The Californian's Guide to Germany

A German apartment is an odd thing. The first thing which I noticed, not specifically about my host’s apartment but about apartments in general, was the seemingly optional nature of the living room.

In all the dwellings I was familiar with in the States, the main entrance leads into the living room, no matter how small the place is. In many apartments in Germany, the living room is sometimes completely skipped, with the reasoning that it cannot be rented out as a living space. Opening the front door, one is often greeted by an unwelcoming hallway with a series of closed doors.

Diashow

Besetztes Badezimmer Blockade

Ellen’s Cologne apartment, however, had a living room, and a balcony where I often did my German homework in the sun. I had my own key and separate entrance to the apartment, a privilege which would be put to good use. One half of the place (my room, bathroom, and Nina’s room) was connected to the other half (living room, kitchen, Ellen’s room) by a bathroom, which I thought was an interesting design feature. If the bathroom was besetzt while I was in my bedroom, there was no way to get to the kitchen. However, if it was besetzt while I was in the kitchen and I had my key with me I could get to my bedroom by going out the front door and re-entering the apartment through my separate entrance.

My room in Ellen’s apartment was already secured for me through my exchange program. All I needed to do was unpack my meager suitcase and backpack and line my books up on the shelf (501 German verbs, a vegetarian cookbook, a biography of Tom Waits, a Murakami favorite). I saw that I had been entrusted with the lives of three plants.

Most of the time, Ellen and I were the only ones in the apartment. Ellen’s daughter Nina often came to stay with her mother on weekends, bringing her boyfriend (Amin, from Morocco) with her, two things which proved strangely popular with young adults in Germany.

In, around, under and out of Cologne

The U-Bahn system, which had seemed such a tangled maze my first few days in Cologne, became my daily transportation to language school and back. The first day of school at Carl Duisberg Centrum, or CDC, entailed a written and spoken language test to determine the levels in which we would be placed.

As often happens in a strange environment, the new students at the language school bonded within a matter of days. Soon we could count on going out together after our lessons as surely as if it had been an obligatory class excursion. The CDC, as if making up for its brain-warping workload, offered parties, tours and affordable excursions as far off as Paris and Amsterdam.

A network of fun: Finding my feet in the city

While the weather was still warm, I began to get to know Cologne in a deeper way. I enjoyed sitting on the grass near the Rhein while drinking the staple beverage of Cologne, though I liked the area near Barbarossaplatz in the historical Südstadt district the best. Walking from there to the once-unpronounceable Zülpicher Platz, the city seemed to turn younger, grungier and friendlier. The colorful neighborhood, heavily populated by students, contained such jewels as the tiny Rose Club and the delicious Mediterranean restaurant Habibi.

While at first I had been wide-eyed and non-judgmental, I slowly began to get choosier about the places where I went. I enjoyed the modern art at Museum Ludwig, though the Chocolate Museum failed to thrill me. For dancing, Werkstatt won my heart and was near my house; Underground, located around the corner, was okay but kind of mainstream. Cologne is open late, and I took advantage of nighttime public transportation and clubs which stay open past 2 a.m.

However, not everyone in this diverse city lives the same way. I’ll never forget coming home late one night completely drenched after a foam party at Werkstatt, trying to keep my wet shoes from making a squish-squash noise as I crept through the sleeping apartment to my room. In the dark hallway, I nearly ran into Amin, Nina’s Muslim boyfriend, up before the sun to observe Ramadan. We exchanged a look that seemed to say, “Hey, to each his own…”

My two months of language training in Cologne, though it seemed much longer than that, soon elapsed. My new placement was a city called Erfurt, and it was located in eastern Germany, a place Westerners tend to speak about whilst shaking their heads sorrowfully. I was sure it couldn’t be all that bad, but one thing was for sure: it wasn’t Cologne.