Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Since I didn’t have much interesting about me to post, I thought ya’ll might enjoy getting to know my neighbors a bit better. :D This is the first time in my life I’ve lived in a place with so many people – or at least, so many different people who aren’t all female and more-or-less the same age like in a college dorm. In our apartment building alone, there are four floors with two apartments per floor, and our building is one of close to twelve in our little block. So there’s a lot to see – a lot of different people living a lot of different lives.

For example:

Take the guy who lives in the apartment just above ours. As far as I can tell, he’s a middle-aged businessman without much in the way of family or friends. He’s rarely around – seems to travel a lot – and is a subject of discussion when other residents chat because you can see piles of papers and things inside his windows. “It’s a mess,” I’ve heard people grumble. “Makes the whole place look bad.” Personally, I’m intrigued by the African statue I can see standing in the window, and the stacks of hefty books leaning against the glass. I wonder if he’s lonely, or if he knows what the other residents think about him. But when he is home, he tends to play loud music at all hours of the day and night and watch loud movies with frequent explosions late into the evening, so I don’t feel too sorry for him.

The walls here are thin – it’s an old building. There’s a family who lives on the fourth floor who have a piano-playing daughter. Even through the floors and walls between us, I can hear her practice in the afternoons. She looks to be about fifteen or sixteen, and usually is home around two – just about the time I usually get back from my language course and things. Sometimes she plays for an hour or two at a time, everything from beautiful classical pieces to the theme song from The Pink Panther – which one of our other neighbors complains about because he claims she plays it every Sunday without fail. To be fair, I’m not home on Sundays much, but I’ve only ever heard her play it once myself. She’s quite good – I’m tempted to slip a note under her door with a few song requests.

The neighbor – Dario – who commented on the Pink Panther theme is one of the few I know by name and have ever spoken to. He and his wife Annette are expecting a baby in January, and are pretty good friends with Anna. They went with us to dinner for my birthday, and Annette and I went shopping at IKEA a few weekends ago for baby stuff. She’s extremely sweet, and as pretty as a china doll. Dario has a twin brother though, who’s around fairly often but whom I’ve never actually met, so I usually only offer a noncommittal smile when I see him out – just in case it’s not actually him.

Then there’s the Big Family who lives above us on the third floor and actually live in two apartments to have enough space for their five-going-on-six kids. They’re pretty quiet, all things considered, but the other day when I took the kids out to the garden, some of the brothers were shooting paper airplanes from their window. I couldn’t decide if it was endearing or annoying – until a misaimed (or perfectly aimed?) pink airplane konked me in the head. My eyes shot up just in time to see the boys beat a panicked retreat and the window slam shut behind them – and I couldn’t stop laughing.

There aren’t just a lot of kids here, I don’t think – or if there are, they’re remarkably quiet. But the two long apartment buildings on either side of the green space in the middle surround a garden area that belongs to neither building. No, it belongs to the Russians.

The Russians – though I think there’s at least one German family in the building – occupy a much newer, much nicer building on the end of the block. Together with the two long apartment complexes, we make a narrow “U” shape open on one end and filled with little gardens and such in the middle. But The Russians have the biggest garden by far, often occupied by a couple of boys playing football, or The Mysterious Russian who is rumored to be a spy and who seems inordinately concerned with his bushes, or with an older woman who is equally interested in the plants – but who never does anything but look at them. The Mysterious Russian (who may actually be German but who apparently looks Russian, and if he’s a spy might just be pretending to be German) seems to love mowing his lawn, even during the early afternoon hours, when German law says one isn’t allowed to mow because it’s too loud for sleeping children. Either he’s too Russian or too wealthy to care, however, and no one seems to mind terribly.

And then there’s the Plant Man who lives in the house across the garden, who has so many potted ferns and palms on his balcony and in his house that it takes him twenty minutes every evening to water them. He seems to live alone, but often has guests over – or else he talks to his plants, which is, I suppose, possible. I’ve never actually seen another person over there, but I often spot him standing in his apartment with the windows and doors flung wide open to the air and talking animatedly to someone.

All in all, it’s a peaceful neighborhood, and if there are occasional disturbances like children throwing paper airplanes at innocent passersby, or movie explosions at one in the morning, or incessant repeats of the Pink Panther theme – or even possibly a Russian spy-in-hiding in the next building – it’s a good place to live.

So there – now you know just about as much as I do about my neighbors. Germany is a hard place to get to know people, but it’s amazing what you can see just by watching.

And perhaps having a slightly writerish/stalkerish inclination.

More soon!

~Mags