Temporary residence and music enthusiasm

Greetings from Prenzlauer Berg! I moved last weekend, as my flat in Kreuzberg won't be available until 15 October. It's a really nice place, near S/U Schönhauser Allee. What sucks is that it has coal heating, meaning it's preeetty cold. Or well, I guess I could heat it as much as I want, but I don't have the heart for it as the amount of coal needed seems so immense :F. Thank goodness for warm socks and peppermint tea!

Another downside is that there isn't any Internet connection (actually I'm writing this at the university, so the greetings from P-Berg are remote), which theoretically isn't a problem, cause I bought an Internet prepaid-stick for a month. The problem was that I didn't choose the right prepaid-mode, and it charged me by minute, so I used my whole prepaid during Monday evening :D Well, now I know better, and luckily the pack came with five free days, so I guess I'll just have to get along with them. (However, some blame I do pass on to Saturn, where I got partial and confusing instructions, to say the least. And it wasn't the first but the third time.)

I briefly expressed my satisfaction with Moderat's gig last Tuesday. It was held at Volksbühne, where I had never been before. At first it didn't seem it would have any chance of success, as we found out to our great devastation that there were only seats, no dancefloor whatsoever! During the warm-up act (Shed from Ostgut Ton) everyone was still sitting and the atmosphere was quite lame (although Shed's live was good, no complaints there).

But by golly, when Moderat started playing, it was five seconds and everyone was standing up, and eventually it was one hell of a gig! Everyone was dancing despite those stupid chair rows and we even ended up dancing on the stage :D <3 True Volksbühne (= stage of the people)!

Next Friday it's skweee day! Prkl! macht Skweeertisch #2 @ Raum20! With Mesak, Joxaren, Karl Marx Stadt, Roko and Naks. S(kw)ee you there :)

Also other sssssuper stuff coming up. Like FLYING LOTUS!!!!! at Maria am Ostbahnhof on 22 October. Like, you know, oh em geeeee, I'm maybe gonna faint. Flying Lotus was absolutely mindblowingly good at Flow Festival 2008. I'm SO gonna be there.

On 31 Oct Yeasayer is playing at Maria! The same day Mulatu Astatke & the Heliocentrics would be playing at Volksbühne though... Hard decisions ahead, in other words. Luckily I've still got nearly a month to decide. :)

Now I've had enough of sitting in the computer lab for today, so until next time. Ta-ta!

Cutting through the red tape (part 1)

There, I did it! Finally the post I've promised to write!

But first I'll quickly tell you a bit more about my to-be flat. As I mentioned earlier, it's situated between U-Kotti and U-Prinzenstraße, which will shorten my way to the university a tiny bit. Although the neighbourhood isn't the most hip & coolest like e.g. Graefekiez in the neighbourhood of Graefestraße (also in Berlin, maybe about a km from where I'll be living), which is super popular, it's location is excellent. Public transport is near and plenty, Kottbusser Tor and Oranienstraße with their numerous Turkish markets, bars and restaurants and such are just around the corner, but far enough to keep it calm and nice. I have a lovely park view, which can also be admired from the balcony (!). Central heating, and according to the woman whose place it is, the flat is very warm even in winter, aahh! The building itself is exceptionally ugly and high, I think it's got ten storeys or something. And a lift, quite a modern one even! Practically no houses have lifts here, and if they do, they're so old and unsteady (and slow) that you'd just better take the stairs. I for my part am very glad to have a lift from the 20th century, for I'll be living on the eighth floor, and the washing machines, which are in common use, are on the attic :D It's huuuuge, 39 m², nicely furnished, and has enough place in the kitchen for a humane cooking experience! I just can't wait to move in :)

So, enough of that and let's proceed, or maybe precede? to the process of renting a flat in Berlin. University enrolment was also one hell of a bureaucracy process, but I'll dedicate a post of its own to that.

There.
Picture: DBR62 @ Flickr

Most of the people in Berlin live in rental flats, meaning that for the most part flats aren't owned or given for long-term lease by private persons. Instead that is taken care of by a Hausverwaltung, which literally translates into house administration or something. They are (numerous) companies, ranging from small family businesses to huge, posh companies on Kudamm, that at the same time are housing companies, housing agencies and house managing/maintenance agencies. They normally own numerous flats in many different houses around the city, and thus aren't like the very locally operating housing companies or house managing/maintenance agencies e.g. in Finland.

