Recently + Christmas.

It has happened a lot and yet nothing it feels like.

I was in Vienna for three days getting all in the Christmas spirit in that beautiful city. Hanging out with couchsurfers, as here in Berlin, and just having a great time.
I took a ten hours car ride there with a couple in a tiny car. I mostly slept and read the whole way.
Back I took the night train to Berlin and left the city with memories and more Christmas spirit then in a long time.

Coming back was great also. Laughing with the gang and feeling like home with Sinead and Smooth. I started to move out of the apartment where I spent the last months of my Berlin stay. New clean freak roomie and I aren't really getting along and I just had the apartment until the end of the month anyway. I have moved my stuff a staircase down, to Sinead's room. Smooth and Sinead already went back to Sweden to celebrate Christmas so I'm spending my nights alone in Sinead's bed. Feels weird in so many ways. We're usually many in this bed hanging out.

Packing up all my thing to take to Sweden is done to celebrate Christmas home in Sweden, leaving on a 12 hour train ride tomorrow. Went to the Turkish market today to get some snack for the road (or should I write rail) today. Got back with a lot of fruit and bread. I will also bring some soup that I made the other day. It's the soup that I hope will stop me from this cold I feel in my throat. A lot of chili fruit and c-vitamin in it and also vegan so I think it will bring me vegan power (or at least hope it will).

The past days I've been to a 50 year birthday party for some friends that turned 20+30. I had a blast hanging out with people that I don't hang out with so much and just mingling around among a lot of great persons. Time flew away that night.
I've also been hanging out with new friends or friends I haven't hang out with that much. Drinking beer and relaxing on a Sunday with Pablo and ending up with pizza and Moby Dick talk (I've just started reading Moby Dick) among other things.
Monday I spent in a living room (the place is literary called living room in German (Wohnzimmer)) being sarcastic all night. My new friend Mark is never serious about anything so I just laughed a lot and let him tell stupid stories or speak Danish(he's american) to me and see if I understood. We wondered the streets of Berlin and finally ended up at a Swedish market and had some Swedische Glühwein (mulled wine, also called glögg in Swedish). It was a strange night in so many way that I can't even start to explain it. Guess you had to be there.
Today I was thinking about going to my last couchsurfing meeting of the year but got lazy and cooked instead and watched the Christmas Edition of Ice Age (I recommend it!)

I've been spending time reading. My Kindle is perfect for traveling and I got 3GB books for it from my friend William the other day and that just so many books so I don't even know how to start but I'm excited to read all (even if it will take me years and years. 3GB books are about 3000 books.) "A Christmas Carroll" by Charles Dickens, poems by Emily Dickinson, "Moby Dick" and all the books I've stated make me so happy. I think 12 hours on a train will fly away as long as I have my Kindle.

It feels good to go back to Sweden and cook Christmas food with dad and hang out with all the friends in Stockholm. But Berlin, I will be back for New Year (or Sylvester as they say here) That's for sure.

Future.

The future is almost here. Or I feel like it, because I'm really bad at being in the now.

Why do I feel this way then?

I have gotten new roomies that I don't really know how it will go to live with. One at least seems very different from me and Rosa, so we'll see how that goes.

I also have nowhere to live after December 31. I think I would be able to stay another month in this apartment, but with all the changes here I don't know if I want to. Also I would like to find something with less rent.

One thing that I have decided is that I will go home to Sweden the 21th of December to celebrate Christmas. I booked a cheap train ticket so I have a 12 hour train ride to look forward to (I really like going by train. Best way to get anywhere.)

All the other decisions that makes my head spin and I rather plan unreal things then really ones that I really need to plan.

Tomorrow, the very near future I will go to Vienna to spend some time. I have had some couchsurfers from Vienna and I'm going to stay with one of them. One old college from the palace in Stockholm where I worked before that also just to Vienna before that I'm going to meet up with.

And an Austrian that I meet here in Berlin.

My plan is to get some Christmas spirit, drink a lot of coffee in one or many of the very many coffee shops that I've heard about and just see the city. It's going to be my first time in Austria.

Looking forward to holiday from the holiday. I don't need it but I want it.

Time flies.

This blog has had a little slow period. Not that things don't happen. Plenty has happened.

