After returning from my first ever international trip to Berlin on June 14, 2014, I sat down to collect my thoughts. Knowing many people looked forward to what I experienced, I struggled to figure out what angle I’d take. Sure, I took pictures. Sure, I Facebooked. Sure, I walked around and saw things. Sure, I had a “wonderful time.” But as a 37-year-old talking to an audience of many people who have traveled internationally throughout their lives, such observations and subjective revelations really aren’t interesting and become like anyone else’s recollections. Thus, I wanted to dig deeper.
Let me get some psychological baggage out of the way. I promise the self-pity lasts only a few paragraphs and, while these feelings don’t haunt me today, they do provide helpful context about why I avoided international travel for so long. While I always offered the typical excuses of lack of money, lack of interest, fear, and inconvenience, I originally associated international travel during college and grad school with remarkably attractive, charismatic, and/or well-off people I knew who experienced exciting and romantic adventure in countries such as England, France, and Italy. I would see pictures of happy couples traversing mountains and ancient ruins, having the time of their life.
And then I’d look at my life. During college, I lived at home, worked at a bottle and can redemption center to make money (a job that was a slight step up from a garbage man), and went to a local college about a 10 minute drive away. While friends studied, loved, and adventured abroad, I sat at home doing homework, in the college library working away, or sorting bags of filthy cans, glass bottles, and plastic. I had no girlfriend or romance in my life, and I’d feel my quality of life diminished by constant comparison with others. I felt excluded from an exotic world that my peers accessed and enjoyed - and international travel was a huge part of that world.
Unfortunately, this feeling of inferiority became hardwired in my brain through years and years of ascetic drudgery, continuing into graduate school where I had no car, an income of less than $10,000 a year, and a little box of a dorm room to live in. Again, other friends and acquaintances traversed the world, and I toiled away toward a master’s degree in Kent, Ohio. By the time I moved to Atlanta, I unconsciously thought of myself as someone who not only did not have the means to internationally travel, but who also did not deserve to go to these places.
Fast forward about 10 years. My philosophy changed. I talked to many people over the years who saw travel as education, not romance. Travel offered paths to adventure, interesting examples of economic development, and ways to challenge American preconceptions. Henry Rollins, through his spoken word tours, had the biggest impact on eradicating my inferiority complex and changing my self-pitying mindset. As a renowned loner adventurer, Rollins said many times, “Knowledge without mileage is bullshit.” It was a gut punch. I realized I could no longer only get my knowledge from books, working, and talking to people in Atlanta. I needed to get some knowledge through mileage, and that meant traveling. It became a solo responsibility, not a romantic lark where I needed a girlfriend or wife by my side to do it.
At first, I tackled the United States. In 2010, I had traveled to 25 states. Not bad. From 2010 to 2012, especially including a massive road trip, I tackled 17 more. These were usually solo journeys, with a few friends sometimes accompanying me or meeting up along the way here and there. I began to see what Henry Rollins talked about. As many of you read in my road trip blog posts, there is much to discover - both inner and outer - when traveling. And these journeys are not only for the beautiful, romantic, well-monied globetrotters. They’re for people like me, too. And indeed, they’re for anyone searching, learning, and healing from past scars and wounds who are trying to always discover new directions and paths in life.
So, after scouring all but eight of the United States over the years, it was time to look abroad. I had been to Canada (Ottawa and Quebec), but those were still part of North America. Adventurous friends who lived abroad or took deep plunges into other cultures while traveling reported back crucial data to me. That I’d love it abroad. That the people’s values matched mine more. That I’d love the attitudes toward socializing, books, conversation, and outside cafes. The script in my head changed from an exclusionary land to a land where it seemed I might be welcomed. I began to plot out some ideas in my head based on countries that seemed to resonate with my values and desires.
