but third country in nearly so many months. i woke up this morning, on my second day in berlin, and thought to myself "i live here now." i live here now, i live here now. both are true, and both are rather confusing, especially upon first early morning cognizance. while, at this point, i am fully aware of what it means to pick up and move somewhere new and foreign, it is still and forever a jarring act. particularly on one's emotions. or at least on my emotions.
my first night here tim came and met me at my apartment and we went out for tasty vietnamese food in the neighborhood after having a little tour of my new flat with my new roommate gudrun. tim magically secured this place for me after i was starting to feel highly anxious about the whole apartment deal upon being told by dozens and dozens of people to just give up and wait until i arrived. being me, i did not do that, but instead took my friend adam's advice and wrote a full page bio/intro of myself in which i was honest but also tried to include interesting tidbits that might set me apart, and sent that out to another 20 or so folks advertising rooms. apparently that worked, because it got a rather surprising response, including one from gudrun, who was intrigued by a new mexican named ursula. i relayed to her the story of being named after one of the main characters from d.h. lawrence's "women in love," in which gudrun is my sister, a fact that makes me very excited each time i meet a gudrun. she then asked if i had a friend who could come meet her and take a look at the apartment during an open house, and apparently tim made quite an impression, leading to a skype interview and a secured apartment in west kreuzberg, overlooking the former east/west no man's land of gleisdreieck, near the yorckstrasse s1 stop which can take me straight up to school. and thank god, because everyone else is in freak-out mode about housing, while i'm getting settled in a gorgeous altbau with hardwood floors, incredibly high ceilings, and a friendly graphic designer who keeps the place buddhist-clean.
jan came and meet tim and me after a bit on my first evening, making for a true reunion. seeing tim made me feel immediately at home, but hanging out with both of them was oddly unsettling. the anxiety and loneliness i felt in ankara were immediately on my mind, forcing me to remember that we're not there, even if we're once again together. not there, but here. in germany, where i need to really crack down and work on my language skills so that language anxiety no longer has such a high place on my list. which, honestly, right now it doesn't, but it would be nice to bump it down even further. obviously it's nothing like in turkey, where simply going to the grocery store was a stressful and sometimes overwhelming experience. here i can blend in, and once i speak and reveal my foreignness at least i can more or less communicate.
but oh, those emotions. i felt happy this summer, much happier than anticipated. i think that was largely due to having my sister and elena and a sudden built-in support network, but honestly i think it was also because i felt like i could communicate with people, something that had been glaringly lacking in my life for the year prior. it turns out that i like to be able to talk and connect with people (who knew?) but when i don't feel confident i'm not good at it. and language inability makes me strikingly unconfident. so, i've got to work on that.
but until then, i have to go deal with the 8,000 issues of german bureaucracy that must be handled in the next week. yikes.
