Ron tried to see all the languages he could recognise, and I enjoyed the spring and sun. We've been there for about an hour and a half before the sun became too much for Yon (it has been the first time in a very long while that we had a proper sunny day), so we haven't seen all of it, but decided it's better to stop before the whining becomes too much and retreated to the Ostbanhof McDonalds for some spring menu (well, spring drinks. The menu at McDonalds rarely changes). We finished it all with some mandatory Boston Creams (you can't really walk past a doughnuts shop and not go in, can you?).

McDonalds is so ready for summer.

As we got home, and I was fishing for reassurance from the kids that they had a good time and are not extremely upset about being forced out of the house and away from their precious iPads, Yon did stop and announce that it was our "Berlin sunny adventure" and only then rushed to his iPad.
So all in all - a success.

Berlin - 4 months in

On Saturday we'd have been in Berlin for four months. London is starting to look like a lifetime ago, and I can't believe it's been only four months, and already four months. We have an apartment (with a garden no less) in the middle of the city, both kids are in school (well Yon had to go back to pre-school as they start school here at age 6 and not 5 like in the UK) and some days the sun is actually shining.

It was not an easy start, and looking back at it all now, I have no idea why I expected it to go differently. Moving to a new country is never easy, but something about moving to a country where you can't even claim to have basic knowledge of the language, right at the beginning of winter, with a husband who has a new job, and without knowing anyone, should have tipped me off that we are off to a rocky beginning. Well, it didn't, and no one was more surprised than me when things did not immediately fall into place. Things did fall though, straight on top of my head, and in the first two months here in Berlin nothing seemed to work.
More than that it seemed nothing will ever work properly again.
And I was too embarrassed about it to write. I had this picture in my mind of how things in Berlin are supposed to work, of how easy it is to move from one place in Europe to the next, of how much simpler it will be because we are actually citizens here, unlike in the UK where the Home Office likes to make you jump through enough hoops to make you into an Olympian athlete in bureaucracy (should most definitely be an Olympian sport).
I was wrong. So wrong.
Or maybe it's that I simply forgot how hard it is to build everything from scratch, how frustrating it is to not know anything, and how difficult it is to change everything. I guess it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone that Berlin is as different from London as it gets. It is part of why we wanted to move here - the adventure, the difference, the quiet. It's just that there are hidden differences, the ones no one talks about, and those are the the ones that catch you by surprise. Those are the ones that makes you sit down holding your head in your hands and wonder quietly - How am I ever going to feel good here?

What people think when they hear about our country-hopping lifestyle is either "wow, you are so brave" or "wow, you are so stupid". I don't particularly think we are brave, but I didn't really like the whole "stupid" thing to be true, and yet that is exactly what it felt like in the last few months. Even now I am straggling with the words and the phrases. What might you think of me if I tell you how many tears I spilled, or how many hours of doubt I had, or how I haven't slept a full night in I don't know how long?
That is not what you are supposed to write about when you move to a new place. You are supposed to be all shiny and new, going on city-adventures, looking all rosy and positive. No one wants to hear or read about how hard it is to move to yet another "really cool" place.
After all, people have real problems.
And whining is really not a very attractive quality.
So I didn't write.
And things did not become any easier.
It just made me feel invisible, and not in the good way (there is a good way).

Baby steps. Chocolate (and pastries, and cakes - the food here is great) and a lot of "just breathe" moments. That is how I managed to survive. And here we are, four months later. Most of winter is behind us. Hidai got me (and him, and the kids) a long weekend in Copenhagen. No one has been sick for the past week. My To-Do List is just one page long (a massive accomplishment as I can now count on just one hand the number of things that are yet to be dealt with, as opposed to the 3 pages long list I had a month ago).
There might be a rainbow at the end of this tunnel after all.
So here I am, writing.
I am just not really sure what I am writing about.

Mauerfall - 25 years to the fall of the Berlin wall

On Sunday we decided to take a break from all the fun of figuring out the little things like where to live and what school to send the kids to and instead participate in helping the people of Berlin celebrate 25 years to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany.
We've been watching them get prepared all week:

It was one of those moments where innate cynicism clashes with the desire to be there, and in the end what made us leave the house and brave the crowds and the (very low) temperatures was the fact that, well, cynicism or not, a person only gets a definite number of once-in-a-lifetime-events to participate in, and seeing how we had a chance to celebrate the Royal Wedding, the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics, we should be really close to the end of our allotment. And besides, saying no to celebrating one of the greatest moments in history is not something you do lightly. Especially when they said you could buy a tiny light-ball as memorabilia.

We decided to start the day at Check-point Charlie (which evidently is not named after a specific Charlie, just because it's the word they use to signify "C") and take it from there. I know, always a good plan to leave it all to "let's see where we go from there", and then we saw a Starbucks. And you have to stop at a Starbucks, especially since it wasn't crowded, and also because they started selling the Christmas drinks, and I love the Christmas drinks.

Unfortunately things did not go as planned from that point onwards - apparently Starbucks have decided to take away my favourite Eggnog Latte, Yon spilled his hot chocolate all over his shirt, scarf and coat, we were late for the guided tour, the camera wasn't focusing, and it was colder than I remembered it could be...

Camera with no focus

It took us a while to clean Yon, fix the camera, figure out where to buy tickets to the tour, and eat lunch so we'll get the feeling back in all body areas, but two hours later we've manage to restart the day, and then the fun began.

We planned to take a short walk around Checkpoint Charlie and go back home until the evening. In the end we ended up walking most of the light-wall (Lichtgrenze) and didn't make it back until after 9pm...

So, this is going to be more of a photo-post than a writing post, but it was quite the photo-op day...

We got a family photo out of it. This very nice lady offered to take our picture, but then started directed us - where to stand, what to do, etc. She was not happy about the result, but gave up...