Where do I start? I could end it at the title. I fell in love in Berlin. With what? With who? I want to keep you wondering. There are many details I can’t include here, even though I’d like to.
It’s funny because last year after my trip to Barcelona I was convinced that was the place I wanted to live. Now I’m thinking the same but with Berlin. There really is something special about this place. Something that I personally haven’t experienced in any other city. It’s definitely not for everyone. I texted my mom and told her if she would visit here she would have “un patatús.”
There is a sense of freedom with no predetermined boundaries or limits. My mom would tell me that’s not the proper way of life, but I beg to differ.
The parks. There’s nothing calling for your attention. They are parks being parks, not just a park. That’s how it is at home. Parks looking like parks. Don’t get me wrong there are parks that are being parks the best way they know how to and I love those parks. But they are the exception. Where I come from it feels like it matters more to look like a park vs. being a park. The park around the corner from the hostel was a park being a park. Simple, yet effective. Half of it a basketball court, half of it a concrete area with grass and wooden logs that are used as seats. I sat on that wooden log with a beer, German chips I can’t begin to describe, and M. M and I sat there and looked at the sky and talked. It felt so easy to talk. Be in silence. I love M’s company. I love this park we are sitting at.
One of the really awesome things about Berlin is the history and being able to go from spot to spot learning and reading about how it got to the way it did. We did that together. M and I. It was easy, walking and talking. Making me laugh. We are good friends M and I. I hope they think the same. This isn’t a well thought out post, but I like to think that it’s very accurate to how I think about things. It’s an unnecessary jigsaw puzzle that actually sometimes doesn’t make any sense. How that piece fits here and how that piece doesn’t fit there. I really love Berlin. And I learned how to ride a bike there. You almost got hit by a bike. There were 6 of us riding to a club and I was behind your squeaky bike. Of course yours was the one that was squeaky. It’s funny how that works. The way someone’s world molds to who they are and it’s really sweet. Does that make sense? It’s like all the things that happens around them that make sense when you think about who they are. Of course you get the squeaky bike, of course you get you and I denied from the club, of course you get coffee stains on your short sleeve shirt, how does it even get up there?
Berlín really is a completely different kind of place. It’s a place where you can get out of work and meet up with friends for a few drinks every day after work if you wanted to. You can get drinks, food, anything really up until midnight. A lot of people biking around after work and going to the park just to sit. You’ll see students there too with their friends. Just sitting there. No picnic blanket needed. No phones in sight really. The park is a place to meet and relax. It’s always packed. It’s a completely different look from where I live. You can see it. Yeah sure I can easily do that at home but it’s not as normalized and it’s not as likely. It’s just completely different. You can feel it.
M is making a move to London from Australia for a couple years. To experience what Europe has to offer. Anytime I think about doing it I feel crazy and then remember that i met someone whose doing exactly that. A lot of people do that. I just don’t know if id want to go back to the US. I don’t think I like it very much. There is so much I love about it of course and when I think about how I’d like to live my life, the philosophies don’t line up. Am I supposed to sacrifice that? I don’t want to and I don’t have to. Will I? Will I listen to myself and follow something that might be extremely hard for me to do but totally worth it? I felt so confident there. People express themselves in whichever way they like, it makes me want to do the same. It’s funny how different Charleston is from Berlin. Maybe I wouldn’t feel this way if I lived in NYC or LA. Who knows. There’s a lot I don’t know but I do know that I fell in love in Berlin.
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