Auf Wiedersehen!

It has been such a long time since I've blogged that I'm back in the UK now. It's quite surreal being back: I marvelled at the fact Asda was open on a Sunday, that I could buy skimmed milk and that I didn't have to pay a pfand for my glasses in a bar we visited last night. Sadly, the bar closed at 2am :( 

Some things I've been doing since I last posted:

Boat tour: We took an hour long boat tour from Friedrichstrasse with Stern. For 11 euros it wasn't bad, but it would've helped if he'd given us the audio guide from the beginning! Definitely a great way to check out Berlin

Lange Nacht die Opern und Theater: This takes place on the last weekend in April and involves 50 of the city's opera houses and theatres performing short pieces. Your ticket gets you entry to all places, a shuttle bus around(plus use of the Ubahn and Sbahn) and a party in the Volksbuhne afterwards. We had a great night, seeing a beautiful musical piece in the Konzert haus and the party in the Volksbuhne was pretty fun too!It is definitely recommended, although plan your route well in advance first!

Inside of the Konzerthaus

Parks: Berlin has so much beautiful green space, it's hard to visit them all. The most obvious is the Tiergarten(complete with the Cafe am Neuen See). Other parks I've loved are Treptower Park(on the river) and Tempelhof(an old airport that is now a park). Gorlitzer Park is a cool place for chilling out. 
 

Tempelhof park

Neuen See, Tiergarten

If you venture just a little outside of Berlin you can find some really beautiful and serene places. Grunewald is really pretty, with some wonderful houses and the haunting Gleis 17, which was used to deport Jewish people from Berlin to concentration camps during WW2. I also visited Friedrichshagen, a cute village on the eastern side of Berlin and the Mugglesee, which is really cute!

Gleis 17, Grunewald

Eating: As always, I've been trying out new places. I finally tried the pizza naan at W and it was so good. Other places I've been include Jimmy Woo in Neukolln. The Jimmy Woo special soup is incredibly tasty and so big,  A great Italian in Friedrichshain is Fliegender Tisch where the food is really yummy and the service is great-plus its a really cute restaurant!

I also tried a couple of other brunch places: 100 Wasser does a great value brunch on a sunday (10 euros including tea and coffee) which has a lot of hot food and some German food in the mix. Alberts in Wedding do a pretty good value brunch on weekdays for 8 euros, but its not particularly veggie friendly. My favourite has to be Cafe Morgenrot, which allows you to pay what you can afford for brunch(minimum of 5 euros). It also happens to be entirely vegetarian and SO yummy.

Bars and clubs: We went to FritzClub at Ostbahnhof, which I liked-it has three different rooms with three different types of music. Plus it wasn't particularly expensive. I also really liked Brunnen70 because it was so enormous and interesting. The furniture was cool-lots of space to lounge around and there was slam poetry in one room, amazing brownies in another. Plus three dancefloors!Its quite tricky to find as its tucked away behind a furniture shop and has no obvious door sign(besides the queue of people streaming out of the door). White Trash had really great live music and the food was SO yummy. For a more relaxed evening, this place has a great atmosphere!

There are also numerous beach bars in Berlin, complete with sand and deckchairs. The one opposite Hauptbahnhof is my favourite, but there is also one at Ostbahnhof on the river and one on top of the shopping centre at Schoenhauser Allee!

Beach bar at Hauptbahnhof

So my time in Berlin is over. I've seen and done so much I can't write it all down. I also met some lovely people who made my time there all the more wonderful!
For anyone thinking of applying for the Leonardo programme, don't think twice-it'll be such a great experience for you! Thanks if you've been reading my blog-I hope you've found it useful :)

x

Kebabs, Haircuts & Markets

A pretty eclectic mix of things that I've been doing recently so I thought I'd blog about all of them! Its over halfway through our time here now and it's whizzing by. The weather is pretty temperamental but other than that, life is good. After Easter weekend it was tough to go back to work though! 

Kulturbraurei- We went to the Easter party here last Sunday. The name kind of gives it away, I guess. Its an old brewery converted into a cinema, restaurant, a club, yoga studio, concert hall etc. The club part was really cool (Soda) with a ton of different rooms and DJs. It's a very cool place and I definitely want to go back and check it out!














