In the end, it came down to this: with a thousand euros snarled in PayPal, with another needed check not arriving, and with the conservatism of French landlords requiring that I not use an agency, it was up to the Landlord of Last Resort. This is a guy who moves around the expat bars of Montpellier offering places on a month-to-month basis. No lease, no protection from his whims, no security whatever, but...a place to live. I'd heard various unpleasant things about him, but I talked with several of the folks at the Vert Anglais and they convinced me it was worth a shot. The complex politics of a small town's expat community, though, made it impossible to get his number directly from the one person everyone knew would have it (the explanation is rather tedious, but essentially the guys who'd once worked for the guy with the number had had enough and had bought the VA, thereby angering him, and if it became known I was with them, he might make things difficult), but a few text messages and, on Saturday morning, I gave him a call.
Nervous as I was about talking French -- and understanding his locally-accented variety of it -- we did manage to communicate and it turned out that he didn't, in fact, have anything but a very small studio at the moment. Thus evaporated my last chance at getting something on this trip.
So where does this leave me now? I'm savvier about using online sources. For the most part, the e-mail alerts and web-pages I've looked at -- classifieds, et. al. -- are useless. Besides the bait-and-switch places, people who post apartments on them don't often understand what they're writing, so you have to plow through dozens of ads every day that aren't for what they say they are. Also, it's useless to book a hotel online, because, as my first night proved, they lie about how close to town they are. A little knowledge of the area helps filter that, but my second hotel wasn't much better than the first, in the end, and had an out-of-control air-conditioner blowing straight onto the bed, which made sleep difficult.
But there were other, intangible aspects to the trip which were very heartening. For one thing, the group which gathers for "l' heure apéro" at the Vert Anglais are fine, friendly folk. Just sitting talking with them made me happy I'd chosen Montpellier: sharing stories, opinions, and so on with them was enjoyable and reinforced the lazy rhythm at which things happen there. Several of them have now said -- and I believe them -- that they'll keep their ears open and let me know as soon as possible when something opens up. I've committed myself to being there 48 hours after getting at least one positive report. And, since this group of expats inhabits a different time-frame than the students, to whom I'd been hitching my own hopes, a vacancy might not come before the students get back in September.
Somewhere, I realized, there'd be someone who was growing unhappy with their place. Maybe a new child was on the way, a better job with a transfer to another city, a couple splitting apart, or just a chance to get a bigger or smaller place that was more suitable. I had dinner with friends in an apartment which, for square footage and price, would be ideal, and there are other apartments in their building -- all, at the moment, occupied, but they're there.
So I'm hoping I don't fade from memory and that these folks will remember to get in touch via the miracle of e-mail, but I have to get some stuff together on my end, too.
This latest fishing trip cost me more than I'd have liked and dipped into my war chest to an unacceptable degree. My first priority now is to raise some more money. Not a lot, but more. I have to have a minimum of €1800 ready to give a landlord. I also have to have enough to get back down there when the moment comes; Montpellier isn't exactly around the corner. At the moment, I don't have this (not that I'm ready for another 14-hour train-ride tomorrow morning, of course). So I have to get some work on this end to re-stock the war chest.
Sadly, the group I was supposed to see and write about were in Montpellier for three days, but, although I'd tried to set things up with their management a month in advance, there was no communication until the day I left and although I tried, I was unable to contact them. This is a drag, since the fee from that article was very much a part of my plans. In over 40 years of writing about musicians, I have to say, I've almost never had anything like this happen. I'm very disappointed.
So I'm back in Berlin for the forseeable future, looking hard for work, trying to think of what I can do to raise money. (If I could also simultaneously raise the dollar-to-euro rate, boy, I'd do that too: one night, one of the folks I was dining with told me that in fact there was no informal cap on that rate, as I reported here earlier. I'm not sure he's a reliable source, although he does seem to work in the financial arena in some way, but that was chilling to hear).
I now realize more strongly than ever that I'm not going to be in Berlin forever. I've bumped into a couple of stories down there I want to report, and I'm sure there are more: I was so focussed on finding a place that I wasn't looking too hard. And although I came up empty on this trip, I'm more convinced than ever that a change of scene is essential for my making a professional breakthrough, and that this is the place where it'll happen. The dying dollar and the implosion of the writing trade are working against me, but I'm more determined than ever to make this happen.
Next up, posts on art and food. And fussy types will note that I've gotten the chapter numbers changed so they actually make sense. Back soon with more.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The Emigrant's Dilemma, Chapter 10: The Week of (Almost) Giving Up
I don't believe in omens, do you? Or, phrased differently, should I?
Sunday, everything was looking good for getting the move together. I printed out my latest U.S. bank statement, and had gathered together my German ones, all ready for my copy machine. These, along with some letters from people who use my work, would comprise the dossier that French landlords require. I had several leads saved in my accounts at various online apartment-search engines in France. I laid the first two sheets of the bank statements on the machine, pressed the button and...scan failure. It spat out an incomprehensible piece of paper with specks of grey on it. I rebooted the machine. It happened again. I took a deep breath, and told myself there'd be copy-shops in Montpellier.
Monday, as all days with 14-hour train rides tend to be, was uneventful. I called my friends from the Montpellier station and they were on their way to see the fireworks for Bastille Day. I told them I'd check in at my hotel and join them. I then went to the tram-stop and got on the tram.
Thirty minutes later, the tram stopped at its last stop. My hotel was further down the road. I grabbed my luggage and walked down a desolate highway. Finally the lights of the hotel heaved into view. There would, it developed, be no more trams back into town. I was Out There. So I called my friends, expressed regrets, and read til it was time for bed.
The next morning, I realized that this hotel was too far out of town to be practical. It wasn't just in a suburb (Castelnau-le-Lez, if you're keeping score) but in a suburb of a suburb. I booked a room at a suite hotel, cheap, that seemed to be in town, packed my bags, and checked out. The guy at the desk sighed as I told him I liked the place fine (sort of a lie) but I had business in the centre ville and couldn't conduct it from this far out.
Not knowing exactly where my new place was, I took the tram back to the train station and grabbed a taxi. Ten euros later, I was at my new place, which was also not exactly central. There was, however, a bus stop right in front of the place, and another across the street which would get me back into town. But the first thing to do would be to get my in-room internet going and cruise the classifieds. This didn't prove to be easy. There was no cable in the room, as there usually is. The front desk explained that they sold the cables -- the employees themselves -- to raise a little extra money. How French!
But once I'd bought one, it still didn't work. I jacked around with the computer for several hours, then took it down to the lounge where there was free wi-fi. Not exactly to my surprise, there were no new listings the day after a national holiday. It was getting on towards six, so I decided to chuck it all and head into town to meet the crew at the Vert Anglais. One of them, Andy, is an IT specialist, and might have a clue what was wrong with my hookup.
There was an additional complication. As usual, I wanted access to a large amount of cash in order to be able to just nail a place if I found one. I had around 1200 euros' worth of dollars in my bank account, and was expecting more. But since I couldn't be certain it'd get there on time, I asked a friend who'd offered financial assistance if I were in need to loan me another thousand euros' worth of dollars, less than I was expecting, but enough to cover any eventuality. He agreed, and then did something that turned out to be disastrous: he used PayPal.
One of the last e-mails I saw before heading into town was that my PayPal account had been suspended pending investigation of my circumstances to allay suspicions that I was money laundering. One of the pieces of evidence they needed was a faxed document showing my address -- a recent utility bill would do. Well, I have recent utility bills, although no fax machine, but they were all back in Berlin.
In town, the crew was gathered around the usual table at the Bar Vert Anglais. I went in to say hi to the bartender, and told him in passing that I'd discovered that the bus that served my hotel stopped running at 8. "Welcome to France," he said, "where nothing works." I took my drink (Suze and tonic -- I'll write about my discovery of this magic fluid later) and sat down at the table. I mentioned my computer troubles to Andy, who basically said "it could be anything," which turned out to be true, as we'll see. As for PayPal Bart told me he does all his billing through PayPal and that he's never had trouble with multiple thousands, so I should just call their number in the States and I'd be surprised how helpful they were.
This left the big problem: no apartments. Unlike a couple of weeks ago, nobody knew of anything. This was not heartening. Of course, the places people did know about last time didn't pan out at all, so it was about even. I decided to treat myself to a nice welcome-to-Montpellier dinner at one of the cheap restaurants I liked (the Bistrot d'Alco, to be exact), only to discover that it was closed for vacation. Oh, yeah. Welcome to France, where they take the summer off.
I rationalized the ten-euro taxi ride back to the hotel by reminding myself that I'd gone across the huge traffic-circle on which my hotel sits to an equally huge supermarket, Champion, and bought breakfast supplies for another ten euros. This would be enough to last me my entire stay, and since breakfast here is twelve euros, and had been ten at the last place, I was just spending the breakfast money on the taxi.
Yesterday, I woke up to the news that the dollar had crashed. Badly. It had exceeded the $1.60/euro cap the European Central Bank had agreed to maintain. I called PayPal to learn that it opened at 6am, Central time, 1pm my time. So I passed the time trying to get my computer to work. And, mirabilie dictu, I did! How, I don't know (Andy's comment, later: "Sometimes the guys who scream at you to get it back up don't realize that things just happen"). But now I have internet in my room.
I got through to PayPal, and as Bart had said, they were extremely helpful. Well, up to a point: I still had to fax that bill to them. And that bill was still on my desk in Berlin. There was more bad news, too: "If I could just push a button and clear this up," the guy said -- noting that he of course couldn't -- "that money won't clear until Friday, and then if you went to transfer it to your bank in the States, that wouldn't clear until Tuesday." And I leave here on Monday.
And there were still no leads to apartments.
(I should amend this by saying there were a few leads through agencies, but I'm trying to avoid them, not only because of their fees, but because they want extra assurance of financial stability which I can't give them, like a year's rent in escrow).
So, feeling discouraged, I took the bus into town, figuring I'd go have lunch at the Vert Anglais. I managed to get there ten minutes after the kitchen closed. I grabbed something around the corner and called Bart to see if he was able to go see the photography exhibit at the Pavillion Populaire, which is showing 240 Weegee photos -- right up his alley -- but a client was hanging him up. Oh, well, I'd go alone. (I've got a lot to say about this show, which is as revelatory about French attitudes to America as it is about Weegee, but I'll save that for later).
Finally, I showed up at the Vert Anglais again. Here it was, Wednesday, and I hadn't accompished a thing. Nor, unless something changed, would I. I'd already spent 400 euros on a train ticket and another 400 on the hotel (which made me pay in advance). Maybe I should give up and...wait another year? No. I can't do that.
But...what should I do? I've got four more days here, one of which, Sunday, is useless. The band I was going to write about hasn't been in touch, and I have no idea how to contact them. That'll cost me $500 for the article, which I was rather counting on. (So much for trying to arrange something a month in advance).
I also realized something else: I'm terrified of making phone calls in French. (I'm terrified of making them in German, for that matter). If I reveal myself as a stuttering, barely-intelligible foreigner, moreover one without the financial resources of a regular job, who'll rent to me? Maybe I should give up.
But I'm not going to. I have a very tenuous lead which I'm going to pursue today after writing out a script which I hope will make sense to the landlord I have to call about an unfinished apartment that is likely to become available soon. Bart and his girlfriend Chris and I have also floated the idea of a two-month apartment exchange, since I feel okay about them living in my place in Berlin, but that might not come off, either. And I haven't checked the listings today.
Probably I should give up, but I'm not going to. Yet.
Sunday, everything was looking good for getting the move together. I printed out my latest U.S. bank statement, and had gathered together my German ones, all ready for my copy machine. These, along with some letters from people who use my work, would comprise the dossier that French landlords require. I had several leads saved in my accounts at various online apartment-search engines in France. I laid the first two sheets of the bank statements on the machine, pressed the button and...scan failure. It spat out an incomprehensible piece of paper with specks of grey on it. I rebooted the machine. It happened again. I took a deep breath, and told myself there'd be copy-shops in Montpellier.
Monday, as all days with 14-hour train rides tend to be, was uneventful. I called my friends from the Montpellier station and they were on their way to see the fireworks for Bastille Day. I told them I'd check in at my hotel and join them. I then went to the tram-stop and got on the tram.
Thirty minutes later, the tram stopped at its last stop. My hotel was further down the road. I grabbed my luggage and walked down a desolate highway. Finally the lights of the hotel heaved into view. There would, it developed, be no more trams back into town. I was Out There. So I called my friends, expressed regrets, and read til it was time for bed.
The next morning, I realized that this hotel was too far out of town to be practical. It wasn't just in a suburb (Castelnau-le-Lez, if you're keeping score) but in a suburb of a suburb. I booked a room at a suite hotel, cheap, that seemed to be in town, packed my bags, and checked out. The guy at the desk sighed as I told him I liked the place fine (sort of a lie) but I had business in the centre ville and couldn't conduct it from this far out.
Not knowing exactly where my new place was, I took the tram back to the train station and grabbed a taxi. Ten euros later, I was at my new place, which was also not exactly central. There was, however, a bus stop right in front of the place, and another across the street which would get me back into town. But the first thing to do would be to get my in-room internet going and cruise the classifieds. This didn't prove to be easy. There was no cable in the room, as there usually is. The front desk explained that they sold the cables -- the employees themselves -- to raise a little extra money. How French!
But once I'd bought one, it still didn't work. I jacked around with the computer for several hours, then took it down to the lounge where there was free wi-fi. Not exactly to my surprise, there were no new listings the day after a national holiday. It was getting on towards six, so I decided to chuck it all and head into town to meet the crew at the Vert Anglais. One of them, Andy, is an IT specialist, and might have a clue what was wrong with my hookup.
There was an additional complication. As usual, I wanted access to a large amount of cash in order to be able to just nail a place if I found one. I had around 1200 euros' worth of dollars in my bank account, and was expecting more. But since I couldn't be certain it'd get there on time, I asked a friend who'd offered financial assistance if I were in need to loan me another thousand euros' worth of dollars, less than I was expecting, but enough to cover any eventuality. He agreed, and then did something that turned out to be disastrous: he used PayPal.
One of the last e-mails I saw before heading into town was that my PayPal account had been suspended pending investigation of my circumstances to allay suspicions that I was money laundering. One of the pieces of evidence they needed was a faxed document showing my address -- a recent utility bill would do. Well, I have recent utility bills, although no fax machine, but they were all back in Berlin.
In town, the crew was gathered around the usual table at the Bar Vert Anglais. I went in to say hi to the bartender, and told him in passing that I'd discovered that the bus that served my hotel stopped running at 8. "Welcome to France," he said, "where nothing works." I took my drink (Suze and tonic -- I'll write about my discovery of this magic fluid later) and sat down at the table. I mentioned my computer troubles to Andy, who basically said "it could be anything," which turned out to be true, as we'll see. As for PayPal Bart told me he does all his billing through PayPal and that he's never had trouble with multiple thousands, so I should just call their number in the States and I'd be surprised how helpful they were.
This left the big problem: no apartments. Unlike a couple of weeks ago, nobody knew of anything. This was not heartening. Of course, the places people did know about last time didn't pan out at all, so it was about even. I decided to treat myself to a nice welcome-to-Montpellier dinner at one of the cheap restaurants I liked (the Bistrot d'Alco, to be exact), only to discover that it was closed for vacation. Oh, yeah. Welcome to France, where they take the summer off.
I rationalized the ten-euro taxi ride back to the hotel by reminding myself that I'd gone across the huge traffic-circle on which my hotel sits to an equally huge supermarket, Champion, and bought breakfast supplies for another ten euros. This would be enough to last me my entire stay, and since breakfast here is twelve euros, and had been ten at the last place, I was just spending the breakfast money on the taxi.
Yesterday, I woke up to the news that the dollar had crashed. Badly. It had exceeded the $1.60/euro cap the European Central Bank had agreed to maintain. I called PayPal to learn that it opened at 6am, Central time, 1pm my time. So I passed the time trying to get my computer to work. And, mirabilie dictu, I did! How, I don't know (Andy's comment, later: "Sometimes the guys who scream at you to get it back up don't realize that things just happen"). But now I have internet in my room.
I got through to PayPal, and as Bart had said, they were extremely helpful. Well, up to a point: I still had to fax that bill to them. And that bill was still on my desk in Berlin. There was more bad news, too: "If I could just push a button and clear this up," the guy said -- noting that he of course couldn't -- "that money won't clear until Friday, and then if you went to transfer it to your bank in the States, that wouldn't clear until Tuesday." And I leave here on Monday.
And there were still no leads to apartments.
(I should amend this by saying there were a few leads through agencies, but I'm trying to avoid them, not only because of their fees, but because they want extra assurance of financial stability which I can't give them, like a year's rent in escrow).
So, feeling discouraged, I took the bus into town, figuring I'd go have lunch at the Vert Anglais. I managed to get there ten minutes after the kitchen closed. I grabbed something around the corner and called Bart to see if he was able to go see the photography exhibit at the Pavillion Populaire, which is showing 240 Weegee photos -- right up his alley -- but a client was hanging him up. Oh, well, I'd go alone. (I've got a lot to say about this show, which is as revelatory about French attitudes to America as it is about Weegee, but I'll save that for later).
Finally, I showed up at the Vert Anglais again. Here it was, Wednesday, and I hadn't accompished a thing. Nor, unless something changed, would I. I'd already spent 400 euros on a train ticket and another 400 on the hotel (which made me pay in advance). Maybe I should give up and...wait another year? No. I can't do that.
But...what should I do? I've got four more days here, one of which, Sunday, is useless. The band I was going to write about hasn't been in touch, and I have no idea how to contact them. That'll cost me $500 for the article, which I was rather counting on. (So much for trying to arrange something a month in advance).
