Another post about the disappointment of apartment hunting in Berlin

I went today to my first apartment viewing in Berlin.

I was so excited that i spent last night looking for fun activities to do in the area where this new apartment is, and for some weird reason, I thought that i will get it automatically, neglecting the fact about how competitive the market is.

The apartment is close to Warschawer Strasse, but the calmer part of it. The meeting was at 8.30, and living in Schoneberg now, it takes me more than 40 minutes to reach the apartment, first take the bus, then the U-bahn, then the strassen Bahn and finally a 3 minutes walk.

I arrived there at 8.15 and i was surprised to find 7 people waiting before me. I said to myself “it is a good thing i am wearing my expensive jacket, i will get this apartment for sure, look at these hippies”.

Five minutes passed and we became already 20 people, and then all of a sudden, there were about 4 people coming ever minute. it was 8.30, and we were more than 65 people waiting to view this one of a kind apartment.

At this point, i felt like my expensive jacket wouldn’t make any difference, and i lost hope of getting this apartment, because it is obviously a matter of luck, and i haven’t been able  to consider myself lucky lately ( this is sort of a lie, i know i am lucky bastard).

The apartment is really nice, 2 big rooms, a fitted kitchen, a small but nice bathroom, and even a tiny little balcony, and i have a soft spot for balconies. I’m hooked, i want this apartment no matter what it takes. I walk to the nice agent lady and i ask for an application with a wide smile of my face, convinced that if i smile and take the application with a positive energy then it for sure be mine soon. With my limited German skills – limited is an overstatement – is say “Eine Application Bitter”, the nice lady replies “ oh you are not German, sorry this application is only for people with WBC, have a nice day”…

Just like that, my dreams get shattered, the navy blue sofa bed that i was already shopping for in my head now has no place to stay warm at. The stolen street sign will go back to were it belongs, the streets. The collection of shots that i was planning to start collecting from every city i visit will have to wait before having a nice shelf for display. Just like that, my dreams got shattered.

Being the strong man that i’ve become during the past couple of years, i have decided not to lose hope and keep on looking. I will not go into details about every apartment that i have visited, but long story short, it is really hard to find an apartment if you are an unemployed student with no stable income and a none european nationality that guarantees that someone somewhere will be able to pay for your expenses incase you miss rent for a month.

I think it is time to start looking into WGs..

Again..

A man’s story with success

This post will not be as you might expect it to be. It is not my success story and how it happened because my story didn’t happen yet, at least this is what I hope. This post will be about the success of others, like friends and family, and my reaction to their stories.

– A friend of mine just got featured in an Italian graphic design magazine and less than 24 hours later, it was raining job opportunities. 

– A friend of mine got married to a doctor, she thought that her life would be busy with him taking her to their conferences and meetings, but one year into the marriage, it was the other way around, she became quite good at her job and she is traveling the world with conferences. 

– A cousin who is one year younger than I am, just finished his master’s degree, with 2 years work experience at NASA or something and has decided now that work is going well with a steady income and no debts to be payed, that now would be the good time to get married.

I can go on and on with success stories of people i know, working in Dubai, studying in New York, charity work in Africa, working on NGO’s in Afghanistan, helping Syrian refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey, fulfilling the life-time dream, etc…

Contrarily to what people might think, i don’t envy their success stories, i really do feel happy and proud of each and every single one of them. After all, they worked hard to be where they are right now and they deserve it. 

Now what i do feel towards their stories is sadness, misery, despair, grief, melancholy and many other negative feelings, and the reason for that is that my success story is taking too long to happen, even though i am working on it as much as i can but i guess some stories need more time than others.  

Desperately attached to NOTHING!

Is it just me, or does everybody else gets too emotionally attached to characters we watch in series or movies? And i don’t mean attached as in cheer for them to make till the end of the movie alive, NO! Attached in a sense where I would think to myself in certain situations about what would this character do if he/she was in my place. 

Now first there was Nancy from weeds, of course I started with the iced-cafe-latte and it was going well, until i decided i should try escaping trouble with sexual favors, NO I didn’t go THAT far, but i tried flirting my way out of some awkward situations and not surprisingly much, it didn’t work for me. 