The Zionskirche- I tell everyone I love this bit of Berlin. P'burg might not be the coolest place to be(in fact I'm told its really not) but its just so nice when it's sunny and you can sit in any one of the many cafes around and read. Technically the Zionskirche is in Mitte, as you go up the hill into Prenzlauerberg. We stopped for a coffee at Kapelle(below) and decided we'd  venture inside. It was beautiful! For the princely sum of a euro, you can also climb the church tower, which was very much worth it. Just hop off the U8 at Rosenthaler Platz and it's a 5 minute walk up the hill or you can the tram one stop up(Zionskirchplatz)

Flea markets- They seem to be a Berliner Sunday activity and I love them. I've been to the markets at Boxhagener Platz(which has loads of brunch places lining the square), the famous Mauermarkt, the Nowkoelln market and the market at Arkonaplatz. All are lovely in their own way and I manage to buy some really cool and inexpensive things.  A full link of all the markets in Berlin is here: Flohmärkte in Berlin - Berlin.de

Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer-we were wandering around near Nordbahnhof and unexpectedly came across this memorial to the Berlin Wall, complete with pieces of the Wall. The memorial commemorates those who tried to cross the Wall and died in their attempts. Its easy to forget how much this city has been through but around every corner is some little reminder. 

More cool cafes and bars-Kapelle is the cafe we found at Zionskirchplatz. It has such a good list of hot chocolates and the guacamole with our nachos was incredible. They also do Flammkuchen, which looked really yummy. In fact, everything did. Will definitely pay a another visit.

 W Imbiss is somewhere I found by accident. It is teeny and sits not far from Zionskirchplatz. It does pizza naan, although sadly I didn't get to have one there. They make the naan fresh to order and it smelt so good. My food was good, a somewhat Indian flavoured quesdilla and good value. Moreover, the staff were so nice! Pizza naan is next on my wanted list.  They even do masala dosa....

An einem Sonntag im August is a bar where our programme's monthly meetup was held. It was really nice to have a drink as the decor is very cool and the service was surprisingly swift for such a busy bar. Prices were reasonable and its smack bang next to the M1 tram stop and Eberswalder St. Ubahn.  We then moved on to Oberholz, a cafe/bar next to Rosenthaler Platz Ubahn. It was a bit more chilled out, with lots of people on their laptops or sitting on high lifeguards chairs outside just chatting. It had a lot of space and was beautifully decorated.
I also completed two other essential things I needed to do:

Mustafas- The famous Mehringdamm kebab shack ALWAYS has a line whenever I pass it, even at 3pm on a Monday afternoon. Everyone says its amazing, so we decided to wait it out. After 50 minutes of queuing, I finally had my kebab. It was SO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD. They make each one fresh, marinade and roast the veg and squeeze fresh lemon on each kebab. However, I do think 50 minutes was a bit excessive, particularly when there are so many good kebabs to be had on my doorstep(my Gemuseteller at Beussel Grill was actually really nice).   

A haircut- I was petrified about getting a haircut here because my hair is somewhat tricky and I obviously speak next to no German. I picked one of the city's many 'cut n go' places, where you pay for a wash and a cut, no styling. You style it yourself in the salon, using whatever products and appliances you want. I went to the Friedrichshain branch of HaarWerkStatt, where for 12 euros I got a wash and cut. Although I had to wait a loooong time(they dont take appointments), my hairdresser was so nice(despite having more than 20 people to go behind me) and took the time to chat to me properly and show me how to style my hair properly.  She (and all the other staff, from my hour long observation) really knew what she was doing too, despite how quickly the haircut was done.

Next week I'm hoping to check out Tempelhof Airport, so will hopefully have some more pictures to post then!

X

Arbeit und Ostern!

I thought it was about time I blogged about my job-the reason I'm actually here. So the way it works is that you generally list the areas you want to work in on your application to the programme(at home) and they send it on to the partner organisation in the city you're going to. The partner organisation is the one who finds you accommodation and a work placement and pays you your travel and food allowances.

The idea is, I guess, that you find something relevant to your experience, skills and degree and your work placement employer gets someone who is a native speaker of another language and for free! I really like where I work. I work in a company which works within the area of EU funding. I find what I'm doing really interesting and I try to use my German in the office(very badly, might I add). I've been at work for the last two weeks, although I can't claim I did much this week. Our boss very kindly also gave us Thursday off, before presenting us with Easter gifts :-) (below) So I have 5 whole days off for Easter!




Easter itself seems to be quite a big deal, compared to at home. There's lots of spring-like decorations available everywhere, and painted eggs....and LOTS of chocolate! The chocolate shops have very beautiful things available. In fact, chocolate eggs seem to be quite few in number.