I also realized something else: I'm terrified of making phone calls in French. (I'm terrified of making them in German, for that matter). If I reveal myself as a stuttering, barely-intelligible foreigner, moreover one without the financial resources of a regular job, who'll rent to me? Maybe I should give up.
But I'm not going to. I have a very tenuous lead which I'm going to pursue today after writing out a script which I hope will make sense to the landlord I have to call about an unfinished apartment that is likely to become available soon. Bart and his girlfriend Chris and I have also floated the idea of a two-month apartment exchange, since I feel okay about them living in my place in Berlin, but that might not come off, either. And I haven't checked the listings today.
Probably I should give up, but I'm not going to. Yet.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
The Emigrant's Dilemma, Chapter 9: Once More Into The Breach
Monday is July 14, and, as you all no doubt know, is Bastille Day, the French version of the 4th of July. I once spent an extraordinary Bastille Day with an old friend from Alaska in Paris, where we sipped champagne on the balcony of my friend Gérard's top-floor flat on a high-rise on Télégraphe. There were fireworks, and the Alaskan, an elementary school teacher, learned the words for numerous colors from a 4-year-old girl as the bombs went off.
You couldn't see Montpellier from there, but nearly, and I expect to spend this Bastille Day watching fireworks in Montpellier along with some folks I know. I'm leaving Berlin in the morning and doing that long train-ride again, although whether I'll walk once again from the Gare d'Est to the Gare de Lyon with M. Patois, a friend from Oakland I hadn't seen in 30-some years is in question: apparently he has an invitation from some female soldiers to ride in a tank with them, an invitation he's extended to me, but...next year.
This year I'm still on a mission. Short of winning the lottery, this is the last trip I can afford to make down there, and a solution must be found. This time, I'm going armed with bank statements and letters from important media outlets, my best clothing ironed sharply, and a very positive attitude.
I'll be there a week, although if it makes economic sense to abort the mission and buy another train ticket back earlier if I find something in time, I will. Money has gotten short, and although there's some coming in, I need to conserve as much as possible in the face of a rapidly declining dollar, which fell three cents against the Euro yesterday. That, and the rising price of gas, are going to have an impact on the last section of this drama, the transcontinental moving-van.
The last trip was, in the end, an expensive learning process. This one, I hope, will just be expensive. Oh, and productive.
Wish me luck. Play the lottery and send me a fraction of your winnings. Go to the Vatican website and find out who the patron saint of Montpellier landlords is and offer him or her a burnt offering. Hey, this time it's war. And I intend to win.
You couldn't see Montpellier from there, but nearly, and I expect to spend this Bastille Day watching fireworks in Montpellier along with some folks I know. I'm leaving Berlin in the morning and doing that long train-ride again, although whether I'll walk once again from the Gare d'Est to the Gare de Lyon with M. Patois, a friend from Oakland I hadn't seen in 30-some years is in question: apparently he has an invitation from some female soldiers to ride in a tank with them, an invitation he's extended to me, but...next year.
This year I'm still on a mission. Short of winning the lottery, this is the last trip I can afford to make down there, and a solution must be found. This time, I'm going armed with bank statements and letters from important media outlets, my best clothing ironed sharply, and a very positive attitude.
I'll be there a week, although if it makes economic sense to abort the mission and buy another train ticket back earlier if I find something in time, I will. Money has gotten short, and although there's some coming in, I need to conserve as much as possible in the face of a rapidly declining dollar, which fell three cents against the Euro yesterday. That, and the rising price of gas, are going to have an impact on the last section of this drama, the transcontinental moving-van.
The last trip was, in the end, an expensive learning process. This one, I hope, will just be expensive. Oh, and productive.
Wish me luck. Play the lottery and send me a fraction of your winnings. Go to the Vatican website and find out who the patron saint of Montpellier landlords is and offer him or her a burnt offering. Hey, this time it's war. And I intend to win.
Monday, July 07, 2008
A Night At The Elevator
Or, rather, half a night.
Readers who've been with me a couple of years know about Blaise Lawless, the painter with the best name in art, who lived here for a couple of years before giving up on Berlin and moving back to his home town, Boise, Idaho. While he was here his brother came to visit, and I gave him my Famous Walking Tour of the city. Earlier this year, that same brother contacted me about helping him out on a television series he was developing for cable, which is an ongoing project.
Anyway, earlier this week, he contacted me because an old friend from Boise was going to be performing here last night, and arranged for me to have a couple of tickets. I'd never heard of this guy, Curtis Stigers, which just shows how out of touch I've been. Turns out the guy's sold millions of records, and made the great Nick Lowe wealthy by the inclusion of his version of Nick's song "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding" on the soundtrack of The Bodyguard, which sold 17 million copies thanks to its star, Whitney Houston, butchering Dolly Parton.
Stigers was going to be a guest on a show which, I have to admit, didn't look like it was going to be much fun: an open-air "classics" show starring Till Brönner, Germany's latest gift to jazz lite. Also appearing would be a symphony orchestra from Rostock, Thomas Quasthoff and various others. On the one hand, I thought, it was dire. On the other, this Stigers guy sounded interesting -- the sound bites on his website weren't too bad -- and anyway, it was a free concert outdoors in the Gendarmenmarkt on what would likely be a nice Sunday evening. Now...who would be interested in going to such a thing?
Why, the Dancer, of course! I hadn't seen her in ages, and I knew she'd gone to a Quasthoff recital of Schubert lieder, so maybe this would be up her alley. And so it proved to be. We made plans to meet at the boxoffice where the freebies were, I exchanged a couple of e-mails with Stigers, and that was that.
Once we found the right line, getting in was a breeze, but the box office wasn't a model of German efficiency (or, rather, it was). Our seats were in the back, raised up on bleachers, with the steps of the Konzerthaus forming the stage on which the orchestra would sit. To the right, the Till Brönner Band, augmented by some studio musicians, were seated. Around the edges stood VIP pavillions for the guests of the sponsors: Opel, Radeberger Beer, the Berliner Morgenpost, Wall advertising.
Initially, it was as grim as I'd figured: after an introduction by an MC who appeared to have a piece of dead sheep on his head, the orchestra came on and played a medley of tunes -- elevator music. Then an obsequious young man came on and babbled about what a wonderful evening we were about to have, how happy he was that all these special guests were here -- wait a minute! Was this Till Brönner himself? Yup, it was. -- and then called up the first guests, the New York Voices, one of those vocal ensembles who allow people to think that what they perform is jazz because they hit weird chords from time to time -- with, it must be granted, extreme accuracy, and equally extreme irrelevance.
It got a little better, when, after an almost interminable introduction by Brönner, a little man named Paul Kuhn sat down at the piano and knocked out a good version of "Route 66" marred only by Brönner's trumpet-playing. Kuhn is 80, and a Berlin legend, although despite my five years at Jazz Radio, I'd never heard of him before. As for Brönner's soloing, it was a bunch of completely unoriginal ideas, performed virtuosically, as if the notes had been approved by some German Jazz Academy.
Then it was Stigers' turn. He came out wearing a tenor sax, which worried me, since singers and sax players tend not to inhabit he same body (well, except when it's Louis Jordan's), and, further worrying, was announced as performing a song by Tom Waits, not one of my favorite performers, to put it mildly. The song was slight, but Stigers has a superb voice, more suited to what I consider pop than what I consider jazz, perhaps, but capable of delivering this trifle with conviction and warmth. In the middle he took up the sax and blew a perfectly credible solo for a chorus, then sang the song out, ending with a short coda on the sax.
Next came a stubby little black guy who apparently lives here, whose name sounded like -- but couldn't have been -- Frank McCunt. He played a sentimental Donny Hathaway tune, "Ghetto Boy," accompanying himself on a Fender Rhodes, with lots of style but no particular content other than sugar. Then out came Quasthoff, who sat down (he's a thalidomide baby, which stunted his arms and legs, but oh boy not his voice) and first gave us "There's a Boat Leavin' Soon For New York" from Porgy and Bess, and then some piece of pop crap which showed off his instrument but made one question his taste. Brönner, introducing him, said he'd wanted to put him on the program, but it was a jazz program, and Quasthoff had assured him "I know jazz." Sadly, not.
Even more sadly, the New York Voices trotted out again to wreak violence on "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard." Mr. Simon, your attorneys may contact me: this is defamation of character, and I was a witness. But it got worse: apparently the pianist was also an arranger who has worked with Herbert Grönemeyer, who, the Dancer informed me, is Germany's richest artist. I guess it makes sense if this was anything to go by: the song was pure treacle, the arrangement smothered any hint of melody, and the audience went nuts afterwards.
Stigers came back to close out the first half with a rather audacious move: a jazzy version of "That's All Right, Mama," which also included some scat singing, some more judicious tenor-playing, and, of course, some trumpet from Brönner.
The minute the musicians started leaving the stage, the audience spilled out to eat overpriced Bratwurst, drink overpriced Radeberger, and look at Opels. The Dancer and I sat there, looking at the people who'd scored vantage points on the French Cathedral and the luxury apartment house nearby (and the open windows at the Hilton), and we were both thinking the same thought: who pays €69 a ticket for stuff like this? Not jazz fans: this is hardly jazz. Not classical fans: a bad weekend in Berlin has more classical content than we'd seen so far. Who were these well-dressed people -- several thousand of them -- who were seated below and around us? Some were no doubt guests of Opel, Wall, Radeberger, and so on, but clearly the vast majority had paid to get in. And what does this say about culture in Berlin?
We were still musing on this when something whipped past my face -- a bat! Looking up to see if there were more (as a long-time Austin resident who knows that each bat eats twenty times its body weight in insects every day or it starves to death, I've long been a bat fan) I saw only swallows. She caught me looking. "Thunderstorm," she said. "When the swallows fly low, a thunderstorm happens in an hour." It was certainly humid enough...
So, I said, do you want to stay? "NO!" she thundered. "There is no groove happening here. Every time something gets going, Brönner comes on and yaps and yaps and breaks the flow. I really like Stigers -- I wish we could just see him, and I really wish we could go backstage -- but this program is annoying me." I was actually relieved. I, too, would like to see Stigers do what he does with his own band, so I can figure out what he's trying to do, what his approach to the odd but appealing repertoire he's working with is. But I could certainly do without the rest of it. I found most of the crowd stuffy and way too bourgeois for my taste, too. So we left. I gave my re-entry ticket and my main ticket to some guy who asked nicely (although he then said "But I need two!") and we walked up Charlottenstr. past the stage door, where the orchestra guys were out in force enjoying their cigarette break.
Then the Dancer did something I couldn't have predicted. She turned back and said to them, "Good music, but shitty concert." "Wait," one guy said, "it's only getting started." "I'm sorry," she said, "but there's no movement to this, no groove. It stops and starts."
I'll admit it: I was a little embarrassed. I know a lot of professional musicians, not famous people, but working stiffs of both genders, and I know that most of these guys -- from Rostock, no less, out in the sticks -- were probably enjoying a not-very-taxing gig playing pap, in exchange for getting to dress up, get paid well, and play in a pretty lovely setting. They weren't responsible for Brönner's blather, for the low quality of the charts they were reading, or for the headliners they were backing up. It was a gig!
Ah, well. It made her feel better, and I'll never see those guys again. I talked with Stigers later and thanked him, and yeah, I'll go see him if we're ever in the same town.
And fortunately, if all goes well, my next live music should be a couple of gigs by the Carolina Chocolate Drops. That, I'm sure I'll enjoy.
Readers who've been with me a couple of years know about Blaise Lawless, the painter with the best name in art, who lived here for a couple of years before giving up on Berlin and moving back to his home town, Boise, Idaho. While he was here his brother came to visit, and I gave him my Famous Walking Tour of the city. Earlier this year, that same brother contacted me about helping him out on a television series he was developing for cable, which is an ongoing project.
Anyway, earlier this week, he contacted me because an old friend from Boise was going to be performing here last night, and arranged for me to have a couple of tickets. I'd never heard of this guy, Curtis Stigers, which just shows how out of touch I've been. Turns out the guy's sold millions of records, and made the great Nick Lowe wealthy by the inclusion of his version of Nick's song "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding" on the soundtrack of The Bodyguard, which sold 17 million copies thanks to its star, Whitney Houston, butchering Dolly Parton.
Stigers was going to be a guest on a show which, I have to admit, didn't look like it was going to be much fun: an open-air "classics" show starring Till Brönner, Germany's latest gift to jazz lite. Also appearing would be a symphony orchestra from Rostock, Thomas Quasthoff and various others. On the one hand, I thought, it was dire. On the other, this Stigers guy sounded interesting -- the sound bites on his website weren't too bad -- and anyway, it was a free concert outdoors in the Gendarmenmarkt on what would likely be a nice Sunday evening. Now...who would be interested in going to such a thing?
Why, the Dancer, of course! I hadn't seen her in ages, and I knew she'd gone to a Quasthoff recital of Schubert lieder, so maybe this would be up her alley. And so it proved to be. We made plans to meet at the boxoffice where the freebies were, I exchanged a couple of e-mails with Stigers, and that was that.
Once we found the right line, getting in was a breeze, but the box office wasn't a model of German efficiency (or, rather, it was). Our seats were in the back, raised up on bleachers, with the steps of the Konzerthaus forming the stage on which the orchestra would sit. To the right, the Till Brönner Band, augmented by some studio musicians, were seated. Around the edges stood VIP pavillions for the guests of the sponsors: Opel, Radeberger Beer, the Berliner Morgenpost, Wall advertising.
Initially, it was as grim as I'd figured: after an introduction by an MC who appeared to have a piece of dead sheep on his head, the orchestra came on and played a medley of tunes -- elevator music. Then an obsequious young man came on and babbled about what a wonderful evening we were about to have, how happy he was that all these special guests were here -- wait a minute! Was this Till Brönner himself? Yup, it was. -- and then called up the first guests, the New York Voices, one of those vocal ensembles who allow people to think that what they perform is jazz because they hit weird chords from time to time -- with, it must be granted, extreme accuracy, and equally extreme irrelevance.
It got a little better, when, after an almost interminable introduction by Brönner, a little man named Paul Kuhn sat down at the piano and knocked out a good version of "Route 66" marred only by Brönner's trumpet-playing. Kuhn is 80, and a Berlin legend, although despite my five years at Jazz Radio, I'd never heard of him before. As for Brönner's soloing, it was a bunch of completely unoriginal ideas, performed virtuosically, as if the notes had been approved by some German Jazz Academy.
Then it was Stigers' turn. He came out wearing a tenor sax, which worried me, since singers and sax players tend not to inhabit he same body (well, except when it's Louis Jordan's), and, further worrying, was announced as performing a song by Tom Waits, not one of my favorite performers, to put it mildly. The song was slight, but Stigers has a superb voice, more suited to what I consider pop than what I consider jazz, perhaps, but capable of delivering this trifle with conviction and warmth. In the middle he took up the sax and blew a perfectly credible solo for a chorus, then sang the song out, ending with a short coda on the sax.
Next came a stubby little black guy who apparently lives here, whose name sounded like -- but couldn't have been -- Frank McCunt. He played a sentimental Donny Hathaway tune, "Ghetto Boy," accompanying himself on a Fender Rhodes, with lots of style but no particular content other than sugar. Then out came Quasthoff, who sat down (he's a thalidomide baby, which stunted his arms and legs, but oh boy not his voice) and first gave us "There's a Boat Leavin' Soon For New York" from Porgy and Bess, and then some piece of pop crap which showed off his instrument but made one question his taste. Brönner, introducing him, said he'd wanted to put him on the program, but it was a jazz program, and Quasthoff had assured him "I know jazz." Sadly, not.
Even more sadly, the New York Voices trotted out again to wreak violence on "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard." Mr. Simon, your attorneys may contact me: this is defamation of character, and I was a witness. But it got worse: apparently the pianist was also an arranger who has worked with Herbert Grönemeyer, who, the Dancer informed me, is Germany's richest artist. I guess it makes sense if this was anything to go by: the song was pure treacle, the arrangement smothered any hint of melody, and the audience went nuts afterwards.
Stigers came back to close out the first half with a rather audacious move: a jazzy version of "That's All Right, Mama," which also included some scat singing, some more judicious tenor-playing, and, of course, some trumpet from Brönner.
The minute the musicians started leaving the stage, the audience spilled out to eat overpriced Bratwurst, drink overpriced Radeberger, and look at Opels. The Dancer and I sat there, looking at the people who'd scored vantage points on the French Cathedral and the luxury apartment house nearby (and the open windows at the Hilton), and we were both thinking the same thought: who pays €69 a ticket for stuff like this? Not jazz fans: this is hardly jazz. Not classical fans: a bad weekend in Berlin has more classical content than we'd seen so far. Who were these well-dressed people -- several thousand of them -- who were seated below and around us? Some were no doubt guests of Opel, Wall, Radeberger, and so on, but clearly the vast majority had paid to get in. And what does this say about culture in Berlin?
We were still musing on this when something whipped past my face -- a bat! Looking up to see if there were more (as a long-time Austin resident who knows that each bat eats twenty times its body weight in insects every day or it starves to death, I've long been a bat fan) I saw only swallows. She caught me looking. "Thunderstorm," she said. "When the swallows fly low, a thunderstorm happens in an hour." It was certainly humid enough...
So, I said, do you want to stay? "NO!" she thundered. "There is no groove happening here. Every time something gets going, Brönner comes on and yaps and yaps and breaks the flow. I really like Stigers -- I wish we could just see him, and I really wish we could go backstage -- but this program is annoying me." I was actually relieved. I, too, would like to see Stigers do what he does with his own band, so I can figure out what he's trying to do, what his approach to the odd but appealing repertoire he's working with is. But I could certainly do without the rest of it. I found most of the crowd stuffy and way too bourgeois for my taste, too. So we left. I gave my re-entry ticket and my main ticket to some guy who asked nicely (although he then said "But I need two!") and we walked up Charlottenstr. past the stage door, where the orchestra guys were out in force enjoying their cigarette break.
