Leaving home
Trip Start
Jan 17, 2006
1
49
58
Trip End
Dec 01, 2006
Berlin, Germany
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
I never really explained my apartment while I was there in Berlin because there always seemed to be more interesting things to talk about, but it was quite an experience - it was almost like returning to the womb haha. I lived with this crazy bloke called Felix Dahmen who is probably the most street-smart person I have ever met in my life. He could do anything as far as I could see and the whole apartment was pretty much built by him. We took after him and his flair on my last day there when I and Clayton found a couch on the side of the road and took it home with a shopping trolley (well that is just Balga stylez but that is another story...) and then we built a triangular coffee table out of this piece of enameled wood we found on the street - soaking wet I might add.
So back to Felix, he had this crazy ability to do anything when it came to making something or making money - he was always telling me these stories about things he had done and his entrepeneurial expeditions of the future and I would be simply amazed by the ideas he came up with and how much they could work! His main job is to buy projectors and then resell them for more on eBay - a great job because you don't have to do an incredible amount of work for the return he got. He was also an adventurer - he drove to Italy while I was living there to pick apples where he earned 480€. His old VW van that he owns broke down there and cost him circa 400€, which seems tragic, but it is also so romantically Felixesque - they should put this bloke in the lonely planet. We were at the shops one day and he saw this welding machine and says to me "should I buy it?!" My response was of course yes because it was the perfect addition to his already massive collection of tools. He is also an awesomeo-power at the stove. Anyway, back to Berlin...
So I have been living there hodge podge for 5 months now and I really feel like I was getting to know the city (and get a good grip on the langauge too) and I want to come back here. For anyone travelling through Europe, I can't recommend this place enough no matter what time of year you are there - in saying that, summer is when all the cool stuff happens with bars and festivals.
I am succeeded in my apartment by Clayton, the wily Los Angeles man with a smile of gold. I am sure that when I go back there to pick up my laptop and other things he will have gone insane and be a shivering wreck in the corner of the room - I think this will mainly be due to the cold and party be due to living in Neukoelln, the Bronx of Berlin ahhahahaha. Everything in moderation, but we all know that a kebab a day keeps the doctor away...
