After a tumultuous ten days I am back in my comfortable corner of Berlin, Kreuzköln. For various reasons, I had decided to leave her for a situation and location I thought more conducive for learning German. Before this (mis)adventure, I was beginning to be severely annoyed by a few traits of the area. Firstly, it seems to be the number one destination for expats, and you are just as likely to hear English spoken on the street as German. For someone whose key motive in coming to Berlin is to learn German, this became fairly frustrating. Secondly, for a nation supposedly fond of rules and regulations, Berliners (at least in this area) seem to have no policy for picking up their pet pooch's poo. They stand by, totally nonchalant, while the act is executed and then calmly walk away leaving the stinking mess behind. Riding my bike or going for a jog is a regular obstacle course, dodging all the droppings. The excessive number of beggars was also beginning to grate on my nerves. Particularly conspicuous is the group with horrific injuries, missing limbs, hunched backs or terrible stoops who cluster around Kottbusser Damm and compete against each other for your pity. I sound callous, but faced with it everyday you soon become desensitised and a little suspicious of the legitimacy of some of the deformities. There are also those who put in less effort, for a while a youngish man with a purple mohawk set himself up outside my local discount supermarket. That the mohawk was perfectly maintained made it difficulty to believe that he really had no other option but to beg for money. These and a few other aspects of the area were beginning to get under my skin. The perfect cure, of course, was to be plunged into a situation in which everything was unfamiliar and uncomfortable, ultimately producing too little good for the price it extracted. Now I am back in Kreuzköln, amongst the poo, beggars and multilingualism, and entirely relieved to be so.
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