Then the Dancer did something I couldn't have predicted. She turned back and said to them, "Good music, but shitty concert." "Wait," one guy said, "it's only getting started." "I'm sorry," she said, "but there's no movement to this, no groove. It stops and starts."
I'll admit it: I was a little embarrassed. I know a lot of professional musicians, not famous people, but working stiffs of both genders, and I know that most of these guys -- from Rostock, no less, out in the sticks -- were probably enjoying a not-very-taxing gig playing pap, in exchange for getting to dress up, get paid well, and play in a pretty lovely setting. They weren't responsible for Brönner's blather, for the low quality of the charts they were reading, or for the headliners they were backing up. It was a gig!
Ah, well. It made her feel better, and I'll never see those guys again. I talked with Stigers later and thanked him, and yeah, I'll go see him if we're ever in the same town.
And fortunately, if all goes well, my next live music should be a couple of gigs by the Carolina Chocolate Drops. That, I'm sure I'll enjoy.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Status Report
In a few hours, I'll head down to Kopfbahnhof, that remarkable rail-only travel agency in Schöneberg, and pick up another Berlin-Montpellier-Berlin train ticket. I'll spend Bastille Day going from here to there, arriving in time to join some friends atop a parking garage to watch the fireworks. The next day, I'll get back to the work of finding a place to live.
This time I'll be better prepared: I'll have copies of my bank statements from both the U.S. and Berlin. I'll have sheafs of letters from people who've employed me over the last year, although, given the vagaries of freelancing, they'll probably be a bit ambiguous as to precise income figures.
What I don't have just at the moment is an ironclad plan, and that worries me. Some of it is just plain due to lack of information. There's been some talk of a place going empty at an unspecified time which would be absolutely ideal in terms of space, location, and price. But it's just that at the moment: talk. There's been at least one offer from one of the e-mail robot lists that sounds good, but whether it'll still be open when I get there -- not to mention whether my attempt to contact the landlord about my interest landed safely -- is far from certain. There may well be more of these, although the same uncertainties apply.
Another worry is money. I'm still okay on that, but I owe another month's rent here, and there's the ticket and the hotel, which, this time, is out in the 'burbs, albeit not very far from the center of town, where I need to be. I've got more coming in, and a story to do down there once I get there. But still...
Should I concentrate my energies on finding a furnished place to move into, and have to turn around and go back once I return from this trip? That will involve paying two rents, which eats away at the nest-egg I'm going to have to have to secure a permanent place with enough to worry me. Should I instead concentrate on finding that permanent place? That's the most economical solution, but the riskiest: what if, again, I don't find one? What if the landlord rejects me because I'm self-employed? One thing I tapped into on that last trip was a deep instiutional French insecurity about independence, something I hadn't counted on. I guess my model for finding a place in this university town was Austin, another university town. And, weather notwithstanding, it's not Austin. Nor is it Berlin, with lots of cheap places standing vacant most of the time.
And the thing is, there don't seem to be any hard and fast answers to this. I'm going to have to wing it, absent a miraculous shower of income-producing work in the next couple of weeks to assuage my worries. I'm still utterly certain I'm going to succeed somehow, but if I seem a bit tense these days, it's because so much is unknown. It's the nature of the "somehow" that's got me biting my nails.
Suggestions welcome.
This time I'll be better prepared: I'll have copies of my bank statements from both the U.S. and Berlin. I'll have sheafs of letters from people who've employed me over the last year, although, given the vagaries of freelancing, they'll probably be a bit ambiguous as to precise income figures.
What I don't have just at the moment is an ironclad plan, and that worries me. Some of it is just plain due to lack of information. There's been some talk of a place going empty at an unspecified time which would be absolutely ideal in terms of space, location, and price. But it's just that at the moment: talk. There's been at least one offer from one of the e-mail robot lists that sounds good, but whether it'll still be open when I get there -- not to mention whether my attempt to contact the landlord about my interest landed safely -- is far from certain. There may well be more of these, although the same uncertainties apply.
Another worry is money. I'm still okay on that, but I owe another month's rent here, and there's the ticket and the hotel, which, this time, is out in the 'burbs, albeit not very far from the center of town, where I need to be. I've got more coming in, and a story to do down there once I get there. But still...
Should I concentrate my energies on finding a furnished place to move into, and have to turn around and go back once I return from this trip? That will involve paying two rents, which eats away at the nest-egg I'm going to have to have to secure a permanent place with enough to worry me. Should I instead concentrate on finding that permanent place? That's the most economical solution, but the riskiest: what if, again, I don't find one? What if the landlord rejects me because I'm self-employed? One thing I tapped into on that last trip was a deep instiutional French insecurity about independence, something I hadn't counted on. I guess my model for finding a place in this university town was Austin, another university town. And, weather notwithstanding, it's not Austin. Nor is it Berlin, with lots of cheap places standing vacant most of the time.
And the thing is, there don't seem to be any hard and fast answers to this. I'm going to have to wing it, absent a miraculous shower of income-producing work in the next couple of weeks to assuage my worries. I'm still utterly certain I'm going to succeed somehow, but if I seem a bit tense these days, it's because so much is unknown. It's the nature of the "somehow" that's got me biting my nails.
Suggestions welcome.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The Emigrant At Table
So before I forget utterly what I ate in Montpellier, and so that you can grab some good grub next time you're down there, the obligatory post on food.
I got in real late, which was a shame, because restaurants close at about 10 down there, but I was lucky because the hotel offers light meals (with a surcharge if they're ordered after 10, of course), and the desk-clerk whipped me up a sautée of calamari and slices of Spanish chorizo deglazed with red wine. Not bad for ten euros -- plus 1.50 lateness charge.
The next day was spent running hither and yon, and I grabbed a sandwich from a place on lower St. Guilhelm called, believe it or not, Oh La La!!! (the three exclamation points were part of the name). I'd had great luck with chicken sandwiches -- had a great one from Crobag, of all places, in the Frankfurt train station -- and there was one that looked real good here. But only one, which the guy ahead of me claimed. The only remaining sandwich was tuna, which didn't excite me. But I'd forgotten I was in France: it wasn't the dry canned tuna, lettuce, and cucumber you'd get in Germany, stuffed into a gummy baguette. This was enlivened by real (ie, non-sweetened) mayonnaise, ripe juicy tomatoes and crisp lettuce. And this from a seedy sandwich stand with a silly name.
Dinner that night was at La Tomate, which I'd wanted to try last time. Andy recommended the fish soup, and it was sublime. This dish pulverizes the fish so small you really don't know what's in it, but I could tell a darkly smoky roux from my years of making gumbo, and as for the rest of it...who knows? An amazing balance of flavors, crisp croutons, and a peppery rouille made this the best version of this dish I've ever had. Too bad the rest of the meal sucked; the place is certainly affordable enough. But the steak was tough, the fries were frozen, and the green beans were cooked in beef broth -- a good idea -- for too long -- not such a good idea.
Wednesday's lunch was a salad on the Esplanade Charles de Gaulle. One great thing about summertime dining in France is the concept of the salade composée, which is a salad with, um, a whole lot of stuff in it. Perfect hot-weather food -- and it was hot. But you know, it's about ingredients. The thing sounded good when I ordered it, but...who knew saucisse chaud meant, not "warm sausage," but "hot dog"? And who wants bits of cold hot dogs in their salad? Or tiny cubes of tasteless cheese? Or that bane of German salads, canned corn? There are several places with big outdoor eating areas on the Esplanade, but because I set about forgetting this one as soon as I paid my bill, I can't warn you away from it. Sorry.
Dinner that night was at my old favorite, Bistrot d'Alco, behind the Préfecture, which is usually my first dinner stop. You can get a starter, a main course, and a half-bottle of well-chosen local wine (just look for the day's special) for €20, and although the hulk of the backside of the Préfecture isn't the most scenic thing to look at during dinner, you won't notice. This time I had a half Camembert with slices of apple laid on it, warmed up, on a bed of salad as a starter, and their great seiches avec persillade as a main course, along with a spicy, crackling Languedoc rosé. I love seiches, little cuttlefish with nearly spherical bodies, and cannot wait to start cooking with them.
Thursday lunch was business, and the food was undistinguished. Forget the name of the place, too, although I could take you right there. That night's dinner was another Andy recommendation, Le Vieux Four, over on the funky side of the hill. On the plus side, it's great to find a place that grills over a wood fire, and the meat is top-notch. On the down side, there really is an "old oven" in there and when it's still close to 90 outdoors, you don't want to eat indoors. I had no choice and it was hot. Also the hearts-and-flowers decor (not to mention the relentless hyping of mojitos -- dudes, that's been over around here for years) is a little too much.
Friday I was determined to get nothing but good stuff for my last day. I definitely wanted a salad for lunch again, so I went...to the Vert Anglais. Yup, the same bar where I hung out with the expats during the early evening. I remembered my trip a few summers ago, and getting a very good pasta salad there, and I figured that a) they could use the custom and b) it couldn't be any worse than on the Esplanade. Wrong on a) because of b): it was vastly superior to the other place. I got a good-sized glass of gazpacho set in the center of a gargantuan salad of mixed greens, dark, smoky strips of ham, and parmesan shavings -- all for a Euro less than the other place!
The roll continued at dinner. I'd heard about l'Escalier from Bart, Andy, and Bart's girlfriend Chris, who wasn't in town all week, and was determined to try it. Good call: a great salad to start, and a magnificent magret de canard with a sauce combining cassis and honey, accompanied by more green beans cooked in beef broth -- but done right -- and some undistinguished carrots, plus a real good red, all for €23. A great end to the trip.
La Tomate, 6, rue Four des Flammes, tel 04 67 60 49 38
Bistrot d'Alco, 4, rue Bonnier d'Alco, tel 04 67 63 12 89
Bar Vert Anglais, 3, place Castellane, tel 04 67 66 03 03
Restaurant L'Escalier 6, rue Jules Latreilhe, tel 04 67 60 51 86
I got in real late, which was a shame, because restaurants close at about 10 down there, but I was lucky because the hotel offers light meals (with a surcharge if they're ordered after 10, of course), and the desk-clerk whipped me up a sautée of calamari and slices of Spanish chorizo deglazed with red wine. Not bad for ten euros -- plus 1.50 lateness charge.
The next day was spent running hither and yon, and I grabbed a sandwich from a place on lower St. Guilhelm called, believe it or not, Oh La La!!! (the three exclamation points were part of the name). I'd had great luck with chicken sandwiches -- had a great one from Crobag, of all places, in the Frankfurt train station -- and there was one that looked real good here. But only one, which the guy ahead of me claimed. The only remaining sandwich was tuna, which didn't excite me. But I'd forgotten I was in France: it wasn't the dry canned tuna, lettuce, and cucumber you'd get in Germany, stuffed into a gummy baguette. This was enlivened by real (ie, non-sweetened) mayonnaise, ripe juicy tomatoes and crisp lettuce. And this from a seedy sandwich stand with a silly name.
Dinner that night was at La Tomate, which I'd wanted to try last time. Andy recommended the fish soup, and it was sublime. This dish pulverizes the fish so small you really don't know what's in it, but I could tell a darkly smoky roux from my years of making gumbo, and as for the rest of it...who knows? An amazing balance of flavors, crisp croutons, and a peppery rouille made this the best version of this dish I've ever had. Too bad the rest of the meal sucked; the place is certainly affordable enough. But the steak was tough, the fries were frozen, and the green beans were cooked in beef broth -- a good idea -- for too long -- not such a good idea.
Wednesday's lunch was a salad on the Esplanade Charles de Gaulle. One great thing about summertime dining in France is the concept of the salade composée, which is a salad with, um, a whole lot of stuff in it. Perfect hot-weather food -- and it was hot. But you know, it's about ingredients. The thing sounded good when I ordered it, but...who knew saucisse chaud meant, not "warm sausage," but "hot dog"? And who wants bits of cold hot dogs in their salad? Or tiny cubes of tasteless cheese? Or that bane of German salads, canned corn? There are several places with big outdoor eating areas on the Esplanade, but because I set about forgetting this one as soon as I paid my bill, I can't warn you away from it. Sorry.
Dinner that night was at my old favorite, Bistrot d'Alco, behind the Préfecture, which is usually my first dinner stop. You can get a starter, a main course, and a half-bottle of well-chosen local wine (just look for the day's special) for €20, and although the hulk of the backside of the Préfecture isn't the most scenic thing to look at during dinner, you won't notice. This time I had a half Camembert with slices of apple laid on it, warmed up, on a bed of salad as a starter, and their great seiches avec persillade as a main course, along with a spicy, crackling Languedoc rosé. I love seiches, little cuttlefish with nearly spherical bodies, and cannot wait to start cooking with them.
Thursday lunch was business, and the food was undistinguished. Forget the name of the place, too, although I could take you right there. That night's dinner was another Andy recommendation, Le Vieux Four, over on the funky side of the hill. On the plus side, it's great to find a place that grills over a wood fire, and the meat is top-notch. On the down side, there really is an "old oven" in there and when it's still close to 90 outdoors, you don't want to eat indoors. I had no choice and it was hot. Also the hearts-and-flowers decor (not to mention the relentless hyping of mojitos -- dudes, that's been over around here for years) is a little too much.
Friday I was determined to get nothing but good stuff for my last day. I definitely wanted a salad for lunch again, so I went...to the Vert Anglais. Yup, the same bar where I hung out with the expats during the early evening. I remembered my trip a few summers ago, and getting a very good pasta salad there, and I figured that a) they could use the custom and b) it couldn't be any worse than on the Esplanade. Wrong on a) because of b): it was vastly superior to the other place. I got a good-sized glass of gazpacho set in the center of a gargantuan salad of mixed greens, dark, smoky strips of ham, and parmesan shavings -- all for a Euro less than the other place!
The roll continued at dinner. I'd heard about l'Escalier from Bart, Andy, and Bart's girlfriend Chris, who wasn't in town all week, and was determined to try it. Good call: a great salad to start, and a magnificent magret de canard with a sauce combining cassis and honey, accompanied by more green beans cooked in beef broth -- but done right -- and some undistinguished carrots, plus a real good red, all for €23. A great end to the trip.
La Tomate, 6, rue Four des Flammes, tel 04 67 60 49 38
Bistrot d'Alco, 4, rue Bonnier d'Alco, tel 04 67 63 12 89
Bar Vert Anglais, 3, place Castellane, tel 04 67 66 03 03
Restaurant L'Escalier 6, rue Jules Latreilhe, tel 04 67 60 51 86
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Reported Without Comment
E-mail from the U.S. Embassy:
On Wednesday evening, June 25, Germany and Turkey will meet in the semifinal round of the 2008 European Football Championship in Basel, Switzerland. Various cities in Germany have set up viewing areas for the public to watch the live broadcast of this game. The "Fan Mile" in front of the Brandenberg Gate in Berlin is expected to draw up to 500,000 German and Turkish fans, Frankfurt am Main will host a public viewing area at the Rossmarkt, and Munich is setting up a large public viewing area at the Olympic Stadium where 30,000 fans are anticipated. Similar events are planned in other cities and spontaneous celebrations or demonstrations related to the match may occur throughout Germany.
Because of the high fan interest in this prestigious semi-final elimination game between Germany and Turkey, there exists the possibility that disturbances, including violent disturbances may occur before, during or after the match, which begins at 20:45. At a minimum, post-game celebrations will likely result in traffic congestion in larger cities. Crowds celebrating previous German and/or Turkish victories have blocked streets and rocked vehicles attempting to pass through them.
We remind American citizens in Germany that even mass gatherings and demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence. American citizens are therefore urged to avoid the areas of demonstrations if possible, and to exercise caution if within the vicinity of any demonstrations. American citizens should stay current with media coverage of local events and be aware of their surroundings at all times.
On Wednesday evening, June 25, Germany and Turkey will meet in the semifinal round of the 2008 European Football Championship in Basel, Switzerland. Various cities in Germany have set up viewing areas for the public to watch the live broadcast of this game. The "Fan Mile" in front of the Brandenberg Gate in Berlin is expected to draw up to 500,000 German and Turkish fans, Frankfurt am Main will host a public viewing area at the Rossmarkt, and Munich is setting up a large public viewing area at the Olympic Stadium where 30,000 fans are anticipated. Similar events are planned in other cities and spontaneous celebrations or demonstrations related to the match may occur throughout Germany.
Because of the high fan interest in this prestigious semi-final elimination game between Germany and Turkey, there exists the possibility that disturbances, including violent disturbances may occur before, during or after the match, which begins at 20:45. At a minimum, post-game celebrations will likely result in traffic congestion in larger cities. Crowds celebrating previous German and/or Turkish victories have blocked streets and rocked vehicles attempting to pass through them.
We remind American citizens in Germany that even mass gatherings and demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence. American citizens are therefore urged to avoid the areas of demonstrations if possible, and to exercise caution if within the vicinity of any demonstrations. American citizens should stay current with media coverage of local events and be aware of their surroundings at all times.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
The Emigrant At Rest
So on my last day in Montpellier, to quell the unpleasant feeling that I hadn't really accomplished anything when, in fact, I knew I'd accomplished a great deal even though I still didn't have an apartment in hand, I went for a walk over where I'd been the day before -- only this time I took my camera.
I am the world's worst photographer, not only in the quality of my output -- with the rise of ubiquitous digital photography, I'm even willing to cede the crown of worst creator of photographs to someone else -- but because I just never remember to pack a camera when I go to potentially picturesque places. Partially this is because I have a large, clunky, but superb Nikon which isn't as sleek and inconspicuous as one of those thin, silvery little things. But that's not really the excuse; I've done this for years, packed a camera and never, or almost never, used it.
But since Thursday I'd spent some time wandering around the hilly parts near the University and the Cathedral, I decided to go back and actually shoot something.
