Our Street

Anywhoo, we live in a spacious and quite nice apartment on a quiet street in the neighborhood of Friedrichshain.

It's not so quiet when the local crazy woman wanders down the street yelling at buildings. Sometimes, she is up and about pretty early and I have to wonder about her schedule. In any case, she is well known here and tolerated. She even sits down outside the local bakery, has a coffee, then starts yelling again. It lasts only about 5 minutes, and then she moves on to the next street. She seems to really hate the building on our corner. Our children see this often and seem to take it in stride. In fact, I'm pretty sure Hannes agrees with her.

Welcome and Introduction

Good afternoon.

As you may know, our family is in Berlin for a year. Actually, I haven't shut up about it for 2 months, so I'm sure you know. Since I have received so many requests to share my impressions of city life, I thought I'd pen these meandering notes. There's no "general concept" if you will, or "theme", or even "coherence" - just a quick list of my thoughts on the past several weeks.

Some of it is fictional. 

First I'd like you to know I've been changing this city smile by smile with my own brand of MN Nice. That's right: the famous Berliner Schnauze is losing it's edge thanks to my own brand of common civility. If an exchange with the shop owner down the street leads to screaming for exact change, I simply smile, bow, and say "Thank you, Ma'am". I give her a good grin and take my items. This usually leads to more screaming.

Even if we didn't understand each other, I am confident that in the evening when she thinks about her day, she'll recollect our encounter and examine her behavior. "Maybe I shouldn't have yelled at that nice man," she'll say. "He didn't deserve it. Maybe I'll make an effort to be nicer to people who, because of language barriers or just plain idiocy, leave my store without paying the full amount."

From person to person, day to day, you CAN change a whole city.