Berlinian bliss

Yup, it is little more than a month to go before I'll be running half a marathon in Gothenburg, for the 6th time actually (had to brag a little). My mind is also set to beating my old record time (2hours 5 minutes) and going for the magic 2 hour limit, which at this point seems slightly unachievable... Went for a run today, 86 mins, and am currently in a world of pain. Will probably be even worse tomorrow. But as some people say "Pain is weakness leaving the body." HA! How about, "pain causes weakness to the knees and body"... Sounds more true when it comes to me.

This weekend was quite eventful, or rather, it contained one really fun event; Spreegold celebrated its 1 year anniversary. We had a big party Saturday with all the regular guests and friends and family, it was heaps of fun. Bosses kept feeding me punch, got slightly drunk which felt weird since we had to stay and clean up afterwards. Was all jolly and happy scrubbing away on the espresso machine, singing 'It's raining men' to myself. Awsome.

Looking forward to this summer! Lot's of great things going on. Firstly, May will be an off-the-hook-month, Elin the Galosch is coming to visit on the 7th, finally will have my wing-woman here to make Berlin unsafe. Then, there's the trip back to the motherland on the 18th, staying for a whole week, yay! Anika darling has her birthday on the 24th, which I will miss by one day and have to make up for with lots of presents and hugs on the 25th, mission not impossible. In June there's Martini coming for Pearl Jam concert, and then we're going to a metal festival in Holland on July 17th to see Paradise Lost, my fave band of all times. So there's that, a good start of the summer so far!

There's the prospect of going to Belgium on another rock festival, in order to impress a certain boy. Question remains whether I should suggest to said boy to come with me (and thus also bring his GIRLFRIEND, yes you heard right, I'm pathetic), and if it really would be worth the agony..? To be continued.

Have to get back to my stupid thesis now, deadline tomorrow again at 3pm, wish me luck. And strength.

I thought I'd kick-start the blog back to life by adding another post. That's right! It's not like I don't have a giant thesis to complete in 5 hours (yikes) and which I really should be working on. No. No no.
Easter's come and gone, didn't really do much Easterly stuff except working, that's what you're supposed to be doing huh? Or not... For most people, Easter is about eggs and eating and eating eggs and four day weekend, but not for this Carolina!
Right, so this is a tiny tiny post. But it's something, a little sign of life. Back to business and thesis-ing!

OMG the blog almost died. Not to worry though, I didn't. I just took a time out. A blog out. Since I have no time to blog at all. Blogging is fun though, I should do it more often. Not every day perhaps, but every now and then. So what's new? Ok, well, where to begin, I had a good start of the year, very busy. Enrolled in a couple of courses at the University of Dalarna (ha!) to score some extra dough, courtesy of the Swedish government. Thank you very much for that.

Still working my ass off at Spreegold, things are going really well over there although it's quite tough. Today my boss asked me if I could see myself working there as a store manager in a year or so. I was like... eh... me? But I don't even speak German! He obviously thinks higher of me than I do. Awsomeness. However I'm not sure where I'll be in 12 months, hopefully a Masters student at Humboldt uni, if all goes well. That'd be so sweet. Am aspiring to apply for this program:

http://www.gbz.hu-berlin.de/master-in-british-studies

Last day for applications is April 30th, coming up fast!

I went to Amsterdam a couple of weeks ago and saw my lovely Galosch. We had a bunch of drinks and hung out like nobody's business. Bliss!



And last weekend I went to Paris to celebrate Philippe's 30th birthday, was so great to meet everyone again! Although, I'm seriously considering whether someone's trying to tell me something if I get sick as soon as I enter French territory (Anika asked if it was her yelling in my ear), got a stroke of gastro and had to spend the whole of Friday in bed. And not in a good sexy way at all.




Sitting here struggling with my stupid 25-pages thesis which I am supposed to hand in on Tuesday. Needless to say it's not exactly going so well. "Luckily" my dear roomies aren't here, that'd totally distract me and keep me from doing anything even remotely close to work. Blogging doesn't really help either, so I'll stop now.

After two months of residency in this fabulous city I can finally establish some fave spots and list them. However, some fave spots might end up to be top 5 or even top 10... Oh well, I'll give it a go. Favourite...

... shopping mall: Alexa - Alexanderplatz. Even though the surroundings are a bit too Eastern Germany for my taste with the Fernsehturm tower lurking in the periphery, the mall itself is so beautiful! The shops are awsome too, I love it, and crawling distance home aswell.