This shows the Cathedral (St. Pierre, for those of you keeping score) sort of framed by some other buildings, as seen from a small park where people were sitting in the very warm noonday sun.
This is one of those side-streets between the Cathedral, the law school, and the rue de l'Université, just naturally picturesque enough that it's a point-and-shoot situation.
Another one, or part of the same one, I can't remember.
One of the doors leading to one of the old houses in that neighborhood.
And the shutter-style air-conditioning they've used for centuries.
I should say, though, that romanticizing these pictures isn't wise. The neighborhood is mostly quite poor, and, I'm told, dangerous at night. It was hot enough that windows and doors were open as I passed, and I saw large families inhabiting very small spaces, heard kids being spanked, and lots of loud televisions going. I'm sure that a micro-knowledge of the area would show that there are, indeed, students and artists living in some blocks, but there is definitely a funk going on there that might not make it an ideal location.
But I'm doing no planning for a day or two anyway. I have a big deadline at the end of this week, and I've got to put the pedal to the metal for it. This learning experience was costly, and although I haven't touched my lease-getting-and-moving nut, the bank account did take a hit. Next time I have to be far more efficient, strike and score, then come back and gather whatever houeshold necessities I can fit into a couple of suitcases, come back to the efficiency I've rented, and make it happen.
And happen it will. I know that now. And that is such a good feeling.
My thanks, incidentally, to Bart, Andy, Sam, Nick, Claude (in absentia), Etienne, Lou, Hannah, Peter, Dom, and the fine folks at ther Hotel des Arceaux, who did so much to help out.
And yes, a food post is next.
I am the world's worst photographer, not only in the quality of my output -- with the rise of ubiquitous digital photography, I'm even willing to cede the crown of worst creator of photographs to someone else -- but because I just never remember to pack a camera when I go to potentially picturesque places. Partially this is because I have a large, clunky, but superb Nikon which isn't as sleek and inconspicuous as one of those thin, silvery little things. But that's not really the excuse; I've done this for years, packed a camera and never, or almost never, used it.
But since Thursday I'd spent some time wandering around the hilly parts near the University and the Cathedral, I decided to go back and actually shoot something.
This shows the Cathedral (St. Pierre, for those of you keeping score) sort of framed by some other buildings, as seen from a small park where people were sitting in the very warm noonday sun.
This is one of those side-streets between the Cathedral, the law school, and the rue de l'Université, just naturally picturesque enough that it's a point-and-shoot situation.
Another one, or part of the same one, I can't remember.
One of the doors leading to one of the old houses in that neighborhood.
And the shutter-style air-conditioning they've used for centuries.
I should say, though, that romanticizing these pictures isn't wise. The neighborhood is mostly quite poor, and, I'm told, dangerous at night. It was hot enough that windows and doors were open as I passed, and I saw large families inhabiting very small spaces, heard kids being spanked, and lots of loud televisions going. I'm sure that a micro-knowledge of the area would show that there are, indeed, students and artists living in some blocks, but there is definitely a funk going on there that might not make it an ideal location.
But I'm doing no planning for a day or two anyway. I have a big deadline at the end of this week, and I've got to put the pedal to the metal for it. This learning experience was costly, and although I haven't touched my lease-getting-and-moving nut, the bank account did take a hit. Next time I have to be far more efficient, strike and score, then come back and gather whatever houeshold necessities I can fit into a couple of suitcases, come back to the efficiency I've rented, and make it happen.
And happen it will. I know that now. And that is such a good feeling.
My thanks, incidentally, to Bart, Andy, Sam, Nick, Claude (in absentia), Etienne, Lou, Hannah, Peter, Dom, and the fine folks at ther Hotel des Arceaux, who did so much to help out.
And yes, a food post is next.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
The Immigrant's Dilemma, Chapter 8: Peter Has An Idea
Today's only fixed plan was to be at the Comédie tram-stop at 12:30, to meet Peter and another guy for lunch. This was, as usual, something to look forward to. Peter is something of a phenomenon, having been semi-retired in a village about 40 minutes north of Montpellier as the Peugeot flies, and using the other half of the semi to set up The Languedoc Page some years back. As you can see, it's a huge compendium of facts and links, including a very useful forum, all in English, all dedicated to this part of France. He's constantly networking, constantly making it better, and that's why he was putting me together with a guy who's just started some magazines in English, each dedicated to a different department within this region. (Departments are sort of like counties).
We all agreed there was nothing for me to do until I moved down, but it was a pleasant enough lunch and discussion, and I led the two through the back streets of the historic center so that the Le Mag guy could see various businesses serving the expat community.
Naturally, because I still haven't so much as looked at a place, I brought up my problems here. Peter told me that, as a landlord who rents a few studios up around his place, he often sees agencies he deals with asking for a year's rent in escrow. There are, however, other ways to go about it. What you need is a dossier, which is French for "pile of papers." Documents showing how much you earn, who employs you, things like that. It also helps to have someone who has a French job which brings in three times your month's rent serve as a guarantor. I took this all in, and by the time Peter and Le Mag blasted off, there was only a little time before I was to meet Nick at the Vert Anglais to see if his cousin could help me.
But over lunch, Peter had had a very good idea. "Why don't you rent a furnished studio and move down here temporarily, so that you can network with a much easier deadline?" he said. "School's out, and a lot of people rent student flats to tourists for the summer. You might find a place and have to eat a month's rent, but that would be better than trying to rent a place from Berlin." As I wandered the back streets in the hilly region over by the cathedral, some of Montpellier's most picturesque streets (including several I don't believe I've ever seen before, and I've walked lots of this town), I turned this over in my head.
I was lucky when I got to the Vert Anglais. Lou, who's working there, was sitting outside with a post-work beer. We sat down and had a long and intense conversation. She agreed that renting a studio for a couple of months was a great idea and, as seems to be her wont, whipped out her cell phone and SMS-ed a friend who had one to rent. Eventually, Nick showed up and apologized for not having gotten back to me, but, having learned that his father's real ill, I wasn't about to be anything but sympathetic. He promised to get ahold of me in the morning if he can reach his realtor cousin.
So thanks, Peter, for Plan B. I'm already on the track of a couple of studios, and it'll be easier to compile my dossier back in Berlin. Meanwhile, a miracle could happen, and I'm open to it. But I think that my mistake, if I could be said to have made one, was in misjudging the very laid-back tempo that attracts me to this place and thinking that I could score an apartment as quickly as I could in Berlin.
The new plan makes sense, and gives me something to spend the money for the work I'm currently doing on. It'll involve a bit more travel, and it'll involve spending more time here. If I wind up finding a place, I might even not have to eat the extra rent: a friend of mine in Italy has expressed interest in coming here, and I could toss the place to him for the remaining time.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm headed back to the Vert Anglais. As previously mentioned, Andy's getting the charcuterie tonight.
We all agreed there was nothing for me to do until I moved down, but it was a pleasant enough lunch and discussion, and I led the two through the back streets of the historic center so that the Le Mag guy could see various businesses serving the expat community.
Naturally, because I still haven't so much as looked at a place, I brought up my problems here. Peter told me that, as a landlord who rents a few studios up around his place, he often sees agencies he deals with asking for a year's rent in escrow. There are, however, other ways to go about it. What you need is a dossier, which is French for "pile of papers." Documents showing how much you earn, who employs you, things like that. It also helps to have someone who has a French job which brings in three times your month's rent serve as a guarantor. I took this all in, and by the time Peter and Le Mag blasted off, there was only a little time before I was to meet Nick at the Vert Anglais to see if his cousin could help me.
But over lunch, Peter had had a very good idea. "Why don't you rent a furnished studio and move down here temporarily, so that you can network with a much easier deadline?" he said. "School's out, and a lot of people rent student flats to tourists for the summer. You might find a place and have to eat a month's rent, but that would be better than trying to rent a place from Berlin." As I wandered the back streets in the hilly region over by the cathedral, some of Montpellier's most picturesque streets (including several I don't believe I've ever seen before, and I've walked lots of this town), I turned this over in my head.
I was lucky when I got to the Vert Anglais. Lou, who's working there, was sitting outside with a post-work beer. We sat down and had a long and intense conversation. She agreed that renting a studio for a couple of months was a great idea and, as seems to be her wont, whipped out her cell phone and SMS-ed a friend who had one to rent. Eventually, Nick showed up and apologized for not having gotten back to me, but, having learned that his father's real ill, I wasn't about to be anything but sympathetic. He promised to get ahold of me in the morning if he can reach his realtor cousin.
So thanks, Peter, for Plan B. I'm already on the track of a couple of studios, and it'll be easier to compile my dossier back in Berlin. Meanwhile, a miracle could happen, and I'm open to it. But I think that my mistake, if I could be said to have made one, was in misjudging the very laid-back tempo that attracts me to this place and thinking that I could score an apartment as quickly as I could in Berlin.
The new plan makes sense, and gives me something to spend the money for the work I'm currently doing on. It'll involve a bit more travel, and it'll involve spending more time here. If I wind up finding a place, I might even not have to eat the extra rent: a friend of mine in Italy has expressed interest in coming here, and I could toss the place to him for the remaining time.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm headed back to the Vert Anglais. As previously mentioned, Andy's getting the charcuterie tonight.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
The Emigrant's Dilemma, Chapter 7: Day Of Zen
After I posted here yesterday, I headed down to the Bar Vert Anglais, a great bar where a bunch of expats hang out, which also has affordable drinks and nice staff. I'd agreed to meet Etienne, a guy from Montpellier I'd met in Berlin when he was an architectural student (he's now an architect: see, education works!), there, and I knew Bart would be there, as well as a few other people I'd met in March.
And sure enough, there they were, with a few other people. There was Lou, who appears on Bart's blog as Blonde Lesbian, and in mine as the woman who cooked the second decent hamburger I'd had in Europe (her restaurant, like the place, Banana Republic, in Copenhagen, where I'd had my first decent Euroburger, is long gone), Sam the carpenter (who's going to get some work from me, since me + tools = disaster), and a bunch more. A silent guy I'd met briefly appeared with what looked like a large, unstable pizza, plopped it down on the table, and disappeared for a moment, returning with more stuff. He'd just given us a huge stack of charcuterie (coldcuts to you Americans, Aufschnitte to you Germans), plus a brilliantly-ripe Époisses, another ripe cheese that wasn't quite as complex, and a blue that made me remember that that village of Roquefort is nearby. Plus some sliced baguette. He then disappeared into the bar to watch the game.
I told my tale of woe: no luck with the agency, the idiotic escrow demand, and everyone went off at once. "Don't use an agency! I know that one: they're the worst in town! It's word of mouth you want; it's the only way to get a place here." Well, I said, let the mouths form some words. I told them what I was after and cell phones came out, buttons were pressed, and messages left. A guy walked out of the bar and surveyed the scene outside. It was Nick, the owner. "Hey," said Bart, "Nick's cousin rents apartments." So I talked to Nick. "Well, I dunno..." he said. I told him luxury wasn't the aim, but a roof over my head was. Nothing fancy, just big enough for all my crap. "Hmmm. I'll see what I can do. Come back tomorrow at l'heure apéro, around 6, and I'll see what I can do. I bet I can come up with something."
So there I was: good company, good food, and an evening that was warming up nicely. Again, I realized why I wanted to be here.
I left after a couple of hours to dine (yes, there will be the customary after-journey wrapup of food, but not just now), and thought, hey, this might just work.
So this morning's Yahoo horoscope basically said that only a good attitude would get me what I wanted, but not if I had any doubts. I was stymied as to a way forward: the morning e-mail had a turn-down from the only private ad I'd been able to find ("Sorry, already rented. Good luck!") and I had all day til Nick showed up at the bar. I did a bit of work, then sauntered into town with no particular plan. One thing I knew was that I'd need a telephone when I moved, so I checked FNAC and priced some. FNAC has an interesting detail: all of their prices include an eco-tax for the packaging, so that the more packaging something has, the more tax you pay. Very nice. Then I went to the Esplanade Charles de Gaulle, a big green space nearby, and had lunch. After that I figured I'd go back to the hotel and work some more.
I got to the Bar Vert Anglais at around 6 and found Bart there. Nick was nowhere in sight, but I'd learned last night that his dad is sick, and he might be preoccupied, but I left a message with one of the bartenders and he called to no avail. I sat down and ordered an apéro.
It occurred to me that this was the first nice day in a while, and that I should just surrender to the rhythm of the place. Let it happen. Eventually Andy, an Irish musician and IT specialist showed up, then Sam the carpenter. "Hey," said Sam, "remember that place I told you about? I should give you the guy's number." So I wrote it down. He called him. No answer. "He's a flight attendant, so his phone's probably turned off." Okay.
Nick didn't show up. I found myself not concerned. This was good.
Eventually, I was hungry, so I paid my bill and went off in search of dinner. I looked at the streets as I walked. I suddenly had a strange feeliing. It was optimism. This is going to work out.
I have an interesting business meeting tomorrow around lunch time. I'm told Nick will almnost certainly be in around 4. I'm going to try the flight attendant again tomorrow. And I'm sure I'll connect with Nick while I'm here. If I have to come back in a week, so be it, although the annual dance festival will be going, and there might not be hotel rooms.
I won't panic. I'll find an apartment. I didn't find it today, but there are two more days. The sun is shining, it's warm, and the smell of melons as I pass vegetable stands is intoxicating.
I've walked over a threshhold. And tomorrow is another day. And it's Andy's turn for charcuterie.
And sure enough, there they were, with a few other people. There was Lou, who appears on Bart's blog as Blonde Lesbian, and in mine as the woman who cooked the second decent hamburger I'd had in Europe (her restaurant, like the place, Banana Republic, in Copenhagen, where I'd had my first decent Euroburger, is long gone), Sam the carpenter (who's going to get some work from me, since me + tools = disaster), and a bunch more. A silent guy I'd met briefly appeared with what looked like a large, unstable pizza, plopped it down on the table, and disappeared for a moment, returning with more stuff. He'd just given us a huge stack of charcuterie (coldcuts to you Americans, Aufschnitte to you Germans), plus a brilliantly-ripe Époisses, another ripe cheese that wasn't quite as complex, and a blue that made me remember that that village of Roquefort is nearby. Plus some sliced baguette. He then disappeared into the bar to watch the game.
I told my tale of woe: no luck with the agency, the idiotic escrow demand, and everyone went off at once. "Don't use an agency! I know that one: they're the worst in town! It's word of mouth you want; it's the only way to get a place here." Well, I said, let the mouths form some words. I told them what I was after and cell phones came out, buttons were pressed, and messages left. A guy walked out of the bar and surveyed the scene outside. It was Nick, the owner. "Hey," said Bart, "Nick's cousin rents apartments." So I talked to Nick. "Well, I dunno..." he said. I told him luxury wasn't the aim, but a roof over my head was. Nothing fancy, just big enough for all my crap. "Hmmm. I'll see what I can do. Come back tomorrow at l'heure apéro, around 6, and I'll see what I can do. I bet I can come up with something."
So there I was: good company, good food, and an evening that was warming up nicely. Again, I realized why I wanted to be here.
I left after a couple of hours to dine (yes, there will be the customary after-journey wrapup of food, but not just now), and thought, hey, this might just work.
So this morning's Yahoo horoscope basically said that only a good attitude would get me what I wanted, but not if I had any doubts. I was stymied as to a way forward: the morning e-mail had a turn-down from the only private ad I'd been able to find ("Sorry, already rented. Good luck!") and I had all day til Nick showed up at the bar. I did a bit of work, then sauntered into town with no particular plan. One thing I knew was that I'd need a telephone when I moved, so I checked FNAC and priced some. FNAC has an interesting detail: all of their prices include an eco-tax for the packaging, so that the more packaging something has, the more tax you pay. Very nice. Then I went to the Esplanade Charles de Gaulle, a big green space nearby, and had lunch. After that I figured I'd go back to the hotel and work some more.
I got to the Bar Vert Anglais at around 6 and found Bart there. Nick was nowhere in sight, but I'd learned last night that his dad is sick, and he might be preoccupied, but I left a message with one of the bartenders and he called to no avail. I sat down and ordered an apéro.
It occurred to me that this was the first nice day in a while, and that I should just surrender to the rhythm of the place. Let it happen. Eventually Andy, an Irish musician and IT specialist showed up, then Sam the carpenter. "Hey," said Sam, "remember that place I told you about? I should give you the guy's number." So I wrote it down. He called him. No answer. "He's a flight attendant, so his phone's probably turned off." Okay.
Nick didn't show up. I found myself not concerned. This was good.
Eventually, I was hungry, so I paid my bill and went off in search of dinner. I looked at the streets as I walked. I suddenly had a strange feeliing. It was optimism. This is going to work out.
I have an interesting business meeting tomorrow around lunch time. I'm told Nick will almnost certainly be in around 4. I'm going to try the flight attendant again tomorrow. And I'm sure I'll connect with Nick while I'm here. If I have to come back in a week, so be it, although the annual dance festival will be going, and there might not be hotel rooms.
I won't panic. I'll find an apartment. I didn't find it today, but there are two more days. The sun is shining, it's warm, and the smell of melons as I pass vegetable stands is intoxicating.
I've walked over a threshhold. And tomorrow is another day. And it's Andy's turn for charcuterie.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
The Emigrant's Dilemma, Chapter 6: Thud
That sound you just heard was my plans, hopes, and dreams all landing in an untidy heap, smashed and ruined. No biggie; I've been there before. But I'm a bit concerned.
For the past month, I've scoured websites at least once a day. seeing how much space goes for how much rent and learning the vocabulary of French real estate. I haven't wanted to, but I've had to learn which real estate agencies might be able to help me find an apartment of the size I want in the part of town I want. Rental-by-owner is a rare commodity in France. Before I left Berlin, I sent e-mails in rotten French to a couple of agencies which were representing properties I thought looked good. Funky, without a doubt, but good.
