The reason for my apparently self-imposed isolation wasn’t depression or homesickness, but quite honestly a lack of money and a lack of somewhere to go! My Deutsche Bank account was unreachable purely because they hadn’t had the manners to send me my PIN yet, and I kept sleeping in past the time where I could have seen certain people at uni to talk about course choices!

Finally today I could so something – admittedly after ringing home for £50 to tie me over – and I went into uni for my Einstufungstest (language placement test for German classes). I met some nice people outside, W. and S., and had a good laugh in German and English. As for the test itself, it was one of those (in my opinion) ridiculous C-tests, where you have to fill in the blanks for the end of words, but what you fill in must be either equal to or one greater than the number of characters in the given segment.

Okay, I can sense some people’s eyes are crossing so I’ll give an example. Say I was given “Di__”, it could have been perhaps “Diese” (“this”) or “Dick (“fat”, yes har har) but not “Dichter” (“poet”). Needless to say it’s basically a vocabulary test and doesn’t properly test the grammatical ability or the ability to self-produce, so I find it a tad one-sided when trying to determine the level of a language. But anyway, rant over!

The main point of that was that my result was rather good – 83% or C1 on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, which did rather surprise me as I had got either one or two whole levels lower on the practice test I did over the summer!

I also went to try and register for an Italian course, as I’ve already done GCSE Italian, but that was 3 years ago and I want to try and get my level up somewhat. So I’ve got another placement test tomorrow morning! Which isn’t too bad, cause I’ve got to come in anyway the next two days for some orientation events for the Theaterwissenschaft (theatre science/drama) department!

Then I’ve got my registration for my German course (now that I’ve done the placement test) on Friday! It’s all go here!!!

Unfortunately, I’m currently doing something which is far less enjoyable. I’m sitting in a crowded waiting room at the council offices, waiting to register as a resident.

I’ve been sitting here for at least 30 minutes already and the big screen on the other side of the room still says “Number Waiting: 78”. Seventy-eight people are apparently waiting to see the people here for whatever reason – that’s ridiculous! Though, to be fair, it wasn’t ALWAYS saying 78 – when I arrived it said 74, then 76, then 77, then 76 again.

I’ve just looked up from my laptop and I’ve seen that it’s now at 81. Oh God, I might spend the rest of my life in this room!

It wouldn’t be so bad if they had had the foresight to at least put a water cooler in here. I had to go to a stand across the road to get a bottle of something cold, and (although it’s very unlikely given the amount of people before me) I might have been called in the meantime! Also, it’s fairly stuffy in this room and whilst newspapers are good to look at, they aren’t nearly as thirst-quenching as a bottle of Coke.

Suffice it to say, I’m not impressed so far with the so-called German efficiency.

UPDATE: I ended up waiting 3 hours and 15 minutes, for them to look at my form, and process my registration in about 5 minutes! It defies logic!

Let me update you on the housing situation.

About a week after my previous post, I gave up on all the trouble that C. and others had been giving me, and I for some unknown reason, I found myself ended up having a look on the university’s website again. Imagine my surprise when I found that I had mis-read the website, and there were still places available – not at the Student Village, but at these one-room apartment which were affiliated to the uni but managed separately. The rent is a bit dearer by about 100€ than the kind of prices I was finding beforehand in Berlin, but that’s including all bills, and is still cheaper than what I’m paying here in London for rent alone. Result!

The only drawback to this place is that there’s NO internet connection available, so I’m either going to be spending a lot of time in the uni library or buying a USB dongle – or both! The plus point will be that I will at least have internet on my phone, however crap that might be at times, cause i’m going to be buying a German SIM card when I get to Berlin and putting it in my iPhone. Another plus point is that this time, unlike last summer when I went to Düsseldorf for a month, I have a laptop and as such CAN take it into the uni library like I said. Or failing that, Starbucks. (Took me six months after my Düsseldorf trip to be ousted as the Mayor of Starbucks in Liesegangstraße on FourSquare, a-thank yew!)

When I do finally move, I’ll be going a few days before the start of my tenancy (Saturday October 1st), as it was much more likely that there’d still be train seats available for Thursday 29th – so we’ll be in a hotel for a couple of days. The reason why we’re catching the train, which is longer and more expensive than catching a flight, is that my Dad will be accompanying me there – which means an extra pair of hands helping with luggage (and, by extension, the ability to TAKE more luggage!) I was hoping to show Dad a bit of Berlin once we get there, but he’s insistent that I get all my legal stuff sorted. Normally I’d be right with him on that, but I have a funny feeling that I can’t do anything like that until I’ve moved into my new digs. Ah well, we’ll have to wait and see!

