I got a lot I want to write about, but I haven’t had internet for a week on account of my temporarily moving to a ground floor apartment in my building while they renovate mine. As it happens, this apartment I’m in is now my sister’s. How bout that!

Maybe you know this or probably you don’t, but it is extremely difficult to find an apartment in Berlin. Basically you have to count on someone leaving the city entirely or else DYING in order to take over their lease— and even then you’re gonna be among ten thousand other ketamine freaks vying for the same place, no matter how small / dingy / far away from the city center it is. Once an ad goes up on their equivalent of Craigslist, sure as you were born, you can count on it having over a thousand views within an hour. I ain’t even kidding.

Sometimes it takes people here a year or two to get their own place, or else they’re either stuck subletting for all eternity or get fed up and leave. For a while I had a dark suspicion I would suffer the same fate. After all, in the time I’ve been here, including the three months I was here from December 2019 to February 2020, I’ve lived in seven different apartments in five different neighborhoods, all the while sleeping in other people’s beds and using other people’s towels. It’s a bummer.

So the fact that my sister and I were both able to get apartments in Berlin that are also in the same neighborhood, let alone the same street, let alone the same BUILDING, is an air-thin miracle. What’s more is that we’re in probably one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in Berlin, which is Schöneberg. I got a 24-hour grocery store, multiple ancient cathedrals, a weekly farmer’s market, a bunch of weird little bars, and access to two major train lines within a five minute walk from my front door. I even have a magic shop nearby?? This is insane luck. After a long streak of bad luck which I figured would haunt me for the rest of my life, listen: I’ll take it!

ANYWAY

I’ll have internet again on Thursday. It’s nearly 6 am so I reckon I ought to turn in. I’ve already closed the steel shutters on the windows (the sun rises at literally 4:30 am) and a Trazodone pill is working my way into my bloodstream . . . so good-night for now! ☆彡