Then, when I got in last night and a fairly violent thunderstorm put paid to my plans to hit the legendary Bar Vert Anglais to meet some folks to see if they'd come up with anything, I checked again, just to make sure the properties were still listed. They were.
I got up this morning and headed out to look at some of them. The two I liked best I couldn't find. I mean, not even the street. Of course, I'd accidentally left my street map back at the hotel. But thanks to a remarkable web-site operated by the French Yellow Pages, I'd already "walked" some of these streets and knew what was there. (I eliminated one looks-good possibility when I found it was right over a business called Euro Kebab, for instance. Pfew!) What I did find was a lot of what seemed to be mom-and-pop agencies specializing in various neighborhoods. None of them had what seemed to be a lot of places, but I only need one, I told myself.
Finally, I went to a big agency that had a place listed that seemed quite nice. It was in an old building, near the place where I stayed when I first visited here, and it seemed perfect, at least as a place to start. I was sent to the second floor, where an offiious East Asian woman sat behind a computer. In halting French, I told her the address of the place I wanted. "Well, first," she said, "how long have you been employed by your current employer?" About 40 years, I told her; I'm self-employed. She was shocked. "You'll need to put down some money, you know." Yes, I was prepared for that. I knew I had to put down two months' rent, plus something close to it for the agency's fee. I had that. She asked me what I wanted and I told her. I also mentioned that I had a specific property in mind and gave her the address. She clicked some buttons and shook her head. "When did you see that on our website?" she asked. I looked at my watch. "About 45 minutes ago." Which was true: everything closes for lunch here and I'd gone back to the hotel to check once more.
It wasn't in her list. "Look," she said. "Do you realize that you have to have financial security before we'll rent to you? You need a guarantor who is French. You also need to put a year's rent in escrow." Whaaat? That's insane! Even the Germans aren't that crazy. I wondered: did this have anything to do with my being American? With being self-employed? Both? Or was it just the agency not wanting to deal with the small change of rental?
But it took a lot of wind out of my sails, I have to say. I've subsequently learned that the guarantor thing is real. The year's escrow, on the other hand...I wonder. I've lost a day's apartment hunting, and I've got another place I'd like to look at, but I'm going to talk to some folks tonight so I'll be a bit more confident when I start out in the morning.
There is one place whose landlord, a British guy, I've been corresponding with. The building seems filthy from the outside, and is on a main street that's choked with traffic. The company representing it wants way more than he quoted to me, too. It's right behind the Préfecture, the mayor's office, but when I went back there it looked like every cop in Montpellier was outside, and traffic was being diverted. Maybe Mme Sarkozy was paying a visit.
I've got tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday to find something. Tomorrow, Thursday, Friday and a miracle.
For the past month, I've scoured websites at least once a day. seeing how much space goes for how much rent and learning the vocabulary of French real estate. I haven't wanted to, but I've had to learn which real estate agencies might be able to help me find an apartment of the size I want in the part of town I want. Rental-by-owner is a rare commodity in France. Before I left Berlin, I sent e-mails in rotten French to a couple of agencies which were representing properties I thought looked good. Funky, without a doubt, but good.
Then, when I got in last night and a fairly violent thunderstorm put paid to my plans to hit the legendary Bar Vert Anglais to meet some folks to see if they'd come up with anything, I checked again, just to make sure the properties were still listed. They were.
I got up this morning and headed out to look at some of them. The two I liked best I couldn't find. I mean, not even the street. Of course, I'd accidentally left my street map back at the hotel. But thanks to a remarkable web-site operated by the French Yellow Pages, I'd already "walked" some of these streets and knew what was there. (I eliminated one looks-good possibility when I found it was right over a business called Euro Kebab, for instance. Pfew!) What I did find was a lot of what seemed to be mom-and-pop agencies specializing in various neighborhoods. None of them had what seemed to be a lot of places, but I only need one, I told myself.
Finally, I went to a big agency that had a place listed that seemed quite nice. It was in an old building, near the place where I stayed when I first visited here, and it seemed perfect, at least as a place to start. I was sent to the second floor, where an offiious East Asian woman sat behind a computer. In halting French, I told her the address of the place I wanted. "Well, first," she said, "how long have you been employed by your current employer?" About 40 years, I told her; I'm self-employed. She was shocked. "You'll need to put down some money, you know." Yes, I was prepared for that. I knew I had to put down two months' rent, plus something close to it for the agency's fee. I had that. She asked me what I wanted and I told her. I also mentioned that I had a specific property in mind and gave her the address. She clicked some buttons and shook her head. "When did you see that on our website?" she asked. I looked at my watch. "About 45 minutes ago." Which was true: everything closes for lunch here and I'd gone back to the hotel to check once more.
It wasn't in her list. "Look," she said. "Do you realize that you have to have financial security before we'll rent to you? You need a guarantor who is French. You also need to put a year's rent in escrow." Whaaat? That's insane! Even the Germans aren't that crazy. I wondered: did this have anything to do with my being American? With being self-employed? Both? Or was it just the agency not wanting to deal with the small change of rental?
But it took a lot of wind out of my sails, I have to say. I've subsequently learned that the guarantor thing is real. The year's escrow, on the other hand...I wonder. I've lost a day's apartment hunting, and I've got another place I'd like to look at, but I'm going to talk to some folks tonight so I'll be a bit more confident when I start out in the morning.
There is one place whose landlord, a British guy, I've been corresponding with. The building seems filthy from the outside, and is on a main street that's choked with traffic. The company representing it wants way more than he quoted to me, too. It's right behind the Préfecture, the mayor's office, but when I went back there it looked like every cop in Montpellier was outside, and traffic was being diverted. Maybe Mme Sarkozy was paying a visit.
I've got tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday to find something. Tomorrow, Thursday, Friday and a miracle.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
The Emigrant's Dilemma, Chapter 5: Stepping Into Thin Air
Dang, I should have updated that last post way earlier. Here's how things stand now.
The money I was expecting came, of course, that Friday, so naturally I missed Morocco -- and also a couple of meals. But it did come, and that's good, because the one thing I can't change is my hotel reservation in Montpellier: I was lucky to be able to get it, this being the beginning of high season, and as it is, I have to change from one of the cheap rooms to one of the expensive ones half-way through.
Once the dough was in hand, I headed down to Kopfbahnhof, Berlin's only travel agency specializing in rail travel, and booked a Berlin-Montpellier ticket. I already had the Montpellier-Berlin ticket from my previous itinerary. They're such hotshots that they discovered it was cheaper to do the Paris-Montpellier link first class on the TGV, so that'll be nice.
I've spent the rest of the week dealing with a sudden influx of work (sure, it always happens when you just barely have time to do it, right?) and scanning dozens of real estate agency websites. I'm still hoping to get a place directly through a landlord, thereby cutting off a month's rent worth of agency fee, but with only four days, effectively -- Tuesday thru Friday -- to nail down a place, I'm taking any offers I get.
One interesting observation from the real-estate ads is the notation "cuisine équipée," which means "equipped kitchen." If this notation doesn't exist, you have to assume you'll be getting your own appliances. I already have a great refrigerator and an almost-new washing machine, but the most expensive part of this is the stove, and I may have to buy a stove and have it installed, an expense I hadn't reckoned with. On the other hand, there's this work that's suddenly appeared, so unless the moving van turns out to be vastly more expensive than I'd reckoned, I can likely handle it.
I did have one guy come through to give me a moving estimate. I'd been warned he was eccentric -- he's British, and specializes in hauling stuff back and forth from Berlin to the U.K. -- and he certainly delivered. He cast a casual eye over things, commented that books are heavy and a lot of my stuff was trash (that's right; butter up the customer!) and basically gave off a vibe of not wanting to do it. He told me he'd moved some people with less stuff than I have to Avignon recently, and said he'd come up with an estimate. A few days later, he did: €3800. Something tells me I could beat that; I know people who've moved everything they had back to the U.S. for less.
So Monday I'm off. I've got enough to score a place, pay for the hotel, and eat. I'm back very late Saturday night, with, I hope, a lease in my hands. If anyone in Montpellier is reading this, I hope to be at the Bar Vert Anglais Monday night about 10:30 to meet up with a couple of people, so drop by and say hi -- and tell me if you know of any places for rent! Here's what I'm looking for: Ecusson, T2 or T3, 50-60m2, €500-600. The students are clearing out, I can move in between the 1st and 15th of July (or later if need be), and I'm a wonderful tenant because I'm looking to rent 12 months at a time. All of that and two euros gets me a ride on the tram, I know, but it's now or never.
Oh, and let me know if you have a deal on a gas stove. I might need one fast.
The money I was expecting came, of course, that Friday, so naturally I missed Morocco -- and also a couple of meals. But it did come, and that's good, because the one thing I can't change is my hotel reservation in Montpellier: I was lucky to be able to get it, this being the beginning of high season, and as it is, I have to change from one of the cheap rooms to one of the expensive ones half-way through.
Once the dough was in hand, I headed down to Kopfbahnhof, Berlin's only travel agency specializing in rail travel, and booked a Berlin-Montpellier ticket. I already had the Montpellier-Berlin ticket from my previous itinerary. They're such hotshots that they discovered it was cheaper to do the Paris-Montpellier link first class on the TGV, so that'll be nice.
I've spent the rest of the week dealing with a sudden influx of work (sure, it always happens when you just barely have time to do it, right?) and scanning dozens of real estate agency websites. I'm still hoping to get a place directly through a landlord, thereby cutting off a month's rent worth of agency fee, but with only four days, effectively -- Tuesday thru Friday -- to nail down a place, I'm taking any offers I get.
One interesting observation from the real-estate ads is the notation "cuisine équipée," which means "equipped kitchen." If this notation doesn't exist, you have to assume you'll be getting your own appliances. I already have a great refrigerator and an almost-new washing machine, but the most expensive part of this is the stove, and I may have to buy a stove and have it installed, an expense I hadn't reckoned with. On the other hand, there's this work that's suddenly appeared, so unless the moving van turns out to be vastly more expensive than I'd reckoned, I can likely handle it.
I did have one guy come through to give me a moving estimate. I'd been warned he was eccentric -- he's British, and specializes in hauling stuff back and forth from Berlin to the U.K. -- and he certainly delivered. He cast a casual eye over things, commented that books are heavy and a lot of my stuff was trash (that's right; butter up the customer!) and basically gave off a vibe of not wanting to do it. He told me he'd moved some people with less stuff than I have to Avignon recently, and said he'd come up with an estimate. A few days later, he did: €3800. Something tells me I could beat that; I know people who've moved everything they had back to the U.S. for less.
So Monday I'm off. I've got enough to score a place, pay for the hotel, and eat. I'm back very late Saturday night, with, I hope, a lease in my hands. If anyone in Montpellier is reading this, I hope to be at the Bar Vert Anglais Monday night about 10:30 to meet up with a couple of people, so drop by and say hi -- and tell me if you know of any places for rent! Here's what I'm looking for: Ecusson, T2 or T3, 50-60m2, €500-600. The students are clearing out, I can move in between the 1st and 15th of July (or later if need be), and I'm a wonderful tenant because I'm looking to rent 12 months at a time. All of that and two euros gets me a ride on the tram, I know, but it's now or never.
Oh, and let me know if you have a deal on a gas stove. I might need one fast.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
The Emigrant's Dilemma, Chapter 4: Best Laid Plans
So if I were doing a blog post today, it was supposed to have been out of Aix-en-Provence, a place I've wanted to visit for a while, and a stopover between Berlin and Fes, Morocco, where I was supposed to have been attending the Festival of World Sacred Music.
However.
This weekend, a thought struck me: I'm owed €1200 by a magazine. I work for them regularly, they always pay quickly, and there was no reason to believe this money wouldn't be along shortly. It wasn't there Friday, it wasn't there Saturday. This raised the tension a bit, since I had to pay rent and bills before I left. There'd be a nice chunk of change left over, which would pay for hotels in France, daily expenses in Morocco, and whatnot, and there'd be plenty still in my pocket when the train from Marseille dropped me at Montpellier St. Roch station at noon on June 16.
The money wasn't there on Monday. It wasn't there on Tuesday.
Just because you know things have to get even more tense before they can deflate, Wednesday dawned with my waiting for a Federal Express guy to pick up the recordings I'd made for Fresh Air on Tuesday over at ARD. Since I wanted to get an early start on the day, when I'd filled out the pickup form on line, I'd put 10:30 as the earliest time for pickup and noon as the latest. After that I'd be free to hit the bank and, assuming the money was there, do my pre-trip shopping (surge protector, etc.), pack, and so on.
At noon the phone rang. It was FedEx. They were at my old house and couldn't find me. Well, of course not! I told the guy where I was and he told me that this wasn't his problem, that one of his colleagues would have to pick it up and I should go back to the website and fill out a whole other pickup form. So I did. And put a new permanent address for me there, as well. I specified that they should pick it up immediately, or as late as 3. Not a lot of time, and I couldn't leave the house to check the bank, but I'd survive.
At 3:45 the guy finally showed. I handed him the package and followed him out the door to head to the bank as fast as I could go.
The money wasn't there.
So I trudged back home, cancelled my plane ticket to Marseille (€250, no refund), both hotel reservations for before and after the Moroccan trip, and threw away my Marseille-Montpellier train ticket (€17). I also wrote the publicist who'd set things up, and to put it mildly, she was not pleased. I was informed, rather icily, that I would never be approved for this jaunt again, because of the last-minute cancellation. I tended to look at it as trying until the last minute to make it, but okay.
There's an up side to this, of course. Nobody has agreed to take this apartment after I leave, so I have more time to show it. I can concentrate on the still-unknown moving cost and maybe make a commitment to a mover. (I just got off the phone with a guy who'd given the place a cursory look the other day, clearly not interested, and who called me back with a quote of €3800. Somehow I think I can do better than that...) And my risk of gastrointestinal disaster has just dipped significantly.
Now, when the money comes, I'll just head to Kopfbahnhof, that nest of crazed rail-nerds, and buy a Berlin-Montpellier ticket.
And meanwhile, I scan the rental ads online and realize that there are quite a few places that look just right. Now to snag one.
However.
This weekend, a thought struck me: I'm owed €1200 by a magazine. I work for them regularly, they always pay quickly, and there was no reason to believe this money wouldn't be along shortly. It wasn't there Friday, it wasn't there Saturday. This raised the tension a bit, since I had to pay rent and bills before I left. There'd be a nice chunk of change left over, which would pay for hotels in France, daily expenses in Morocco, and whatnot, and there'd be plenty still in my pocket when the train from Marseille dropped me at Montpellier St. Roch station at noon on June 16.
The money wasn't there on Monday. It wasn't there on Tuesday.
Just because you know things have to get even more tense before they can deflate, Wednesday dawned with my waiting for a Federal Express guy to pick up the recordings I'd made for Fresh Air on Tuesday over at ARD. Since I wanted to get an early start on the day, when I'd filled out the pickup form on line, I'd put 10:30 as the earliest time for pickup and noon as the latest. After that I'd be free to hit the bank and, assuming the money was there, do my pre-trip shopping (surge protector, etc.), pack, and so on.
At noon the phone rang. It was FedEx. They were at my old house and couldn't find me. Well, of course not! I told the guy where I was and he told me that this wasn't his problem, that one of his colleagues would have to pick it up and I should go back to the website and fill out a whole other pickup form. So I did. And put a new permanent address for me there, as well. I specified that they should pick it up immediately, or as late as 3. Not a lot of time, and I couldn't leave the house to check the bank, but I'd survive.
At 3:45 the guy finally showed. I handed him the package and followed him out the door to head to the bank as fast as I could go.
The money wasn't there.
So I trudged back home, cancelled my plane ticket to Marseille (€250, no refund), both hotel reservations for before and after the Moroccan trip, and threw away my Marseille-Montpellier train ticket (€17). I also wrote the publicist who'd set things up, and to put it mildly, she was not pleased. I was informed, rather icily, that I would never be approved for this jaunt again, because of the last-minute cancellation. I tended to look at it as trying until the last minute to make it, but okay.
There's an up side to this, of course. Nobody has agreed to take this apartment after I leave, so I have more time to show it. I can concentrate on the still-unknown moving cost and maybe make a commitment to a mover. (I just got off the phone with a guy who'd given the place a cursory look the other day, clearly not interested, and who called me back with a quote of €3800. Somehow I think I can do better than that...) And my risk of gastrointestinal disaster has just dipped significantly.
Now, when the money comes, I'll just head to Kopfbahnhof, that nest of crazed rail-nerds, and buy a Berlin-Montpellier ticket.
And meanwhile, I scan the rental ads online and realize that there are quite a few places that look just right. Now to snag one.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Way Ta Go, Weltstadt!
Over the weekend, I ran into a couple of old friends, and among the info I picked up was a rumor that the plug was about to be pulled on Radio Multikulti, Berlin's absolutely unique radio station. Further research turned up an article confirming this.
Now, I'm in a bad position to defend Radio Multikulti for a number of reasons. First, I never listen to it. I never listen to any radio unless I'm driving. I've got too many CDs, and too little time. But that's neither here nor there.
Another factor is that I'm always uncomfortable with German multiculturalism as it's officially expressed. I've touched on this before some years back. And, for all the good work it does giving foreign residents of Berlin a touchstone, Radio Multikulti also fuels that syndrome.
A third, personal, factor is that when I moved here, one of my employers was a Big Honcho in the local world music scene who went on to become even bigger when he joined the staff of the brand-new Radio Multikulti. This guy was a piece of work: he was the first West German I'd ever met who hated Americans. There were three of us on the job, and he stiffed us -- and just us -- our last month's salary. Just because. I asked him one day where this bizarre animus came from, and he told me "It's because you destroyed a civilization. You did absolutely nothing to stop the Vietnam War, and this meant the destruction of Vietnamese culture, a very old culture." In this particular year, when the media is making so much noise about the events of 1968, the idea that Americans, especially young Americans, one of whom I was at the time, did "absolutely nothing" about the war in Vietnam, may seem a bit odd. But he believed it, he really believed it.