I kept putting off a trip during 2010 (after I bowed out of a trip to Romania due to work pressures), 2011 (where I was overworked to the point of near nervous breakdown), 2012 (when I declined to travel after my American road trip), and 2013 (due to “instability” in my income). In 2013, I felt like my excuses became more lame with each passing year, so when 2014 came along, I made it a New Year’s resolution. And when a friend of mine decided to live in Berlin, Germany for 90 days and invited me to hang out during his final week from June 7 to June 14, it was on. I booked the plane tickets and hotel, and counted down the days.
Friday, June 6, 2014
While it doesn’t seem a big deal now, it’s amazing how anxious I became before leaving for Germany. I wasn’t afraid, exactly. I just couldn’t envision where I would end up after leaping into a complete unknown. I’ve only had three moments like that in my life: moving to Kent, Ohio to grad school (the first time I ever lived away from home), moving to Atlanta, and going on my 2012 road trip. In each situation, I took geographical and life-evolving risks where I had zero bearings to help me understand what was on the other side. There’s something about geographical dislocation that hastens learning, evolution, and adaptation. Routines, habits, and complacency get thrown out the window. And if you stick with it long enough, revelations ensue.
In Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, the stories remind us that adventure is relative. In one story, a woman feels the highest sense of anxiety just by leaving a room in her house. That’s one of the wonders about life. As I drove to the airport, took the shuttle to the international airport, went through security, ate a crappy meal of airport pad thai, and read to kill time until my flight left at 11:45pm, my anxiety remained at 100%. Because adventure and evolution is relative, that means situations exist where we can feel and learn like a child again. My trip to Berlin was just a mechanism, a vehicle, a device. We all have desires, passions, and places that healthily lure us out of our comfort zones, and these situations are different for everyone. We must empathetically and compassionately view our relative human adventures as paths to spiritual growth. I see too many people often dismiss the anxiety of an older adult going back to school, entering the dating world, flying for the first time, or looking for work after a long time staying at home. There’s no shame in anxiously experiencing something that many other jaded people have experienced earlier and/or many times in life. It’s not the experience itself but our reaction to it that matters for the evolution of our selves.
So, like grad school, Atlanta, or my road trip, these kinds of experiences usually contain a built-in baptism-by-fire moment where the existing complacency, habits, and routines are burned away through discomfort. In this case, it was my 6’ 4” frame crammed into coach for eight and a half hours, unable to sleep properly, not hungry, and soon too tired to even read or listen to music. Like an obsessive old person, I mostly watched the airplane tracker on the video screen in front of me, falling in and out of sleep, as Friday became Saturday.
Saturday, June 7, 2014
None of the airplane windows were open due to the blazing sun that rose in the east, so I still had a sense that this entire trip was a surreal dream. Even in the sky over the Atlantic Ocean (or so the screen told me), sipping on a shitty cup of coffee, I thought, “There’s no way I can actually be going to Europe.” I still had a sliver of that college mindset telling me this couldn’t be happening.
Eight and a half hours is a long time, but it’s finite, so eventually this hunk of metal and plastic had to eventually carry me across the Atlantic Ocean. When the pilot announced we were soon to land in Paris, I finally opened my window, brightness be damned. And saw…
Europe. France. With my own eyes. For the first time.
It was a private moment, and I simply looked out over farmland below. But it was an important moment. I had convinced myself many years ago that I’d never look at what my eyes now saw. We landed. On the ground. In Paris. I couldn’t believe it. While the next 30 minutes involved walking from Terminal 2E to 2F through endless corridors and walkways and security checkpoints and customs, like a strange video game without an exciting end goal, I finally made it to my gate and took a deep breath. I won’t detail an airport because it is not representative of really absorbing a real city or country, but I did notice a change with more international travelers around me. I’d notice it more in Berlin, but people were better dressed, more polite, and generally friendlier. I people-watched until hopping on the flight from Paris to Berlin. While I was still in the artificial world of transit, the plane ride was a good primer for Berlin. English was not the default language anymore as the pilots and flight attendants primarily related information in German before translating into English.
