Saturday, August 25, 2012

Former Homes

I have so much to do today that I can barely see straight, so naturally I went to Google Streetview to hone my avoidance skills.

And here's what was distracting me today.

First, it's the apartment I rented in June of 2001 in Berlin, when I was resting mid-way through MariesWorldTour.com 2001, at 60 Naunynstrasse in Kreuzberg, in what I'm told is now Hipster-ville, much like my old Avenue B block. I was on the fifth floor of a walk-up building here.


And here is the first place I rented in Barcelona in 2004, on Diagonal. I didn't like it at all--the street was like a canyon, the roar of the motorbikes filling the air. And nothing quite worked, nothing was quite as nice as it had been in the photos I'd seen online (you win some, you lose some). At least this one had an elevator.


I couldn't even find my real apartment on Streetview--it was on a tiny alley in Raval that didn't merit photos! Here's the outside of the building, from an old post. And here's some inside photos. Nice stairs, right? I had to climb to the sixth story in that building.


After that my sublets are all documented here on this blog: in Uganda, Namibia, Kuwait, Cairo, and then last year in Bangkok, but that was a month in a hotel, so I'm not sure that counts. 

3 comments:

Linda said...

The two buildings look similar! Coincidence? Or do you look for buildings on a diagonal corner?

Marie Javins said...

I rented both of those places blind online, so it is indeed an odd coincidence.

Ed Ward said...

Interesting detail on the first one: off to the right edge there's what looks like a sheet of metal. Google provides this shield to anyone invoking the German privacy laws to keep their property off of Street View. Some friends of mine lived in a building in Berlin that showed up on Street View with what looked like a giant aluminum Richard Serra sculpture in front of it. All you could tell was that the upper bit before the roof was white.