Der Himmel über Berlin

Last week I did an English camp on a farm in Berlin's northern suburbs. Of course there were lots of smelly animals for the smelly kids to screech at and attempt to touch despite clear warnings telling them not to do so.

Two unusual things struck me on this farm.

Their signs requesting that visitors to the farm don't feed the animals anything, under any circumstance, were proving ineffectual, with the result that some goats died when fed bread and some bunnies died when fed something else (cyanide possibly, I don't know. I have never understood the attraction of rabbits, perhaps due to a childhood spent in the company of greyhounds). Instead of increasing vigilance, or sign size, or barring ignorant feckers, they arranged the dead bunny and dead goat bodies around the pen, took photos of them, printed them out nice and big and hung them up outside the respective enclosures.

So when little Hans and little Gertrude ramble along to see the cute bunnies, what do they see? DEAD BUNNIES!

Another unusual thing. They have pigs there, a special breed that have a black rump and head with a white stripe around their midriff. One of these sows had just given birth to four piglets, two of whom had a cute little black spot on their white backs. The tour lady informed us that those two would be butchered pretty soon, as they are not considered to be thoroughbred because of that little black spot.

Happily, she seemed as preturbed as I was at the idea of this piggy ethnic cleansing and together we managed to convince the children that Germany is a progressive, forward thinking nation that has mostly left that sort of thinking about sixty years in the past.

And that was my second week on English Camp.

I believe in fate.

Three nights ago, I saw what I thought was my dream apartment - really close to blog HQ, near to my soon-to-be-started German course...it had it all.

Two nights ago, they decided that they didn't want to live with me.

That upset me very much.

Very much.

But the very next night, last night, I saw an even better apartment, even nicer people, even better location.

Just tonight, moments ago, they called me and told me that they wanted me as their new housemate.

I blibbered.

I blubbered.

I forgot the German word for 'speechless'.

I spluttered enough to make them wonder about why the hell they chose me.

They still did though.

So that means that le Hotel du Rampage is slighlty smaller, but will suffer no reduction in capacity and will enjoy an enormously significant improvement in location.

So hurrah.

No more water damage for me.

Can't even explain how much it means to me.

...taught one of the thickest classes ever
...watched five-year-olds slobber nasty spaghetti all over their faces at lunch
...didn't bother to clean them up even though I should have
...got snowed upon. A lot
...accidentally elbowed a kid in the face. He didn't mind
...spent a lot of time trying to send positive energy to the current residents of an apartment I saw last night, in order to try to convince them to choose me from the crowds as their next housemate
...missed the blog office, quite a lot
...cursed the fact that I have to make new lesson plans for the aforementioned thick class
...listened to a lot of loud angry music to make me forget about spaghetti-smeared thickos

That is all.

Doesn't feel in any way like a Friday, but here goes:

1. Where was your last holiday?
Czech Rep for a weekend last month

2: Where will your next holiday be?
A weekend in Sweden next month, but the big one is a week in the Alps next September to climb Mont Blanc

3. What was your best break and why?
I had a wonderful trip to the Tatra mountains in Poland last summer. So good that I'm going back again this summer

4. And the worst and why?
Can't really say I've had any nightmare trips, but a trip to Ireland last September with the then-missus springs to mind - in a single week, I spent pretty much all of the money I owned, only for us to break up a month later. Bah!

5. If money were no object, where would you go?
Iceland. Then every other country in Europe to climb their respective highest peaks.

Heading off on English camps with a crowd of kids tomorrow morning. Will be gone and 100% offline until next Friday.

So, in my absence, the spectacular nittygritty will be taking over the English support duties.

Play nice, you lot.

I just spoke to the nice Herr Noffke, the renters advice guy. He started off by informing me that I have lots of rights in this situation. He continued by informing me that it would cost a minimum of €5,000 and take a minimum of nine months to legally invoke these rights.

He continued, very sympathetically, to inform me that if I don't pay rent I will be sued and I will lose.

If I choose to pay a reduced amount, I will probably lose my deposit and could be sued as well.

