4.23 - Berlin

I've been staying in Berlin for two weeks now with my friend Nick. We transferred to Brown at the same time, but he graduated a few semesters back. He's been over here for a year teaching English and learning German, and is going back to the states in the fall for an MFA program at Stanford in documentary film. He's moved around a few times, but currently lives in a nice apartment in Prinz Lauerberg, a neighborhood in the Northeast part of the city, with one roomate, Otto, a Norwegian medical student. The rent is quite cheap here, Nick's is only €200/month, and you can find places that people are leaving for a while and sublet them pretty easily.



My friend Paul, an ethnomusicology grad student from Brown has also been over here working at the opera and doing research for his dissertation. The three of us played together on an intramural basketball team two years ago. It was called 'Beer'. We didn't drink so much that winter, but have been trying our best to atone for past shortcomings.


You can get pretty good .5L bottles of beer at most any grocer or small convenience store here, sometimes for as low as .50c. As there aren't laws against public drinking, we often head to the parks to drink outside in the fresh air, and just leave the bottles lying around, as the recycling program is quite well thought out, and you can get a solid refund at almost any grocer for turning the bottles in.

We've been going out most nights. I've been working on my 'game'. I'm still not sure whether or not I have any. So many intriguing women in these cities. French, and Spanish, and German. oh my.

Nick's going back to a city in the Western part of the country to teach English today, and I'm going to stay on in his place for the next day or two and try to figure out my next move.