So I can't say I'm the biggest booster of Radio Multikulti, but I can say that this turn of events is both sad and unsurprising. Sad because this station, in both its avowed mission and its execution, is unique in the world, as far as I know. A radio station that both attempts to help immigrants integrate into an alien society (well, exotic immigrants, anyway; we Euro/American types are on our own), while seducing the locals into acceptance by playing them "world music," pop music from foreign climes (except, again, Euro/American styles, but I don't have any complaint against that: there's enough of most of that around), is, at least on paper, a good idea. And, since it's run by human beings, and, thus, imperfect, what actually comes out of the speakers has been pretty good every time I've heard it.
More to the point, pulling the plug on yet another unique, interesting, popular cultural manifestation in Berlin not only deprives Berliners of yet another of the things which ameliorate life here, it also proves that the people who make cultural policy here are totally unconcerned with Berlin's hip! edgy! image -- which is attracting who knows how much money to this city -- and only interested in supporting the most mainstream, culturally conservative institutions. Since another villain here seems to be ARD, the central public radio-television network of Germany, I'd say this de-funding also brings up questions of just how welcome immigrants -- particularly ones outside the Euro/American ambit -- actually are, not just in Berlin, but in Germany generally. Funny how that question keeps popping up.
Anyway, I'm glad to be leaving. At the rate this city is self-destructing, I can see myself coming back to visit friends in a couple of years and realizing there's nothing to see or do here while those friends are at work and I have free time. Berlin will have committed cultural suicide and become as fascinating as Bochum. Well, almost as fascinating.
Now, I'm in a bad position to defend Radio Multikulti for a number of reasons. First, I never listen to it. I never listen to any radio unless I'm driving. I've got too many CDs, and too little time. But that's neither here nor there.
Another factor is that I'm always uncomfortable with German multiculturalism as it's officially expressed. I've touched on this before some years back. And, for all the good work it does giving foreign residents of Berlin a touchstone, Radio Multikulti also fuels that syndrome.
A third, personal, factor is that when I moved here, one of my employers was a Big Honcho in the local world music scene who went on to become even bigger when he joined the staff of the brand-new Radio Multikulti. This guy was a piece of work: he was the first West German I'd ever met who hated Americans. There were three of us on the job, and he stiffed us -- and just us -- our last month's salary. Just because. I asked him one day where this bizarre animus came from, and he told me "It's because you destroyed a civilization. You did absolutely nothing to stop the Vietnam War, and this meant the destruction of Vietnamese culture, a very old culture." In this particular year, when the media is making so much noise about the events of 1968, the idea that Americans, especially young Americans, one of whom I was at the time, did "absolutely nothing" about the war in Vietnam, may seem a bit odd. But he believed it, he really believed it.
So I can't say I'm the biggest booster of Radio Multikulti, but I can say that this turn of events is both sad and unsurprising. Sad because this station, in both its avowed mission and its execution, is unique in the world, as far as I know. A radio station that both attempts to help immigrants integrate into an alien society (well, exotic immigrants, anyway; we Euro/American types are on our own), while seducing the locals into acceptance by playing them "world music," pop music from foreign climes (except, again, Euro/American styles, but I don't have any complaint against that: there's enough of most of that around), is, at least on paper, a good idea. And, since it's run by human beings, and, thus, imperfect, what actually comes out of the speakers has been pretty good every time I've heard it.
More to the point, pulling the plug on yet another unique, interesting, popular cultural manifestation in Berlin not only deprives Berliners of yet another of the things which ameliorate life here, it also proves that the people who make cultural policy here are totally unconcerned with Berlin's hip! edgy! image -- which is attracting who knows how much money to this city -- and only interested in supporting the most mainstream, culturally conservative institutions. Since another villain here seems to be ARD, the central public radio-television network of Germany, I'd say this de-funding also brings up questions of just how welcome immigrants -- particularly ones outside the Euro/American ambit -- actually are, not just in Berlin, but in Germany generally. Funny how that question keeps popping up.
Anyway, I'm glad to be leaving. At the rate this city is self-destructing, I can see myself coming back to visit friends in a couple of years and realizing there's nothing to see or do here while those friends are at work and I have free time. Berlin will have committed cultural suicide and become as fascinating as Bochum. Well, almost as fascinating.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Nachmieter Gesucht And Other Crumbs
It appears that the money is now in place for me to get an apartment in Montpellier when I get there the week of June 16. I've been ransacking the Montpellier equivalents of the website that got me the place I'm in now, and have actually found two apartments that look good, although one of them, I believe, was vacant when I was there in March, which is a bit ominous. But nobody's putting up the students' apartments yet, so I'm sure I'm just seeing the tip of what'll be a huge iceberg once I get there.
And, although nothing's signed yet, I should probably be looking for someone to take over the lease here. It's listed as a 2 1/2 room place, around 60 m2, but if someone wants to work on the loft-bed frame in the smallest room, which isn't as sturdy as it ought to be, and is also incomplete, you could actually fit three single people in here. Gas heat, although none in the room I use as a living room and office because the guy who turned on the heat in the kitchen and bedroom couldn't get it to work and then never showed up again. But the landlord's said he wants to hook this place up to the central heating anyway. At the moment, of course, it doesn't matter. Neighborhood couldn't be nicer; there are yuppies moving in, but there are also a lot of young American, German, and French hipster-types living around the 'hood, and a ferment of cultural activity, including a literary magazine being published by a couple of Americans out of this very building. The downside is that the apartment doesn't get a lot of light, and that gets a bit oppressive in the winter. Gas stove, which is pretty unusual -- and a real boon for those who like to cook -- and the refrigerator and washing machine are going with me, because, well, they're mine. Rent is €430, and you'll have to take over my €500 deposit. Available July, exact date uncertain. Tell your friends, send an e-mail if you're interested and set up a time to look at it.
I'm not sure what the exact legal requirements are -- I once heard something about my having to present three candidates -- but I'm pretty sure that if you want it and I want you to have it, you'll get it.
* * *
And with the prospect of leaving the city I've lived in for almost 15 years, naturally comes a bit of trepidation. I know this place, I'm somewhat identified with it (dang, I'm going to have to get new e-mail addresses!), and I've got a nice network of friends at the moment (although I'm sure that a sizeable proportion of them will, like the others I've had, move on after a while in frustration). I expressed this ambivalence to a friend, who wrote back that he understood perfectly; this often happens to men in prison, who find the life inside easier to cope with than life outside. Okay, that worked. I'll start packing.
There was a very good article by Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times this week which ostensibly dealt with the fate of Tempelhof Airport, but also had some excellent insight into Berlin that, for once, didn't sound like the paper was trying to offload some Prenzlauer Berg real estate. As the story moves from the hard news of the "referendum" on Tempelhof, it makes telling comments on the inability of the city to get anything done about, seemingly, anything, and its almost knee-jerk negative reaction to any kind of change. The reference to the destruction of the Palast der Republik despite its ongoing viability is telling, and the reference to the new Schloss -- if it ever manages to get built, which is looking unlikely at the moment -- as "a forthcoming Potemkin village and a sad excuse for a showpiece in a city that prides itself on its cultural sophistication," is dead-on. Berlin desperately wants that cultural sophistication, but it expects others to actually produce it, offering no help in the form of subsidies or venues. It starves the avant-garde which made it famous in the immediate post-unification days in favor of maintaining three major (and at least one minor) opera house and has shut down every major avant-garde musical venue in the city. And Kimmelman's right on the mark in zinging Berlin for "provincial megalomania," and comparing the situation at Tempelhof with the destruction of New York's Penn Station. Read it, particularly between the lines.
I'm happy to be flying one last time out of Tempelhof on June 5, because I agree with Kimmelman about how nice it is. And no, where I'm moving has nothing like Berlin's cultural scene. But then, increasingly, neither does Berlin.
* * *
There's a car I've been seeing parked around my neighborhood with a great sign in its back window. There's a heart, a peace sign, and what looks like a stick figure hoisting a barbell with one arm. In English, under each glyph, it says "Make Love," "No War," and "Wear Glasses." It's an ad for an optician, and every time I've seen it, I've said "Man, if I ever need glasses, that's where I'm going." Then, last Sunday after a day at the horse races at Hoppegarten (with very possibly the worst selection of nags I've ever seen there, which is really saying something), a screw fell out of the post of my very nice Ray Bans. Hardly a major operation, but, I thought, the perfect excuse to hand over a couple of euros to Mr. Love/War/Glasses.
Haven't seen the car since, of course.
And, although nothing's signed yet, I should probably be looking for someone to take over the lease here. It's listed as a 2 1/2 room place, around 60 m2, but if someone wants to work on the loft-bed frame in the smallest room, which isn't as sturdy as it ought to be, and is also incomplete, you could actually fit three single people in here. Gas heat, although none in the room I use as a living room and office because the guy who turned on the heat in the kitchen and bedroom couldn't get it to work and then never showed up again. But the landlord's said he wants to hook this place up to the central heating anyway. At the moment, of course, it doesn't matter. Neighborhood couldn't be nicer; there are yuppies moving in, but there are also a lot of young American, German, and French hipster-types living around the 'hood, and a ferment of cultural activity, including a literary magazine being published by a couple of Americans out of this very building. The downside is that the apartment doesn't get a lot of light, and that gets a bit oppressive in the winter. Gas stove, which is pretty unusual -- and a real boon for those who like to cook -- and the refrigerator and washing machine are going with me, because, well, they're mine. Rent is €430, and you'll have to take over my €500 deposit. Available July, exact date uncertain. Tell your friends, send an e-mail if you're interested and set up a time to look at it.
I'm not sure what the exact legal requirements are -- I once heard something about my having to present three candidates -- but I'm pretty sure that if you want it and I want you to have it, you'll get it.
* * *
And with the prospect of leaving the city I've lived in for almost 15 years, naturally comes a bit of trepidation. I know this place, I'm somewhat identified with it (dang, I'm going to have to get new e-mail addresses!), and I've got a nice network of friends at the moment (although I'm sure that a sizeable proportion of them will, like the others I've had, move on after a while in frustration). I expressed this ambivalence to a friend, who wrote back that he understood perfectly; this often happens to men in prison, who find the life inside easier to cope with than life outside. Okay, that worked. I'll start packing.
There was a very good article by Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times this week which ostensibly dealt with the fate of Tempelhof Airport, but also had some excellent insight into Berlin that, for once, didn't sound like the paper was trying to offload some Prenzlauer Berg real estate. As the story moves from the hard news of the "referendum" on Tempelhof, it makes telling comments on the inability of the city to get anything done about, seemingly, anything, and its almost knee-jerk negative reaction to any kind of change. The reference to the destruction of the Palast der Republik despite its ongoing viability is telling, and the reference to the new Schloss -- if it ever manages to get built, which is looking unlikely at the moment -- as "a forthcoming Potemkin village and a sad excuse for a showpiece in a city that prides itself on its cultural sophistication," is dead-on. Berlin desperately wants that cultural sophistication, but it expects others to actually produce it, offering no help in the form of subsidies or venues. It starves the avant-garde which made it famous in the immediate post-unification days in favor of maintaining three major (and at least one minor) opera house and has shut down every major avant-garde musical venue in the city. And Kimmelman's right on the mark in zinging Berlin for "provincial megalomania," and comparing the situation at Tempelhof with the destruction of New York's Penn Station. Read it, particularly between the lines.
I'm happy to be flying one last time out of Tempelhof on June 5, because I agree with Kimmelman about how nice it is. And no, where I'm moving has nothing like Berlin's cultural scene. But then, increasingly, neither does Berlin.
* * *
There's a car I've been seeing parked around my neighborhood with a great sign in its back window. There's a heart, a peace sign, and what looks like a stick figure hoisting a barbell with one arm. In English, under each glyph, it says "Make Love," "No War," and "Wear Glasses." It's an ad for an optician, and every time I've seen it, I've said "Man, if I ever need glasses, that's where I'm going." Then, last Sunday after a day at the horse races at Hoppegarten (with very possibly the worst selection of nags I've ever seen there, which is really saying something), a screw fell out of the post of my very nice Ray Bans. Hardly a major operation, but, I thought, the perfect excuse to hand over a couple of euros to Mr. Love/War/Glasses.
Haven't seen the car since, of course.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
The Emigrant's Dilemma, Chapter 3: Running the Numbers
Yesterday, my Yahoo horoscope said it was a good day to face a task you didn't want to do, because it would prove easier than you thought. That was enough of a goad for me to sit down and start putting together a budget for this move. I divided it into three categories: Berlin, Trip, and Montpellier. The first is for expenses I'll incur here, the second for the forthcoming Berlin-Fes-Montpellier trip, and the third for money I'm going to have to have once I get there.
Weirdly enough, the figure I came up with is very, very encouraging. I don't have all the money yet, but I'm working on that. And it's a worst-case figure, in any event: I spent an hour the other day paging through websites dedicated to renting, very much like the one I used to find this place, and discovered that even if I have to use a real-estate agent, which, given everything, I may not have to, my total move-in would be around €2100. That's rent, security, "charges," and agent fee. I'm going to have to not only raise this by June 16, when I start looking, but I'm going to have to figure out a way to get it after I hit town. I do not want to go running around the Fes Medina with a couple thousand euros in my pocket.
Another encouraging thing was running into someone whose friends had just moved from Berlin to Brittany, and who remembered how much the moving van cost. It was far less than I'd thought: around €1500. But that brings up a question I haven't figured out yet: how much the last day costs.
Let's say I get the movers in, they empty the apartment, and now what I want is to be at the new place when they get there. How on earth am I going to do this? It's at least a 14-hour drive, and I don't want to do it alone. In fact, I can't do it alone: if I rent a car, the drop-off fee would be equivalent to actually buying one! Plus, of course, when I did drive, I took two days. That's too long a haul for me.
So what are my options? Can I ask the movers to hold off a day? Flying is prohibitively expensive, but taking the train isn't: I can start in Berlin at 8:32 and get in at 9:48 in the evening, but where do I go? To a hotel overnight? The apartment will be utterly empty, as only a European apartment, devoid of lights and everything else, can be. But I'm equally sure the movers won't move me in at ten at night.
This is where I'm stuck. As soon as I can calculate costs for the last day -- and for the movers more accurately, since I haven't actually called any yet -- I can come up with a solid figure.
I guess I should also start looking for a Nachmieter, someone to move in here, but I don't want to do that until I secure the next place, although interested parties should get in touch. With any luck, by the third week of June, this should all be worked out.
Then comes the next stage. Scary. But I think I'm up to it.
Weirdly enough, the figure I came up with is very, very encouraging. I don't have all the money yet, but I'm working on that. And it's a worst-case figure, in any event: I spent an hour the other day paging through websites dedicated to renting, very much like the one I used to find this place, and discovered that even if I have to use a real-estate agent, which, given everything, I may not have to, my total move-in would be around €2100. That's rent, security, "charges," and agent fee. I'm going to have to not only raise this by June 16, when I start looking, but I'm going to have to figure out a way to get it after I hit town. I do not want to go running around the Fes Medina with a couple thousand euros in my pocket.
Another encouraging thing was running into someone whose friends had just moved from Berlin to Brittany, and who remembered how much the moving van cost. It was far less than I'd thought: around €1500. But that brings up a question I haven't figured out yet: how much the last day costs.
Let's say I get the movers in, they empty the apartment, and now what I want is to be at the new place when they get there. How on earth am I going to do this? It's at least a 14-hour drive, and I don't want to do it alone. In fact, I can't do it alone: if I rent a car, the drop-off fee would be equivalent to actually buying one! Plus, of course, when I did drive, I took two days. That's too long a haul for me.
So what are my options? Can I ask the movers to hold off a day? Flying is prohibitively expensive, but taking the train isn't: I can start in Berlin at 8:32 and get in at 9:48 in the evening, but where do I go? To a hotel overnight? The apartment will be utterly empty, as only a European apartment, devoid of lights and everything else, can be. But I'm equally sure the movers won't move me in at ten at night.
This is where I'm stuck. As soon as I can calculate costs for the last day -- and for the movers more accurately, since I haven't actually called any yet -- I can come up with a solid figure.
I guess I should also start looking for a Nachmieter, someone to move in here, but I don't want to do that until I secure the next place, although interested parties should get in touch. With any luck, by the third week of June, this should all be worked out.
Then comes the next stage. Scary. But I think I'm up to it.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Thank You For The Liberation
Around this time of year, posters get slapped up all over town, the same ones every year, printed by the FDJ, of all people (and who knew they were still around?). In three languages, they say "Thank you for the liberation," and feature crude black-and-white photos that I guess depict the events of May 8, 1945, when control of the city was wrested away from what was left of the Nazi government.
What came next was the Occupation. It's somewhat bracing to remember that when I moved here, I was living in an occupied city. Certainly the first time I came here, in 1988, I had to change planes in Frankfurt because I was flying Lufthansa, and that airline was owned by the West German government, which was prohibited from operating in the occupied city. Back then, I didn't particularly notice the division (except for the obvious one made out of concrete). The British, American, and French zones all looked alike, and there weren't any obvious signs which you were in.
The key word there is "obvious." I'd assumed that where I spent all my time on my first couple of visits -- Schöneberg, Moabit, Charlottenburg -- was the American sector, so I was amazed to discover that, according to this map, it wasn't. In fact, but for a short visit to Kreuzberg, I never entered the American zone at all. But then, I never saw any soldiers except at obvious places like Checkpoint Charlie, or, during my first hours in the city, by the Brandenburg Gate when a Lada with a couple of uniformed Russians pulled up next to the car I was in. Boy, that gave me a start; I hadn't realized I was quite the child of the Cold War that I was.
It seems that it was obvious if you lived here, though. I had a friend who grew up mostly in Wedding, in the French sector, and she said (although I have no other proof of this) that the French were notoriously worse in their treatment of Germans, and that the locals went out of their way to avoid contact with them. As far as she was concerned, there was spite in their occupation -- and given the history between the two countries, who's to say that she might not have a point? At this very moment, there's a large contingent of French expats here, and I'm told they never socialize with the locals, since they've settled here because they have European passports and it's so much cheaper than Paris. I do know that they have their own free newspaper, which you can pick up in pubs, and which, as someone who tried and failed to establish one in English here for many years, makes me very jealous.
On the other end of the scale was a friend I'll call Z, because he lived in Zehlendorf, right in the heart (spiritual, if not geographic) of the American zone. A total Americanophile, he was working as a book translator at that point, and had been an exchange student not once, but twice, in the United States. ("Hey," he said, "if you'd had a teenage kid like me, wouldn't you have wanted to ship me half-way around the world to get rid of me?" He had a point...) After I moved here, it was becoming obvious that the Allied troops were going to be leaving, and he was dreading the day. There were second-hand bookshops run by Americans in Zehlendorf where he'd shop, and there was a pizzeria called Four Brothers which started as a fried chicken joint run by three black ex-soldiers from Philadelphia and was failing spectacularly (you can not get Germans to eat fried chicken: just ask the Colonel) when a fourth Philadelphian, an Italian-American, joined the team, turned it around to make pizza instead, at which point they started printing money. Having had carry-out from there at Z's house, I can attest that it was the best pizza in town -- if you wanted American-style pizza.
By early 1994, some American troops had already left, and Z had turned me on to Truman Plaza, on Clayallee, across from the American Consulate. Here, there was an American newsstand open to the public, and the PX, which wasn't. But outside the PX was a bulletin board, and when I needed a stereo, Z urged me to head straight to Truman Plaza and check the bulletin board. A brilliant idea: the PX sold stereos at cost, but they were, of course, for European, not American, voltage. I scored a couple of pieces of equipment which I still use, far better than I could have afforded new, from a soldier and his German wife who were headed back in a couple of weeks. Both of them just couldn't wait to get out of Berlin, and he was totally shocked that I didn't want his television and a half-dozen other appliances, too. (Totally unrelated PX anecdote: I once went to a party where I was charged with making hamburgers from my secret recipe, part of which involves sprinkling them with Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning, which I'd smuggled in after a trip to Texas and made a big "you can't get that here" deal about. One of the Germans at the party looked at my precious canister of the stuff and said "Oh, yeah, Tony Chachere's. You could get that at the PX. We always had some around.")
As the day for the troops to leave approached, Z was more and more distraught. The bookstores closed, the Four Brothers (which depended heavily on the military for its customers) closed, and he made me promise to meet him to watch the final parade down the Strasse des 17 Juni, which was going to happen on June 19. I'd already missed enough history here (I left town in 1989 the day before the Wall opened, and on another occasion, I missed the last Pan Am flight out of Berlin, an emotional occasion because they'd donated many airplanes to the Berlin Airlift) that I wasn't going to miss this -- plus, the parade route was only a few minutes' walk from my place in Moabit anyway. The New York Times story will give you the factual background, but my memory also includes the low-flying aircraft flying flags, and trailing red, white, and blue smoke from their exhausts (convenient for the Americans, British, and French!) while soldiers stood in their open doors at full attention, which certainly got my acrophobia going. The other memory of that day certainly didn't make the Times: Z was openly crying.
It seems weird at this point in history to think that someone like him would be so deeply affected. It's not that he wasn't a proud German, but he'd spent 35 years in either the American zone of West Germany, or West Berlin, and his most important cultural touchstone was being ripped away from him. He'd been occupied his whole life, and he'd formed a bond with his occupiers, whether he was reading their pulp fiction or surreptitiously smoking their pot and drinking their beer in one of their high schools. German identity, whether some people would like to admit it at that point or not, was partially dependent on the occupiers reminding them of why they were occupied. From this day on, they'd have to go it themselves. I suspect this provoked a tinge of fear in some people.
Anyway, I think of Z every year when these posters show up. He abandoned our friendship long ago as he quit his translating job and got into the film business, where he's produced some of the very worst teen comedies this nation has ever offered to a reluctant movie-going public. He's a millionaire now, I suspect. At any rate, he's been liberated from who he used to be.
Me, too, as almost 15 years in a foreign country will do to you. Not that I've gone native, as some expats do. But I've become accustomed to some of the European norms which are pretty much universal in the countries I've visited: a different pace of life, an acceptance of universal medical care as a human right instead of a privilege, an abandonment of puritainsim, a scepticism about nationalism, and a feeling for cross-border cooperation. I think you can be liberated from the United States without becoming a subject of where you live, too, in the same way that the Italian-Americans I grew up with were both Italian and American. I think of myself more as an American-European in that sense, and, like those Italian-Americans, I can live with the best of both cultures and make a new one out of what I've been dealt by life here.
So, much as I bitch about Berlin and much as I can't wait to get out of here, I gotta say it: thank you for the liberation.
What came next was the Occupation. It's somewhat bracing to remember that when I moved here, I was living in an occupied city. Certainly the first time I came here, in 1988, I had to change planes in Frankfurt because I was flying Lufthansa, and that airline was owned by the West German government, which was prohibited from operating in the occupied city. Back then, I didn't particularly notice the division (except for the obvious one made out of concrete). The British, American, and French zones all looked alike, and there weren't any obvious signs which you were in.
The key word there is "obvious." I'd assumed that where I spent all my time on my first couple of visits -- Schöneberg, Moabit, Charlottenburg -- was the American sector, so I was amazed to discover that, according to this map, it wasn't. In fact, but for a short visit to Kreuzberg, I never entered the American zone at all. But then, I never saw any soldiers except at obvious places like Checkpoint Charlie, or, during my first hours in the city, by the Brandenburg Gate when a Lada with a couple of uniformed Russians pulled up next to the car I was in. Boy, that gave me a start; I hadn't realized I was quite the child of the Cold War that I was.
It seems that it was obvious if you lived here, though. I had a friend who grew up mostly in Wedding, in the French sector, and she said (although I have no other proof of this) that the French were notoriously worse in their treatment of Germans, and that the locals went out of their way to avoid contact with them. As far as she was concerned, there was spite in their occupation -- and given the history between the two countries, who's to say that she might not have a point? At this very moment, there's a large contingent of French expats here, and I'm told they never socialize with the locals, since they've settled here because they have European passports and it's so much cheaper than Paris. I do know that they have their own free newspaper, which you can pick up in pubs, and which, as someone who tried and failed to establish one in English here for many years, makes me very jealous.
On the other end of the scale was a friend I'll call Z, because he lived in Zehlendorf, right in the heart (spiritual, if not geographic) of the American zone. A total Americanophile, he was working as a book translator at that point, and had been an exchange student not once, but twice, in the United States. ("Hey," he said, "if you'd had a teenage kid like me, wouldn't you have wanted to ship me half-way around the world to get rid of me?" He had a point...) After I moved here, it was becoming obvious that the Allied troops were going to be leaving, and he was dreading the day. There were second-hand bookshops run by Americans in Zehlendorf where he'd shop, and there was a pizzeria called Four Brothers which started as a fried chicken joint run by three black ex-soldiers from Philadelphia and was failing spectacularly (you can not get Germans to eat fried chicken: just ask the Colonel) when a fourth Philadelphian, an Italian-American, joined the team, turned it around to make pizza instead, at which point they started printing money. Having had carry-out from there at Z's house, I can attest that it was the best pizza in town -- if you wanted American-style pizza.
By early 1994, some American troops had already left, and Z had turned me on to Truman Plaza, on Clayallee, across from the American Consulate. Here, there was an American newsstand open to the public, and the PX, which wasn't. But outside the PX was a bulletin board, and when I needed a stereo, Z urged me to head straight to Truman Plaza and check the bulletin board. A brilliant idea: the PX sold stereos at cost, but they were, of course, for European, not American, voltage. I scored a couple of pieces of equipment which I still use, far better than I could have afforded new, from a soldier and his German wife who were headed back in a couple of weeks. Both of them just couldn't wait to get out of Berlin, and he was totally shocked that I didn't want his television and a half-dozen other appliances, too. (Totally unrelated PX anecdote: I once went to a party where I was charged with making hamburgers from my secret recipe, part of which involves sprinkling them with Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning, which I'd smuggled in after a trip to Texas and made a big "you can't get that here" deal about. One of the Germans at the party looked at my precious canister of the stuff and said "Oh, yeah, Tony Chachere's. You could get that at the PX. We always had some around.")
As the day for the troops to leave approached, Z was more and more distraught. The bookstores closed, the Four Brothers (which depended heavily on the military for its customers) closed, and he made me promise to meet him to watch the final parade down the Strasse des 17 Juni, which was going to happen on June 19. I'd already missed enough history here (I left town in 1989 the day before the Wall opened, and on another occasion, I missed the last Pan Am flight out of Berlin, an emotional occasion because they'd donated many airplanes to the Berlin Airlift) that I wasn't going to miss this -- plus, the parade route was only a few minutes' walk from my place in Moabit anyway. The New York Times story will give you the factual background, but my memory also includes the low-flying aircraft flying flags, and trailing red, white, and blue smoke from their exhausts (convenient for the Americans, British, and French!) while soldiers stood in their open doors at full attention, which certainly got my acrophobia going. The other memory of that day certainly didn't make the Times: Z was openly crying.
It seems weird at this point in history to think that someone like him would be so deeply affected. It's not that he wasn't a proud German, but he'd spent 35 years in either the American zone of West Germany, or West Berlin, and his most important cultural touchstone was being ripped away from him. He'd been occupied his whole life, and he'd formed a bond with his occupiers, whether he was reading their pulp fiction or surreptitiously smoking their pot and drinking their beer in one of their high schools. German identity, whether some people would like to admit it at that point or not, was partially dependent on the occupiers reminding them of why they were occupied. From this day on, they'd have to go it themselves. I suspect this provoked a tinge of fear in some people.
Anyway, I think of Z every year when these posters show up. He abandoned our friendship long ago as he quit his translating job and got into the film business, where he's produced some of the very worst teen comedies this nation has ever offered to a reluctant movie-going public. He's a millionaire now, I suspect. At any rate, he's been liberated from who he used to be.
Me, too, as almost 15 years in a foreign country will do to you. Not that I've gone native, as some expats do. But I've become accustomed to some of the European norms which are pretty much universal in the countries I've visited: a different pace of life, an acceptance of universal medical care as a human right instead of a privilege, an abandonment of puritainsim, a scepticism about nationalism, and a feeling for cross-border cooperation. I think you can be liberated from the United States without becoming a subject of where you live, too, in the same way that the Italian-Americans I grew up with were both Italian and American. I think of myself more as an American-European in that sense, and, like those Italian-Americans, I can live with the best of both cultures and make a new one out of what I've been dealt by life here.
So, much as I bitch about Berlin and much as I can't wait to get out of here, I gotta say it: thank you for the liberation.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
The Emigrant's Dilemma, Chapter 2: One Wing Down
Okay, I'm happy to report that as of this morning, I've got one part of this upcoming journey, which is only the prelude to moving, fixed: I've booked myself to Marseille.
For those who are interested in the ins and outs of travel within Europe, I'll set down how I did this. I started by going to this site, which has all the cheapo airlines: Ryanair, eaSyjeT, Berlin Wings, and so on. It proved a little less than satisfactory: the search results came up with the starting-point and destination reversed, and then there were links for each airline. But those budget outfits sometimes have only one flight a day, and, serving peripheral airports a lot of the time, you can't always coordinate them. Thus, I could fly to London Gatwick on one budget flight, but then I'd have to connect an hour and a half earlier to one out of Luton. Which, not quite yet being the master of space and time I aspire to be, I just couldn't do.
So I ran the changes at Mobissimo, a pioneering early search engine, which has the disadvantage of not including the Ryanairs of the world in its search. BA came up cheapest, but running a close second was Brussels Air, which is part of what became of Sabena when it fell apart. And I discovered I could get a flight out of Berlin at a convenient hour, make a quick transfer in Brussels, and then be in Marseilles in time for lunch, all for less than €200. Of course, I realized too late, I'd also be in time to make a leisurely transfer for my flight to Morocco, had I booked it on the right day. So now I've added the price of a hotel and a couple of meals to the trip. Stupid.
But one thing I can do is use Mobissimo to check out hotels in Aix and Marseille, or maybe even Priceline. That's going to have to wait, though, until my bank account fills up again. I'd forgotten how expensive euros are for those of us who earn in dollars.
I also checked flying back from Montpellier and discovered that not only could I fly Ryanair for free (plus 29 euros tax or something and a few more in charges, so no, not free), but I could even switch to Germanair or something for another 39-euro flight. I'm considering it, but I hear too many horror stories about Ryanair, and I might well need the relaxing train ride to contemplate whatever decision I wind up making in Montpellier.
Next up: train from Marseille to Montpellier, hotel in Montpellier, scrounge local parks for beer bottles to turn in for deposit so I can raise the dough to get the apartment.
But at least the first half of the prelude is written.
For those who are interested in the ins and outs of travel within Europe, I'll set down how I did this. I started by going to this site, which has all the cheapo airlines: Ryanair, eaSyjeT, Berlin Wings, and so on. It proved a little less than satisfactory: the search results came up with the starting-point and destination reversed, and then there were links for each airline. But those budget outfits sometimes have only one flight a day, and, serving peripheral airports a lot of the time, you can't always coordinate them. Thus, I could fly to London Gatwick on one budget flight, but then I'd have to connect an hour and a half earlier to one out of Luton. Which, not quite yet being the master of space and time I aspire to be, I just couldn't do.
So I ran the changes at Mobissimo, a pioneering early search engine, which has the disadvantage of not including the Ryanairs of the world in its search. BA came up cheapest, but running a close second was Brussels Air, which is part of what became of Sabena when it fell apart. And I discovered I could get a flight out of Berlin at a convenient hour, make a quick transfer in Brussels, and then be in Marseilles in time for lunch, all for less than €200. Of course, I realized too late, I'd also be in time to make a leisurely transfer for my flight to Morocco, had I booked it on the right day. So now I've added the price of a hotel and a couple of meals to the trip. Stupid.
But one thing I can do is use Mobissimo to check out hotels in Aix and Marseille, or maybe even Priceline. That's going to have to wait, though, until my bank account fills up again. I'd forgotten how expensive euros are for those of us who earn in dollars.
I also checked flying back from Montpellier and discovered that not only could I fly Ryanair for free (plus 29 euros tax or something and a few more in charges, so no, not free), but I could even switch to Germanair or something for another 39-euro flight. I'm considering it, but I hear too many horror stories about Ryanair, and I might well need the relaxing train ride to contemplate whatever decision I wind up making in Montpellier.
Next up: train from Marseille to Montpellier, hotel in Montpellier, scrounge local parks for beer bottles to turn in for deposit so I can raise the dough to get the apartment.
But at least the first half of the prelude is written.
Monday, May 05, 2008
The Emigrant's Dilemma, Chapter 1: Get Outta Town
In which we begin a long series on moving to France.
And we start with the visit to find an apartment. This, I thought, would be ultra-convenient: I'd been invited to the World Festival of Sacred Music in Fes, Morocco, an event I almost went to last year, but was forced to cancel because I couldn't interest any magazines in the story. This year, though, I've found one, and it even pays okay. Now, you can get to Fes on Royal Moroccan Air, which will be picking up the flight, via a number of different cities. In Germany, you can fly from Frankfurt or Düsseldorf; in France from Paris...or Marseille. The flight from Marseille is non-stop, leaving at 11:25 in the morning and arriving at 6:30 at night, plenty of time to get to the hotel and make the opening concert. I'd return the day after the final concert, overnight in Marseille, take a train to Montpellier, and look at apartments.
So far so good.
But...I'd have to get to Marseille. I've managed relatively inexpensive travel to France in the past, and didn't see why this should be any different. Checking this and that, I discovered that the Marseille airport is actually the Marseille-Provence airport, and not far from Aix-en-Provence, easy enough to get to via Deutsche Bahn and the French TGV. So I'd take the train to Aix, overnight there, and catch a bus to the airport the next morning.
Then, upon my return, I could take a train from Montpellier to Paris and thence to Berlin. Easy, right?
Well, no. For a start, as I knew, you can research like crazy on the Deutsche Bahn website, but as soon as it involves crossing (most) borders, you won't get a price. So I found a convenient train to Aix and noted it down, then did the same for the Montpellier-Berlin leg.
Uh, but now what? Go down to Hauptbahnhof, stand in line for thirty minutes to get a quote, and then walk away? Talking to the Dancer on the phone the other night, she hit on the obvious: "Go to a travel agency. They don't mind answering questions. And then you can go in there to buy your ticket instead of standing in line."
So that's what I decided to do with this afternoon. Mondays are slow: America doesn't really get working until what's the end of the afternoon here, so I had lots of time to work with. There was a travel agency nearby; I'd go there. But when I got there, there was no DB insignia in the window. The guy inside confirmed that they didn't handle train tickets. "In the Center," he said, gesturing to the mall known as the Schönhauser Arkaden. So I walked over there, went into the travel agency I see when I head to the store there, and waited for the guy to get off the phone. There was also a woman waiting, and she was there first. When he finally hung up with whoever he was talking with, she said "I have to make a trip, but it's got about 10,000 connections." I looked around the shop to see if the other two desks would be occupied anytime soon, but nobody else was there. But the guy was nice enough to ask what my question was, and immediately confirmed that they didn't sell train tickets, either. There was, however, another travel agency on the top floor, so I headed up there.