Other things I've been doing, outside of work(so not very much!):

Watching American Pie-yes, the cinema showed all three of the previous American Pie films before showing the new one. So I spent the whole day in the cinema, complete with my piece of apple pie. It was a great way to spend a day

Drinking 'super spezial' at Double Eye-  the queue was always out the door whenever we passed this small coffee bar. There is nowhere to sit inside and only benches outside so I couldn't understand why it was so busy. Then I had a coffee from there.... Double Eye is famous for how good its' coffee is. I'm fond of the 'super spezial' which is a shot of either strong or mild espresso(your choice), with a layer of condensed milk and topped with milk foam. It's yummy and inexpensive.

Eating: this clearly never stops and I'm constantly amazed by how much I can actually eat on the menu. So much good food for veggies.  We've been to BurgerAMT, had sushi, 1 euro tacos from Santa Maria in Kreuzberg and the most AMAZING plate filled with hummus, halloumi, falafel and more from DaDa Falafel. All really, really good. Obviously plenty of kebabs too :-)

Schones Wochenende!

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Pots-jammin' (and other adventures)

It's taken me a little while to post again, mainly because I've been trying to frantically cram in sightseeing over the past two weeks before work began today! The weather has suddenly become amazing here in Berlin and it looks so different when it's sunny! A few more things I've been up to recently:

Potsdam:  As the title suggests, I visited Potsdam. Potsdam is a city on the outskirts of Berlin which is good to day trip to. We went last weekend and it really helped that the weather was sehr schon because there is so much to do outside. Potsdam itself is beautiful, with lots of wonderful architecture and the beautifully maintained Sansoucci Park.  We visited the Russisches Kolonie, complete with pink domed church and wooden houses. We also checked out the Dutch Quarter, which was cute. However, we spent most of our day walking around and relaxing in the vast Sansoucci Park. Sadly, not much was open-all the buildings inside like the Baths and Schloss Charlottenhof seem to open May-October (more info here). We bought a 5 person zones B-C Berlin ticket so we could travel out there via the S-Bahn and were pleasantly surprised to learn our ticket (you need zone C) would also allow us to jump on Potsdam's trams and buses. This was pretty useful when we were exhausted/too hot/just needed to get somewhere.

 


Tandeming: For those people who don't know what a language tandem is, it's where two people who want to learn a language practice speaking with each other. One person speaks German and wants to learn English, the other party speaks English and wants to learn German. I find it really helpful because I get to learn new words all the time and be corrected without embarrassing myself too much. Plus it's a good way to meet local people if you're in a new country. I actually have two language tandem partners and they are both really lovely (especially if they're reading this!) and very patient when I say extremely odd things auf Deutsch. It's pretty easy to get one-post an ad in a cafe, go to a language tandem night or post an ad on a specific tandem website. I really couldn't recommend it enough! :-)


Brunch: Every cafe I walk past on a Sunday in Berlin is doing some kind of brunch deal. Every single one smells/looks amazing and so this week a few of us headed out to Friedrichshain to try some. Most of the cafes in the area around Boxhagener Platz do an all day brunch, which usually involves an all you can eat buffet of some sort and a pretty obscene amount of food. We chose Elfida and ate and relaxed there for quite a while. The food was really good with lots of fresh salad and fruit, bread rolls, vine leaves, different egg dishes, muesli and a pretty scrummy cheesecake. Will definitely be on the lookout for more brunch places this weekend so if anyone has any suggestions please send them my way!


Museums:  Berlin has pretty much every type of museum you could possibly want to go to: art, ancient history, modern history, natural history, zoo(if it counts as a museum) and even a museum dedicated to the Ramones... (it has a good cafe!).

I decided to pick a few I was interested in and concentrate on visiting them before I began work(particularly as it can get expensive!). A lot of the museums sit on Museumsinsel, near Friedrichstrasse/Unter den Linden so its pretty easy to find them all.  The Pergammon is one of my absolute favourites, from the Asisi Panorama to the Ishtar Gate-everything in here is so cool. The Neues Museum was also really good and good value for students at only 5 euros.  Plus  audioguides for both were included in the ticket price of each and good(particularly at the Pergammon). The Deutsche Historiches Museum is good at presenting the history of Germany if you are interested and there is a lot information there, so make sure you are wide awake! The DDR museum was very fun and interactive-definitely worth the entry price, despite it's small size and a good way to spend a rainy afternoon.

The following three museums are free to enter: the Stasi Museum was quite good although a bit heavily reliant on the free audioguide(there is a amazing waffle shop opposite called Kalter Krieg though!). The Topography of Terrors is also information loaded, with lots of reading and listening, but it is really good and very sad. The same applies to the Museum in the Jewish Memorial, although that is much larger.

  Egyptian Gallery at the Neues Museum

  DDR Museum

  Ishtar Gate, Pergammon Museum


Bis spater!