My family visited. Mom, dad and brother Tim. And Elsa's(a.k.a Smooth) parents where here also. So there been a lot of hanging out with them. Going to birthday partys, playing pool, buying cheap food at the Turkish marked, singing on the streets, going to couchsurfing meetings, laughing a lot and hanging out with the gang. The markets are back so we spent Sunday at Mauerpark as always. We sit a lot at our favorite coffee place/hang out beer place.

I read a lot. Almost finished "Jane Eyre" and I got a Kindle as a birthday present from my parents, and I'm totally hooked on it. Best gift ever for a book reader I would say. Now I carry around about 30 books (which is few for the Kindle) all the time and some audio books. I love it and my friend find me more gone in books then ever before.

The gang.

Lately we have been forming a gang, a group of people that I hang out with almost all the time. We're five. Me, Sinead, Smooth, Kurt and Frieder. So basically it's two new people that has joined the group. Kurt, the american traveler and Frieder, the german paramedic with dreads. We've seen each other every day. Laughing, hanging out, drinking beers, watching films, having after partys and falling asleep in piles together.

Smooth, me and Frieder fallen asleep in Sineads bed.

So it's been a good time in Berlin. Just to little time to sit down and write here. I going to try to be better at it. Until next time.

Pick up lines.

A pretty normal Wednesday stars slow with long talks with Sinead. Goes on to other adventures and then at the end of the evening ending up in a couchsurfing meeting in Kreuzberg.

The thing with the couchsurfings meetings is that you mingle a lot. Talk to people, both "new" ones and those that are always there. With those that you meet some times new topics are talked about every time. (We left the -what's-your-name-what-do-you-do-in-Berlin and so on some time ago)

Last Wednesday we talked about pick up lines. I don't know so many pick up lines, except the really cheesy ones like Was you father a thief? (answer) Because he stole the stars and put them in your eyes. Also Your clothes would look great on my floor. Classical ones but not that good.

The "best" one I know is (that can't really be used as a girl) Is you name Gillette? (No?) The best a man can get. It's a bit lame as well.

I can't really remember if I ever got picked up with a pick up line or the other way around.

As we talk about the subject we decide that Sinead probably has the best one.

- Do you know how much a polar bear weighs? (No?)

- Enough to break the ice. (you name)

It's kind of funny and I might use it in the future.

An other couchsurfer came up with an other creative way to break the ice. Actually getting some ice and breaking it to start a conversation with someone.

We then said that we where going to look up some more pick up lines, for fun and maybe to use when needed. I'm doing it right now and my favorite so far are:

Your body is a wonderland and I want to be Alice. (because of Alice in wonderland)

There are so many bad ones, that I don't understand who would use. But I do want to use a cheesy pick up line some time. If you know any good/okay/cheesy/funny etc please let me know.

The world.

visited 21 states (9.33%)
Create your own visited map of The World

This sucks. I have so much more to see and I want to do it right now!

Going to start with going to Austria in December. If I could hitch-hick to Australia I would so be there, or on my way there at this moment.

Birthday!

Yesterday was my birthday! I turned 25 and this will be the year for everything.

I invited some friends over to hang out in the apartment, drinking pomegranate punch and just having a good time. I had so much fun. There was a lot of ukulele playing, laughs and funny things happening.

So happy that I found the people that where there and so happy for having an awesome birthday. I would like to be able to describe it in words, but I don't know how it's possible so that people would understand all the amazing things that happened. Memories I will have forever.

Keys.

I wrote in an earlier post that my purse was stolen and I lost my keys due to that. Since then I haven't had keys to the apartment and have to ring the bell and hope that someone can let me in. And usually it works. Sometimes I have gone somewhere else for some time and come back a bit later.

The question on everybody's mind now is: Why don't you get new keys?

I'm glad that you asked. This is why. IT'S HARD!

Step one was that I borrowed a room mates keys and went to a place near by to get them copied. No. They couldn't copy them because I have to have a safecard (sicherheitskarte) that allows me to copy my keys.

So I go to the office of the company that rents out the apartment that I live in and ask them how I'm supposed to do it. The man that helps me says that I'm not allow to live in the apartment because they who are on the contract is allowed to live there and they can't give me any help about the keys. The man looks angry and I walk away for there not knowing more then before.

Step two is that I ask Born to call Hausmeister or someone that can help me about the keys. He does. They also say that he can't have people living in the apartment and he just doesn't care. They say they can't give out new keys but Born says he has the sicherheitskarte so it should go anyway. Now the sicherheitskarte just has to be found. During this time I call and e-mail different lost-and-found places around Berlin to see if they have my bag or my keys. No luck.