Another landing, this time for real, in Berlin. I hopped off the plane, maneuvered my way through the terminal, and still thought, “No, this is too surreal.” I still had yet to really enter Europe. But after bounding out the customs gate and seeing my friends Troy and Aaron waiting for me, I realized, “Shit, I’m REALLY here.” Those first initial impressions were mundane but magical. I hadn’t felt that way about anything in years, figuring out everything from scratch, since I had moved to Atlanta in 2003. Buying a bus ticket, paying with euros, hopping on the bus and train and a tram, riding into Berlin proper, and beginning to process the city landscape, the people, the energy, and the rhythm of the public transportation, people walking, traffic lights, and cars. I felt like I was 25 again as we finally made it to the hotel where I threw my stuff into a room, changed quickly, and bounded outside, ready to explore. Had I been fearful and anxious just 24 hours before? Surely not!
Already, I noticed a different vibe between Berlin and any city I’d seen in the United States. On the surface, I could be describing New York City or Chicago by talking about the tall buildings full of flats, condos, small businesses, cafes, bars, and restaurants broken up by larger chain stores, occasional banks, and small parks. Main streets and sidewalks were full of cars, taxis, bikes, and people walking. But why wasn’t it like the United States? The buildings felt crammed together, like people crowding to get a good look at you. The building fronts were colorful, full of reds and greens and blues. The sidewalks and many less trafficked streets were more often cobblestone. While people drove cars, the emphasis on walking and public transportation meant cars generally stayed away from side streets. And there was less noise, loud people, and crazies walking around. Red flags I unconsciously pick up on in most United States cities weren’t there - a continual lookout for dangerous people, wondering if I can walk safely somewhere without needing a car, and generally blocking out rude, crass behavior from my fellow Americans.
My hotel was located on Greifswalder Straße in what used to be East Berlin. That also meant I found myself during my first international travels in what used to be Soviet territory before November 9, 1989. I remember the Berlin Wall coming down when I was in 7th grade. Growing up in an era of paranoia about the Soviet Union, I never imagined that I would step foot in Soviet territory in my lifetime. Almost 25 years later, here I am throwing my belongings into a hotel and walking the streets without fear or suspicion. I digested this evidence of hopefulness about humanity as we walked down Greifswalder Straße until we arrived at Alexanderplatz. I would grow used to Alexanderplatz because it’s a major public transportation hub close to my hotel. Nearby, I saw a building called the Fernsehturm that put the Space Needle to shame. It’s actually Germany’s tallest structure. We walked down into the Mitte section of Berlin where I saw many old churches, cathedrals, museums that looked like Roman palaces, universities, and other landmarks from the Soviet era and before.
Walking further down to the Spree River, we found a quaint section full of restaurants, cafes, and shops along cobblestone paths. Sitting down at an outside cafe by the river, I saw a sign that noted we were in a historical district and that boat rides were available. As I settled into my chair, picked up a menu, and ordered a beer (Berliner Pilsner, which other than water seemed to be the most plentiful liquid in town), I finally collected my thoughts after travel anxiety and moving from a very distant point A to B. I was in Berlin, sitting at a cafe, drinking a beer, looking at the Spree River, and hearing German spoken all around me. Holy shit!
Let’s just say I enjoyed that meal. I was not only hungry after 24 hours of travel but also savored it as my first European meal. Schnitzel, white asparagus, and potatoes. I relaxed, staring at the river, breathing in the ambiance. It sounds naive to articulate, but when you’ve only imagined and read about Germany all your life, it’s so nice and reassuring to see people out and about just enjoying themselves, living their lives. In a few moments, I calibrated my conception of Germany from exotic to normal in my mind. It sounds like a naive perception (of course people are normal everywhere!) but there are many Americans who are not only unwilling but also ignorantly defiant about ever wanting to experience eating dinner and drinking beer in an unfamiliar place. It forces them to realize the United States isn’t the only #1 coolest place in the world, and that there are other countries and cultures to explore that may outshine the United States in certain ways.
