Everybody looking for – home

What can I say? I am still looking for an apartment. I am still staying at a hostel occasionally. This week I am staying at another hostel than I had before. This is in part due to the fact that I’ve been robbed at the other hostel and that they did not have a bed for me earlier this week.

When I checked into this hostel the danish girl staying in the same room a me told me that everybody in that room was looking for an apartment in Berlin. No wonder I can’t find one. She also told me that she and her boyfriend had only been looking for ten days before they found one… which is depressive information altogether.

I guess, I was aware that Berlin is a place people like to come and live but I was not aware of how many people come here every year and from all over the world to stay here. And they seem to like it here, too. (Not that I do, I realized while in New Orleans that I really hate living in Berlin…) I don’t know why I am writing about this, it just makes me wonder if I should really return. Then again, what choice is there? Is abandoning my studies really a choice?

I have another “Sinnkrise” where I am not sure what to do, who to be, what to aim for or abandon. I love studying and I really hate looking for an apartment. As it turns out I am simply not good at it. Maybe I should pay someone to do it… anybody willing to do that?

Sub-culture-d: hostels

Well, back in Berlin, back in a hostel. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to one but if you haven’t you haven’t missed out on something. No, really, ’cause living in a hostel is next to living in jail – only the showers in jail are cleaner (not that I know from experience but there’s no way that they are not).

Do you remember hostels from when you were a kid and you went to some place either in the mountains, at the sea or somewhere you thought you would never end up at? No, you don’t because at that time it was not about accommodations, it was about booze, and being at the boys’ room at night (even if you were just talking) and mainly misbehaving after a day that should have drained you of all your energy but really just put your teachers to bed right after dinner.

Let me tell you, though, that if you are over thirty and you live in a hostel because you still don’t have an apartment you will remember this for the rest of your life. ‘Cause it’s traumatic. It is a whole subculture of young people who had too much to drink, too much chocalate and burgers and still money left in their pockets to get more. They can party to four or five a.m. and then get up at 8 to beat you to the shower. You yourself are so exhausted by THEIR partying all night (’cause they did not go to the nearest club but did it right in front of you dorm door) that you have to drag your half-dead carcass out of bed only to find all the showers occupied and the only un-occupied loo clogged. It’s nasty, folks.

The worst tourists by far are the Germans, of course… but only slightly worse than the oranjes (but if you have only two Germans and about 20 Dutchs the Dutchs are considerably worse). Italians are loud and unselfconscious (when it comes to being buck naked before strangers; at least I found the men so), Chinese always leave doors open, Canadians ask A LOT of questions and are mainly too nice, Americans are Americans everywhere they go (they don’t really change in hostels; Americanness is a condition not an occupation), and, well, Aussies will forget their keys and call you “mate” if your hair is short enough… and Kiwis, well, they are Kiwis, they come from the most beautiful country in the world, they are hot, they are intelligent, I love Kiwis… maily they are all just like Lucy!

There is a difference between American hostels (at least the one I was at in NOLA) and German hostels – Americans do not party where they (or you) sleep. When they come into the dorm they are quite because they want you to be quite as well when you leave early in the morning. I slept better in NOLA because people respected the sleeping space, as I want to call it. In Germany, no one does. But as I said, Germans are the worst. I don’t know why that is, maybe we feel pressured into being tolerant and open-minded most of the time and so we break free on vacation and mainly annoy everybody because we can afford it… I don’t know. We are a very repressed people on the whole.

Well, I’ll be leaving tomorrow but will come back next week to have another fun-week at a hostel. I probably will tell you about my sister’s bachelorette party then…