The card is at a guy that lived here before so he promises to send it.

Step three getting the sicherheitskarte on the mail. Everything will be fine now, I thought and went to the same key place that I was at last. The man says that he still can't do it, that I have to go to the address that is on the back of the card. Stupid me, and it's also quite close to home. I go there. Nothing is there. I think it has just closed because it's late and try it again the next day. With keys and card I go to the address. Nothing there. I walk up and down the street and then ask people where it could be, but there is nothing at the address I was given. I see a number on the card. I call it.

Sidenote: I really don't like talking German on the phone. Even if I know I can do it, I know that my German a bit depends on body language and other things then just my voice. I also don't really like talking on the phone in any of the languages I know, even if I can do it.

I call and say I have a card that allows me to copy new keys and that their place on the address was gone. The man on the phone says that they closed that shop some time ago. He also asked me if I was able to fax him a copy of the card (who in they're twentieths has a fax machine?) so that he could make me new keys. Even if I say I can't fax he just gives me a number to send it to and says what it will cost and that I will have the keys in two days.

After hanging up I feel tried just of trying to get it done, but I do find a place to fax (might have been the easiest thing of the day) and a angry man (it is many angry men that are a part of this story) that doesn't want to understand me faxes the card on a piece of paper with my contact details and charges me 80cent. I'm okay with it.

It has to be so bloody hard to get new keys. I sometimes think that this country is just fucking with me for funzies. How can it be this hard? And take so much time.

So now I just hope that all has worked. That I will get a phone call in a day or two and have new keys. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

No market Sunday.

It's Sunday today so it's a flea market day. Or so we thought when we left the apartment, Elsa, Sinead and me today.

We head for Mauerpark, had some awesome food on the way and I had coffee at (probably) Berlin's best coffee place, but more about that place some other time.

People where walking down to the park and so where we and found nothing. NOTHING! No market, no karaoke and people walked away. Odd, we thought and took the tram back to Freidrichshain to go to an other market, but no. Nothing! We ask a lone girl that are selling some things alone by Boxhagener Platz why. She tells us that it's Volkstrauertag. So no market this Sunday and not the next either because then it's Totensonntag. Damn you national holidays that we don't know of.

Having no plan, five of us (Tobias and Robyn joined us), we went to our favorite café also close to Boxhagener Platz called Macondo. It's a café with a lot of couches and great chai latte (among other things) but also you can drink beer/alcohol there if you feel like it. No alcohol laws like in Sweden here in Germany.

We, me and Elsa, found this place some weeks ago and always hang out there. Sitting and reading for hours, drinking coffee or bringing friends there and having a beer for example. Now we all sat down with a chai latte and read. All had books and we talked about books and other things but we where also quite just reading our books and enjoying spending time together.

After some hours, hundreds of pages of literature, chai lattes, gin and tonics and laughs later we left the place, but it was an afternoon well spent.

Sinead has been taking about making a pie all week and made an awesome pie (me like pie) of left overs from the indian food we had earlier. Tobias and I talked with her while she was cooking about hitchhiking, sex, relationships and looked at the laptops we had in our laps for answers to anything that popped in to our heads. Sinead and I planed to go to IKEA tomorrow (yes, we're that Swedish) to get some pillows, curtains and things to decorate our rooms with.

So all and all a good day even if we didn't have a chance to see all the crap that is the flea markets or hear people sing and massacre popular songs. Next time.

This week.

Today is the 11.11.11.

Great number and I celebrated 11.11.11-11:11 by drinking coffee. Felt good.

The week has passed on at it always does. My friend Char, that I worked with at Drottningholm Palace in Stockholm, came to visit. We eat way to much frozen yogurt(froyo) and drank gin fizzes in a fancy hotel bar. So not my style but sometimes that happens. We also went to a rock show. Or at least it felt like it when going to Bode-Museum to see the Renaissance Faces exhibition. An exhibition so popular that you can't pre-buy tickets anymore due to "due to high demand". Since we wanted to go, we stood in line an hour before the museum opened and it was quite of a long line.

Coming in to museum we thought we could go directly in to the exhibition, but no. We had number 133-134, so after 1,5 hours wait (with coffee of course) we got in to see it. Char is a Renaissance kind of girl who is doing her masters in Art history so going with her was just great. It was like having a private guide that could tell me a lot about the artist and story behind the art. The exhibition was great and I'm so glad I went and extra because of the wonderful Char.

