Buying a Bike In Berlin?

I have, in my time, lived in Holland for a couple of years. Now, the Dutch are famous for their biking culture, but the reality is that Berliners are waaaay more gay for bikes than the Dutch could ever be.

It was with some reluctance that I submitted to an overwhelming pressure to buy a bike. Around here it’s kind of like not having genitals: you can’t really have fun without them. Buying a new bike is reasonably cheap here, and but obviously down to how much you want to pay. Second-hand bikes, however, are ten a euro-cent, and appear on Craigslist on a daily basis. I couldn’t really find anywhere better than that to buy one. Within a week of checking here, I was in possession of 50 Euros worth of pushbike, or fahrrad, if you speak the lingo. Indeed, I decided to get straight into the Berlin spirit and get a beer for the ride home (complete with a rollie hanging out of my mouth), and subsequently bring myself about as close to death as I like to get on a Sunday afternoon.

Bikes in Berlin are pretty much essential, and the infrastructure is here to allow you to get pretty much anywhere you want under your own steam. My only real problem is the omni-present fear of death. But ho-hum, we all have our issues.  In reality, the place is pretty safe for cyclists. I’ve only seen one guy stack it, and that was into a pedestrian on a Saturday night.

To be honest, if there’s a point to this post, it’s not that you need a bike, rather to point out that the Berlin integrated transport system is actually pretty shit. I guess it has something to do with the east/west business, but the tube map looks like it’s been designed by this lady, and as for the tram system, well, if it ever bloody worked, it might be okay.

This has a wider point than merely my griping on the subject of public transport. The Berlin transport system’s “It’ll get you there… eventually” attitude means it’s hugely important to choose where you live very carefully, unless you want to spend a lot of time waiting around for trams to take you to the wrong place. A lot of people come to Berlin to have a bit of fun. Indeed, the podgy, walking stereotype of a Spaniard I bought my bike from came here for a month’s holiday, and she’s by no means alone. The chances are that if you’re reading this, you’ll be thinking about coming to Berlin – so do your research.

Berlin’s various areas – Mitte, Fredrichshain, Kreuzberg etc… have incredibly diverse atmospheres, attitudes and prejudices. Hopefully I’ll be able to offer my humble opinion in this blog, but one thing’s for sure – you need a bike. 

Tabs and slags

So, I've just told Chris we've got a blog. You may not know Chris as well as I do, but if you do you'll know that he's a massive great pussy. This I say in an antagonistic way, simply to elicit a response. I'd like to class the following as similarly antagonistic.

1) Tabs: There is no-one on earth that needs that many tabs open at any one time. You don't need them. They are there for security. If you're a naturally insecure person, go buy a fuckin' teddy bear. Suck it's  thumb, stroke its hair, pretend like its mummy, let it touch you in the nice place that you can't tell anyone or they'll take daddy away. I don't give a shit, but understand this at very least  – You don't need that many tabs.  This is one of the few points I will ever make that are borne of pure fact. I am right, you are wrong. Open one – small – window of porn, and achieve!

2) Slags: Now, we've had some issues since moving to Berlin. Some to do with logistics, others to do with the ruthless pseudo-efficiency of the locals, still others based around our combined unawareness of other cultures. I don't pretend to know about German culture, but this I do know: English girls are a bit shit. I've done my best to humour them in the past, but the simple fact is that they're not quite as good as foreign girls. Don't get me wrong, I'll still fingerbang pretty much anything that invades my personal space, but that's not the point. I guess, if I were making a point it would be that English girls are kind of like English kebabs. You know them, you like them, you'll put waaay too much mayonnaise on them when you're drunk, and when you wake up in the morning you feel slightly unpleasant (and the mayo turns into this weird  transparent gloop). Importantly, however, you accept them as a constant... a universal. If you've ever had a German morning kebab, you might understand.

What I tried to say to Chris the other day was that the way English girls work is different to how German girls work. Remember that word: different. He wasn't havin' none of it. He maintained that all girls are alike, and that, and I quote, "They're all here for a reason." Sure, that makes him sound like the biggest rapist in town, but I don't think it was meant that way. As far as I know I'm the only one with a legitimate rape case to be had against me (statutory, btw, so it's all cool, girls ;) I think he just meant that girls are girls and you've gotta suck up all the shit they dish out if you want to get, or keep, your Mars bar well-battered. Sure, thats a 'take', and one that I would agree with if we were in England. We're not though.

We're in a country where you speak to your local kebab vendor, we're in a country where they don't just shout, "CHILLIAGARLK!" at you. These kebab vendors put a little cheese in your kebab, challenging you to come back for more. They ask you how much you won at the fruity (€15 thus far), and say "Naturally," when you ask if you can have a beer, regardless of how drunk you are (very, very drunk).

What I'm trying to say to myself as much as Chris is that shit is different. The feel is different, the language is different, the history is different, the culture is different, the booze is different, the kebabs are different, the musli is different, the fucking bed sheets are different. Why is is so hard to accept that the people are different too?

I don't know who this blog is for. Some have requested it, in fairness, so I'm not sure that it's as vain as I think it might be, but hopefully this will be a place where you can find out about Berlin, and have a laugh at our exploits at the same time.

Viel Spass,

Tom