How much can happen in a week in Berlin.

So, I’m writing this after my first full week in Berlin, having just done my first wash of the week, which is much trickier than you think when, before putting in a wash, about 25 liters of water comes out of the machine before turning it on, due to a malfunction that my temporary roommate had handily omitted from our first little chat. For now, let’s talk about my first week and what this blog will be.

It’s July 31st, around 21:00. I just unfolded my back after a ten and a half hour bus ride from Amsterdam to Berlin. Yes, I took the bus. No, I didn’t like it. It was simply the cheapest option to travel – when you book late, like I do – and I could take my lovely Dutch bike for €8. I had just forgotten what it’s like to sit on a bus was like for more than 30 minutes and boy, does it suck. It sucked even more when the entire bus got turned upside down by the German customs people, but as it turned out, not without reason; one of my Australian bus mates had brought a joint, genuinely asking me ‘that’s legal in Germany, right?’

Anyway, I arrive and, Dutch like I am, I opted to bike from the station to my temporary stay, as I had missed my connection with the S-Bahn (it stands for Stadtschnellbahn by the way). Getting a bike, a 20+kg suitcase on two wheels and my backpack down seemed like a hassle. It also seemed quite doable on Google Maps and my 20+kg suitcase had wheels, so I extended the metal handle and went for it, holding the suitcase to my side, while cycling. I then also discovered that cycling roads in Berlin are not that clearly indicated, resulting in me driving on a walking path, with oncoming cyclists. To my surprise, I wasn’t met with anger, but by a German saying ‘although you’re really in the wrong place at the wrong time, I think your driving technique (with the suitcase) is great!’ Really great adventure, saw a lot of the city in only a short period of time, never been that disgustingly wet from the sweat (turns out it was 8,5 km up and downhill on an under-geared bike) before in my life. Did I mention my host was my boss? I kept him at a health-and-safety approved distance for obvious reasons.

So other than learning a lot of names, getting a sweet new laptop and trying to get a feeling for my way around Berlin, the first day was pretty uneventful. The second one was a bit different. Basically, there was a miscommunication about how urgent it was for me to confirm my move to Berlin. How urgent? I spent an hour and a half power-refreshing the booking website to find a spot, click it, fill out my details and hope the slot was still available then. We’re talking 6-8 seconds for the whole thing and my spot got taken around 30-35 times in those couple of seconds. Normal people book this stuff 30 days in advance. For good reason it seems! So, I just kept clicking and all of a sudden, I got it. Awesome! I did what most people are unable to do in their first month! Suckers.

Those suckers, however, are probably better at looking into where you book your appointment. See, Berlin is quite a big city. About four times the size of Amsterdam. I had booked it about 10 kilometers away, in rush hour, 25 minutes travel time, and I had to be there… in 25 minutes. Patience really is an undervalued virtue and I possess very little of it. I’ll do a full blog on this, but for those looking to move to Berlin, don’t underestimate it like I did.

So there I am, racing in a cab across the city, filling out a bunch of papers (all German of course), and whenever we stop at a traffic light, I have my friendly cab driver take a look if I’m not writing complete nonsense as I’m still quite frightened of the rigidness of German bureaucracy. You know, imagine coming up to the Burgerambt-desk, and the gentleman behind the counter says ‘oh, I see you used dashes instead of dots between dates, GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR.’

Luckily, it wasn’t all that bad and when I didn’t have all papers with me, I was able to get out with a nice smile and my acting-dumb-face. This rosy feeling got sucked away, when I saw a bunch of Facebook messages from my roommate’s friend who had been waiting for me for over an hour as I, in the rush of getting to the municipality office, had missed a message that she would wait for me. Oops. So there I was, rushing to the complete other side of the city, picking up the key. Then I rushed back to the office to bring my Anmeldung, to the amazement of my colleagues, who didn’t believe I would be able to get this done so fast.

End of the day? Doing my bicycle thing again, and then, finally, got my stuff home.

So, back to the start of this first blog, what will this be about? I won’t do just the ‘I’m abroad and look how much I’m widening my world-views’ and all that. Plenty of ‘travel-inspo’ blogs for that. No, this blog will be a combination of the following:

• Expat life in Berlin: this will mostly be recommendations, tutorials and curious things I find out here that I think people looking to move might find interesting.
• Digital Marketing: as I work in social media and have a some experience in various digital fields, I’ll try to give a light, funny and mildly insightful take on developments in digital marketing.
• Technology: same as above, I have some experience with various fields of technology, which I will try to write in a light-hearted, funny and still sort of insightful way.
• Start up stuff: I explicitly avoid the word ‘Entrepreneurship’, because it is one of the most bloated and hyped words, but ‘Business ownership stuff’ isn’t as snappy.
• – Insert your suggestions here – whatever else might pop up, but above is the gist of it.

You’ll soon be able to follow my blogs based on categories, so you don’t get spammed with stuff you’re not interested in, but there you go.