When we left around 9:30 p.m., it was still light out! That was an unexpected delight. Almost at summer solstice and high up in latitude (52.5 degrees), we received more than 16 hours of sunlight every day and experienced the glow of twilight after 10 p.m. most nights. After a night of barely any sleep, I began to crash and all but sleepwalked back to my hotel. Like a dream, I stared at the museums, churches, newer buildings, Alexanderplatz, trams, people walking late at night, parks, and little details up and down quiet streets and alleyways with the tired joy of a waking dream. My hotel was set off in an alleyway like a hidden paradise, quiet and overlooking a courtyard with tall buildings all around. Figuring out the electricity situation to charge my phone through an adapter and settling in to my quiet room that smelled of wood and stain, I went to sleep - in Berlin, in Germany, in Europe.
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Today, we unabashedly played the role of tourists. One of the experiences I wanted to test was the cafe experience, both morning and evenings. I was told by Troy and others that I’d love the cafe vibe much more than the United States. So, we headed over to Cafe Moma in the morning. Walking inside the tiny cafe, the man behind the counter enthusiastically greeted me and we maneuvered through my order of an espresso and an apple treat of some sort. To my surprise, he said he’d bring it out to me. As I took out my wallet, Troy said it wasn’t time to pay. Paying happened at the end. Again, style. Self-service with a bit of class and trust. In the United States, I think places like Starbucks would fear that Americans wouldn’t pay at the end. Not in Germany. Trust seemed built into the culture more.
Sitting outside sipping my espresso, I watched people walking and biking. I loved sitting here, feeling anonymous in the midst of such a populated area. Very few cars on this less-traveled street. Sure, there are places like this in Atlanta and around the country. But there seemed to be so many in Berlin, and more frequented at all hours of the day by people. Also, American places tend to have that Starbucks, highly air conditioned mall smell, but in Berlin many of the cafes felt lived in, full of odd knick-knacks, small, comfy, and smelling like an old house - in a good way. I think of America’s merger and acquisition strip mall culture that has eaten away so many mom and pop shops. In Berlin, these mom and pop shops bring life to the city. They are the blood pulsing through Berlin’s arteries and veins. By contrast, so much of the United States is anemic and bloodless.
Berlin experienced an unusual heat wave this day as the temperature climbed to 95 degrees. As we walked around, I constantly needed water. Lingering around the Alexanderplatz station, we walked into a hotel to grab some pricy water. In an attempt to buy cheaper water than what the hotel offered, we went to a Burger King. Something seemed degrading about seeing these classy Germans dressed up in Burger King outfits and selling our shitty fast food. We’ve degraded ourselves so much as a culture that Burger King seems okay with Americans. But as we asked about the price of water at Burger King, there was a slight resentment as the German girl answered our questions. Seeing this Burger King really bothered me. So much of our capitalist success panders to the lowest common denominator when so much of Berlin reminded me that there’s also an importance in setting the bar higher for your culture.
We took advantage of some cool hop-on hop-off red tour buses to see some sights. Unfortunately, it was extremely hot and we suffered a bit until the bus started moving and the breeze cooled us down a little. We saw many old museums and churches, some of which I saw while walking around last night. And for the first time, I entered what used to be West Berlin by way of passing the Reichstag Building (where Parliament meets) and the Brandenberg Gate where Ronald Reagan gave his famous “tear down that wall” speech. It’s sad to me that the Brandenberg Gate was inaccessible during most of the Cold War. Today when we got out to walk around, the area was highly trafficked and populated by people, old and young, enjoying the summer day. It was a peaceful gathering place, bringing people together, which gives hope for any current people using walls and borders to keep them divided and apart.
