Karl-Marx Allee

 

I've now run up, down, across and under Karl Marx Allee countless times. No surprise given it is an enormous boulevard stretching nearly 2km to connect Friedrichshain with Mitte. I now love the  grandeur of the huge Stalinist apartments which run up both sides of the street to the Frankfurter Tors at the eastern end, all of which provide one of the best frames in Berlin for the TV tower that rises up from the western end.

The apartments were built in the 1950s as palaces for workers to celebrate the importance of the ordinary labourer. After Stalin's death, Khrushchev favoured less majestic surroundings for East Berlin citizens, believing everyone should live more basically, and ordered the construction of large, pre-fabricated buildings in the city's outskirts. But the wedding cake style of the boulevard remained, although it had its name changed from Stalin Allee to Karl Marx Allee.

Karl Marx Allee always reminds me of my first day in Berlin, when traipsing its full 2km in the rain and ending up in Alexander Platz, I did actually think we had come on holiday to Khrushchev era Berlin. But luckily that only lasted a day, and when I opened my eyes a bit more, saw all the amazing things Berlin had to offer.

footpath gardens

Ahhhh. After a week and a day have the internet at home again so I can recommence my 6mph observations (not quite ready to be blogging from my mac in a cafe in Friedrichshain). In the meantime I've still been running; uninterrupted through streets and parks without the need to make snapstops, and up and down the three flights of stairs I now live at the top of. The latter is definitely more exhausting. Just as well I'm entering a marathon and not one of those running up a tall building challenges.

Where I live now is yummy mummy central with approximately one cutsy wutsy café/organic bakery/kindergarten per square meter. However, they do have the best selection of footpath gardens I have seen on my runs around the area. Most of the streets are tree lined, and around the base of each tree is a bit of earth. The most common use for these are dog toilets, but some middle class citizens have taken matters into their own hands and created small gardens instead. This has not deterred some dogs however - who wouldn't choose a floral fragranced powder room over a city toilet with broken glass on the floor. But the good middle class burghers have fought back - with little signs telling the dogs (and their owners) what's what which they can stick in the garden or in the poop itself.

Given that dog fouling is one of the main issues that neighbourhood policing teams are faced with in England, surely this is one for my former big society police colleagues. I know some local activists have already started with the signs-in-turd action but I'm not sure about the gardens to go with it. They'll want to consider how much they want to exactly follow Germany's example. This is not to be confused with guerilla gardening. If you want to start up one of these little gardens, you have to get yourself down to the Bürgeramt (local council) and fill out a form.

Beach volleyball

Its been pretty hot in Berlin recently. I don't like running much when its really hot - I become entirely red. But running in the last of the afternoon sun is great; past people catching the last of the suns rays in cafés or parks. Despite being a city 166 km from the coast (as the crow flies), Berliners are quite into beach volleyball. As well as beach volleyball centres (such as Beach61 and Beach Mitte) where you can pay by the hour and get lessons, there are also a few single courts dotted around in residential areas for those who fancy an afterwork game with their mates like this one on Marchlewskistraße.

I don't mind lying down when it is really hot though. As well as the great beaches on the lakes surrounding Berlin (e.g. Wannsee or Muggelsee), there are also plenty of urban beaches in the centre of town, such as Oststrand or Yaam. You can usually play volleyball here, but also eat, drink and have a good time in the sun.

The traffic light man

All but a smidgen of my running so far has been in what was East Berlin (and the former GDR). So its not too much of a surprise that I have come across plenty of Ampelmännchen. These are the recognisable and much loved green and red be-hatted traffic light men that normally indicate you are in the east of the city. They were designed in the late 50s by Karl Peglau who thought not all motorists could distinguish between the red, amber and green colours of traffic lights. During the GDR, they became characters in cartoon books and TV programmes (red man for dangerous situations, green man for advisable situations). So it is no wonder that they were retained after reunification and that they have become a mainstay of "Ostalgie" (nostalgia for East Germany).

 

What is more endearing is that they have been picked up as a symbol for wider Berlin tourism (the tourist shops around Museum Island are packed out with Ampelmännchen mugs, tea towels, ashtrays etc etc) and that other Germany citys (including in the former West Germany) have also adopted them. And, better still, there is an Ampelfrau. Traffic light feminism!

Traffic lights have frustrated me a bit today. Dutifully stopped and waited at what seemed like loads during my run, and then apparently (according to a policeman) jumped one later in the day on my bike and got a 100 euro fine!

Where am I?

In a bar on Broadway Market in London there is a brilliant artwork which consists of loads and loads of pictures of red front doors in (I assume) London. Like a book shelf, a front door is a bit of statement - are you traditional (red, racing green, navy blue with brass door knob), slick and modern (duck egg blue or other pastel colour and (at the time of writing) frosted stencils for numbers), or do you not care what others think of you (same colour and style as when you moved in 8 years ago). In central Berlin, practically everyone lives in apartments behind a communal door so you don't have the ability to project something about yourself to the people passing at street level (window boxes I can come onto in time). But that has not prevented me from finding doorways and street signs interesting!

In Berlin street numbers are either illuminated cubes attached to the wall or hanging down from the porch ceiling, or more old-fashioned tin plaques which (if you're lucky) point in the direction that the numbers go in down the street. Sometimes numbers are odd on one side and even on the other, and other times they go up one side of the street and come down the other. Helpfully, signs on street corners tell you what numbers are along the next block and sometimes an explanation about the name of the street. So Sonntagstraße is not so-called because it is a nice place to hang out on Sundays, but after Johann Sonntag, who was a late 18th century landowner and leased out the fields round today's Boxhagener Straße to farming families. And Ede-und-Unku Weg is named after a 1931 book which was included in those burned as part of the 1933 book burning, as part of the city's remembrance of victims of the Nazi era.

 

Renting a flat

Having finally found and signed a contract for a roof over my head, I can finally post this route without the fear of jinxing my flat search. Which has been hard. I described some of the trickiness in an earlier post; stressful block viewings, going through an application process without all the information that the landlord normally wants, and waiting to hear back from estate agents... and usually not.

 

As a tenant you have far more rights in Germany than in England. This might explain why German home ownership is only around 45% compared to the UK's 70%. In Berlin, its as low at 15%. You only have to give three months notice before leaving a property (even if you've just moved in) and you can decorate it in the way that you want. Indeed, you are expected to. Flats are almost all unfurnished and the majority have only a sink in the kitchen (is this where the expression 'everything but the kitchen sink' comes from?). Our contract states that we have to do it up every 3-5 years (depending on which room it is!) or we will get charged at the end of the tenancy. When we leave, we can either pay this or leave it in a decorated state that we have negotiated with the 'Nachmieter' (next tenant). But it means that a rented property can feel like a home in the way I haven't experienced in London. You can paint the walls, put up shelves, put in a new kitchen even. No wonder tenancy periods are so much longer here.

Another big difference is the relative absence of estate agents. Much of the letting work is done by the current or potential tenants themselves. There are online property sights which contain lists of available properties (e.g. Immobilienscout 24 or Wg-Gesucht). But it is often the Nachmieter who posts these adverts online - or as the photos from my run show - just on the street posts in the surrounding area. In Berlin, people often offer their flat in exchange for another - and so you also see lots of posters up advertising that someone is looking to swap their flat for a bigger/smaller one in the same/different area. The estate agent's role seems to be primarily collecting in the information and passing it back to the estate agent and sometimes putting a property advert online and organising block viewings. They are far smaller and less assertive (not always a good thing) outfits than in London and no sign of mini coopers anywhere!

Getting a flat share is far easier and a bit cheaper. The same sites provide listings, as do numerous street corners in the area that you fancy.

Top five tips if you want to rent your own flat:
1) I know it sounds obvious, but make sure you have at least basic German: you need to be able to good enough to pick up the phone and speak as people are not always hot on answering emails.
2) Give yourself at least a month and be prepared to be let down. Its not enough to turn up, like the flat and pay the deposit; here you have an application process.
3) Have as much information on your credit/income history to hand as possible. You need to have proof of monthly income and that you don't owe any rent to your previous landlord or have a bad credit rating (a Schufa report). If you don't have these because you've just moved out, try to bring the equivalents with you from home and get an Experian credit check. A expat forum called Toytowngermany is pretty good on navigating bureaucracy.
4) Make sure you find out the 'Warmmiete' price. This is the rent plus building, heating and water costs. 'Kaltmiete' is just the price of the rent alone.
5) If all else fails, there are some helpful English speaking agencies such as Fine and Mine and Rooms in Berlin but they are more expensive and will charge you a fee.

Blumen Berlin

Different countries seem to go in for different amenities to differing degrees. Street corners in French towns seem to be made up with opticians, in Spain with pharmacies and in the UK with estate agents, or well...corner shops. Although one of my sisters (who buys flowers for Lidl and is therefore an authority on German flowers) says there is nothing ultra special about flowers in Germany, in Berlin at least, flower shops are two a penny and cater for every single purse.

From the guy on the stall selling 10 tulips for €2.50 for to the larger discount stores or the very cute little boutiques which present every offering in a mock farmhouse pot or wicker basket straight out of the pages of House to Home (which my other sister edits), there are flowers for everyone. It means that I can always have flowers on my bedside table (parrot tulips right now), and that it was cheaper to buy a whole mint plant rather than a packet of stalks which I am just about to use in the bean, pea and lettuce summer stew that is on the menu tonight.

It also means that flowers make an appearance in every type of dining experience. Loads of the turkish or pizza take out places have benches and tables outside where you can sit and eat in the summer (with a beer from the Getränkemarkt if they don't sell them). And eating when you've got a flower and a vase on your table means it doesn't feel so shabby and doesn't have to be confined to the end of the night!

Breakfast on the run

Bit of a bleak start today. In London one thing that would make me feel better as I walked from Westminster tube to where I worked was a pret latte and croissant. And while Starbucks and other chains seem to be confined to the more central and western districts of Mitte and Charlottenburg, Germans do go in for breakfast in a big way and here are tons of cafés and stalls selling all essential ingredients for a breakfast on the run. You can either pick up a pretty good value breakfast for 2.90€ or separately at stalls like these at Ostbahnhof station.

Main difference between here and England is that fruit makes a much more significant appearance in breakfasts than in our greasy spoons (if a tomato counts as fruit in your book). Particularly when you've got a bit more time on breakfast like on Sundays when loads of people go out for brunch. Favourite ones near me so far are Café Intimes (Boxhanger Str. 107 - review from brilliant blog on Berlin cafés) and Casero (Gabriel-Max Str. 18). Thought I had better throw in a photo by way of example! So impressed with breakfasts when we were here in 2004,  "Frühstück" became our word for great, much to the bewilderment of Germans on the S-Bahn as we called it out every time we saw something cool.