Still Here!

It looks like I'll be continuing my "leave of absence" from blogging for a while longer. But I can recount some highlights of my whereabouts this past month. After deciding to come to Berlin, there was, of course, lots that needed doing - moving, selling my house in Uppsala, finishing my job and, oh, attending all those good-bye events! Now in Berlin, I very much miss my Uppsala friends and colleagues, despite having wonderful new Berlin colleagues.

Realizing the likelihood of a vacation in the next half year would be unlikely, I decided it would be best to take a break prior to my start date in Berlin. After saying good-bye in Uppsala, I flew to Zurich to spend several days with a childhood friend, Sybil - and get over my regrets that the Zurich job never came through! From there I took a train to Zermatt to join old friends from high school for a week of skiing, despite being entirely unsure about how to do this with a hand barely able to hold a ski pole. As it turned out, holding a ski pole for a week was the best therapy I've done for my hand all year! Even though the mobility hasn't increased much, the strength has and the pain has become much less. I've decided that a ski week every year is a must from now on!

From Zermatt I took a sleeper train to Berlin, arriving Sunday morning, March 8th. I'm not experienced with sleeper trains but found it enjoyable and not unlike staying in a youth hostel. My compartment slept 4 - there were three very friendly German girls to chat with.

In Berlin, my new colleague, Andreas, fetched me at the train station and we returned to his house where I am still staying with him and his wife, Katharina, while I search for an appartment.

The following day, March 9, was my first day at work. My German is quite reasonable and I can understand if I concentrate well enough. But I wasn't quite up to the task of hearing nothing but German at work and I had 10 meetings scheduled my first week! I remained in a state of constant exhaustion, but at least I slept like a log every night. The second week was better (I think my new colleagues are speaking more slowly with me now). I had a 1 hour presentation about my work in Uppsala which I held in English, thank God! This allowed me to assess my coworkers' language capabilities and it looks like I'm going to have to stick to German.

Evenings I've been traipsing around town trying to determine which areas would be suitable for living. It's hard to accept that everywhere I go it's all city. But I've now lined up 5 rentals to look at next week. I would love to finally move in and have the movers take my things out of storage - I arrived here with only two suitcases.

My plans for today: shut the brain off and rake the leaves in Anreas' garden.

Next week at work I'm off on my first trip, even though just for the day. It's to Freiburg - and I'll get to look at some mountains. Sigh. Berlin is even flatter than I had imagined. I look forward, though, to discovering the city and its fascinating role in Europe's history. I work on the east side and expect to live there, too. I've already discovered that Berlin is still very much categorized as "East" and "West".

But enough for now. It will probably be a month before I write again.