In a symbol of forgiveness and how we need to move on no matter what happened in the past, we got out in Tiergarten to look at the Victory Monument. As you can see below, it’s a 220-foot tall monument with a golden statue of Victoria, the Roman goddess of victory, perched at the top. Inaugurated in 1873, it commemorated recent Prussian victories against Denmark, Austria, and France. Of course, it had symbolic significance during and after World War II, especially after the Allies destroyed Berlin. The French were ready to blow the fuck out of this monument and obliterate it, but the British and Americans vetoed it. I’m glad they vetoed it. It’s a beautiful monument. Perhaps erected for the wrong reasons, it now serves as the central point of a beautiful park. The monument itself is accessible by underground tunnels (that we found nicely air-conditioned on such a hot day).
We walked around Großer Tiergarten, a park full of trees, trails, bikers, and places to sit and read or chill out for a while. As I enjoyed the respite and sounds of nature around me, Troy told me this park had been bombed and gutted during World War II. The trees were mostly chopped down for wood during the war, people used the grounds to grow food, and then the entire landscape was ravaged and raped during the Allied invasion. This centuries old land that once served as a hunting ground for kings in the 16th century was ruined. But today, I walked around in a gorgeous park full of life that literally was rebuilt from rubble. Unless you told me, I would not have believed this place was bombed and destroyed only 70 years ago.
Getting more modern for a while, we walked through some newer sections of what used to be West Berlin that reminded me of most modern cities. Nearby was the Berlin Institute of Technology and the Zoo Berlin. I saw lots of young people walking around, modern clothing and mall stores, and more chain-style restaurants.
We did walk off the beaten path a bit and found yet more hidden small cafes and restaurants seemingly popping up like weeds in side streets and alleys. After a nice late lunch and a beer, the heat and walking had gotten to us. I headed back to the hotel for a nap, and then we chilled out in the evening at a nice park not too far from the hotel. Again, I noticed that no matter what neighborhood we walked to (and there seemed to be hundreds of these neighborhoods), people were out walking, biking, having beers, conversing. People stayed out late, young and old. Near the park, we grabbed some dumplings which turned out to be some of the best dumplings we’d ever ate. So I ate dumplings and looked at the park. I was getting used to these authentic neighborhoods, restaurants, and people enjoying themselves with no sign of rampant consumerism.
Our final stop of the night soon become our regular late night hangout spot - Bar Gagarin. We even sat at the same table each night. Drinking our beers, we looked out over a quiet T intersection next to a park where we watched a steady stream of people walking and biking with only an occasional car driving along the cobblestone street. Troy’s flat was a stone’s throw from our table. Other restaurants clustered around this area, and people buzzed all around. I noticed that people stayed out late. It wasn’t unusual to see men and women, well dressed, grabbing a table on a weekday at 11pm and enjoying a beer and late night conversation. Our waitress spoke enough English to get by, and she was delighted by our “American-ness.” We learned words from each other. We asked her what German words to use, and she asked us about the right English phrasing for certain words. With no responsibilities on my shoulders all week, these nights ended each day in perfection. I basked in the knowledge that I sat, chilling, in Berlin, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching the life all around me. It made me wish I had friends in Atlanta with flexibility to grab a beer like this, any day of the week.
To our surprise, we slowly figured out it was a German national holiday of which we had no awareness: Whitsunday. Germans celebrate Whitsunday and Whitmonday as national holidays, and we coincidentally planned on going to Dresden on a national holiday the next day. We heard fireworks that night as we drank our beer. It was like a neat bonus to experience an unknown holiday in another country, and we looked forward to our Whitmonday trip to Dresden the next day.
Sunday, June 9, 2014
People often speak of German efficiency, but that definitely doesn’t apply to their bus stations. Getting up at 6:30 a.m. and taking a taxi to the bus station, we thought 30 minutes was PLENTY of time to simply buy a ticket and hop on a 7:45 a.m. bus to Dresden. Nope. Despite many customers in line to buy tickets, only one window was open. The woman worked slowly and seemed to show disdain for every question and request aimed at her. It didn’t help that families in packs of three or four had complicated travel destinations requiring multiple stops. Yes, it actually took 30 minutes for the woman to get through about four people and we barely made it onto the bus. I thought I’d have time to buy coffee, and now I was stuck on a bus for more than two hours without my morning coffee.
