Vienna

Everything in life is happening in cycles or seasons.  It started to become clear to Dave & Kate in Prague that there was a pattern to what was going on.  This period was feeling very much like a previous period they'd went through back in Paris.

Back then they'd come to the end of the money they had, they were staying in hotels and there was a lot of confusion and misunderstanding around.  Towards the end of Dresden it began to feel like this all over again.

This was more than simply a feeling.  After the storm in Paris, an apartment showed up for them which had a PC.  Perfect for emailing, of which they had a lot to do.  Now this apartment in Vienna also had a PC at a time when they really needed one.  The Truffaut apartment in Paris was in the 17th district.  This apartment was in the 17th district of Vienna.  The owner of the Truffaut was called Elizabeth, the owner of this apartment was called Elisabeth.

As they entered the apartment they were both struck by how it reminded them of the Truffaut one.  Yellow and orange colour scheme, about the same size overall, the bedroom was arranged almost identically, there was a glass coffee table in each apartment with a guest book on it... these features weren't in every apartment they had stayed in.  The 3 butterflies of Paris had also returned, this time on a mug which Kate would drink from...

Maybe more bizarre was the message graffiti'd on the light in the lift...

On the last day in this apartment they would walk a different way down the street it was on and pass this sign...

Without Brian & Agnes, Dave & Kate wouldn't even have been there.

Just like with Kaisers in Berlin, they were super close to a supermarket.  In fact, this was the closest they'd been, a Spar literally 2 mins round the corner.  They would understand why later. 

As they walked the short distance in this area they already could feel a different energy in Vienna.  It was very serene.  They were just off a busy main street with shops but there was an unusual quietness to the place and they found this everywhere they went in Vienna.  It immediately felt good to be here.

The first night in the apartment they went to bed around 3am.  As Dave was drifting off to sleep he thought he could faintly hear some music he recognised.  It sounded like a ukulele strumming.  Then he heard a familiar voice.  Was this real or a dream?  The upstairs neighbour was playing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" at 4am!

Kunst

At check-in to their new apartment, the guy from the agency mentioned to them that the owner was a German cameraman/filmmaker who travelled a lot.  He would be returning to the flat on the day Dave & Kate were due to check out.

Whether it was the artistic energy, the two Buddha statues, or just the layout of the apartment itself, they immediately felt very comfortable here.  Some places take a little longer to settle into but a few rare ones have that 'right' feel immediately.  It was a lot brighter than the last apartment and had more things in it, plus a raised platform where the couch and coffee table sat and underneath a pull-out double bed.  They had never seen that type of thing before and liked it.

They were now about as far east in the city as you'd want to be without going into the outer districts of Berlin.  A clear sign the next move could only be out of the city itself.  The next sign was when Dave opened the kitchen cupboard and pulled out this mug...

Naturally, a Kaisers supermarket was nearby and now they were really in the heart of east Berlin.  Frankfurter Allee (formerly Stalin Allee under the old regime) was the main shopping street, 2 mins up the road.  They hadn't used a Subway takeaway place since Paris but with everything closed on the Sunday they checked in and no groceries it was there again to get them by.  For the rest of the week they ate potatoes for tea.

Money was just about out (they had enough to last the week) but the prospect of a new influx was promising.  Or so they thought...

Vincent

Ever since the end of their time in Paris, there was a growing empathy with Vincent Van Gogh.  Kate had begun noticing sunflowers around back then and then their apartment in Amsterdam turned out to be close to the Van Gogh musuem.

When they arrived at Citadines in Berlin their room contained two Van Gogh paintings...

Particularly going through the possibility of nowhere to stay in Berlin, Kate would remember how Van Gogh tried to express something which no-one really wanted to know in his lifetime and yet he was lauded as a genius after his death.  They both could relate to that sense of knowing you must do something and sticking to it despite what the world says.

Sometime between Christmas and New Year in this apartment, as they sat down to eat, the song on the radio brought a tear to Dave's eye:

"And now I understand what you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now"

Friedrichshain

The new apartment they had secured, from December 21st 2010 until January 16th 2011, was just down the road from Pariser Hof and further east into the the bohemian heart of Friedrichshain.  It had narrowed down to two possible apartments they could have chosen - one back west in the Mitte area and this one.  The Mitte one was unavailable for a few nights over New Year and so they'd have to move out, get a hotel, then move back in.  Plus it was more expensive.  There was no choice really.  Further east it was.

Before leaving Pariser Hof they put together the puzzle.  There were 7 pieces missing...

