Until the end of last week, the photo above was the view from my living room. Beautiful, in a very Berlin way. You can’t hear it, though. You can’t see what it will become in six months time. You don’t remember the fox that lived in the old school building that used to be there a year ago.
When I came to Berlin two and a half years ago I thought I’d blog a lot. Berlin had been a favourite city for years. I wanted to say so much. But I didn’t. Life got in the way. Earning a living (much, much harder than I’d expected) and learning a language (I still speak German that sounds more like Dutch) and, well, other things. I feel like I lost touch. Where are you city? What did you mean to me? Why can’t I remember you? Does it matter?
It’s so strange, I’m sending out pitch letters to film producers at the moment talking about the distinctive vision a director has when they first live in a city (and no, I shouldn’t be contradicting myself in public, but I am) and I’m actually wondering what on earth that is. Berlin feels both less alien to me and less familiar, probably because I’ve actually encountered its difference on a daily basis for the last couple of years rather than holding an image of it in my head. I have so little to latch on to. My attempts to learn the language on a deeper level than Dutch haven’t been very successful. I can communicate. I could do that quite quickly, but just as I found with Dutch, my vocabulary limits itself to what I need. Yesterday, I was dealing with plumbers but I’ve already forgotten the verb ‘to drain’ because I don’t need it today. I don’t seem to be able to do anything about this tendency to forget. My Berlin has become a jumble of necessities, relating to school, money and administration (bureaucracy, bureaucracy, bureaucracy – it could be a well-ordered German poem). I came across the word ‘ulkig’ this week and it’s stuck in my head because I like the sound of it, but I can’t remember for the life of me what it means, so a nice sound is what it will remain. If life in Berlin has a pattern it’s a very confused one. So much for my director’s vision…
So, this blog is a way to step back. A way to ask myself where I am. I used to be able to send my daughter to school by standing on the balcony and waving to her. As of this week, we take the U-Bahn. We’re still close enough for me to walk home. Today I took some photos on the way. This is Berlin.
bubblesfromberlin 
To a lesser degree, I had the same problem. Learnt German at school, then forgot it. Learnt Dutch for work and had to unlearn the German and now my German, dodgy to start with, is full of Dutch words and throaty ‘G’s. My mind blew up at Portuguese. I’ve given up on trying to memorise vocabulary. I pick up my Oxford Duden pictorial dictionaries, find the appropriate picture and go from there.
Never been to Berlin but I want to go. As a photographer, I’ve always pictured it in my mind as a place in black and white rather than colour. I think I saw too many U2 videos in the early 90s. It would be interesting to see what it’s really like.
Yes, in black and white. I think Wings of Desire is responsible for that in my case. Watched it again recently and still loved it, but loved completely different bits to when I first saw it. Was so chuffed when I recognised the bridge in the opening sequence. I think I find the languages thing really frustrating because I spend so much time writing and really want my German to be good because I love language, but I spend so much time wrestling with my mother tongue (all alone at my computer) that the social contact I need in German never really quite materialises.
Never been to Berlin and would still love to. One day. (And I think ulkig means funny.)
Think you’re right about ulkig. My favourite word in Dutch was belachelijk – which means ridiculous. It just has such a good way of rolling off the tongue.
Berlin is definitely worth a visit.
Lovely site and evocative photos, I haven’t been here before, what a gem.