I know. So horrible. No coffee while on a bus transporting me from Berlin to Dresden. First world problems. I sat back and enjoyed the transition from city to suburbs to countryside. I was amazed to see how quickly it took for all civilization to disappear and how pure the countryside looked. We took 13 all the way down to Dresden. There were a few exits but I didn’t notice wastelands of industrial buildings, rest stops, strip malls, or billboards. The highways were uncluttered by rampant commercialism and simply appeared as roads that got you from point A to point B with no nonsense. The only negative I noticed was that people drove like maniacs on the highways. People passed the bus going 80, 90, possibly even 100 MPH at times.
Finally, the bus dropped us off in Dresden at a busy terminal and we walked toward the city. At first, we were a bit disappointed as we walked down a long mall-like street full of modern clothing stores (over there it’s TK Maxx), banks, McDonalds, and Starbucks. In this section, I finally found a coffee shop so that I could grab my morning fix. Until this point, I’d been able to navigate most encounters with German employees. But when I approached the counter at this coffee shop, the man behind the counter first threw some German at me. I froze. He froze. Then he said, “SERVICE!” I froze. He said, “SERVICE!” two more times. Troy elbowed me and said he’s probably awkwardly saying something like “At your service.” I just pointed to coffee. Coffee = kaffee. Good enough. I may have reacted like a deer in headlights at first, but no language barrier was going to interfere with this coffee transaction.
After walking past more gigantic malls with everything from a Tommy Hilfiger to an Apple store, we finally entered old Dresden. The difference was night and day. If you had told me that the city had been firebombed all to fuck just 70 years ago destroying over 90% of the city center, I would not have believed you. With the malls, the gleaming buildings, and the beauty of the Elbe nestled against the city center, it appeared as if the city had coasted along in peace for centuries. Knowing that the Germans took the original city blueprint and rebuilt it from scratch, I began to seriously contemplate my own resilience and hope when things go wrong. If these citizens could rebuild after such horrors, what other things are we capable of as human beings?
They rebuilt many of their old beautiful buildings representing so many styles of classic architecture, but one building literally took my breath away so much that I just had to stand and contemplate it by myself. Dresden Cathedral, completed in 1751, is so removed from our modern notions of productivity and efficiency. It’s baroque, ornate, and rococo, with details oozing out of every pore. Looking at it, I felt transported to a fantasy novel, the proper place where a cathedral like this had to exist and not in front of my eyes. The giant doors, the arches, the statues, the pillars, the balconies, and the tower just rising up and up and up until it culminated in a gold cross. I imagined it in the 1750s, its nooks and crannies, walking up the tower, secret conversations in hidden rooms, and the feeling of Gothic mystery surrounding it. For a moment, I even felt like I could time travel and live in another era where this building might play a central role in my daily life. It was hard to believe that this scene in 1840 featured the same building I now stared at.
After lingering in our walk past so many old buildings and staring out at the Elbe River, we found a quaint restaurant that almost seemed too good to exist. The food was okay, but it was a tiny restaurant with one table in an Italian-like courtyard with light coming through an opening high up where the tops of the nearby buildings met. Eating a panini sandwich and drinking a Coke, I felt like I sat in some Harry Potter 9 and 3/4 kind of restaurant that existed in a fold in time.
Then, we found a bar that sat at the foot of the Dresden Frauenkirche, a giant Lutheran church completed in 1743. It didn’t have the mystery or elegance of the cathedral but presented a more symmetrical imposing feel. Our waitress was so cute that it hurt. I drank my beer, watched people, breathed deeply, and relaxed. As everyone I knew woke up at 6am on a Monday morning back in the United States, I was six hours ahead, staring at this building and a cute waitress, and drinking a beer. Life was good.
The Elbe beckoned, so we took a boat down the river to learn that most of the bridges we went under were destroyed during World War II and rebuilt, except for one (the Augustus Bridge). We also saw palatial houses, vineyards, and castle-like buildings along the river. The boat was classy, offering vantage points outside but also a air-conditioned bar and restaurant with tables inside. While a bit touristy, I kept noticing the style and sophistication of everyone around me. Kids were the only ones that could be annoying. Otherwise, adults acted classy, quiet, and friendly at all times. No yelling, no rudeness, no American crass behavior. It felt nice to ride along the river and stare at the sights while not feeling that I lowered my dignity or shared the boat with people who made dumb, bovine observations about everything.
We leisurely walked back to the bus station and grabbed some gelato along the way. We still experienced a heat wave, so the gelato helped cool us off a bit. At the bus station, we decided to take a 6 p.m. bus back to Berlin instead of the 8:30 p.m. bus listed on our tickets. Again, more German “efficiency” with their buses. About 10 people stood in line waiting for the bus driver to arrive. He did, carrying two bags of groceries with him. First, he ignored the customers until he spent five minutes trying to stuff the groceries into a small cooler in the front of the bus. Then, he spent about five minutes with each person. Five more people joined the line. Multiply, and you’ll see that it took forever. Apparently, his little computer was slow or frozen, and he whined at me when I wanted to switch my ticket from 8:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Even though Troy had just done the same exact thing that I wanted to do, the bus driver acted like I presented him with a new alien request. He spent five minutes with me, perplexed, asking me over and over, “But it says 8:30 p.m. on your ticket.” I kept pointing to Troy. “Do the same, like my friend, who’s sitting right there.” Perhaps the Germans need some efficient engineers to take a look at their bus system.
Tired at this point, I did not enjoy the long bus ride back. The stranger who sat next to me smelled something awful. By the time I got back to Berlin, Troy, Aaron, and I grabbed some Thai food and called it a night. As I went to sleep, I thought about Dresden. The history, the war, the destruction, the rebuilding, the malls, the people. For an often stupid species, I’ve often said we’re still on the right track and you can see progress in the long-term. It’s easy to watch cable news and peruse social media feeds and think the world is going to hell ASAP. My theory about long-term progress feels more validated after Dresden. I could imagine people surviving the bombing legitimately asking, “How could things get any worse?” But you rebuild, you learn, you hope, and you keep living. Today, a major site of the Nazi war effort that was firebombed into rubble now contains rebuilt cathedrals, beautiful waitresses, ice cream, palatial estates, Apple stores, Starbucks, Tommy Hilfiger, and little hidden cafes with Italian courtyards. Curling up into bed in a hotel that used to be in Soviet East Berlin, I thought to myself, “Never give up. Never lose hope. There’s always hope of rebuilding, of more life ahead.”
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Just like Bar Gagarin became the nightly hangout spot, Cafe CK served the same purpose in the mornings. A beautiful routine. I stirred in bed with the sunlight already entering the room by 4:30am. Woke up around 10am. Shower. Walk out into the Berlin morning. Immediately after walking down the cool shaded alleyway leading from my hotel to the street, the sidewalk would hit me with life and vitality. Always. The sidewalks crackled with life on the main thoroughfares and pulsed with life on the side streets. I felt welcomed into this strange city, as long as I went with the flow. I’d head up Greifswalder Straße past small businesses, pharmacies, and restaurants, taking a left up Marienburger Straße where it grew quieter.
It was up this street where I’d love to replicate this walk every morning of my life. It’s the perfect combination of activity and anonymity. Flats, tiny businesses nestled away in old buildings, occasional people walking and biking up and down the sidewalk, busy yet quiet, no chain stores, no speeding cars, no shady characters, no constant aggressive noise of honking cars and screeching tires. I imagined living in one of the flats in a tiny studio apartment overlooking this street. I’d have a simple set up: a laptop, a notebook, books, and minimal furniture and furnishings, with the life of Berlin pulsing all around me. I felt a longing and a connection with the vibe of this place that’s more than the sum of my accrued descriptions of buildings, streets, businesses, sidewalks, and people.
