The new apartment

Thanks to Rob, an expat Canadian from Toronto, I have a sweet deal for a small one bedroom apartment in Kreuzberg.

  Its one of the newer buildings so it has low ceilings and is a bit small but I'm not complaining. It has a great balcony with loads of sun. One of Berlins beautiful old buildings is right across the street taunting me with its high ceilings and architectural details.

Makes for a nice view.

  Rob uses the apartment as his recording studio on occasion, he writes lyrics and composes music professionally. That's the"couch" on the left. In exchange for cheap rent I look after the plants.

Its a tight fit.

Did I mention its rather small. Half a square metre of floor space to get what ever is needed, efficient!

Yep, one of those annoyingly small fridges.

Lightning a few months ago.

3pm and the skies open up.

and at 5pm its back to sun.

Out back it looks a bit like an orchard.

  I'm curious to see how cold it gets this winter and what the heat is like in this building. The pipes are old so the water pressure is very low, so far so good.

A quick update with autumn and winter:

  This will be a good base to make a life in Berlin.

The flat in P'berg

The new place in Berlin. Classic Berlin style flat with wood floors and a green courtyard out back. The local neighbourhood organic street market is about 20 metres away on Thursdays and right out front on Saturdays.

My room. Rent includes furniture and art on the walls.

Ute and Roberts room

Roberts study/work room

Classic Berlin bathroom, long and narrow. Some are MUCH thinner.

Kitchen and the common room.

 Not as cool a neighbourhood as Kreuzberg or Neukolln but its convenient to Mauer Park and Mitte. Prenzlauer Berg has become quite gentrified and is FULL of baby strollers and young professionals. As such its hard to find a loaf of bread at a decent price. It takes a bit of investigation but a good bakery with fair prices does exist. However if you need new shoes hats bags or baby clothes just go down stairs...

Berlin Installation art project. "Ich Bin Keiner"

  Back in August there was yet another art happening one evening. Artist Michael Seemann took an apartment building that was due to be demolished and installed a series of installations. In rooms in each apartment on multiple floors. Cutting holes in the floors walls and ceilings and installing sound and sculptures. In one case a performer was locked in a room. The German speakers with us on the tour couldn't quite explain it but the over all theme was "Public is the New Private" and loosing control of private information. The artist had use of this site for a year to create performances or whatever. Nice eh!

 This is Berlin and Germany so in the back is a beer garden to sit and discuss what it was we just saw. I thought the use of camper vans as outdoor seating was a great idea.

Tschüss
Andy

My haus in Berlin :)

I'm in my place and its amazing, perhaps a bit too posh but I'm not about to look the horse in the smacker etc. Its on the very popular Bergmannstrasse which is kind of like 4th Ave and Alma in Vancouver or Oak Bay village in Victoria. Except with renovated old European buildings loads of tourists in cafe's and bars and strolling musician's. As I write the same guy with the souped up bike and huge sound system has just ridden by with the thumping club tunes throbbing. Its best to get away from Bergmann and go back a few blocks. Around the corner there's an independent music shop next to that is a Great cafe with seating above and behind the counter and next to that is a great little comic shop. There's a wonderful neighbourhood bar with small things to eat. Today there was a musician playing an upright piano positioned in the middle of the seating area at a blocked off street. Glass of wine perched on top :)

The street from my window at about 18h (6pm).

180 view of the shared backyard from Jessica's (my roommate's) room and our balcony.

Jessica's room with the balcony

My room, that thing on the left is my dresser! Hey look, lots of room for friends to camp out if they're in town:) We have the couch although its difficult to sit on let alone sleep, though there is an extra mattress but its a single. Still, its a free place to sleep.

The Kitchen is very Turkish with a double boiler tea kettle and bench seating with tassel cushions on the wall. Very nice dishwasher will help keep the peace between us both I think.

The bathroom with our washing machine and shower/jacuzzi tub!

View down to the shared garden with a place to park the bike, BBQ and a sand box for the cats... or the kids.

So I have one room all to myself which is almost as big as my place in Vancouver and yet the rent is half as much for the use of a total apartment about four times that size. Vancouver you got a lot a splaining-to-do.

Andy