Now the Dexter phase was more serious, i started to choose cities to live in where i can have an easy access to my yacht. Don’t worry, i didn’t move and i still live in the dessert. I had to have my “Slice of Life” yacht, imagining who would be lucky enough to make it to the victim’s table made my brother put an end to this phase “you should either come back to reality or seek help ASAP” he told me one day when I was explaining how much fun i’d have while sailing away in my “slice of life” to dispose of the body. So i had to postpone buying this yacht, for now.. 

Now I believe I am in the best stage of attachments. Lets be honest, who isn’t a huge fan of Game of thrones, so being attached to Jon snow is the least strange attachment of my previous ones, basically all i need to do is just “know nothing” and i already fill this requirement. 

I think this relationship will last for a long time. I just feel the resemblance between us and I know that even though we (Jon snow and I) know nothing, we managed to be with beautiful redheads. 

Everybody’s eternal dilemma

My number one concern at this time is knowing whether I want to continue with my education or start discovering the work field on my own. I care about getting the highest education I can get, because ever since I was little, I dreamed about becoming a university professor as a part time job, while I mainly work on my own business.

Now in order for me to become a professor, I need to get a PhD, and for that I need a master’s degree, and before that a bachelor degree, so far I have only crossed the Bachelor degree off the list.  I am currently applying to universities in Europe; hopefully I’d get a response soon.

It is no secret that I care about making money as well, which is why I don’t think I can wait any longer to start doing something productive with my time. I have already tried working in the family business, but I love my father and I don’t want to kill him, because who am I kidding, this will happen eventually. My father happens to be a control freak, and I happen to be a control freak that rebels against other control freaks with sharp criticism. I know it breaks my father’s heart to know that I am not planning on working with him, and carrying on with the 50 years family legacy, but look at the bright side, now I know that I have no future in this country and narrowing my options to working on my own or continuing studying.

I really wish I was one of those guys who can juggle more than one ball at a time, but unfortunately I am the type who can barley hold one ball with two hands and concentrate on not dropping it while being distracted by the flying triangle or any other geometrical figure.

the Beginning

Amanda never considered herself as a beautiful woman, but the men who saw her would not agree on that. She has the kind of beauty that makes a person wonder how imperfect features can make such a pleasing combination. The raw green color of her eyes makes an alluring contrast with her slightly tanned skin and dark wavy hair. Amanda’s appearance showed a mixture of her blending ancestors, her black hair gave her the Mediterranean identity, with her mother’s background being from the Middle East, and her delicate aristocratic facial features gave her a big resemblance to her French grandmother from her father’s side.

Amanda has recently graduated from college with an archeology degree, but to this day still wonders why she decided to go into such an uninteresting major ignoring her artistic side that she is actually passionate about. Working as a waitress in the close by brasserie, she felt like she is wasting her life but couldn’t do anything about it because not many other opportunities on knocking on her door. At least she had her close childhood friend Brian to help her get through her tough days.

Brain is the average guy next door, well build, good looking, and a very approachable look that suits his outgoing personality. Growing up as an only child and being raised at his grandparent’s house, he managed to become a very independent young man, that some might even consider him stubborn. Brian and Amanda grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same high school for 8 years, and every step along the line seemed to make them even closer, which explains their strong bond. Brian is a school dropout, but with the help of his social skills managed to become a successful host in the same brasserie where Amanda works. This way, they manage to spend more time together not only during their free time but also at work.

Sitting with Brian on a summer afternoon in the park, Amanda looked effortlessly perfect. The flashy yellow shirt, the John Lennon round sunglasses and the beautiful Parisian summer sunshine resting on her soft skin made her look like a chef-d’oeuvre of a famous painter or photographer. That’s when Brian decided to take the cover of his lens off and start snapping as many pictures of this masterpiece as possible.

This is the introduction that I thought I would be able to use for the novel that I always dreamed of writing, but let’s be honest; such a story would not attract any readers. It didn’t even attract the writer!

This is why I decided instead to start writing little stories about myself in a blog , some of them will be based on real facts, and others will be based on a completely fictional imagination, who knows, I might even steal other people’s stories and use them as my own. Oh, and I hope by the end of those endless stories that I plan to write, that I would be able to reach a conclusion or like some sort of a life goal, because at this point of life, I am a 24 year old unemployed male with a lot of free time on my hand and a wild imagination.