I also took Char to Kunsthause Tacheles, to see an other side to art. We went to the sculpture park there, which has a lot of big pieces of weld artwork at is so different to the Renaissance in so many ways.

The rest of the day was spent in with froyo, laughs, talking about travels, life and love among other things.

A new girl has moved in downstairs, Sinead. She's a swedish-brit and we've become fast friends. She came to visit about a month ago and decided to move here, which she did. It feels great that she lives just a staircase down and does as much as I do, which isn't that much.

I tend to talk to much about stupid things and after having a couple of beers I just want to make out/snog with someone which needs to stop. And I need to stop bringing out "all the crazy at once" to people I've just meet. I'm working on it. Results are so-so this far.

An other swede is also in town. My good friend Tobias came to visit and will be here until Monday. I'm taking him to couchsurfing meetings, drinking beer and hanging out in different places around town.

Yesterday we went to the movies, which was awesome. I have been wanting to go to the movies (*singing Let's go to the movies*) but haven't done it until yesterday. We went to see The adventures of Tintin (2011) in 3D. I read the Tintin comics when I was about 10 years old so it has been many years ago. Going to the movies in Germany means, if you don't want to see a dubbed movie to go to a OV (original version) theater, which we did and drank beer during the movie. Got to love Germany when you can buy and drink beer at the movies.

3D is just so fun also so I always get extra excited when I see a 3D movie. It was a lot of fun and the movie was good, not great but good.

About a second ago I found out that people are coming here to cook and hang out tonight. Friday mode on.

WG.

WG is a short version of wohngemainschaft, that would translate to shared living/apartment in English. Many people here in Berlin lives in one, and so do I.

I've already written how I got the room in the apartment I'm staying at now here. Now that it has been a while, let me tell you more about how I have it here.

I have three room mates: Marco, Born and Rosa. Shoobi that I wrote about in a earlier post is going to Madagascar for three month and Marco has come back to the apartment after spending some time in an other part of Germany.

So we are four, all with separate rooms and sharing the kitchen. It's not a big apartment but it works. Born has the biggest room that also connects to the balcony. The kitchen is pretty small and it's hard to be two or more by cooking because there's not so much space. Hanging out in the kitchen is nice though. We have a couch and an arm chair. When we're many, we sit on boxes or just stand.

I really like it here. I like the thing that people just come by and hang out. Just as home in Stockholm. You never know who you're going to meet in the kitchen or who is ringing the door.

Crazy in the kitchen.

And my room mates just make me feel at home. Being themselves, like Marco going around the apartment in his boxer short to make some coffee to wake up. Or Born that has been a rock calling about getting me new keys and such. He also has a way of making anything fun. He and Shoobi where playing guitar the other morning (both are musicians) but instead of song they have written they started singing children songs. And they are both very talented so it fun to hear them and it makes me smile.

Rosa I haven't meet so much yet. We have so different times for being home, and I think I've meet her boyfriend more then her, but she's really helpful and always friendly.

The more time I'm here, the more I like it.

Tonight we'll going to have a good-bye party for Shoobi and his girlfriend Marsha, who are going to Madagascar on Wednesday so may people are coming over and there will be a lot of way to fast german speakers but I think it's going to be nice. How we will all fit in the apartment will be interesting to see. I'm looking forward to it.

Being.

Coffee. I have to much of it today at a café that played a lot of Beriut songs. I wrote, I read and tried to gather my thoughts. There are so many things on my mind at the moment and I can't really seem to get them straight.

I think writing helps with that, to have to put them on paper, or write an long e-mail for a friend.

So yesterday I wrote a way to long e-mail to a friend and today I wrote a couple of pages in my notebook. I feel a bit better after every time.

Being confused about life, about meaning and not wanting to be a part of all that is expected. Studying, working, consuming and so on is something I'm struggling with. I have so many wants and still I have no plans. I've done the studying, and I feel done. Or I could learn so much more, but is the thing about that the studies have to have a goal that bothers me. How about personal grows and knowing things that you actually care about, not things just because you have to get a job?

Why can't I just read "Jane Eyre" for a while and catch up on reading that I really enjoy without people just wondering what I do all day?

Well, I know, I know, I will run out of money in a while. But why is having and making money so impotent?

Sometimes I get so annoyed with all the expectations, people telling me I could do something with my talent, and that I have to live in the norm way of living.

Can't I just be for a second and try to figure things out as I go?

Since last.

