The thing about Berlin...

...is that it doesn't look like anything I've experienced before. When I lived in Dublin, people were cheerful, friendly and always smiling (it was nothing like a magic world, but random Saturday nights at the pub).Here in Berlin, it took me roughly a year, with six months wanting to jump out of my balcony, to actually fit in and feel approximately at home. As it often happens when I just had a friend over, visiting the city, I learned to look at it again this week, and it gave me some inspiration to share some of my nicest/weirdest/funniest experiences while trying to fulfill the Berliner's expectations towards a lost French girl in the city.

The Bad Ones:
- Being told "You're not dead yet" when finding out you won't have insurance cover for three weeks and no treatment I need"
- Being given herbs instead of proper antibiotics (I'm French, sorry), because "Miss, the Krankenkasse doesn't want to pay for your antibiotics if not necessary" (with scary threatening look).

- "What are you doing here", when sitting on a terrace to have a drink with a friend. Oh how often have I asked myself this very same question during this year, though.
- Being fired when coming back from holidays, on no grounds, my personal favourite.
- Seeing a psycho in the U-Bahn, holding a butcher knife and trying to stab here and there. Or no, the best part was that woman sitting next to me at that scary moment, sighing "with that one we're going to be late yet again".
- Hearing loud tourists and arrogant Frenchies, as usual, same everywhere.
- Falling on the icy spot in front of the supermarket and being asked if...I could possibly move away because I'm right in the middle of the entrance
- Being snapped at every time you meet a typical Berliner. But don't worry though, and see the following:

The Goodies:
- in order to snap back, and therefore start a friendly conversation with a Berliner, learning some German is a must. Snapping is a sign of interest on the Berliner's behalf. If you snap back, he or she will know you're "from here" and that you're playing by the local rules, thus he'll turn into friendly mode, especially while sorting out administration papers. While relaxing in this mode though, please don't forget to keep talking rationnally and being factual. Cynicism welcome.
- museums, of course (there is an impressive dinosaur at the Naturkunde Museum, a reconstructed temple in the Pergamon, treasures of Asia at the Ethnologisches Museum, Huguenot informations and history at the Huguenotten Museum. You can also play hide and seek by nightime in the Memorial for the Holocaust and therefore make something light out of a heavy past.It is bad taste, but funny nonetheless.

- roll your eyes when the S-Bahn is running late. But remember that in France you'd do a belly dance for the whole platform if all the trains were "just" one minute late. This remark doesn't apply for winter infrastructures (see below)
- be prepared to spend christmas holidays alone in your flat, with your cat, because Schönefeld airport got overwhelmed by the amount of snow and too little amount of salt to prepare the runways. No reason to be sad about it, your local Real or Aldi will be fully prepared to help you drowning your sorrows in chocolate (or egg liquor).

- hanging around and getting lost in the city, east and west (but not in Lichtenberg, and not by -20°C in wintertime). You can walk with your chin way way up, and with a camera with long-life batteries, the city is dog-poo free. And there are often nice graffitis/drawings/structures in the buildings you're looking at. Same goes for its green spaces, plenty of hidden soviet monuments to marvel at.

- markets (preferably with no wallet, because there will always be THAT book you were looking for for ages? Except that it will be in German, but that's a good way to practice it)
- bookshops (Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg ones, it smells better than Amazon orders, and you get your book faster (but "teurer", though)
- artsy cinemas...plenty of them around the city, cheaper than the Sony-Center-Blockbuster-in-3D Provider, and nice Preminger, Chaplin, Hitchcock retropspectives all year round.
- Sunday brunches (think about not eating for the couple of days before)
- gigs, everywhere, anytime, any kind. But Huxley's, Yorckschlösschen, Kaffee Burger, The Passage, the Kulturbrauerei and the various Operas are the nicestestest places.

So, no I definitely don't find Berlin poor but sexy, as the mayor in 2004 once said. But it's delightfully lively, and it has to be experienced once in a lifetime, with your mind wide open. Whatever you might be looking for, you have good chances to find it here. It can be ruthless at times, but overall you can't help but falling in love with this weird city and its inhabitants. To be continued.