Author Archives: Ana

Schlitten fahren

I know this is kind of childish but I really want a sledge. Seeing all this kids being dragged by their parents all around Berlin makes me really jealous. I guess that if I get one, I’ll end up in the intensive care unit of a random hospital in Poland due to a bureaucratic mistake but, what is a broken leg and massive physical trauma compared with the joy of having a sledge?

Children of Berlin, take care of your sledges. They are way too tempting!

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Street numbering

Are you wondering why do you spend so much time when searching for an address in Berlin? In case you did not notice, the street numbering system in Berlin is quite confusing, as the system the rest of the world uses (odd numbers are on one side and even numbers on the other side of the street) is not valued very highly here and some streets are numbered consecutively up one side of the street and back down the other.

That explains those hordes of tourists staring at their maps and saying: „it… it should be here!“, doesn’t it?

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Snowmen Demonstration

Before the good weather finally arrives, you should go and see the Snowmen demonstration in Schlossplatz (in front of the Berliner Dom)

Eviromentalists and sympathizers have created this massive demonstration of snowmen that warns us about the consequences of global warming.

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Schönes Wochenende!

Adjektiv-Endungen

The people of Germany have really good ideas sometimes like giving you part of your money back if you recycle bottles, bicycle lanes everywhere and Biergärten. Some of their ideas are just not so cool, such as holidays in Benidorm, really counting some bread with butter + any random ingredient as a real meal  and the declination of the adjective. I mean, they do it that way so no foreigner can say any sentence that does not contain at least three mistakes, don’t they?

Choose a word. Choose an adjective to describe that word. Choose an ending for the adjective. By the way, never mind thinking too hard, as 90% of the time whatever you chose will be the wrong ending. My solution of never using adjectives is not very useful if you want to communicate with other human beings, so we are doomed to study the declination of the adjective again and again so our frustration grows like hell. Still, everybody will understand our free style use of the adjective, so talk with any stranger as if there were no dative…

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Eurogida

This is probably the best supermarket that exists, existed and will ever exist. It is a supermarket with a street market atmosphere that will not leave you indifferent because it is CHEAP and the cashiers are friendly and if you’re from Turkey they even speak your language. Of course they speak perfect German as well, so there is no excuse not to go and buy kilos of fruit and/or misterious Turkish Maggi soups.

Their webpage:

http://www.eurogida.de/de/home.htm

I would recommend the one in Neukölln, the cheapest I found until now.

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Hallo!

berlin23enero-010small.JPGHi! My name is Ana and I began my German course today. I would like to write in German, but I’m lacking confidence to do so right now. I hope I will be able to write my entries in German by the end of this course, though.

If anybody is reading this before coming to Berlin I would like to suggest them that they should pack as many sweaters as their suitcases can possibly hold. Believe me: you are probably coming from a warmer country, unless you are coming  from Siberia. Streets are icy and slippery, but the city is worth several embarrassing falls, that’s a fact!