Saw a red-lidded toilet in the blue bathroom of a café. It warranted a picture.
It’s still FREEZING here, and snowing a bit on and off — though not much, compared to what Boston or NYC is usually like. Found out I cannot start my new job until all of my paperwork is completed (it’s in processing but not yet completed). So I can catch up on other stuff while waiting — redesigning an organizational website, answering emails, ploughing through IQ84 (my endless-but-good Murakami novel), etc.
I just ate almost an entire box of cookies.
Soon it will be Valentine’s Day. I used to paint rocks and wrap them in poems as Valentine’s presents for friends during college. But sadly I can’t mail anything to anybody from here because customs charge ten billion dollars when you send anything internationally. Alas.
J’irai où ton souffle nous mène,
dans les pays d’ivoire et d’ébène.
Putting the “East” back in East Berlin… It’s only a matter of time before all the buildings are restored and rents go waaaaaay up. But for now, this city is super affordable.
KopenhagenerStr.
My new voicemail on the German mobile:
The good thing about our modern era is that technology like Google Street View lets me be places where I otherwise cannot be. Or at least lets me feel like I am there. Here is where I actually am (though picture is three years outdated, and the building is now yellow and sans graffiti and there’s snow on the ground):
Relatedly, I hear it’s creepily warm in the States. Rest assured, it is normal February freezing temperatures here. I am off now to open a bank account and buy a prepaid phone.
WORD TO THE WISE: even if you’re off contract and successfully manage to jailbreak your 5.0.1 iphone, it will NOT unlock even with ultrasn0w and Sam configured if your model firmware is 05.16.05. So don’t waste three days trying to do it! Ugh.
Today I successfully registered my existence at the Bürgeramt, East Berlin’s “citizen’s office”. The place itself is within a campus of sorts, reminiscent of an old-school mental institution. Ivy is all over the walls. Stasi ghosts roam the fluorescent halls. I found the bathroom and there was no toilet paper. I took a number and waited in an orderly line to be accounted for. I went through the motions of heavily intact German societal order, but couldn’t help feel completely creeped out by the place — and notice the irony of enforced order, bureaucracy, and data collection on citizens still pervasive in this SS-era compound.
Granted, I have no idea what I’m talking about. I made all the details up; I don’t know when the buildings were made, I don’t know if the Stasi used to work here. But BOY DOES IT FEEL THAT WAY. Sigh, East Berlin.