Now that I’ve got all the accommodation and travel shizz sorted, I can turn my attention to the hard bit: saying goodbye.

I’ve got my leaving doo for my YouTube/Online friends on Friday, which I’m half looking forward to and half dreading. I’ve already got teary twice already: once after Summer In The City when I said goodbye to Kerr, who in the past six months has become a sort of combination faghag/brother/sexless lover, and once at Ashlee’s birthday party, when discussing Berlin with Mary. Admittedly, both times were under the influence of alcohol – the second one especially so – but it just makes me wonder how I’m going to react come Friday.

I’ve also got the leaving doo(s) for my friends at home after I move back there. Now I don’t see any of those people half as much as I would like, but I think in a way that’s gonna make it even harder for me to leave them.

I had been hoping to have wrapped up all my in-town goodbyes before I moved out to my parents, but there are a few uni friends who won’t be BACK in London until after I move out, so it looks like I’ll be doing one more evening in town.

God it’s all piling on!

So I’m sitting here in my flat in north London, not 5 weeks away from when I ideally would like to go to Berlin, and yet another possible flat for Berlin has just fallen through. Not officially, but it’s as good as.

I’ll start at the beginning.

I started looking for flats in Berlin about two or three weeks ago, using this fantastic website called www.wg-gesucht.de, and I found almost straightaway this flat that sounded perfect! Furnished, populated by musicians, the room belonged to a guy, S., who was coming to England for a year to study and would therefore be leaving when I would need to arrive in September, and wanting to come back when I needed to go home in July. Sounded PERFECT!

Now I also found another room not too far away from S. and his friends, which has one girl, C., and her dog. I thought “OK, let’s have a look at this one too then.” It’s part furnished but she said she’d be willing to get some furniture for me if I wanted. So we arranged to have a viewing via Skype a few days later, which I unfortunately slept through. I apologised to her and she told me that it was no problem, and we rescheduled for the next morning at 10am. Unfortunately I had forgotten that I had a rather important and unmovable appointment at 11am, but again she seemed perfectly fine with it.

In the meantime I had a Skype-viewing of S.’s place, which seemed great, and the people seemed nice. I was expecting to finally have my viewing with C. in the next few days so I told S. that I’d let him know what happens.

That was the plan, at least.

I had chatted with C. a bit in the evenings, just to make conversation – especially given the recent rioting in London – but she didn’t seem to want to do a viewing then. When I asked when would be a good time, she told me she’d get back to me.

I then got an email early the next day from S. saying that they had decided on somebody else for the room. Bugger, I thought. Here’s hoping I can organise things with C. pretty damn soon! Sure enough, she came online the next day and we arranged an appointment early Friday morning, as she would be unavailable that weekend – as would I, as it happens, as Summer in the City was on.

Friday came, and I got up in time for the viewing at 9am. She came online at 9:30, saying “Oh blimey I’m late…” She seemed a tad disorientated so I asked her if she needed a few minutes, which she was grateful for and joked with me when I said that I needed to make myself another cup of tea anyway.

Five minutes later she went offline and never came back on that morning. Double bugger.

After the weekend, my Dad rang me and impressed upon me how important it was to get the flat sorted so that we could book train tickets, so I gave C. a ring. She didn’t answer, so I left a voicemail. She still hasn’t responded to that, or when she was online on Skype.

Meanwhile I decided to look AGAIN at flats. Found six, rang four, two picked up, and I sent an email to them – one responded, the one that I mentioned right at the start of this post. The guy, U., was very friendly in his email and we quickly arranged a viewing for today at 7:30pm.

So I came back from a day out with my parents and went online, and I was soon talking to U. and his flatmates – a friendly bunch by the looks of things. The flat seemed nice and in a good location – the catch? The room was unfurnished, which I must have missed when I was searching. They said they could help me get ahold of some cheap furniture, but I could tell that it would be an inconvenience for them. They said they’d let me know in a few days, but I have a sinking feeling it’ll be another no.

So it looks like I’m back to the websites to see if anything new pops up!

Woooooouldn’t it be lavverly?

-R xx