... cinema: CineStar IMAX - Sony Center, Potsdamer Platz. To be fair to all of the other cinemas, this is the only one I've been to, but there aren't that many theatres that actually screen movies in their original version. We went there to see 2012 (awful movie, don't pay to go and watch it), and it was quite fascinating since not only was it in English, there were no subtitles. Whenever a character would speak another language, the subtitles would be in English too. Weird. But the movie theatre is beautiful, I love the Sony Center!

... park: Volkspark Friedrichshain - Friedrichshain. Hands down the best park, ok maybe I am slightly biased since it's right around the corner from where I live and I go there all the time, but it really is great! It's the oldest and second largest park in Berlin, there are two "mountains" built over bunkers (how awsome is that?), heaps of monuments, a Japanese garden and not to forget Märchenbrunnen which is a beautiful fairy tale fountain! It's gorgeous (see image below). However, what I love most about this park is that I can go running there, both on soft wood-chip paths, flat and steep, on paved roads, with lots of space. It's ideal!



... café (this is a tricky one, so I'll divide them into sub-categories) to hang out: Lois - Gormanstr. Mitte. Right next to roomie's work, so we hang out here a lot. They make excellent sojalattes and delicious cheesecakes. Also, some of the magazines are in English, yay to that! Cosy setting.
... café with the best breakfast: Tous les jours - Hufelandstr. Prenzlauer Berg. Their breakfast is insane! The biggest one costs 7 euro (!) and you get all of this;



Unfortunately, Tous les jours isn't the cosiest café in town but their carrotcake-muffins are to die for! So I have to say, they win on sugarinduced-coma knock-out.
... café with the best smoothies: Fruit Bar - Hufelandstr. P B. (Have you noticed that these cafés all are right around the corner to where I live?). Nothing to say really other than the smoothies in this place are fergalicious. The guy who owns this place runs it all by himself and all the smoothies are made from scratch, fresh fruit all around. Love it. Love. It.
... café with the best baristas: Spreegold - Hufelandstr. P B. I had to. www.spreegold.com/new/typo3 check it out for yourselves!

There are plenty of other cafés, of course, but I won't list them all, it'd bore you to bits.

... bar (also many different faves, I'll mention two): CCCP Bar - Torstr. Mitte. Russian bar, awsome setting with slightly shocking decor. Small but funky. Schmittz - Torstr. Mitte. We hang out here a lot for the same reason why we hang out in Lois, it's an excellent after work-bar, unfortunately people smoke a lot but there's a fussball table and table tennis and the beer is 2 euros. And oh, did I mention that I have a huge loser crush on one of the bartenders? H O T!

Now, my memory is failing me a little, perhaps because of too much alcohol consumption, naturally I have been to more bars than these but I won't list all of them either. Let's move on shall we?

... club: White Trash/White Noise - Schönhauser Allee. P B. Awsome DJ when we were there ("her" name was Anita Drink, get it?) who played very random songs, but managed to squeeze in both Living on a prayer and Sweet child o' mine, so I couldn't possibly be other than smitten. The decor was as always very interesting, didn't care much for the live act though, a little pretentious. Kulturbrauerei - Schönhauser Alle. P B. Huge club with many different dancefloors which will tickle what ever fancy. We cruised between the Techno Lounge (with many pretty lights) and the more rock/pop floor, very entertaining. Kaffee Burger - Torstr. Mitte. Cool little club with a lot of alternative people, fun but obscure at times.

So there, now I'm sick of listing things, sun's shining so I'll go out and enjoy it before it gets dark (night falls around 4.30 pm, it's horrible!).

I have a job! And it's a great one. Since one week I am officially working as a barista at Spreegold café, will be working full time there making and selling superdelicious sandwiches, espressi, cappucini and baked goods (had to do some advertising while I'm at it, huh?). The crew's really nice, mostly all German so obviously everything is in German as well, guests, instructions... Luckily, they're all very patient with me and even though I don't comprehend it all, they explain very carefully and repeat if I don't get it. The guests are very cool as well, chatty and friendly and international from time to time. Every now and then I get to shine when there's a party of Norwegians or Frenchies coming in. And there are plenty, believe or not!

 

Saturday was Halloween (if you guys weren't aware of that) and there was this big jazz/dress up party planned at Spreegold; I had to wear a black wig whilst working, very amusing. Unfortunately, not only did it shield my vision, it also decreased my hearing even more (the band was playing quite loud), so I could hardly hear what any of the guests were saying, add broken and drunk German to that equation and you have an extremely confused Carolina. Managed to work it out though and had a really good time!