Shachi x

I love this city

Having completed two full weeks here I can already say I love Berlin. We've been exploring lots and every day brings something unexpected, like the tiny random cafe with wonderful fresh salad or an artists collective in what looks like an abandoned warehouse that we happen to pass, Berlin has not yet ceased to amaze me. Everyone who visits this city will no doubt have their own favourites but here are some things I've loved so far:

•  Seeing the inside of the Reichstag- So, so worth the faff of booking a timeslot. I can't believe it's free to go inside this beautiful dome, with an excellent audioguide to match. You have to book online in advance(no phone bookings) which then has to be "approved" but you get some gorgeous views and a look inside an incredible piece of history and architecture.
  
  
• The S-Bahn- I've really grown to appreciate the transport system in Berlin. I live on the S-Bahn, the equivalent of the Overground line in London I guess. I can always find a seat, its nice and toasty and the trains are always really quite fast. Add to that the fact the entire U-Bahn and S-Bahn network run 24hrs at the weekend(necessary, as no night out really kicks off until 2am or so) and you can see why I really like it.
  
  
• The East Side Gallery- A must see for any tourist in Berlin, the Gallery is a series of paintings done along pieces of the Berlin Wall. So beautiful and emotionally charged. Go on a day with good light. You can find out how to get there and other things from the link. 

• Food- Somewhat general, but I really love how much variety I can get in food here. I found the Arminius market hall not far from me, which looks like a normal market hall at home except it is complete with a brewery, several cafes, a wine merchant and lots of other things. Bakeries, are of course plentiful here. I also discovered a wonderful Turkish supermarket which has the most yummy looking deli counter and breads. Plus let's not forget the numerous good and inexpensive Vietnamese/Thai/Indian/Turkish/German/Italian/Chinese restaurants across the city(and bubble tea!).  The KaDeWe food hall blew my mind, especially the cakes! Walking in the Tiergarten one day(with the help of my very good Time Out Berlin) we visited Cafe am Neuen See for some of the most fun heisse Schokolade I've ever had, complete with milk warmer and scoop of chocolate.
  
  
• Vintage shops and cafes- Like any big city, Berlin has lots of cool vintage shops and an abundance of nice cafes. We went on a hunt for Colours, a huge and cheap vintage store in Mehringdamm and found it tucked away overlooking a pretty tiled courtyard and a hotdog stall. I spotted the very cool and unpretentious Fire bar very close to the Museumsinsel and I love the decor inside-very cool furniture! The cafe in the Ramones museum(!) across the street is nice too. Plus there are an endless amount of flea markets across the city.
  
  
  There are many more things that I love about Berlin, like seeing dogs on the S-bahn or the haunting Stolperstein across the city, but I didn't really want to make a long list of "stuff I like". My recommendations are just recommendations/highlights-this city truly has anything and everything and its definitely worth taking the time to explore and finding the bits which you love.
  
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Buying a SIM...

A couple of days ago, the group of us tried buying SIM cards, to avoid racking up giant phone bills on our UK phones. Let me tell you, it is a pain. Mainly because I speak very basic German, admittedly, but it is still tricky if you don't know what to go for.

I managed to do a bit of research into it, using a very helpful blog (which also has a good piece on supermarkets) and a comparison of different networks.  Obviously it helps to know what precisely you want e.g. I wanted mine essentially for Berlin only, so I chose Fonic, which seemed to hit a neat price balance between calling/texting the UK and here in Berlin. However, as of roughly 3 weeks after I bought the card, Fonic helpfully switched my SIM card off without telling me!!! I then rang customer service(from my UK mobile, naturally-a premium price number from a German number so I don't want to guess how much it could have cost...) and I was told my address "didn't exist" so I needed to prove my identity to them. This happened to the other three people in my group using Fonic too. To fix it was quite simple-a scan of your passport to their email address(or fax/post) and your SIM would be switched on again. Its just ridiculously unnecessary and unhelpful. Dave T has had no problems with his blau.de SIM and perhaps it is better to go for that if you have the choice.

Some cards are extremely cheap to use if you only want to use it here in Berlin(try Aldi or Lidl). Likewise, some cards like Lyca are priced much better for international calls and texts, but can't give the most cheap rate for within Berlin. If you want a data package, then blau.de sounded like a good deal.

To buy your SIM card, just go to MediaMarkt or Saturn(big electronics stores). There is a MediaMarkt at Alexanderplatz and just outside Wilmersdorfer Strasse station. Having said that, drugstores like DM and Rossmans also sell starter packs(although with much less choice obviously) and topup cards.

Obviously you'll need an unlocked phone for this all to work, unless your phone is locked and you are already on Vodafone, O2 or T Mobile-pick up one of their SIMs for your locked phone in that case.