There are so many stories to be written down about what I've been doing lately.

I got a job interview and didn't get the job so I went home to Sweden for a while. I went to Denmark, Copenhagen and hitchhicked back to Berlin from there with Amy.

So now I'm back in Berlin. Going to couchsurfing meetings, meeting people, reading classic books, doing a lot of J-walking, drinking coffee and just feeling good to be home.

A thing that did happen since I got back is that I got my purse stolen at a bar. A bar that I really like and have been to many times, so I was not that careful. In the purse was my wallet with credit-card, money, ID and also my keys to the apartment among other things. I was so mad and sad at the same time when I couldn't find it.

But I have filled a police report and all that so hopefully it will turn out again just without the money and stuff but I do hope the purse is somewhere out there.

I haven't been able to sleep well lately. To many things on my mind and sharing a bed for some night is not a great mix. Today I gave up sleeping around six a clock, after just laying awake not falling to sleep.

Tried to sleep again and did for two hours. I need to clear my head a bit more before going to bed, I think.

Amy just woke up. We're getting breakfast and see where this day will take us. You'll never know when in Berlin.

Nice nights.

Some days it feel like I really do nothing. Yesterday felt like it until three a clock.

I had planed to have a try day on a job I applied for, starting at six in the morning. Some hours before I was going to sleep to be able to look awake and happy in the morning, I got an e-mail telling me that they already hired someone. So I had no plans anymore. Spend the morning reading and for lunch I meet Elsa.

During the day I decided that I would take a short trip back to Sweden. I found someone that drives on the great site, a go together site. Great for someone like me that doesn't have a drivers license and don't like fly.

One of Elsa's friends from Sweden is at the moment in Berlin so they where going to play guitar and sing close to Alexander Platz, and I tagged along. The Berlin Monday was sunny but as soon as the sun went down, even if it was really nice listing to them play, it got cold. I got hungry again.

So we headed home to my place to cook some dinner and drink some wine. Our new friend Markus also joined. We cooked, we eat and we talked a lot. We listed to various music and laughed. Sitting in when you're in Berlin, just minutes away from a lot of bars, cafes and restaurants just felt like a waste and we headed out. Walking in the cold October night make me want to go inside as soon as I come outside, so we end up at a bar close to home. They play nice music and we drink some beer and talk a lot more. In a smoke cloud which is almost always how it is spending time at bars. Nice night with friends. Just great times and lots of somethings.

Sunday.

Sundays in Berlin are really nice. At least when the weather stays as good as today.

It's fall in the air but the sun is still shining so you can spend your day outside and not getting to cold.

After some hours sleep I went to Elsa's job that is just a short walk from home. Elsa cooks at a natural food place here in Friedrichshain, that has a lot of great things to eat. Today I eat breakfast there.

Me and my friend Amina sat in the sun and we both had a Elsa's royal. A vegan sandwich that Elsa has come up with and it's of course named after her. It's also really popular, which I understand because it was really good. Amina and I had a chil-chil day, as she would say.

Sundays are the days of flea-markets/flohmark in Berlin and in Friedrichshain there is one on Boxhangen Platz. Not as big as the one on by Mauerpark but a nice one. On the markets in Berlin you can find what ever you are looking for from furnitures to book, old cameras, random cabels, old photos, clothes and art.

Walking around at a market always makes me wonder why do people have so much "shit" laying around and how do they have the energy to bring their things every Sunday to the market?

There are so many things that I don't know what it is or don't even want to know what is. There is wonderful art and prints and vintage dresses that I just want to have also. So far since I moved to Berlin, it is on the markets I have found the best bargains. I have bought two dresses, a big hand-knitted scarf and great boots, all for 13euros! Yes, I does take some time to find what your looking for but when/if you do it's usually quite cheep. I like it a lot.

There is also, at least at Mauerpark, so much food that you just want to eat. For me, I always want to eat a Sunday vegan bus burger. There is also karaoke outside in the park there and can be really funny and great.

Today at Boxhagen Platz I was looking for some furniture, a armchair to have in my room that I could read in. The thing is, even if the market is close to home I not strong enough to carry heavy things but I have hope that if I would find something I will grow mighty muscles in a second. I didn't find anything (so we have to see about the muscle growing some other time) but just walking around with Amina for some time is never wrong. It was just a nice lazy day outside.