At this agency, there was a nice woman who had trouble with the French names, but was otherwise very competent. Unfortnately, she couldn't get any data up on her screen. "We have a lot of trouble with the French railroads..." she said. And no wonder. I mean, if you're in the Gare d'Est in Paris sometime with a few minutes to kill, read the memorial plaques there. German trains arriving in France usually meant bad, bad news, and I'd had no idea that hundreds of thousands of young Frenchmen had been worked to death by the Nazis. I'd be reluctant to give up information, too.
At long last, the woman gave up. "Go to Gesundbrunnen," she suggested. "They have a pavillion there." And she was right: I'd forgotten there was a "DB Store" at the other nearby gigantic shopping mall.
It was a nice day; I decided to walk. As I walked, I remembered the horoscope Yahoo put up on the page I start the day with, urging me to make a budget for a big dream project: it might cost less than I thought! Of course, that was sometime last week. I've been trying to avoid running the numbers on this for fear the final sum would be unattainable. But then, over the weekend, a friend told me she knew a couple who'd moved to Brittany from Berlin, and it had cost either 1200 or 1500 Euros, she couldn't remember. That gave me hope: I'd estimated twice to three times that. The distance is slightly longer, but that suddenly made this look more affordable.
I finally got to the DB Store, and a harrassed young woman asked me what I wanted. I had the times of the trains I wanted, and asked if she could give me a price. The names of the French towns gave her conniptions. I had to repeat "Aix en Provence" six times. She refused to even say it, calling it "your destination" or "this town here." She was actually sweating trying to get the price out of the machine. Finally, we had part one: a 5-stop train leaving here at 7:37, changing in Mannheim, Offenburg, Strasbourg, Marne la Valée-Chessy, and, finally, Aix en Provence TGV station and a bus into the city.
Total price: €283.60. Which, I reflected, was ridiculous.
She then set to work on the Montpellier-Berlin leg. This was a quickie: Montpellier-Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport-Brussels-Cologne-Berlin.
A mere €258.50.
She printed it up and glared me farewell. Stunned, I walked back to the house. On the way, I did some more thinking. How much, I wondered, would it cost to fly these legs?
Back at the house I puttered with the SNCF website to see if I could do better. Not only could I not do better, it was impossible to find the trains I'd found on the DB site. I kept getting offered sleeper trains, something I will never, ever do again. Okay, then, plan B.
I can fly from here to Marseille for €139. I hate flying, but boy, I hate spending money worse. Plus, I bet I could get a cheap airport hotel, take a bus into Aix or Marseille for dinner and/or some sightseeing, and have a good time. (I also noted that some of the flights were on Air Brussels out of Tempelhof, the airport they're shutting down. I wonder if those flights are still going...)
A flight to Berlin from Montpellier, on the other hand, costs upwards of €375. So it's the train on that one.
Thus, so far, we have €397.50 to get in and out of France, overnight at a hotel on the way out and on the way back in, an as-yet-unresearched ticket from Marseille to Montpellier, five nights at the hotel there at €58 a night if I can get a reservation (and I'd better get on that), about €30/day expenses in Morocco, and two or maybe three months' rent to secure an apartment lease that starts on July 1. I'm not sure what this adds up to (not forgetting meals in Montpellier, either, as well as the June rent here), but I can guesstimate just enough of it to know that if everyone pays up on time I'll have most of it just from what I'm owed so far, and that's not counting work I haven't done yet -- and will be starting this week.
Of course, that's if everyone pays up. Let us pray.
Meanwhile, what are the chances of my being able to find what I want when I get to Montpellier? Well, I've already had one firm offer, and I'm waiting on another, and you'll never believe where they came from: Facebook. There are two Montpellier groups there (well, actually three, but the third one is debates on what are the best restaurants in town), and I posted in both of them in March. Never heard anything while I was there, but when I got back here, I heard from a guy with two places, and then last week from another guy who said his father has some places for rent. All are pretty much just where I want to be, too. The one guy who made me a firm offer has given me the address of the place, and I used this neat gizmo that the French Yellow Pages has to type in the address of the place and "walk" around it and look at the neighborhood. I guess Google Maps can offer much the same thing, but this'll do for the moment.
There's more -- I still do need to get estimates from the movers, and no, I have no idea where that money will come from -- and I'll need to find someone to take over my lease here, and I also need to go through some of the stuff I moved to see just what the hell it is and whether I really need it. I don't want this move to be as chaotic as the last one, especially since I can't hop into a taxi and go back to the old place in ten minutes because I forgot something.
But, even though I'm no further ahead than I was this morning, at least I feel like I made some progress.
And we start with the visit to find an apartment. This, I thought, would be ultra-convenient: I'd been invited to the World Festival of Sacred Music in Fes, Morocco, an event I almost went to last year, but was forced to cancel because I couldn't interest any magazines in the story. This year, though, I've found one, and it even pays okay. Now, you can get to Fes on Royal Moroccan Air, which will be picking up the flight, via a number of different cities. In Germany, you can fly from Frankfurt or Düsseldorf; in France from Paris...or Marseille. The flight from Marseille is non-stop, leaving at 11:25 in the morning and arriving at 6:30 at night, plenty of time to get to the hotel and make the opening concert. I'd return the day after the final concert, overnight in Marseille, take a train to Montpellier, and look at apartments.
So far so good.
But...I'd have to get to Marseille. I've managed relatively inexpensive travel to France in the past, and didn't see why this should be any different. Checking this and that, I discovered that the Marseille airport is actually the Marseille-Provence airport, and not far from Aix-en-Provence, easy enough to get to via Deutsche Bahn and the French TGV. So I'd take the train to Aix, overnight there, and catch a bus to the airport the next morning.
Then, upon my return, I could take a train from Montpellier to Paris and thence to Berlin. Easy, right?
Well, no. For a start, as I knew, you can research like crazy on the Deutsche Bahn website, but as soon as it involves crossing (most) borders, you won't get a price. So I found a convenient train to Aix and noted it down, then did the same for the Montpellier-Berlin leg.
Uh, but now what? Go down to Hauptbahnhof, stand in line for thirty minutes to get a quote, and then walk away? Talking to the Dancer on the phone the other night, she hit on the obvious: "Go to a travel agency. They don't mind answering questions. And then you can go in there to buy your ticket instead of standing in line."
So that's what I decided to do with this afternoon. Mondays are slow: America doesn't really get working until what's the end of the afternoon here, so I had lots of time to work with. There was a travel agency nearby; I'd go there. But when I got there, there was no DB insignia in the window. The guy inside confirmed that they didn't handle train tickets. "In the Center," he said, gesturing to the mall known as the Schönhauser Arkaden. So I walked over there, went into the travel agency I see when I head to the store there, and waited for the guy to get off the phone. There was also a woman waiting, and she was there first. When he finally hung up with whoever he was talking with, she said "I have to make a trip, but it's got about 10,000 connections." I looked around the shop to see if the other two desks would be occupied anytime soon, but nobody else was there. But the guy was nice enough to ask what my question was, and immediately confirmed that they didn't sell train tickets, either. There was, however, another travel agency on the top floor, so I headed up there.
At this agency, there was a nice woman who had trouble with the French names, but was otherwise very competent. Unfortnately, she couldn't get any data up on her screen. "We have a lot of trouble with the French railroads..." she said. And no wonder. I mean, if you're in the Gare d'Est in Paris sometime with a few minutes to kill, read the memorial plaques there. German trains arriving in France usually meant bad, bad news, and I'd had no idea that hundreds of thousands of young Frenchmen had been worked to death by the Nazis. I'd be reluctant to give up information, too.
At long last, the woman gave up. "Go to Gesundbrunnen," she suggested. "They have a pavillion there." And she was right: I'd forgotten there was a "DB Store" at the other nearby gigantic shopping mall.
It was a nice day; I decided to walk. As I walked, I remembered the horoscope Yahoo put up on the page I start the day with, urging me to make a budget for a big dream project: it might cost less than I thought! Of course, that was sometime last week. I've been trying to avoid running the numbers on this for fear the final sum would be unattainable. But then, over the weekend, a friend told me she knew a couple who'd moved to Brittany from Berlin, and it had cost either 1200 or 1500 Euros, she couldn't remember. That gave me hope: I'd estimated twice to three times that. The distance is slightly longer, but that suddenly made this look more affordable.
I finally got to the DB Store, and a harrassed young woman asked me what I wanted. I had the times of the trains I wanted, and asked if she could give me a price. The names of the French towns gave her conniptions. I had to repeat "Aix en Provence" six times. She refused to even say it, calling it "your destination" or "this town here." She was actually sweating trying to get the price out of the machine. Finally, we had part one: a 5-stop train leaving here at 7:37, changing in Mannheim, Offenburg, Strasbourg, Marne la Valée-Chessy, and, finally, Aix en Provence TGV station and a bus into the city.
Total price: €283.60. Which, I reflected, was ridiculous.
She then set to work on the Montpellier-Berlin leg. This was a quickie: Montpellier-Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport-Brussels-Cologne-Berlin.
A mere €258.50.
She printed it up and glared me farewell. Stunned, I walked back to the house. On the way, I did some more thinking. How much, I wondered, would it cost to fly these legs?
Back at the house I puttered with the SNCF website to see if I could do better. Not only could I not do better, it was impossible to find the trains I'd found on the DB site. I kept getting offered sleeper trains, something I will never, ever do again. Okay, then, plan B.
I can fly from here to Marseille for €139. I hate flying, but boy, I hate spending money worse. Plus, I bet I could get a cheap airport hotel, take a bus into Aix or Marseille for dinner and/or some sightseeing, and have a good time. (I also noted that some of the flights were on Air Brussels out of Tempelhof, the airport they're shutting down. I wonder if those flights are still going...)
A flight to Berlin from Montpellier, on the other hand, costs upwards of €375. So it's the train on that one.
Thus, so far, we have €397.50 to get in and out of France, overnight at a hotel on the way out and on the way back in, an as-yet-unresearched ticket from Marseille to Montpellier, five nights at the hotel there at €58 a night if I can get a reservation (and I'd better get on that), about €30/day expenses in Morocco, and two or maybe three months' rent to secure an apartment lease that starts on July 1. I'm not sure what this adds up to (not forgetting meals in Montpellier, either, as well as the June rent here), but I can guesstimate just enough of it to know that if everyone pays up on time I'll have most of it just from what I'm owed so far, and that's not counting work I haven't done yet -- and will be starting this week.
Of course, that's if everyone pays up. Let us pray.
Meanwhile, what are the chances of my being able to find what I want when I get to Montpellier? Well, I've already had one firm offer, and I'm waiting on another, and you'll never believe where they came from: Facebook. There are two Montpellier groups there (well, actually three, but the third one is debates on what are the best restaurants in town), and I posted in both of them in March. Never heard anything while I was there, but when I got back here, I heard from a guy with two places, and then last week from another guy who said his father has some places for rent. All are pretty much just where I want to be, too. The one guy who made me a firm offer has given me the address of the place, and I used this neat gizmo that the French Yellow Pages has to type in the address of the place and "walk" around it and look at the neighborhood. I guess Google Maps can offer much the same thing, but this'll do for the moment.
There's more -- I still do need to get estimates from the movers, and no, I have no idea where that money will come from -- and I'll need to find someone to take over my lease here, and I also need to go through some of the stuff I moved to see just what the hell it is and whether I really need it. I don't want this move to be as chaotic as the last one, especially since I can't hop into a taxi and go back to the old place in ten minutes because I forgot something.
But, even though I'm no further ahead than I was this morning, at least I feel like I made some progress.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
It Must Be Spring
More in the nature of a collection of crumbs, but...
First, there's the matter of the arboreal genocide on my street. The aftermath has been interesting: on the stub (it's not tall enough to call it a stump) where one of the trees was someone has taken a Christmas tree outline, made of stout bronze wire, and screwed it to the former living tree. On the end of each of its "branches," this decoration has a candle-holder, and various residents have stuck candles in there and lit them. There's nothing in them as of a few minutes ago, but this may change. In the meanwhile, it's been festooned with strings of tinsel and ribbon.
A few more trees on other streets have gone, too, and apparently there are plans for even more. One, I noticed, only got severely trimmed, perhaps in deference to a very large bird's nest near its top. Species-ism, if you ask me.
The comments on that item were interesting, too, as were backchannel e-mails like the one from Gary detailing a homicidal Californian tree. I suppose that kind of thing can happen anywhere, but maybe a tree living in a place where people retain a vestigal communion with tree-spirits makes it happen far less frequently. Makes me wonder if it happens at all in Latvia. I was also sent a tree-hugging joke by Friedperson, but if you know her, you know it's not the kind of thing one can post on a family-oriented blog like this one (stop laughing). Mature adults can apply via e-mail. The easily offended need not bother.
Across the street from the former trees, a local child is attempting a social experiment: hanging from one of the building's balconies by a stout rope is a small felt basket. If you look in it, you'll discover candies and a note asking you to take one and leave another behind. This has been going on for several days now, and I'm amazed to see that there's been a steady change in the basket's contents. Yesterday, someone left a banana instead of candy, thereby teaching the kid that there are health-food nuts everywhere. My guess is that the basket gets hauled up every now and again and the really good stuff is impounded.
It's not just the sap oozing from the tree-stubs that reminds me it's spring, though. The windows can be open most of the day now, and there is actually sunshine outdoors. Plus, of course, last night was Walpurgisnacht, which then segues neatly into May Day rioting, that old Berliner tradition. The park near my house was, for some reason, closed off and police stationed to check people coming and going, and there were helicopters late into the night. Now, I know there was also a Howard Carpendale concert last night, but somehow I don't think the security was about him. Today, broken empty bottles of horrific sorts of alcohol I didn't even know existed are all over the street, and, for the first time since I've been in this neighborhood, there've been police sirens at regular intervals.
All of which makes me nostalgic, because it now looks very much like I'll be leaving here come July. Details -- many, many details, you can be sure -- will follow as things fall into place, and no, I don't have the money yet, and yet it's more likely than ever that I will when the proverbial push comes to shove. The first item on the agenda is an apartment search, which will follow closely after a week in Morocco. After that, it'll be back here to pack.
And, of course, this scares me to death. I don't know many people in Montpellier, and two of the folks I do know are leaving for the summer; I don't have a job there (other than the writing I do which can be done from anywhere), and I'll be moving somewhere that's a bit more expensive than Berlin and where I'll be paying more rent than I am here. Plus the usual unknowns on this end. If experience is anything to go by, I'll both fall in love with someone who can't move and be offered a totally fantastic job here about three days before I roll out of town.
I also won't be living in a town with loads of brilliant artists who do events involving head-lice.
Not that, at this point, I'm going to let that stop me.
First, there's the matter of the arboreal genocide on my street. The aftermath has been interesting: on the stub (it's not tall enough to call it a stump) where one of the trees was someone has taken a Christmas tree outline, made of stout bronze wire, and screwed it to the former living tree. On the end of each of its "branches," this decoration has a candle-holder, and various residents have stuck candles in there and lit them. There's nothing in them as of a few minutes ago, but this may change. In the meanwhile, it's been festooned with strings of tinsel and ribbon.
A few more trees on other streets have gone, too, and apparently there are plans for even more. One, I noticed, only got severely trimmed, perhaps in deference to a very large bird's nest near its top. Species-ism, if you ask me.
The comments on that item were interesting, too, as were backchannel e-mails like the one from Gary detailing a homicidal Californian tree. I suppose that kind of thing can happen anywhere, but maybe a tree living in a place where people retain a vestigal communion with tree-spirits makes it happen far less frequently. Makes me wonder if it happens at all in Latvia. I was also sent a tree-hugging joke by Friedperson, but if you know her, you know it's not the kind of thing one can post on a family-oriented blog like this one (stop laughing). Mature adults can apply via e-mail. The easily offended need not bother.
Across the street from the former trees, a local child is attempting a social experiment: hanging from one of the building's balconies by a stout rope is a small felt basket. If you look in it, you'll discover candies and a note asking you to take one and leave another behind. This has been going on for several days now, and I'm amazed to see that there's been a steady change in the basket's contents. Yesterday, someone left a banana instead of candy, thereby teaching the kid that there are health-food nuts everywhere. My guess is that the basket gets hauled up every now and again and the really good stuff is impounded.
It's not just the sap oozing from the tree-stubs that reminds me it's spring, though. The windows can be open most of the day now, and there is actually sunshine outdoors. Plus, of course, last night was Walpurgisnacht, which then segues neatly into May Day rioting, that old Berliner tradition. The park near my house was, for some reason, closed off and police stationed to check people coming and going, and there were helicopters late into the night. Now, I know there was also a Howard Carpendale concert last night, but somehow I don't think the security was about him. Today, broken empty bottles of horrific sorts of alcohol I didn't even know existed are all over the street, and, for the first time since I've been in this neighborhood, there've been police sirens at regular intervals.
All of which makes me nostalgic, because it now looks very much like I'll be leaving here come July. Details -- many, many details, you can be sure -- will follow as things fall into place, and no, I don't have the money yet, and yet it's more likely than ever that I will when the proverbial push comes to shove. The first item on the agenda is an apartment search, which will follow closely after a week in Morocco. After that, it'll be back here to pack.
And, of course, this scares me to death. I don't know many people in Montpellier, and two of the folks I do know are leaving for the summer; I don't have a job there (other than the writing I do which can be done from anywhere), and I'll be moving somewhere that's a bit more expensive than Berlin and where I'll be paying more rent than I am here. Plus the usual unknowns on this end. If experience is anything to go by, I'll both fall in love with someone who can't move and be offered a totally fantastic job here about three days before I roll out of town.
I also won't be living in a town with loads of brilliant artists who do events involving head-lice.
Not that, at this point, I'm going to let that stop me.
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