If you're renting a flat just for a fixed period as a subtenant from a private person, you'll probably get away with the whole flat renting thing relatively easily. You necessarily won't be needing more papers and certificates than a nice personality (or at least the ability to give that impression) and a sublease contract. You might find a flat thats (nicely) furnished, maybe even with a washing machine, fridge, stove, oven, sink and such.

"Yeah, okay. Furnished is luxury, washing machine isn't something necessarily found in every rental flat, fridge... stove... what?" That's right. Often flats are rented just with their walls, and all the rest is the lessees problem. Well, maybe there are a couple of windows here and there, some flats have a sink, and maybe a floor and a bathroom that need some redoing. On the lessees expense. With a contract obliging the lessee. So don't expect to walk into a ready-to-live-in flat, you'll be doing some serious shopping for very basic domestic appliances to a start.

Or well, actually that isn't the start, since you'd of course have to had gone through the rental appliance process. With Hausverwaltungs, you won't be doing anything with a pretty face, since you won't be even meeting them during the process, as it is the current lessee whose responsibility it is to find candidates to be the following lessee. But don't bother to put immense effort on impressing him/her, for he/she won't be making the decision, just shows the flat and forwards the PAPERS to the Hausverwaltung.

And the Hausverwaltung definitely does not care about anything but the papers. As a start, you'll need to fill in a form where you state that you are interested in the flat and fill in every possible information about yourself. Attached, a copy of your ID (passport or such) and evidence of your incomes for the past three months. You will also want your former landlord or -lady to fill in a form that you have no rental debts (Mietschuldenfreiheitsbescheinigung, don't you just love the language :D), you can find one e.g. here.

Then comes the tricky part. Almost without a doubt, the Hausverwaltung will want a SCHUFA-Auskunft, your German credit information certificate. To get one, you'll need a German bank account (I applied for my SCHUFA-Auskunft at the same time when I opened my bank account). To open a German bank account, you'll need to be registered as a Berlin citizen and have some sort of proof of what you're doing in Berlin (studying, working, else: what? etc.). To be registered as a citizen, you'll need an address in Berlin.

Well, the good news is that at least I wasn't asked for more papers at the Bürgeramt (the registry office) than my passport and my rental contract, and my temporary flat was just fine by them. And I didn't need to wait in some dodgy office for hours, but to my extreme surprise Berlin is totally 2058 and has an internet booking system! The first time available wasn't until in the next week, but I wasn't in a hurry so it was ok. The registration process itself took maybe 10 minutes or so, so that part wasn't especially torturous.

Summa summarum: if you're looking for a long-term flat in Berlin, I suggest you begin by renting a flat for 1–2 months. That's possible even from abroad, and you'll at least have some place to live in before you find The Flat. You'll also have the time to get all your papers in order and get to check the flats out yourself. And it's much more stress-free to be looking for a flat for e.g. a month, instead of a smothering "it would be great if I could find a flat in two-weeks-ago's time" timetable and living in a hostel.

Rents have gone up quite a bit, a couple of years ago it wasn't at all a utopian thought to find a studio flat in a nice area for 250–300 Euros, but nowadays 400 Euros isn't all that rare. There still are (unfurnished) flats for <300 Euros, but there are lot of applicants also. Well, compared to Helsinki the rents are still ridiculous (or rather it's the other way around), there rents for tiny studios start from almost 600 Euros... As probably everywhere, the bigger the flat, the cheaper it proportionally it is. Two-roomers' rents start from about 400–450. There are in theory two rental sums: the Kaltmiete ("Cold rent") is just the rent, whereas Warmmiete ("Warm rent") includes the Nebenkosten (side costs), which usually consists of heating and (warm) water costs, sometimes also gas and/or electricity. So check the Warmmiete for the actual rental costs.

A good site when looking for a flat is WG-Gesucht.de. I warmly recommend also putting in your own ad.

Phew! There you have it, a short (?) guide for flat renting in Berlin. Good luck! And, good night, and good weekend. I'll be spending the weekend moving to my temporary flat in Prenzlauer Berg and in Dresden. So until next week, ta-ta!

