Anne in Berlin - 20 November 2008

Had the ad for the apartment said: ‘Damp, freezing apartment, miles from no where’ we probably wouldn’t have bothered having a look. It didn’t. It said ‘cosy’, ‘close’ and ‘groovy’ so we traipsed through the sleet at 8pm, which feels like midnight in Berlin because the sun sets at 3pm, only to be sorely disappointed.

The massive picture of someone smoking a bong in the stairwell didn’t bode well but we pushed on up to the eighth floor. When the front door opened, the apartment’s owner was extremely happy to see us, which, in my book of apartment viewing, is always a worry. I smelt desperation.

“Hello! Hello!” she said in a European accent that wasn’t German. “Come in, ja, ja, come in”.

“This is a great apartment’ she continued while ushering us into a living room.

Now I enjoy a bit of fresh air as much as the next person, but strike me down if every window in the place wasn’t open. It was colder in there than outside and the current temperature was -3.

“It’s so nice a breezy ja? Great ja?” she said, pointing to the windows.

‘Great!’ I thought to myself, “Breezy! Maybe if you’re having a balmy summer holiday in Berlin from Iceland”.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“Holland” she said.

“Must be cold there, is it?”

“No, no”, she replied “Warmer than here”.

Well, this wasn’t making any sense

“So take your jackets off ja and sit down”, she said.

“No, no, no”, Jack and I said, simultaneously shaking our heads.

This confused her. I think she thought we were being very rude.

People are funny about jackets in Berlin. They particularly don’t like it when you leave your jacket on indoors. The other day I visited the National Gallery. When I arrived I checked my jacket into the cloakroom along with everyone else. A couple of hours later I started to feel a bit cold so went back and got it, then happily returned to making my way around the galleries. After about the fourth one, I became aware that the same security guard had been in every gallery I’d visited since putting my jacket back on. Slightly alarmed I quickly left gallery four for gallery five only to find him there again, this time looking at me and talking into his walkie talkie. “Good god!” I thought. “Am I being followed?”

I thought it was the onset of some shocking mental illness which, in all honesty, I’ve been anticipating for several years now. “Oh well”, I though to myself, “You’ve had a good run” and left the gallery in search of a pen. I thought I’d better write Jack’s number on my hand so when I turned up in London in three months time wearing seven overcoats and carrying a cage of pigeons, they’d know who to call.

As I left gallery five for the bookshop, I felt a draft and zipped up my jacket. Suddenly, the security guard, obviously close behind, rushed towards me and started yelling in German and pointing at my Jacket. I couldn’t follow a word of it but unzipping my jacket again made him stop. Evidently he’d thought I was trying to smuggle art work out of the gallery.

“How uncouth!” I said to myself, leaving the place never to return.

Back in the Dutch woman’s apartment, we’d made our way to the bathroom where all the windows were also wide open. Again she pointed out how nice and breezy it was. There was a funny smell in there. It could have been toilet related, and therefore temporary, but I had a feeling that it was a deeper ‘in the walls’ type smell. I was very relieved when she finally moved us on to the kitchen.

‘The heated room’ she called it and thank God for that. She talked about the oven at length and I had to hide my giggling behind my scarf. She’s Dutch … it’s an oven… enough said.

Finally her boyfriend came home with a bottle of wine and invited us to stay for a drink. I felt like we couldn’t take their wine when we had no intention of taking their apartment so we got the hell out of there.

It was great to be back in the warmth of the street.

“Great oven”, I kept saying all the way home, “And so breezy in the living room! Just what you want really’

We’ve decided not to stay on in Berlin.