So getting this job means I won't have to do any more babysitting in Spandau!! Hoorah! I don't know if I've mentioned it earlier, but that family is crazy, and not in a good way. I could seriously write a whole thesis on everything that has gone wrong with those children, but it's not my problem any longer. It's a tad tragic, but also comes to show to what extent money can ruin a person's standards and norms. As soon as I have gotten my salary from them, I am outta there!

So there, I am making coffees and taking names! Having a blast, can't wait to get my first real paycheck so I can live a little too. Am so over being poor, being poor sucks. It is so 2008.

Yay to having roomies! Ok I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's great living with other people. How else would I have been able to put my curtains up? We've tried two times already and yesterday we finally managed to put them up, but it sure wasn't a pick-nick. Firstly because of the sheer height, the ceiling's about 5 metres up. Also, the walls are made of some kind of porous material which crumbles as soon as you put anything sharp in there. In spite of all this, we managed. Anika got all frustrated from watching the rest of us struggling so she rolled her sleeves up, shoved us aside and five minutes later I had curtains! She's one crafty woman.



We also put our pretty paintings of Amsterdam and Paris up in the livingroom. Wow, we're so handy.



Project of today was putting the bathroom light up, I did it in like ten minutes. Don't want to brag or anything but I am indeed very handy. Nah, just kidding. It was simply very easy to put up, a monkey could have done it. Later today we might even put curtains up in the kitchen! Have to wait for roomie to come home to do that though, it is a tad trickier...

Tomorrow's project will be calling my French bank and yell at them for stealing my money. Yes they are still the tool of Satan. And they still won't give me a break. Usually I don't like using the H-word but I really do hate them. I do, and I won't deny it. Stay tuned for updates on that one. Might ever try opening a German bank account tomorrow, it's scary though! If I had problems opening an account when everything was in French, how will I cope with everything being in German? Interesting indeed.

Other than being stalked and harassed by French bankpeople, life is good. I'm still very poor and unemployed but on the case. Luckily children are still being born out there with parents who are willing to pay me to watch the little ones. Phew! My ambition to acquire the TEFL certificate and work as an English teacher is still priority number one though, however it costs about 125£ which I don't have. Tried to get some money from CSN to cover that but they haven't gotten back to me yet. Any day now...

In short my days are filled with: marathon-watching House MD, going out for coffees, having a run in the park, philosophising. Chillaxed!

And was has she achieved? Well, the arrival of La Suédoise hasn't exactly caused a stir in the city, but I am still keeping a low profile (yes it is intentional). No job yet, not counting the babysits (sorry Mary Poppins, in my book nannying is still considered as a gig on the side), and assets are lower than low. Tomorrow I'll head over to Friedrichshain and watch a little Swedish/Icelandic 2 year old boy, fun! I've never heard Icelandic being spoken I think, quite fascinating!

One good thing about having all this time on my hands is that I have started running again. One hour four times a week, it's starting to feel quite alright! Don't know if I mentioned this earlier but I won a spot on the Gothenburg halfmarathon for next year (22nd of May, 2010), so I better get going! Ran yesterday and today, the park is fricking kick-ass for running, however it is slightly cold. I fear that the winter is going to be long and freezing...

Pluses about living with the Damias: having lovley dinners made for me every night, playing (and learning how to play) chess, beers, cuddles, hugs, deep discussions (I mostly participate with my silence and the occasional nod), movies, House MD, Weeds, tequila, dancing, running, strolling, coffeeees, Charleeey, coming up with stupid internal jokes that noone'll get, reading the Economist and feeling smart, complain about France, complain about Germany, being nostalgic about our home-countries and so on and so forth.

Minuses about living with the Damias: drinking maybe a tad too many beers, eating too much pizza, going to bed a tad too late, sleeping slightly too long in the morning. But all of these aren't really bad though, just frowned upon perhaps...

There, I'm all blogged out for tonight. Zzzzzzz....

Everywhere you turn in our neighbourhood (Prenzlauer Berg), or more precisely, on our street (Bötzowstrasse), there are babies and puppies as far as the eye can see. Seriously, the place is practically crawling with them. And they're cute as hell too! We've managed to make some new friends:

First we have Benno.



And then lovely Sokrates.



So yes, many puppies. And babies. Adorable babies. Kind of makes me want to get one. Puppy that is, not baby. Or, maybe....?

Dilemma: "If you work for a living, then why do you kill yourself working?" vs "Why do you never enjoy being unemployed, even though you have all this free time on your hands?"

As soon as I do have a job, I'll go: "Man, I wish I could get some time off." But right now I can't wait to get a job, however I do enjoy being able to sleep in and going for coffees all day every day. It's also quite cool to have an unemployed buddy to do all this with, otherwise it sure would have been hell.