On arriving at the apartment (building number 11 as they were going into the year 2011) they discovered yet again Kaisers was just round the corner but more significantly, the apartment turned out to be on the ground floor and facing into the courtyard.  This wasn't clear from the description and although new to Dave & Kate (they had never stayed in ground floor flats), something was very right about it.  Although slightly bigger than Pariser Hof, this was the sparsest apartment they'd stayed in yet.  The TV had no English channels and the reception was erratic anyway.  There was little light in from the windows.  This would also be their longest stay in an apartment so far.  Could they hack it?

The nice German guy who checked them in asked where they were from.  When Dave replied "Scotland", there was a few moments pause before the guy simply said "Paul Gascoigne".  Dave nodded and laughed.

Once he left Dave & Kate stood around and surveyed the apartment for a few minutes.  They didn't say anything, they felt like a couple of cats dropped into a new house, acquanting themselves with this unfamiliar environment.  It felt bare but right.

They knew this had been coming.  Months earlier when they spoke of Berlin over the winter, the term that kept coming up was "hibernation".  They were about to hibernate for the winter and this was the perfect apartment to do that.

Moving East

The long walk along Karl-Marx Allee each day seemed to be becoming more and more significant somehow.  It is a fairly sparse, huge open street with few shops dotted along it, one being a musical instrument shop that Dave & Kate would pass each day.  They'd look in the window at the guitars and also the small selection of ukuleles caught their eye.

By the second week of their stay in Pariser Hof time was ticking down on finding a new apartment.  This time they had money to last them till after Christmas & New Year but actually securing a place at a reasonable price was becoming increasingly difficult.  They had prepared well, enquiring about lots of apartments the previous week, but most of them were coming back fully booked or out of their price-range.  It was looking as if they might have to stay in a mix of apartments and hotels over that period but even the hotel rates were often triple over the festive days.

One day walking by the musical instrument shop Dave noticed the Shure logo in the window.  He'd seen it before but this time it seemed to jump out at him.

The following day they were seriously running out of apartment offers when Kate just happened to check her junk mail.  A reply from an apartment she'd enquired about the previous week had slipped in there.  The woman was saying she'd had a last minute cancellation and her apartment was now available for almost a month at a great rate including Christmas & New Year.  Dave knew it was the right one when she confirmed it for them, her otherwise word-perfect email containing the mistake "you can be shure the apartment is yours".

It was a close-call again, the apartment not being finalised until Saturday afternoon due to the owner being on holiday in America, with Dave & Kate due to check out of Pariser Hof 3 days later on the morning of Tuesday 21st December 2010. 

That Saturday afternoon they paid a visit to Einstein's coffee place at Checkpoint Charlie.  Looking at the chocolate cake they decided it was a bit too much to pay and ordered two coffees only.  As they were about to sit down with their coffee the woman behind the counter handed them two pieces of chocolate cake, insisting they were free.  Madonna's 'Like A Prayer' provided the soundtrack.

Mr. Wollkopf, Mr. Golz, Magic Energy Pods & The Toaster

Pretty soon after settling into the Pariser Hof apartment, Dave & Kate began to find themselves feeling whacked out with the energy.  It was clear why they were here now and not moving around in hotels.  Each day they found they could do very little.

They would make the long walk in the snow along Karl-Marx Allee to the internet points at Alexanderplatz each day to deal with emails and on the way back they'd buy groceries from Kaisers and sometimes pick up a cake from their favourite Bäckerei.

Each afternoon they'd slip into their magic energy pods and disappear off to god knows where for an hour or so.  It wasn't sleep as such, they would be conscious but so deeply gone, as if withdrawn from the bodies.  They'd return feeling refreshed and maybe listen to the radio for a bit (Chris Rea's "Driving Home For Christmas" seemingly a favourite in Germany) in between making tea and spontaneous reasoning sessions.  Later at night, they'd maybe watch a bit of German TV.

There was a bit of a mix-up due to the delay in emails with the owner, Wölfgang.  The heating took a few days to kick in and as Kate had contacted him about it (and then told him it was now fine) he had already been in touch with the caretaker of the building, Mr Wollkopf, who had been trying to get hold of them.

Dave & Kate returned to the apartment one afternoon - their clothes hanging to dry all over the place as the drying line above the bath was loose - to find a note from Mr Wollkopf.  He had fixed the clothes line, taken away the broken toaster (replacing it with his own for now) and had opened the windows as he said the place was like a "bio-tape" due to the condensation from all the clothes drying.

The next day it was Mr Golz turn to pay them a visit.  They opened the door to find a big, jolly, German Santa Claus type figure who had apparently been informed to check the heating.  He came in and they told him the heating was now fine and he seemed rather disappointed as he'd brought his "special key".  He walked over to the radiator anyway, put his hand over it and said "easy!" and let out a roaring, hearty laugh.

