Ich bin ein Berliner

After a wonderful Christmas season in the US with our families, Fritz and I are back in Berlin, Germany and it is SWEET!  

We are subletting this super cool flat that looks like it is right off the set of Mad Men.  It's owned by a  very hip couple who is taking a 5-month sabbatical in South America, as one does.  The surrounding neighborhood is incredible with more eateries, coffee shops, markets, bookstores and shopping than anyone could possibly want.  

AND, we actually live 2 blocks from David Bowie's old flat.  

No joke.  The Berliners love Bowie and people are still dropping flowers and lighting candles as they mourn his recent death.  

Normal people live in this building, so every day they have to wade through the wilted, frozen roses in order to exit their apartment.  As a matter of fact, the fellow we are subletting from knows a girl who lives there.  She happens to be dating his son!  

To give you a sense of where we live, here is a map of Berlin.  It's a huge city and is the capital of Germany.   It has a rich history, probably the most notable recent event took place in 1989 when the Berlin Wall separating East Germany and West Germany since 1961 was torn down and with it, communism in Germany was brought to an end.  The country was reunited.  Fritz and I live in Schöneberg (pronounced shoe-nah-berg... sort of), which is in the middle of the city toward the south.  This neighborhood used to be part of West Germany, which was not the part controlled by the communist party.  There is a noticeable difference in architecture, among other things, if you hop over to the old East German neighborhoods.  

Here's a snapshot of our street looking to the right after exiting our front door.  We live on the edge of a quieter residential area and a bustling commercial area.  

The reason we are here in Berlin is because it is the home of the Bundesarchiv- the Federal Archive.  The records inside are extremely important to Fritz's research and since East Germany does not exist anymore, access to the records are not restricted.  Fritz can see it all!  This was one of the challenges he ran into in Frankfurt since private banks and the archives of the current German government are a bit protective of their files.  

There it is.  He is going to be spending A LOT of time in that white building. 

The ornate door handles on the entrance to the Rathaus Schöneberg.

One of the obligatory steps involved in moving to Berlin is registering our home.  We had to do this in Frankfurt too.  It's a magical opportunity to stand in line and experience the German bureaucratic system.  Or not, as the case may be.  Twice we attempted to register at the Rathaus Schöneberg, the city hall of our neighborhood.  It's a beautiful edifice and the historic location where President John F. Kennedy gave the famous speech in which he said, "Ich bin ein Berliner"- I am a Berliner.   In our first attempt to register,  we waited in line for about an hour until Fritz went and asked if we would actually be able to register today.  After he was told they were only taking people with appointments, we left.  For our second attempt, Fritz walked over at 7am in order to be the first in line when the Rathaus opened at 8.  He arrived to find 15 people already waiting.  When the doors opened, a Rathaus administrator told Fritz that, once again, they were already out of numbers for people without an appointment.  You might be wondering why we didn't just make an appointment.  Well we tried that too.  The earliest appointment was not until mid-March and we are technically required to register within 2 weeks of moving.  

So Monday morning, we decided to try our luck at an alternative building 30 minutes away.  We thought maybe there would be shorter lines and better luck getting a number if we tried a small establishment.  

No, the Bürgerbüro is not the place to pick up a quarter-pounder with cheese and a Diet Coke.  It means civil office.  Fritz and I arrived at 7:25am, and this time, we were the first pair in line.  When the doors opened at 8, we had no trouble getting a number.  By 9:30 we had successfully registered our residence!  

We've been doing plenty of fun things too.  It's not all archives and bureaucratic line-standing.  My first weekend there, we went to the Jewish Museum.  

Fallen Leaves is an installation in the "Memory Void."  The artist, Menashe Kadishman, has dedicated his work to all the victims of violence and war.  Visitors are invited to walk on the faces and listen to the clanging and rattling as the metal sheets crash into one another.  

We have also spent time just walking around the city whenever we can.  Sometimes we have a destination, but sometimes we just walk.  

One very obvious characteristic of Berlin is the presence of many many murals painted on buildings all over the city.  

I think I am going to have to dedicate an entire post to some of the murals I find.  Or perhaps I'll just weave them into posts as I go.