So, its been a couple of months now, and while I haven’t met many of my neighbors–I find Berliners keep mostly to themselves other than the forced ritual of having the DHL guy leave packages with you for other people who then show up sheepishly at your door at 9 pm to collect them–that hasn’t stopped me from generating some hypotheses. There’s a beautiful apartment house behind me across the Innenhof, late 19th century, built of brick and nicely updated; it doesn’t connect to our garden, but I can see all of their patios, and as the weather gets nicer, I’m starting to recognize some repeat customers.
- 5th floor (there’s actually the dach/roof level above, but I never see anyone up there): K-pop girl. She’s probably 12. I see her in the evenings sometimes practicing dance routines in front of the window. Her mom seems very organized; she puts on clogs to walk 3 steps out onto the patio to water the plants and then takes them off again before going back inside.
- 4th floor: ?? I don’t see any furniture on the patio and haven’t seen a light in there; so far, I think that apartment is empty.
- 3rd floor: Baby. A really cute couple with maybe a five-month-old. The baby loves the tree on their patio.
- 2nd floor: ?? They have a nice patio chandelier (as do the Baby people–apparently patio chandeliers are A Thing), but I haven’t seen them out yet. Stay tuned….
- 1st floor: Greyhound guy. My favorite. There’s actually a couple who lives here with two rough-coated greyhounds that I’ve seen out in the park as well. But the guy is the most Berlin guy ever. Tall, skinny, slicked-back shoulder-length greying hair. Smokes, naturally. Wears suspenders over a white henley. He literally rolls out of bed in the morning (around 9 or 10) and puts on black skinny jeans *and boots* to sit shirtless on the patio and smoke his cigarette and drink coffee with his dogs. It just does not get more Berlin. I’ll bet he’s in a punk band.
- Garden level: Dunno; can’t really see.
I’ll keep you posted as the summer gets going….
The Rookery 