Here arrives my first flatshare dilemma. Do German women prefer the toilet seat down, with the lid up, ready for instant access, or both up, or both down? Mein gott, I’m gonna have to ask or cause more Anglo-German rivalry!

Die toiletten in this old Prussian Kreuzberg apartment is bizarre. Encased in a separate room, just left by the front door, the WC is internatinally normal – long and narrow, almost an architectural afterthought.

However,  the toilet space takes up only half the acreage. What confuses is the long, long, slightly rising shelf which extends back to the small window, about two metres away. Attached is a metal window bar, about two metres long, a tad bent, which you twist when you want to open the window, for der freshen air, ja? It’s cute, albeit in a slightly rustic, possibly primevil way.

Anyways, Welcome to my new abode. I’m renting a room off Martina, who is off to the UK on study leave. Anxious to claw back some cash on her rent in Bristol she has rented it out for two weeks to me, at significantly lower rates than even the cheapest private room in a hostel. I’m glad; it was between me and a German Swiss chap visiting a university here, and I won: “Ja, boo, sucks to you Deutche-Swiss. I got the nod!”

This flat has grosse charm, as nearly all old Prussian apartments in Berlin. Accessed by a Munster-esque huge four-metre high wooden street door – yes, brown, again, and smothered in de rigeur tagging and graffitti – its dank, bare lobby, scarred only by seemingly abandoned prams and bikes leads beyond to a sprawling courtyard; a patch of grass offering a playzone for kids, and a cycle rest for adults. Either side of the front door are steps up.

Martina’s three-bedroom flat boasts the typical 3.5metre high ceilings, which is kinda like living in a squash court, albeit one finished with highly ornate cornicing mitt ubiquitous ceiling rose, all replete with wide oak floorboards. In the corner nestles an old heater, covered in glazed brown tiles with steel grates for ash, coal and air – every bedroom has one, apparently. It’s a sort of inverse Victorian chimney. If chimneys were belly buttons, this would be an “outey”.

Bizarre for a 3.5metre high apartment is the bathroom. Small and compact, it seems to have been cut in half – when I stand in the shower for a douche, my head tackles the ceiling. If I angled the shower head any further up I’d water the plants in the lounge above. I have to crouch – I feel like I’m showering in a submarine. Die douche im Das Boot!

Tim Berlin accommodation, Berlin architecture, Entertainment, Kreuzberg, apartments, berlin apartments, berlin, Falkensteinstrasse, housing, Kreuzberg