Thankfully I am blessed with having the internet but some of our group don't. They are looking into the different options for a non permanent resident of Berlin to use, but even for a dongle/internet stick you need a proof of address, so watch this space. I'm pretty sure Dave will blog about it once he has!

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Home Sweet Home

We arrived in Berlin yesterday, after an uneventful flight from Liverpool. We were picked up in a taxi and driven to our various destinations across the city. I am on the north west side, so was dropped off last. After two hours in the car, two hours on a plane and everything else preceding that, all I wanted was my bed. Naturally this didn't happen. We couldn't find the keys my flatmate had left for me. After much searching for the mysterious 'Rot box',  Georg and I gave up. Georg is one of the staff from ILE Berlin who had come to collect us, give us our travel passes and settle us in.

Whilst I was pretty tired and beyond hungry, I was quite pleased to go back to Haus von Dave(yes, the German organisation organising our placements put three boys called Dave in one flat) and crash out on the sofa for the night.

One of "the Daves" is keeping a blog about his time in Berlin, which you can find here. Dave is very talented at drawing so his blog is well worth taking a peek at!

In the morning, we went exploring in the area they live(Wilmersdorf, SW side of Berlin). I learnt three things:

1) A German bakery is my new favourite place on earth. I've never smelt anything so good.
2) Nothing which could constitute a supermarket is open on Sundays. So no cooking for us till at least Monday afternoon.
3) My German is better already. I can translate signs on shops, ask for directions(and understand them-defo a problem in German class!) and much more.  Part of my overall goal is to be able to read some basic articles in German by the end of my time here, so by immersing myself into it I will hopefully manage it.

I finally reached my new place around lunchtime and it is lovely. I share the flat with another lady, but I have plenty of space to myself and I live about 5 minutes from an S-Bahn stop. The area I live in is crammed full of kebab shops, casinos and the odd tanning salon. However, the upside of that is that I ate the best veggie kebab EVER in life today.

For all those that were concerned about my vegetarianism out here in Germany, it's not been a problem. 'Vegeterisch' is marked pretty clearly everywhere, even in the kebab shop. Plus, nearly everyone we've encountered speaks English. So far, so good. A special thanks to Chandni for the wonderful list of phrases she gave me to communicate my dietary requirements to people.

We have been exploring Berlin a little, seeing some amazing sights in the sunshine(although it is VERY cold) and finding bargain meals, like a plate of pasta for under 3 euros. Tomorrow is the first day of language school, so I should probably stop typing and open my folder.

Tschuss!

x

Die Spiesekarte, bitte.

Last Sunday I finally managed to squish everything I'd need for the following 3 months into my (extremely weight limited) suitcase and dumped it in the car. We were off to the small town of Llangollen, in North Wales. Not exactly the most exciting place in the world, I'm sure you're thinking. Well no, it isn't. But it is where ECTARC(the European Centre for Training and Regional Cooperation) is based.

The reason I'm living in Berlin for the next three months is because of a program organised by ECTARC, called the Leonardo programme. It is designed as a work placement scheme, so that young graduates from/living in Wales get a chance to increase their  skills in an area relevant to their future careers and hopefully end up with jobs at the end of it(or some great CV bolstering at the very least). You learn a European language for some weeks, then are put in a work placement for around about 2 months. It sounded like an amazing experience for me, so I applied and now here I am. People go to Bordeaux, Florence, Seville or Berlin and from the sounds of it, have the time of their lives. 

So now hopefully it makes more sense that I(well, my dad) was making the 3 hour long drive to North Wales.  I was in Llangollen for a week of intensive German learning and meeting those who do the programme with me. We all have separate work placements and live separately across the city(!) but do all language classes together, so we all get pretty close. Llangollen was a very pretty town and great for those who love the outdoors. Anyone who knows me knows I'm not. Llangollen also has very little in the way of nightlife, apart from 18 pubs...

Our week there was quite intense in terms of language learning. I found the grammar somewhat difficult to grasp, as the idea of a table being a 'him' or a bottle being a 'her' made no sense to me.  I have managed to remember the article for 'the menu'-it is 'Die Spiesekarte', hence the title of this post.

During the week, I managed to watch two films in German, with subtitles and loved both of them. "The Lives of Others" is very intense, but brilliantly done. It follows the life of one of the Stasi in the DDR. "Goodbye Lenin" is another great film we saw.  I would thoroughly recommend them to anyone interested in learning about a pre 1989 divided Germany.

Hopefully now I've arrived, my language learning will improve...more on that later.

xx