the apartment

hopefully this weekend i will be able to take and upload some photos of my new apartment. it is quite large for a european apartment, and i like space, so that is good. i am renting stefan's apartment (a guy i met on exberliner.com - a site that finds furnished apts for people). i knew stefan was a writer and had gotten a scholarship to write in WI for a few months, so he was putting his place up ot earn some extra income. what i did not know is that not only does stefan write for one of the most famous soap operas in berlin (Verliebt in Berlin), he is also a porn writer. i know this because there is a certificate on his wall from "cum2cut" awarding him for best "deep dive superhero." i dont even want to know. what i do want to know is whether or not he has put video cameras up in his apartment. i was always afraid of that in my apartment in paris - my landlord, frank, who was really hot, btw, seemed to be the sort of person who would rent apartments just to spy on his tenants. i'm hoping stefan is not looking to get some ideas for his writing from me....

so yeah... the apartment smells. at first, i thought it was the smell of "man." and my friend anny was like, "is that a good thing?" and i pointed out "not if there isn't one here!" then bobby asked if there were a lot of plants around (which there ARE) and he said the smell could be from them... ??? finally, my friend jen, who came over tonight, thinks it just smells musty. either way, candles are the first thing i will buy tomorrow - splurge on, in fact.

it's not a horrible smell and once you're here a while, you can't smell it, but i am rather particular that way...

it's "clean" in the sense that i have been to friends' places that are "clean" like this, but compared to what i like, it's not quite clean enough. thats fine, i'll spend a lot of time cleaning and then be perfectly at home.

stefan left all sort of post-its around the apartment telling me how often to water his plants. i didnt want to tell him that i have NO IDEA how to care for living things other than myself (which is doubtfull that i do that even), so i asked him to tell me how often to do it. they're all different! one is "whenever the 'earth' is dry" and a few are 2x/month and some are 1x/week. this could get complicated. i'll feel really bad if i kill one.

i was going to describe how the toilets flush funny or i had to hacksaw my charger, and how i dontknow how to make the bed, but its midnight and i am really tired. or feel like i should be tired, so i am going to head to bed... if i can figure out how to make it...

as an fyi - berlin is 6 hours ahead of the east coast.