Another American Goes to Berlin: the big signing and other things

Well, I signed the contract for the purchase of the apartment a week ago today. I felt a little intimidated when I first entered the conference room because I was greeted by several different people in "business" attire all seated around a big conference table. And there I was in jeans. Wow. However, everyone turned out to be very nice and it all went very well. One person was the owner of the property management company I bought the apartment from, another was the real estate agent who works for that company, another was the Notar (attorney) and the other was the interpreter. Then there was Kent, his mom, and me. The whole thing took two hours. The Notar had to read the entire 12-page document and the interpreter translated it to English for me every couple of paragraphs.

After a nice celebratory lunch (dinner for me), we headed back to Hackescher Markt area and sat outside at Caras, a cafe that is great to sit at and people-watch. And in this spot where we tend to see a lot of the same people, we saw all the usual suspects. Karin (the photographer) and her husband sat with us, and the guy with the anteannas passed by. I did not have the nerve to approach him, so I made Kent do it. Kent asked if he could take a photo of him and jokingly he said it would cost one Euro. He came over and talked to us for a bit... very melodramatic guy... he complained of a broken heart over someone he'd met just a few days ago. Because of this, I wasn't sure if his sobs were real or not and we all sort of giggled when he'd go into this sobbing fit. But he turned out to be very nice and ended up buying us all wine. He gladly gave me his permission to post his photo here. And he does have a name but I suck at remembering such things, all I know is that it starts with a J.

Later we went to the biggest Depeche Mode party ever. It was held at a large arena and they played everything! Of course, we ran into Crazy Depeche Mode guy, who also does have a name - he is Andreas. He's pretty crazy and both Kent and I wonder what he's like when he's NOT at a Depeche Mode party. Is he just as crazy? Unfortunately, he, among others, stepped on my foot at some point that night and I have a very colorful bruise now. It's really kind of gross. I don't have any pictures of him (or of the bruise) because I don't like taking my camera to crazy nightclubs.

Some pictures: