It's good to stick with what you know.....sometimes

Day 58 - Thursday August 25th

*this is not actually the dog in the story, I got this off the Internet. But it kind of looked like this.


So we haven't really explained in detail all the problems we were having with our apartment. For those of you that know me, you know I am cursed when it comes to apartments. Besides smelling like a dirty hippie smoked 10 packs of cigarettes a day in here, there were issues with the neighborhood. The drug dealers in gorlitzer park, the "alternative" looking people hanging out all day on the street, and the whole no street lamp thing here puzzled me quite a bit. But there were other things inside the apartment that were a mess. The bathroom ceiling had a huge leak, our hot water went out for 2 days, our Internet went out for an entire week, and our neighbor who thinks he's an amazing Dj blasting music in the middle of the night. It was a hassle to get things fixed and when we requested a new apt the answer came back that they could move us but it would be 200€ extra. So when I was flipping out about the water bill said to me "what are you going to do in India?" and that was the crux of my frustration. Last time I checked, Germany wasn't a third world country. I expect these things to happen when we get to India, not when I'm paying for an apartment in Berlin IN EUROS. The weather also turned shitty again so that one glorious stretch of 10 days where we both were happy with Berlin was over.

The final straw was the other day, Tuesday to be specific, and we had just returned to our place from taco Tuesday at Santa Maria's. Soooo delicious I recommend it if your looking for Mexican in Berlin. 1€ tequila shots! 1€ tacos! Anyways, we were in the mood to go out and decided it would be best to get some beer at the store to pre game a little before hitting the club. I was skipping happily down the stairs when I come face to face with a growling dog in front of me. I kept going down the stairs slowly because I figured he would leave. But he didn't, he actually lunged at me and bared his teeth barking like a maniac. I ran up the steps screaming my head off. This was repeated twice and bill went back into the apartment and grabbed a broom, saying that in these situations you must "establish dominance" over the dog. I really didn't think this was the time to get into training techniques for wild animals but whatever. Bill descended the stairwell pointing the broom at the dog yelling at it to get back. The dog went out into the courtyard and stood by the far door leading into another building. So this wasn't a stray dog, this was someone's pet. then the windows open in apartments above us and people want to know what we are screaming about. Mr. Dj actually had the balls to complain that we were making noise. Whatthefuck?! As he's saying this the dog totally flips out again and is barking and growling. We finally get across the courtyard and out to the store. When we come back, a guy comes out of his apartment and sees bill with the broom and flips out that we were attacking his dog. So of course bill and him get in this huge screaming argument about how the dog tried to attack me and the guy actually says, "well he didn't bite her so what's the problem". If I had to sum up Berlin in one story this would be it: Somehow, it's not your mangey vicious dog that's the problem, I'm creating a problem by yelling because I wasn't bit. Yeah.

My parents both have a pit bull, ones a male and ones a female. they would never have behaved like that if they got out of the house. Actually, I've never seen a dog behave like that, ever, even stray dogs. It was kinda sad, obviously because there is some sort of mistreatment going on for a dog to be that vicious and mean when unprovoked. That's like a whole other thing though that I'm not even going to get into.

So I start writing an email to the landlord cursing him out, telling him he's running a circus slum, that he's a piece of shit, etc etc etc and bill edits it to be much more business worded. The next day the building manager calls to tell us we can break the lease. At the end of the day we are going to loose around 100€ but sometimes you just have to take what money you can get and run with it. Ive never been so happy to leave a place in my life. It's a shame because we had so many high hopes for our time in Berlin but I think our biggest mistake was coming to a place with too many expectations, that's definitely something I am going to keep in mind for the future.

We immediately booked flights, a hotel and a car in Ibiza. Sometimes you have to go with what you know. Bill and i know that island like the back of our hands and last night all I could dream about was lounging on a remote beach with a pitcher of banana sangria and a plate seafood paella, sun shining on my newly revitalized tan, a slight breeze off the blue Mediterranean sea blowing across my face. When what you know is heaven, why go anywhere else?

-Claire