Berlin (yes we havent moved yet!)
Trip Start
Feb 2008
1
12
26
Trip End
Ongoing
Berlin,
Germany
Saturday, April 5, 2008
After spending a night at Jakoba's (and others but memory failing here!) we woke up, and had to sort out a new place to stay that day, the housemates who's room we all shared with was leaving for a short break and as such we were homeless again.
Not a problem however, we found the number of Stuart, the English man Cimi and I both met in the bar she performed in, and gave him a ring. He was out untill about teatime, but said to come round after and stay for a few days. After checking on google maps, it turned out that his house was two streets away, about 5 mins walk!
Since it was still early (1pm :P ) we had some time to kill, the day was great, sunny and quite warm! We took our bags over to a small park nearby and set up. Drums and guitar out we bought a few beers from a shop and proceded to play and make merryment, much to the enjoyment of the children in the park, who later came over to us and had a go on our drums :)
After some time spent in the park, we walked over towards Stuarts house, and soon after Stuart himself turned up and let us in :) We unloaded as usual although since not a huge amount of space, Paz and Cimi set the tent in the back garden, while I took the sofa (I guess im used to sleeping on sofa's by now eh?
Soon we were settled in Stuarts house, drinking the cheapest red wine I could find (from a local Lidil) and relaxing as we got to know each other. Stuart told us about a local English bookshop, called East of Eden just round the corner, and soon after we both took a short walk to check it out and hang outside the front for a short time, chilling with a small group of friends outside smoking.
Spending time at Stuarts was great, he had been living in Berlin for about 15 years (or thereabouts?), spending his first night camped out in the woods before he met people he could stay with! He was working on a couple of scripts, and also working in stage or set design for bands and other productions :)
Later that night, Cimi and myself offered to cook for all of us, and we sat down to a great meal that night,with some cream cake from a local shop for dessert...nice :-0
The following day we all set out again for East of Eden, a small cozy shop, stacked with all kinds of books (as you expect for a bookshop eh?) and after chatting to the owner organised a gig for Cimi for the following tuesday! We had already decided to start to earn some cash by busking and producing CDs to sell at gigs and on the street
and soon after leaving the bookshop, headed for Marks shop in Pankow, 50 CDs ready to burn.
We spent the entire night at Marks, sitting with Pierre, who was great and took the task of burning the orginal CD and then all the rest, burning two at a time for us! While Pierre was burning the CDs Paz and Cimi (and I helped a little) started on the massive task of designing each CD case, using water colours, pastels, chalk and pictures Paz had been collecting for some time from magazines etc. I ended up crashing out to poker on facebook and falling asleep on the floor, while Paz surfed the net till the morning.
We took the U-Bahn/S-Bahn back to Stuarts and then slept till the afternoon, although thats nothing new eh!
Stuarts brother was visting the following day, and he needed the space, so while the other two slept, I surfed the net serching for a new house. After a few emails I had recived two positive responses and secured a wonderful place quite close in Lichenburg (two stops from us). After helping Stuart move some sofa's around and dump a chair, we assembled ourselves and said our goodbyes, promising to vist again for a meal together later in the week.
We left for our new home, a student house in what we later found out was the "fascist" area of Berlin, or at least had a small rightwing community.
(more to come, but alot to write, and im sure this is just discriptive, or at least a step by step thingy, and not to detailed!)
