Post Titled: non-fiction, non-profit, neukölln and back
I started work for a small non-profit yesterday somewhat deep in neukoelln. Just walking there is amazing, it is about 20 minutes due south on foot from my apartment, and as I get closer to work, the streets get steadily more busy and much much more fascinating, maybe I will shoot the trip today... anyhow, the offices are on the top floor of a building that looks like it was once a fantastic Muppet Hotel from a film made 20-plus years ago. I was trying to ring for about five minutes so that someone might buzz me in until I realized that i could buzz myself in, and the first thing I encountered inside the lobby was a Country Western Squaredance Treffpunkt which looked exactly like it had dropped out of the Middle of Nowhere, Texas.
The offices are a few blocks past Rathaus Neukölln, which is a neighborhood I lived in back in 2006 when we first moved to Berlin. A slightly whacky, slightly depressing area full of Turks and other foreigners, it is bustling and yet completely lazy all at once. But what i am noticing now is that if feels so completely home-y, home-ish. These discount stores and cheap bakeries and these old guys lining the sidewalks with their shisha (hookahs) and their backgammon seems all too familiar and normal now.