To sub-let the place, I would have to seek permission from the renters, which, he believes, would be rejected outright.

If I go ahead and sub-let the place anyway, I will be sued and I will lose.

He also believes that because of my outburst yesterday, they are highly unlikely to offer me a different place for the remainder of the three months notice.

Basically, I am fucked. I have no power whatsoever, and I must simply do whatever they want me to.

Yesterday it rained all day long. The water damage in the hallway got noticably worse, and a new patch has emerged right beside the light bulb in the kitchen.

Immediate move-out refused. Rent reduction refused.

I am alarmingly close to tears.

Over the last few days, I have had a couple of meetings with a local council department that advises renters of their rights. The people there we amazingly friendly and helpful, a serious break from the norm for Germans working in bureaucratical positions. The charming Herr Noffke helped me write a letter to my landlord giving my notice, also recommending a retroactive 40% rent discount since the water damage started, i.e. December 2007.

As nice as the idea of getting loads of money from the fucking bastard landlord sounds, I asked him to write in the letter that I would be willing to not pursue the decrease if they let me move out at the end of the month, forgoing the standard three month notice.

I have already theoretically found somewhere to stay, right at the other end of town where I lived a year and a half ago and was very happy.

So just waiting for the call from the landlord, hopefully with good news.

Shit, reading back over this, it's a really boring blog post. But I don't care. Cos I feel that my run of amazingly bad luck will end once I get out of this place.

Despite evidence presented in a recent post, I consider myself to be a rather quick-witted individual. Sometimes I'm surprised at how quickly I can come up with a wisecrack, or, on occasion, a positive, worthwhile and wisecrack-free suggestion (particularly useful for a teacher who has a tendancy to get bored in class and drift off).

However last night I had a pretty phenomenal demonstration of how quickly the human brain can process thoughts.

I was biking over to a colleague's place for some dinner and was almost there when I cycled off the bike path and on to the road to cross it. The step down was significantly higher than I judged, and my pedal clipped the step as the front wheel hit the road.

In the space of about one, maybe two seconds, the following thoughts went through my head:

Shit, gonna fall.
Glad I made sure there was nothing coming.
Damn, might hit my head off the dustbin on the other side of the road if I'm really unlucky.
Better get my hand down to break this fall.
*hand to the ground*
Ow ow ow ow!
Damn, the handlbars have twisted and caught me in the nutsack.
Glad that that takes about ten seconds before it starts to hurt.
OK, best get the other hand down.
*other hand down*
Ow ow ow ow!
I REALLY hope I stop my forward motion soon, that bin is getting alarmingly close.
OK, now my knee is going to hit the ground.
It's gonna hurt.
Ow ow ow ow!
Phew, forward motion stopping.
Ow.

It was also surprising how tangled up in my bike I was by the time I stopped, and also how not one of the many people who saw me fall even asked me if I was OK.

Still, I have wonderful bruises on my knee, my crotch and my shoulder (actually I have no idea how the shoulder injury happened, maybe my brain isn't that quick after all).

And, right on cue, ten seconds later, it really began to hurt.

...if only rather cryptically.

After my traumatic (and whimpery blogpost-inducing) break-up last October, I have been trying my best to get back into meeting new people, being sociable and all the other metaphors I can think of that basically mean 'I have been trying to be a horrible slut and get my rocks off as much as possible'.

All this with varying degrees of success, but mostly varying between 'absolutely none' and 'a tiny tiny bit'.

Still, this hasn't stopped me trying. And my attempts led me to schedule a meeting tonight with the Italian who I briefly mentioned a few blog posts ago, and who most of the BCUK employees witnessed rejecting me horribly at cYzzie's bithday party a few weeks ago. Expected to never hear from her again, but she called me immediately after returning from two weeks in Rome. Interesting, I thought. Schedule this on MY terms I must, I thought. So she agreed to come over to my place tonight, which just happened to be her birthday.

