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Home Swede Home

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As it’s my two-week anniversary here in Berlin, I thought it might be time to reflect on what Riga does better.

Um…

Ummm…

Right, moving on.

Sunday saw me kissing Hermie goodbye Hermie kissing me goodbye, and me clanking down four flights of concrete steps with a 30-kilo suitcase. So much for Quiet Sunday. Still, I made it to Bjorn’s place (now ‘our place’) in one piece and have settled in perfectly. Just to prove the point, I bought a nice pair of slippers, because nowhere feels like home without a nice pair of slippers waiting for your tired little tootsies.

Domestic bliss
Domestic bliss

In the mornings, I wake up to birds singing and this view from my window:

2014-09-23 08.51.46
Not bad, eh?

It might just be my imagination but I’d swear even the birds sound happier in Germany. I looked out just now and there were a couple of bunnies frolicking around the yard/forest… I mean, seriously, is this place for real?

Bjorn also seems happy to have me here. In the mornings, I’m greeted with ‘Hello, Sunshine’ (which I definitely am not), and in the evenings, when I get home, ‘Hello Pretty’, which I also definitely am not. Still, I guess it beats ‘Hello Demon Bitch from Hell’ and ‘Hello Roadkill’.

He says it’s nice having me around the place, which is just as well as it seems like we’ve already synchronised our peeing habits. This was evidenced by me, half-asleep, stumbling in on him in the loo in the middle of the night. He took it well.

He also hasn’t mentioned (or hopefully slept through) me waking myself up from a dream by shouting ‘NO, NO, NO’ at the top of my voice on my first night here. I might have been dreaming about Hermann, but then surely it should have been ‘NEIN, NEIN, NEIN’?

NEIN!
NEIN!

In other news, I started teaching today – and it went well. I’ve been offered five more groups starting from mid-October. Now I just need to get the red tape show on the road so I can actually get paid for them.

My new landlady seems to be having difficulty adding my name to the lease, which is holding everything up – so much for German efficiency. I might set Hermann on her…

 

104 thoughts on “Home Swede Home”

  2. Ah yes, the slippers outside the door thing. I’m used to it now of course but at first it was. What?! Why?! My feet are perfectly clean but obviously, not clean enough.
    I sometimes freak out if I’m wearing an expensive pair of shoes for a cool party and I have to take them off! I’ve been known to either hide them behind a cheap pair or just wore them anyway. I use the “it’s OK she’s British card” when it suits me!
    I like your slippers. They’re cute.
    I used to have Goofy slippers, Piglet (from Winnie the Poo) slippers, and Sponge Bob slippers. I’m married now so I wear HIS slippers. I like them big and floppy!!

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    1. Ha, yeah, I’m planning on playing the Irish card quite a bit as well! The Swede isn’t fussy about the shoe thing – I just like a nice pair of slippers 🙂 Hermann gave me a few funny looks when I trotted into my room in my trainers though 😉

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      1. That’s what being “foreign” is all about. Taking advantage. When necessary. 🙂
        A couple of girls and I decided to drive the wrong way after the LOVE PARADE festival. It was very late, and ‘cos we couldn’t be bothered to turn all the way around. It was a very long street…Anyway, we got caught of course. And that wasn’t the only thing. We were in a mini jeep and at least 3 of the girls were in the “boot”. They were all German and I was the only Brit so they nominated me spokesperson. I put on my poshest accent and feigned complete innocence of the fact that we were driving the wrong way. No problem! This is ze right way. Score! I don’t do all that stuff anymore of course, as they’ve cottoned on. Shame really!!

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        1. Ha ha, yeah, I guess there are so many foreigners living here, you can only get away with that type of stuff for so long! To my knowledge, I haven’t done anything wrong yet, but who knows 😉 I’m sure there are plenty of laws I know nothing about!

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      1. How lucky you are, you don’t have to take those bottles in the stadtbahn to de collection point and wait for sprint and the birds will make you crazy in the mornings. 🙉

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  8. Except for the dream (and the red tape), it sounds wonderful! It’s good to read you’re settling in … and more teaching starting in October? Fantastic!

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    1. Yeah, it’s great! I’m also on the ‘cover list’ now, so I’m covering a couple of classes this week and next for people on holidays/sick. It will all add up eventually! 🙂 I was chatting to another teacher yesterday (an American girl) and she was saying it took her four months to find work here so I really feel lucky!

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          1. It’s Swedish! But yes, I suppose it’s common to all the northerly European cultures. And once you get acclimated to saunas, Olaf will start you on lutefisk (fish jello). Oops, I mean Bjorn.
            I speak from experience, as the Long Suffering Husband is from all Swedish grandparents…

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  15. Bunnies frolicking in the garden. Are you suuuure you’ve moved to Berlin and not, say, that house in the woods where the fairy godmothers took Aurora? Although to be fair I once saw bunnies on a patch of grass in Frankfurt, and there are also some by the train station in Mannheim. All I’ve seen in Karlsruhe is squirrels.

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  16. Awesome title 🙂 Hurrah, for ye moving in with the Swede, and here’s to Bjorn, who hopefully won’t come on you from the back with a NEIN, you’re doing this wrong. Or like Nej, that’s not a Swedish way of doing things 😉 But I’ll def miss Hermie, he was such a sweetcreep and that much fun to read about.

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  19. First of all – I was gonna get all yelly again. You took so effing long with the post! Seconf – this all sounds ridiculously idyllic. I love it all. I want more. Also plz email me your new number. I have to call you. I might be moving to Berlin.

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    1. And leave Moscow? You? Never 😉
      But I do think you’d love it here! I think it’s the greenest city I’ve ever been in! Plus great nightlife, culture, food, people, and all that other good stuff 😉 And birds and bunnies 🙂

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