♥

Just for the record: I love Moderat.

I can haz flat!

Quick update: I found a flat!! :) :) A nice studio in Kreuzberg, between U-Kottbusser Tor and U-Prinzenstraße, lovely view, very reasonable rent. I'll get to move in on 15 October, but I probably found a flat for the two "homeless" weeks there in between too :)

Things just have the tendency to work themselves out :)

About fleas and bikes

I actually had a mission regarding the flea market: a bike. The bike I dragged along from Finland is good and nice and my precious, little, nearly-15-kilo, masculine-to-say-the-least darling baby, but it’s an impossible mission to find mudguards for its 29” tyres, and it isn’t the most practical thing to ride in a skirt. And I must admit I feel a bit nervous with leaving it outside bars and clubs during the most hectic hours in the weekend. So I wanted a bike that was a bit more... let’s say casual.

And a bike I found! It was somewhat a pig in a poke, for Mauerpark is absolutely packed and cobbled, so there really isn’t much of a chance for test driving. But I managed to negotiate the price from 50€ to 35€ (yes yes very special price only for you my friend), noted that the bike had a no-good hand brake but functioning pedal brakes, was big enough for me (I’m quite tall and the majority of the bikes were pygmy-sized!) and had mudguards, so I concluded that I wouldn’t lose too much if the deal turned out a dud.

And I must say I am amazed with how smooth a ride it is! Ahem, I mean, I saw from far that the bike was just a pearl at the bottom of the ocean waiting for that sharp-sighted pearl fisher to collect it... It’s a bit tough to get going, but once in motion, it actually is quite a fast thing! And moving from point A to point B effectively is something I deeply appreciate :)

In Helsinki that bike would be somewhat of a nuisance though, as it feels as if the city is nothing but up- and downhills, uphill especially on the way back home from just about anywhere. My flat is located in Alppila (“alppi-” is “alpine” in Finnish, and “-la” is a “shire”-like suffix in place names (like Hampshire, Yorkshire, Leicestershire), although not meaning anything originally), and it sure lives up to its name. But Berlin is flat like a pancake, which is nice. I’ve now ridden back home from school yesterday and today, about 13 kilometres, and it’s been but a pleasure.

Apart from being flat, Berlin is also quite biker-friendly with its cycle paths. There are quite a lot of them, and when not, just dive in along with the cars. The traffic isn’t especially heavy, despite the city being so big, and more often than not the right lane is half full with parked cars, so half of that lane is unused anyway and thus is safe for bikers. Cars (or their drivers, maybe) are quite considerate, I haven’t had the feeling of having to be scared for my life thanks to road raging drivers. It seems to me overly easy-going drivers that don’t care to fuss about being in a hurry or traffic rules are more of a danger :) Today I was almost bumped into when a car was parking and drove halfway on the pavement (which had a cycle path, along which I was riding), and clearly the driver was just so in his/her thoughts that he/she didn’t pay attention to what he/she was doing. Another car drove 15 km/h straight along for maybe 200 metres with the winker on, until he decided to stop, and one van stopped in the middle of a crossing without winking or giving some other sort of warning sign and started unloading :D It’s amazing how no one gets nervous, they just put on their winkers and drive round whoever is blocking the way.

Oh yeah, in addition to buying a bike and a lock to it, I went a bit crazy with earrings... I bought five pairs of them. But they were all so cute and locally made, so I just had to buy them! Just look at them, can you blame me?

!

The peg and banana earrings I bought at Unikat Kantine’s stand, who had a whole lot of other lovely jewellery. I think I’ll have to visit them again next Sunday, because I want scissor and fork+knife earrings too...

There’s also a new flea market opened in Friedrichshain, Revaler Straße 99. I came so late that it was practically closed/over already, but the location is absolutely magnificent! It’s an old train reparation plant, with lots of ruined former halls and such, and now, in addition to the RAW flea market (RAW = Reichsbahnausbesserungswerk, the Reichsbahn’s (DDR's railway company) reparation plant), there’s an indoor climbing hall, a skate hall and the bar/club Cassiopeia, which seems really nice. I’ll have to visit both the flea market and Cassiopeia at a better time! I tried to take pictures of the place, but I just didn’t manage to capture the atmosphere at all, so I’ll have to leave that to better photographers and their equipment.

