Tourist in Berlin

This Easter my parents came to visit me here in Berlin. With them came the opportunity to do some sightseeing. Not that I haven't had the time to do it sooner, it's just not the same when you do it alone. So anyway, I spent parts of my Easter as a tourist. Here are some photos to document my experiences ;)

A Sunday afternoon in Weissensee

This afternoon, I took a walk around the neighbourhood (which yes, does include a small lake). The sun was out most of the time and even though it was a bit windy it was it was great walk! Spring in Berlin isn't bad at all :p

Here are some photos from my trip:

Pretty, pretty flowers!

These pretty daffodils are currently decorating my Berlin flat :)

After 4 years of living with a guy that claims to be allergic to daffodils, I am finally able to buy these lovely things. To me daffodils are an essential part of spring and not having been able to buy them have maybe not been torture, but it certainly hasn't been nice. Because look at how pretty they are :) 

So that's at least one positive side effect of living apart. Now I just have to remember to clear the flat of these yellow flowers before Mr boyfriend comes to visit ;)

Life as a commuter part II

As mentioned earlier, I was not used to commuting before I moved to Berlin. Which of course means that I have no grounds for comparison. I have however made some observations that I find odd and even a bit rude.

Commuters in Berlin generally behave well. They wait to get on the bus, tram or train until everyone has gotten off, they offer their seat to the elderly and so on. But there's one thing I find strange. It might just be me that has a different idea of good public transport behaviour, but I think it's only natural when sitting in an aisle seat and the passenger in the window seat gets off to move to the window seat. This way other passengers wanting to sit down won't have to crawl over you to get to the seat. But apparently that's not how it's done, at least not in Berlin. Everyday, I see people having to squeeze past other passengers to get to an available seat.

An other thing that I have noticed is that no one seems to want to vacate their foldable seat when it's gets crowded. Doing so would free up some space and make room for more passengers. Plus it can't be all that comfortable to be seated while everyone in your imidiate vicinity is standing rather close.

I'm not saying that commuters in Berlin are bad commuters. Because as I mentioned before I don't know how commuters behave everywhere else. I'm merely making an observation.

Back to school!

Picking  a language school is not an easy task. In Berlin there a large selection of places that offer evening courses in German. But I finally found one that I liked. And now I have signed up for a course, that will start the week after next.

I had actually planned to start learning German sooner, but then I wanted to get settled in first and then one day took the other. But now I am finally doing it and I'm looking forward to start learning. I have bought the text book and I actually have to restrain myself from starting on the exercises in it (I know, I'm a nerd).

The school of my choice is Sprachenatalier in Friedricshain. It offers classes at reasonable prices and is situated somewhere I can easily get to. These were some of my criteria. If the course turns out to be worth the money, I'm paying for it only time will tell. I've tried reading reviews of different schools, but it's impossible to conclude anything based on these reviews as language courses highly depend on the teacher. And most schools do after all have several teachers. But now I will give Sprachenatalier a try over the next 8 week's time and hope for the best.

Berlin weather report

Now I dare to say it: spring has come to Berlin! The past two days we have been spoiled with 20 degrees and sunny skies:) This exceptionally good weather is obviously not going to continue, but we're on the right track. And I'm not going to let the shower this afternoon ruin my optimism. Mostly because the shower came with the most wonderful smell that is usually reserved for summer showers:)

Here are some snap shots from today:

I survived!

After a week of skiing in the Austrian Alps, I am still alive! Skiing is rather new to me and this was my first real ski holiday. I am sure that I looked like Bambi on the ice and I know that I was going ridiculously slow. I kept falling and still have the bruises to prove it, but all in all I had a good time :)

But a ski holiday is not just about skiing of course ;) And I must admit that I'm more talented at after skiing and making pancakes than the actual skiing. But you don't always have to be good at something to enjoy it. Although it often helps :p

Anyway, now it's back to every day life in Berlin. After 1½ weeks off, it's a bit hard to get into work mode again. But that's just a question of time really.

I've always said that you need a couple of days off to recover from a vacation, this time I actually tried it. I had tickets for a concert in Copenhagen Tuesday night, so after a week of skiing I spent a couple of days in Copenhagen, relaxing and recovering from all the skiing. However, when the alarm went off this morning, it was just as awful as it is after any vacation. So the few extra days of relaxing didn't help. But I guess that's just the way it's supposed to be. After all, in a few days, I'll be back in my usual work mode;)