According to all reports, the Germans are hard nuts to crack in terms of friendship. This, along with our currently limited social circumstances, means that we need to actively go socialising if we want people to talk to other than ourselves!
A good resource for English speakers in Germany is the Toytown Germany group. This is a website which amongst other things includes forums which is great for information and a place to arrange meet ups. One of the regular meet ups is the Thursday night event. This is held at various venues across Berlin each week.
We have now been in Germany for a month, but a combination of public holidays, being unwell and our barking doggie have prevented us from spending a night out. With most of this under control now we could go and check out what the Toytown group was like.
Tonight's meet up was at 'The Dubliner' Irish bar in Prenzlauer Berg. 'Colin', the event organiser, had posted on the website that he would be at the bar at 8:30pm and wearing a Australian rugby shirt. Couldn't be hard to spot.
To get there we could take a nearby U-Bahn which we have yet to take - Weberwiese, the U5 line.
A good resource for English speakers in Germany is the Toytown Germany group. This is a website which amongst other things includes forums which is great for information and a place to arrange meet ups. One of the regular meet ups is the Thursday night event. This is held at various venues across Berlin each week.
We have now been in Germany for a month, but a combination of public holidays, being unwell and our barking doggie have prevented us from spending a night out. With most of this under control now we could go and check out what the Toytown group was like.
Tonight's meet up was at 'The Dubliner' Irish bar in Prenzlauer Berg. 'Colin', the event organiser, had posted on the website that he would be at the bar at 8:30pm and wearing a Australian rugby shirt. Couldn't be hard to spot.
To get there we could take a nearby U-Bahn which we have yet to take - Weberwiese, the U5 line.
A quick three stops to Alexanderplatz, and a switch to the U2 line up to Prenzlauer Berg.
To and then 4 stops up to Prenzlauer Berg's Schönhauser Allee.
And then a very short walk to the bar.
Inside the bar there were several groups and it felt very awkward listening in and looking at people to see if they were 'the' group. We went to the bar, and there was a small gathering, but no bloke in a rugby top. Hmm. We got some drinks and then heard that the group were speaking English so asked if they were the 'Toytown group' and luckily they were. That spared the embarrassment of asking the wrong group of Germans.
As soon as we met Colin we accosted him with the 'We were expecting someone in a rugby jumper'. He said that only as he left the house had he realised that it was in the wash. Geez Colin.
We immediately got chatting to quite a few people, and more turned up as the night progressed. It was surprisingly very un-awkward. I guess everyone is there for the same reason and there's no real pretences.
We had a good chat with a German guy and hit him up for all the rules about dogs, complaining neighbours and so on. Colin is a English guy, we met some Americans, and there were some other nationalities there - it was great to hear about everyone's various stories. We didn't stay for very long as we are still training our dog to be quiet when we are gone and didn't want to risk him barking the whole time we were gone.
We were very happy with this little outing and will definitely be going along to more of these meet-ups. No where near as socially awkward as I had thought it could be.
With the hour already ticked just past 10pm (quiet time according to our house rules, and trouble for us if the dog is still barking), we left the group, jumped back on the train at Schönhauser Allee and made it home to a 'semi' quiet dog.
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