New room in Neukoln!

This Monday I came home to my new apartment in Neukoln...at 5 AM! I came back from Amsterdam via a night train so when I got here, I had to wake up my new roommate in the wee hours of the Morgen to let me in. When I got here I had a lot of work to do! I had to plan out my new route to work, unpack, and just get situated in my new place. Truth be told, I ended up falling asleep, missing my train, and walking around Blankenfelde for almost an hour looking for a taxi to work... So it was a rough start to my new life in Neukoln...

Neuokoln is defintely a completely different place from my old apartment in Friedenau. While Friedenau was an upper middle class neighborhood with lots of school children and old folks walking around, Neukoln is the exact opposite, with mostly students and Turkish people occupying the streets. Its kinda like some type of rough neighborhood in Chicago except much safer because the gangs don't have guns... The bus stop is right in front of my apartment, though, and my U-Bahn station is only a five or six minute walk away. From there, I can get to the most active parts of the city in under 20 minutes. I really love the location and I think I'll enjoy the change in lifestyle.

Now, I'm pretty much settled in and I think I'm really going to like this place. Yesterday, I had tea with my two new roommates and just talked in general about different things to do in Berlin. They want to take me out to the bars, introduce me to their friends, go to the movies with me, and show me around Berlin. That's really a great thing because I was getting a little bit tired of not having any German friends in Berlin (it gets kinda lonely after a while...) The other great thing about living here is that I get to speak a LOT more German. Conversations can take whole new twists when half the things you say have to be defined... I think it's really exciting and I think my language skills will improve a lot from living here. Tonight, we all had dinner together. The two girls cooked turkey with rice and fruit and I did the dishes. All of the work that needs to be done in the apartment like cleaning, vacuuming and taking the garbage out, is divvied up between us. They even have a little clock schedule that shows you what task you have to do for the week. Living here is a little like being back at Phi Psi minus the huge parties and the floors that stick to your feet. Here's a picture of my new room. It looks pretty much like the old one, but it has pictures on the wall and books on the shelves giving it a much more homey feel...