At this point though it's getting a bit old. I sure would like to work, atleast for a little bit. Have to be patient, I knew this would take some time. Guess I just have to keep up the Mary Poppins act for a little while longer...

Last weekend I finally got a bit of Berlinian club feel, we went to CCCP, a Russian (!) club. The decor was outrageous and random but cool, in a way. At first we were a bit sceptical but then the DJ (an extremely sexy German with porn mustasch and suspenders) hyped up the music and the shots started flowing = instant success. We scrambled home at 6am, filled with love and laughter.



Can you see the vadge hidden somewhere? Random!!

Ok I'll go do some groceries now, at Rewe, best store ever!!

I've never been big on carrying lots of cash around, but little did I know that Germany is equally unhappy about handling credit cards. When shopping it's all about the cash! Quite shocking when you're standing at the IKEA check out with shopping for 600 euros and the clerk goes "Visa? No no no!" with a little horrified frown. As if we're in Katmandu or something. Unfortunately at this point it was ten past 9 (IKEA closes at 9pm) and the cash machine was way over at the other end of the store. But this is still Germany and not France, they ended up waiting for me to get money out so I could pay for it all. In France they would have totally cut me.



Life in Germany is quite easy still. Compared to previous experiences... My French bank is still giving me grief, they just love punishing me with taking money off my account without warning or reason. It's annoying to say the least.

But enough about that! Tonight: running, dinner, drinks, more drinks, dancing, funsies - bliss!

"Dear Mr so and so,

I hereby send you my awsome application even though you might not be hiring at the moment. Regardless of what you might be looking for, please take into consideration that me being unable to speak German will not be an obstacle, quite the contrary! It might even be an advantage! Consider me more as a clean slate, a tabula rasa, upon which you can draw the wonderful opportunities of a marvellous future working together. Now, how could you, Sir, let this opportunity pass? I say hire me, with no delays! I am yours for the taking."

And so on and so forth. Yes I have launched myself into the dangerous feat that is jobhunting. It is a perilious odyssee filled with loop-holes and rejection lurking around the bend. Me, the fearless hunter, am not at all unfamiliar to extreme means, au contraire! A tad of exaggeration hasn't killed anyone, now has it?

Other than humiliating jobsearchs, I am loving life here in Berlin. It has only been a week so far but a very good week. Feeling a bit thirsty for people-love and human contact sometimes, though. The other day I only just managed to stop myself from hugging a hobo asking for smokes, the closest I've been to sex all week! Fortunately, there's Damir who is like a little hug-pug, he gives me my daily dosis. Keeps me warm!

Monday I shall venture out to Spandau once again and give baby-sitting another go, little 3-year olds do not scare me! But before that, Saturday will be a very good day, as I might have mentioned, the third musketeer will join us and then the drinking can commence! Bring on mayhem!

Finally Damir came back from Paris and life as roomies can officially start! Can't wait until Anika gets here on Saturday, oh let the good times roll I say!




First we went to IKEA, rented a van at Europcar, I drove first thing arriving in Berlin. Quite impressive huh? We had to have princess-cake of course, and vacuum cleaners. Yes they're called that in Swedish, check it: http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dammsugare_(bakverk)

Then he left me for Paris he did, my roomie. But as I said, he came back, if not a little tired and weary because of his luggage giving up on him:



Note his sad sad face and one wheel missing.

Oh but we took care of that sad face, Nurse Jackie and chocolates did the trick!

I've been to Spandau today to meet a little girl I might look after a couple of days a week. She was a bit... difficult to say the least. But we'll see how it goes, I'll be damned before I let a 3 year old take me down!

Next on today's programme:
- Running
- Shopping
- Dinner with roomie
- Bed

Exciting life!

Countdown: Days until the other Damia arrives... Two more sleeps!

Ok so I've moved to Berlin. Just like that. It's not unheard of. People have done that before, right? I mean, it's Germany, not Zanzibar (hint Caro Holm). So I'm pretty sure I'll be able to make it in this town. And here's why: 1. I'll be sharing an amazing flat with two extraordinary people who happen to be a couple of my very best friends. 2. Berlin is an awsome city with awsome people, and quite cheap as well. 3. It has to work. It just has to. I have the motivation, ambition and drive to make it happen. So it will! There is no end to the possibilities as he says, Mr Cable Guy. And he is right, I see no limits to what I might achieve here. I'm so ready for something new! Paris is lovely, it is. But you need to have a lot going for you to make it in there. Money for one, which also means a good job of course, a nice flat and lots of great friends (CHECK on the latter for me). Unfortunately just one out of three isn't enough. So here I am. No regrets! Just take the plunge and we'll see where I end up. I'm ready!