On the way home, feeling a bit tried but happy with the day I found a späti (24 hour shop) and got some Club Mate, which is the non alcoholic drink that everybody drinks here all the time. It's good and it feels very hip to be drinking it. Group pressure, yes indeed.

Back in my room I wish I had an armchair to read in but I will try my luck next week at the markets.

New answer.

I watched "Angels with dirty faces" (1938) today and I got my new answer to what I'm going to say when people ask me what I do in Berlin by Rocky Sullivan.

Example conversation:

- So what do you do in Berlin?

- Just sittin' around lookin' pretty, dance a little, play a little, (kind of a hostess).

Isn't that just a great answer then saying nothing?

I liked the movie. To little Bogart(yes, if he's not the main character it's not enough for me), but great none the less.

Couchsurfing.

Do you know what couchsurfing is?

Let me tell you about it. Couchsurfing is a website where people from all around the world sign up for so you can "lend" a couch to travelers. Or that uses "strangers" couches when away in a diffrent city. It's a great platform to meet new people, and locals on while traveling. If you don't have a couch that you can give to a stranger you can always just sign up for meeting for a drink/coffee.

I've had a couchsurfing account for several years now, and like it quite a lot. Mostly I've been hosting surfers on our living-room bed in Stockholm. From Finland to Canada, Australia to Germany and many nationalities has stayed at our place in Stockholm.

I have some surfing experience myself as well. I spent two weeks in Los Angels, USA, just surfing cool peoples couches. I've slept in the same bed as a girl in Germany after a folk-metal party. I've stayed at a floor in Gothenburg, Sweden during the book fair. I had falafel at a balcony in central Malmö, Sweden and biked around the town with an awesome girl. I've had a mattress in a common area in a shared apartment in Berlin and so on.

Sometimes when I tell my parents about couchsurfing they get really worried, but I've meet so many great people surfing and being surfed at.

Let's do some examples:

- I hosted four Germans (that came two and two and didn't know each other), right after coming home to Stockholm after my last long stay in Germany. What I didn't know was that there was a surprise Alice in wonderland party for me one of the days the surfers wore there and we just had an awesome time. Even before we had so much in common so it was just fun hosting them all. I still have contact with them.

- This guy who spent the three days he had in Stockholm playing old NES with us in the apartment and beating my room mate, which I think she still has not forgotten. Also playing lasertag with him and just having a blast.

- Three totally sweat Americans who all spoke "Denglish", a mix of english and german, and even if they just stayed for a day we spent the evening talking about so many things that still are so funny when I think about them.

- This really laid back girl in Gothenburg that was almost like a younger me. Talking about all the books we still want to read but haven't got around to yet. (She's now studying to be a librarian).

This list could go on but I think I've made my point.

Now that I'm in Berlin I really can't host. The apartment is kind of small and I (for the moment) just have a bed in my room. Also I have the smallest room.

The great thing about Berlin (one of many) is that there is a big couchsurfing community and Berlin is a very active couchsurfing city. There are meeting almost every day with couchsurfers doing things around town. There are at least 3 regular couchsurfing meetings a week(!) in different parts of town. If there is something you like to do, you could probably find many couchsurfer in Berlin that like the same thing.

I've stated to go to these meetings, and I've been to a few now. Earlier today was the last one I was to.

Travelers, students, bohemians and others gather at these meetings and have a good time together. You get to talk with a lot of people and get to know them.

Berlin might be a big city but there are some people that always are at the meetings that I've now gotten to know them a bit. And I like that.

Like the american who likes old films and I'm going to a movie night at his place tomorrow to watch a Humphrey Bogart (I love, love Bogart) film tomorrow to just mention one. I also know which ones to avoid at the meetings.

Most couchsurfers are really great and open, but some are just a bit creepy (you take the good, you take the bad) so it good to know which ones you don't have anything to say to.

One example of this is this guy who always talks about the Wallander film, the Swedish PI or crime solver, based on a Henning Makell's (Swedish author) character, and has watched all of them in Swedish and want Swedes to talk Swedish because he thinks it's sexy. I so avoid this guy now on.

Tonight at the meeting there where to many surfers in a to little bar for all of us. It was hard to talk to all because you couldn't get of your seat (if you where lucky to get one) to talk to everyone. Talk to everyone might be a bit to ambitious but it hard just talking to a few. And because I know some people it's easy to just hang out with them or start to and then get stuck at the place you're at. That can be nice but it doesn't feel so social when there's a room full of other people.