Never-ending, sweet autumn

Baww, still no news on the flat frontier. :( Starting to get a bit nervous, this flat is rented just until the end of September and can't be rented for a longer period...

Well, it's still hard to be in too bad a mood as the weather is absolutely stunning! It's been a lot warmer now, around 20° and even over, lovely sunshine and the trees are little by little turning into reddish-yellow-orange. A fabulously mild autumn, especially compared to Finland where the shift from summer to autumn is very intense and (at its worst) harsh. In the end of August it is not that unlikely for the temperature to climb up to even 30°C (86°F), whereas in the beginning of October, the temperature probably has dropped to a little over 10 degrees (50°F) or even under. And during those few weeks nature has shown what extremely vivid and breath-taking colours it is able to produce, I don't even have the words for it. Love it. Then comes a wet, dark, cold and utterly depressing period preceding winter, also known as October, especially November, and often also the beginning of December. Hate it.

But as said, here it isn't anywhere near 10 degrees yet. On the contrary: I've been on the verge of a heat stroke with my Finland-adapted autumn clothing (i.e. jacket, scarf, maybe even gloves and a cap), when in reality even a long-sleeved is sometimes a bit much! I really do not complain, this is exactly the stage of autumn I love :) The shorter the novemberperiod is, the better.

That was the case also last Sunday, when I finally got myself dragged to Mauerpark Flohmarkt, which I mentioned in a previous post. I had taken it easy all Saturday (because I came home on Saturday morning around 8 or 9 and didn’t get much sleep in daytime... O:-), so I was fresh as a day drop and eager to get some fresh air and explore the flea market. I also took my camera with me, in defiance of looking like a stupid tourist. I was very glad for that, as walking through Görlitzer Park (where some were even sun bathing!) the view was wonderful. I also had to catch the view from Oberbaumbrücke over the Spree.

Autumn in Görlitzer Park, Kreuzberg.

Spree, view from Oberbaumbrücke, Kreuzberg/Friedrichshain.

I’ll mutilate this post into two, and continue with the flea market in a moment – otherwise this’ll turn into such a novel that no one will have attention span long enough to get through it.

(Again I was going to write about the bureaucracy, I even had this named “Cutting through the red tape”, but I keep failing miserably with this project! Luckily the actual bureaucracy is at least for the most part overcome, that much I’ll tell you.)

Tag trouble

Dear readers, I need your advice!

I have a problem with my tags. They're stupid.

Let's start with public transport, which is only a small part of what I'm trying to label under it. I mean moving about in Berlin in general, whether it is with a tram or a taxi. The point is moving from point A to point B, not exclusively public transport (to which I could of course dedicate a tag of its own, but it's not what I'm after now). "Moving about in Berlin" sounds as if you're just wandering around in Berlin without any sort of plan whatsoever. "Moving in Berlin" for its part sounds as in moving residence from one flat to another, or, alternatively, things in Berlin that get you all emotional. Well, I do feel all warm and fuzzy inside at the very thought of public transport that runs all night long, not to mention clubs and bars being open non-stop all weekend, but still... You get the drift.

Update: Alex came up with "getting around", which was exactly what I was looking for! Thanks!! ^___^

Then there's living in Berlin, which evokes the reaction "... DUH? Yeah? That's what the whole blog is about?" But contrary to the previous case, I don't mean it as generically as the first impression would be; as in just being alive. I mean quite concrete things that have to do with being a resident in Berlin. Primarily, all sorts of basic things and curiosities regarding the flats here (hence "living"); but also e.g. diverse bureaucracy; owning/rental structure, customs and the like; the very lively "Kiez" (neighbourhood) culture; and so on. So anything that has to do with very concretely living everyday life somewhere. As I mentioned, plain "living" is somewhat amusing in its universality, but then again e.g. "residence" has an all too formal sound to it, narrowing it to plain bureaucracy.

I've been racking my brains, but my imagination and creativity have once again proven themselves to be near to non-extistent.

PLZ HALP

Pic from: LOLCat.com