Also amongst my plans for this week was a meeting with another Italian female who I have known for almost a year, with whom I have been practising my Italian. I knew that she recently broke up with her boyfriend, and even though I don't fancy her all that much, I was allowing my fantasies to run wild about what could possibly happen when she came over tomorrow, Thursday, like we arranged.

So I arrived home from work in deep dark West Berlin later than anticipated, hopped into the shower, washed off the nasty bike sweat, made myself all pretty for my assault on Italian#1.

Doorbell rang. Opened the door. It's an attractive Italian female there.

But of course it's the one that should be there tomorrow night. Let's call her Italian #2.

I proceed to freak out. #1 and #2 can't meet, that will ruin everything. They both think that they are my only source of Italian in this city. So, being the fucking twat that I am, I proceed to text #1 to cancel on her, since I can't kick #2 out of my place, even though she fucked up the dates. So I send the text.

Ten minutes later, another ring at the doorbell.

Of course it's #1.

She comes in.

I'm shaking with panic.

She checks her phone.

She reads out the message from me telling her that something unexpected came up and she can't come over.

#1 and #2 stare at me.

I throw back the beer in front of me in a vain attempt to stop every part of my body from shaking itself out of its socket.

Consider faking a stroke.

Or a heart attack.

Stammer.

Stutter.

Run out of the apartment under the pretence of getting more beer, pretending with limited effect to have the whole situation under control.

One, or possibly both, make snide comments at me as I close the door.

Make a frantic call to my best friend who proceeds to laugh his head off at the situation before telling me I should suggest a threesome.

Consider returning and suggesting a threesome.

Giggle at my incredible optimism.

Return to see #1 and #2 getting on like a house on fire.

Curse my lack of Italian, and briefly consider finding an Italian that I'm not trying to sleep with to practice on.
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But in the end, things weren't as bad as they could have been. We made dinner and #1 disappeared to spend the remnants of her birthday with someone who isn't a fucking twat. #2 hung around for a bit and seemed to sniff around for an explanation for what the fuck just happened, an explanation that she didn't get.

I am quite sure that I have significantly more grey hairs than before. And I am now sure that I will not get busy with either of them, especially since they exchanged numbers and are likely to become friends.

Certainly not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but someday I will find this hilarious.

...so it's time for a meme. With thanks to Blaubeerina.

4 jobs that you have had
1. Video store guy
2. Music store guy
3. Toilet cleaner in Tesco (yes, really!)
4. Gardener

4 films that you can watch again and again
1. Jurassic Park
2. Withnail and I
3. Die Hard
4. Sideways

4 places you have lived
1. Berlin
2. Genoa
3. Galway
4. Dublin

4 TV series that you like to watch
1. Lost
2. 24, but only the first series
3. Erm...don't actually watch TV
4. Still don't

4 places you have been to on holiday
1.Cheb, Czech Rep
2.Hämeenlinna, Finland
3.Riga, Latvia
4.Paris, France

4 website that you visit daily
1.blog.co.uk
2.bbc.co.uk
3.help.blog.co.uk
4.yahoo.co.uk

4 favourite foods
1.Tuna
2.Scrambled egg with lots of stuff in it - ham, tomatoes, onions, yum.
3.Goulash soup
4.Guinness

And now back to work.

Isn't she beautiful?

I think I have to blog this in the gaming blog too...

I can't quite remember how many of the examples of the utter incompetence of my landlord I have shared with y'a'll in blogland, but this one is, thus far, unquestionably the pinnacle.

This post gives some backgroud info. The water damage, which turned out to be extensive and in every room in the apartment bar the bathroom, was finally repaired last Thursday, almost four months after I initially reported it.

This is what an area of my hallway looks like now. Please note the slightly different shade of white that the painter used there and everywhere else, and recommended that I started smoking to make the rest of the walls the same colour. Please note also, the FUCKING FUCKING WATER DAMAGE FUCKING EVERYWHERE!!!!

So, today I want to the local council office and made an appointment with a department that advises renters of their rights. Because I want these fuckers to burn. I don't care what it takes. There's gonna be trouble.