Waiting for Kenny. First week. Big chicken.

I am sitting in a café near the lofthaus (chosen nickname for 1^st Berlin apartment) drinking a plain coffee. I came here specifically because of its alleged internet access, but am currently too chicken to ask for the password...

Filling the past ten days has been a challenge that I wasn’t expecting. I anticipated the difficulty of all of the travel and change up until now. For some reason I didn’t expect that two weeks alone, in a country where I could understand one word of every hundred, without any real contacts in the city and in the beginnings of winter would be the true test.  I generally revel in being alone. I love having the time and space to slow down and mindfully work through everyday tasks. Spending the first few days getting settled into the apartment that I subleased was the exciting part. Rearranging the furniture, figuring out the laundry, falling into a grocery store routine and exploring the neighborhood were all as satisfying as I imagined they would be.

Look what I found!

Then came the, “what now?” I tried to organize my day and create very specific rituals to fill the hours but inevitably around 4:30pm, I ran out of ideas. The miracle of skype was an evening treat, and I was lucky enough to be able to talk to mom, dad and Kenny daily, but there was still time. I translated articles from the free magazines at the drugstores, cooked elaborate meals, practiced, watched television to see how many words I could pick out that I understood and studied vocab lists. I even decorated the apartment for Christmas with snowflakes I made from the free magazines after I was sick of them. 

There were still hours. I walked. I walked as far as I could before my cold ears and frozen toes turned me around and there were STILL hours. 

Found some green!

I did manage to accomplish a few things these past few days: 

-I made it to the neighborhood Christmas market! It was admittedly a bit small and underwhelming, but I had my first cup of Glühwein in Berlin.

-I registered my residency in Berlin at the Bürgeramt(first step towards getting a visa). The woman I talked to during my appointment spoke no English so it took a bit of German butchering and some invented sign language, but I got it taken care of.

Bürgeramt!

This strange time of hour filling is about to change. Kenny will be here in two days and I’ll have my person. Maybe the hours will still be difficult to fill, but at least I’ll have company for the challenge. 

Update! I asked for the password. It was scary. My face turned red. But I got it! And made a new friend…