During their second week there, they were sound asleep in their magic pods when the doorbell went at 11am.  They couldn't get up quick enough to answer and then they heard a key going in the door.  A knock on the living room door and then a head in a beanie appeared and as he saw they were still in bed he apologised and whispered: "a new toaster", before slipping a brand new toaster down at the door.  They had finally met the mysterious Mr Wollkopf!

Dave got up shortly after this to have a shower and then the door went again - a young German to read the gas and electricity meters.  Only problem was Kate was still in bed in the living room.  Dave tried to explain to him that someone was still in bed, rushing between the living room to check if Kate was ready and back to the front door.  All he succeeded in doing was making the guy suspicious as to what the hell was going on.  Eventually he agreed to come back in 5 mins.

This time Mr Wollkopf was with him who introduced himself properly and apologised for his entrance earlier, saying Wölfgang had instructed him to buy a new toaster to replace the broken one.  Dave & Kate hadn't lost the knack of making friends in unusual ways.

Musical Chairs & Puzzling Crayons

Dave & Kate were to pick up the keys for the apartment, near Straße der Pariser Kommune and just behind Karl-Marx Allee, from a local restaurant.  Finally they had made it properly into east Berlin.  When Kate realised she had left her passport with the guy at the restaurant, they returned to the guy who with a wry smile on his face said "vie have no passports here!" before handing it over.

It was nice to have 2 weeks of stability and yet they also knew they were never really stable.  On entering the apartment and exploring the terrain like animals they knew they were in the right place when Dave opened the cabinet to find this...

Wölfgang was the owner of the apartment but he was away in Munich.  Paintings with his surname hung on the wall.  Was this guy an artist or someone in the family one?  Whatever the case, something strange began happening as they sat on the couch.

Dave found himself speaking intensely about music again.  They had hardly spoke of music since arriving in Barcelona - survival being the main priority - but now each time they sat down for a bit on the blue couch, the musical vision started to express.  Kate now also discovered a new conviction in the music, surer than ever she had to play her part in bringing this out.

Their second night in the apartment, December 8th 2010, marked the date John Lennon was murdered 30 years earlier.  German TV showed a few Lennon programmes and concerts that night as Dave & Kate watched from the blue couch.

Never had they felt more strongly than the time was coming, the pieces of the puzzle were starting to become clearer.  The seed of Music was beginning to stir within the soil of Europe.

The Train To Now Here

Wednesday night came and went with no lottery win.  They really were screwed.  They had to get up the next day, check out and catch a train to Berlin at 12.45pm.  If they were lucky they might get a brief chance to look up the internet at the hotel before they left.  Only trouble was they only had enough money for maybe 1 or 2 nights at a cheap hotel in Berlin.

They checked out Thursday morning and left their luggage at the hotel, and with a bit of time to spare, took a walk to the area near the train station, and tried buying a scratch card.  They kept winning 2 Euros and buying another with it.  This went on and on until they had to go back to the hotel for their backpacks resigned to showing up in Berlin and looking for a place to stay there.

With about 15 mins to spare they hopped onto the PC there.  Kate discovered her debit card had been refunded the money that morning from the Paris hotel they'd cancelled a month ago and then within minutes of looking, their old friend Citadines came to the rescue with a 50% reduced rate.  There was no decision to be made.

So with 30 mins till their train departed they now suddenly had a place to stay and Berlin was back on.

As they boarded further help came when a German lady abandoned her knitting, jumped out of her seat to get off the train before it departed and help find the correct carriage for their seat numbers.

Europa Passage

Just round the corner from World Cafe was the shopping centre, Europa Passage.  On the floors were the names of various European cities.  This felt like the Paris Europe thing all over again.  Yet it was no joke.

Money was fast running out, time was ticking and they now had a train ticket to Berlin but with nowhere to stay there.  They played the lottery scratch cards and then put all hope on the Wednesday night lottery, knowing that on Thursday morning their train left for Berlin.

Was it a passage to Europe or a cruel joke?

With all this going on, they wandered around the markets, took a walk down the Reeperbahn and to the harbour area where the water at night really seemed significant and somehow necessary to be around again.

During this time the rainbow appeared for them again.  Going down the stairs in the hotel, one day Dave spotted a painting on the wall with a rainbow on it.  Then sitting at the computer at reception trying to find a place to stay in Berlin, the song 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' was playing on the radio in the background.  This song  would follow them around, appearing at auspicious occasions.