Day 2

Day 2 (Mittwoch, 17. Sept., 2008)

So, I woke up this morning (for the second time) at about 8:00. My Wohnung has a Kaffeemaschine and I was never so happy to have a cup of coffee in my life (thanks, Mom!). Scratch that. I’m pretty much that happy to have coffee every morning. But I was never more happy. Here is where I slept.



The bed is long enough and very firm. Plus it doubles as a couch! Erstaunlich German engineering! The only thing I lack is a couple of decent pillows, but I should be able to afford those as soon as I get paid. Also I have no toaster or microwave, but they don’t sell Hot Pockets or Pop Tarts at Aldi anyway, so I don’t really care.

I had three tasks to accomplish today: 1) pay my outstanding rent at the rental office downtown, 2) sign my rental contract at the FU-Berlin, and 3) buy groceries. The last of these was the easiest, as it turns out there is yet another grocery store right next to the Aldi, and both are within 50 yards of the nearest S-Bahn station.

The first task took a little more doing, but I accomplished it too. I took the S-Bahn to the Anhalter Banhof stop, which is just short of central Berlin.



Then I walked to the offices of my the company that owns my apartment building, Arwobau. There I had my second big setback. I needed to pay the last 25 euros of my rent, the money that was taken from me by the Berliner Bank when I wired the money to the FU-Berlin’s account as an unexpectedly exorbitant international transfer fee. The gentleman at the Arwobau office informed me, in German, that I, in fact, owed 95 euros. There was a 70 euro charge for something called an Endreinigungspauschale. Now, I ask you, does that not sound completely made up? Answer: YES, IT DOES. Well, get used to it. Half the words in German look like this:


You know you want some.

Auf jeden Fall, it turns out eine Endreinigungspauschale is a final cleaning fee. I found out later at the offices of the FU-Berlin that it’s covered by my scholarship but they weren’t planning to pay it until October 1st. So in the meantime, I had to pay it, in cash, and now I’m short 70 bucks. I think I can still make it to the end of next week, though. Food at Aldi is *really* cheap.

The next thing I did was walk back to the train station. That’s where I took this picture of the façade of some building.



Being from the US, I feel as though I must take a picture of anything that looks old or crumbly. Here is a view of an alien landing site as seen through the front of the building façade.



I took the train back to the Lichterfelde Ost stop, where I got off and hopped a bus to the FU-Berlin. I was too self-conscious to take a picture of the FU-Berlin, besides, I’m pretty sure I’ll have plenty of chances to do that in the future. I found the people I came to see, noticed that no one at the FU-Berlin dresses like this.



So I felt right at home, since no one dresses like that in Bloomington either.
I signed my rental contract and got back on the bus toward Lichterfelde Ost. When I got off the bus I went here.



AND HAD ONE OF THE MOST DISGUSTING THINGS I’VE EVER EATEN.



Yeah, that’s right, if this experience was indicative, currywurst is completely gross. I can give you the exact recipe for it. Take a cheap non-kosher hot dog. Microwave it. Serve it thigh-deep in ketchup with yellow curry sprinkled on top. Seriously, people?