So Elsa and I decided to go an with took a Robyn with us. Robyn(yes, just like the Swedish singer and yes, she loves her) is awesome and we went to grab a snack together just talking about many random things. Planing to have a Robyn(the singer) party at Robyn's (the persons) place for example.

Just an awesome girl that we will see more from and that just the thing about couchsurfing. There are so many cool/nice/interesting/awesome guys and girls out there, in this city that I'm looking forward to meet.

I will write about couchsurfing many more times on this blog, I'm sure but now it's time for bed and see what Berlin has in store for tomorrow.

First entry.

Berlin. I'm here. And I've been here for some time now.

I came with my friend Elsa in the beginning of September to the city that I'll always returned to before. And I came to stay. Many ask me what I'm doing here and that's a hard question to answer. I say that I live. Sometimes I say that I do nothing, which could be considered true to people who have a 40 hour work week.

Some people get almost angry if I say that I don't do anything. I mean I do things. Like read, hang out with Elsa and other people, go to couchsurfing meetings, walk around, drink a lot of coffee and so on.

After working all summer with at most just one day of a week, it feels good to do nothing. Or at least less then I did back in Stockholm.

I came to Berlin with plan. That I wanted to do an internship at a museum here. To learn how they work in museums in Germany. So far, no luck. I'm still working on it in the back of my head, and with help from a girl I meet that already works at a museum. She is giving me some advice a long the way. So that's good.

I know, I will run out of money. Everybody keeps telling me that living isn't free. You have to pay rent, food, phone and entertainment amongs other things. I know, but I'm fine at the moment. I will sooner or later probably get a job somewhere, to make some money and have a daytime activate. So that I can finance all the coffee I drink.

The job I would like to get is one in coffee as well. I love coffee and making coffee for others to enjoy I miss from my days at coffee shops.

I've been lucky when it comes to somewhere to live. The first weeks here, me and Elsa shared a bed in a very central apartment on Freidrichstrasse. We lived with two other girls, but I would say that only one counted. She, Janka, is a really great person that we still hang out with. (The other one just hid in her room most of the time.)

After a couple of weeks there it was time to move. I look for WGs (shared apartments) a lot and wrote to many people that I was interested in living with them. Looking for a WG with people that you really enjoy or that aren't stickt vegans or nudist was a bit of a challenge. After a while I got to meet people and see some apartments in Berlin. And boom! I got a room in a music WG.

Two of my room mates play and make music and all the people I live with are so cool. I really enjoy this apartment a lot so I'm so happy that I won the "battle" for it. Let me tell you about what kind of "battle" it was.

The "battle" looked liked this:

I came to the apartment an Sunday afternoon to look at it and meet the people living there.

There are a lot of people in the apartment, all wanting the room that the girls that's moving out has. The apartment is not all that big so all end up in the kitchen, some sitting, some standing. We go around the room saying what we're doing in Berlin and so on. The thing is that no one of the room mates are there at the moment though, so Becky (the girl who lived here before) asked people if they have time to hang out a couple of hours until a room mate comes home. That we could get some beers and get to know each other. Many left. Have lifes, other WGs to see and stuff to do.

Some stay, just like I, and drink some beer with the other ones staying. We talk about many things and the hours pass. More people leave. We talk more. Some more people leave.

When the room mate Shoobi is finally at home it's just me and Pablo, a great Spanish guy. Some have said that they where coming back later but no one shows up. So we hang out a bit more, drink some more beer and then head out to the studio, since Shoobi's band mates need help with some instruments and getting them into the studio. We're done in like five minutes and sit down on the ground talking while many of the people, friend of Shoobi, smoke a cigarette. Come back home to their place again and I stay for a while before going home. Really liking the people there and thinking it was such a great time.

I go to one more of this meetings with other that also want to room, at the same apartment. There is less beer and we are four people + Shoobi hanging out.

A couple of hours after I get a text saying I got the room and I'm so happy I jump up and down at the bar I'm in.

I'm at a couchsurfing meeting, and there are always people looking for place to stay there, and one girl stand up and starts to singing "Happy apartment to you..." and all the other couchsurfers join in. Happy times.

So from my not so furnished room in Friedrichshain comes this blog.

There are so many more this to tell about what I've done here, but I need my coffee now so the stories will continue some other day, at the same blog, Swedes in Berlin: the Jenny edition.

(The name Elsa and I came up with when we where thinking about our own reality show here. Maybe there will be an Elsa edition to.)

So until next time, Tschüß!