Almost like the Italian courtyard lunch place in Dresden, I could easily walk by Cafe CK if I was in a hurry. The storefront only takes up the thinnest slice of a larger set of buildings and the sign is almost hidden in the background. I walk in. To my right is a large counter where the guy or gal (both expatriates, I believe, from Australia) chats me up as he or she makes me an espresso or an Americano. They’re playing vinyl albums, ranging from a greatest hits collection of Philly Soul to Purple Rain. To my left, a nice sunny room full of comfy chairs. Troy and/or Aaron and I just sit there, read, chill, drink coffee, and let the morning unwind. Chatter all around us - in the room, in the other rooms of the coffee shop, at the counter, and outside. Germans everywhere, laughing, chattering, and going about their day. I felt plugged into the life all around me. I felt alive.
As we meandered from Cafe CK to a great Mediterranean deli for lunch to Bar Gagarin for a beer and then to an English language new and used bookstore called St. Georges where we browsed books for almost the entire afternoon, my past suddenly felt silly. Long ago, by observing others, I assumed a European experience would be exclusionary and not tie into anything from my American life. But browsing this bookstore in Berlin in 2014 took me back to used bookstores 20 years ago in the Utica, New York area. It was Tuesday, and Berlin had slowed me down, reminding me of the simple life pleasures we miss through overwork, progress, and technology. The mystery of looking at so many titles of books I’d never read along with books I hoped to read over the course of my life. The smell of the used books, the quiet of the already quiet street, the wood floor creaking underneath my feet, the sunlight coming in through the windows, the comfy chairs spread throughout the back room. I just wanted to sit here forever, grab a pile of books, and let tablets, smartphones, and digital marketing go fuck themselves for a while.
Slowing down. What are we missing as we fly by as Americans rushing to become more productive, more efficient, more overscheduled, putting more things on our calendar, making sure our kids are overscheduled, and running around psychotically without ever stopping to think, contemplate, relax, synthesize, and digest? People do these things here. Over their beers, their coffees, their books, and their meals. And I also sensed how the owners of a bookstore like this chose an alternative lifestyle to the rat race. A life with meaning, quiet, peace, and contemplation. A life that’s more than ROI, deliverables, and selling incrementally more amounts of commodities than a competitor.
The bookstore reminded me of all the times when I was young and just browsed books to enlarge my knowledge and library, just like Cafe CK reminded me of all the times when I’ve ever had coffee and conversation throughout my life. What I like about such pleasures is that the wealth is intangible. I prefer the $2 coffee, the $4 used book, a few hours, a good friend, and my imagination, much more than any expensive lake house, camp, cruise, or SUV ride to a vacation destination with an unhappy family whining and complaining all around me as a way to distract themselves from the existential prison they’ve built and now live in without ever challenging its construction. These simpler treasures are universal and reside all around the world, and I realized that while I may have taken 37 years to move my ass to a place outside of North America, I had not wasted my time in North America either. Travel isn’t just a logistical function - it’s a state of mind. Berlin was more than ready to meet me with its culture because I’d been living it to the best extent possible with what I could cobble together in North America through coffee shops, bookstores, morning or late night conversations, and the right people. While I must play the capitalist game to make money, my core values have always fought against the worst excesses of capitalism, tribalism, consumerism, following the herd, and crass behavior. Few in North America understand the power of coffee, three hours, and a curious mind, and instead default to checking their smartphones, haranguing kids, or endlessly buying/repairing/improving a piece of property.
You’d think with this mindset that I’d be tempted to slip into Marxism like my fictional character Reginald the Talking Marxist Horse. But we spent the latter half of this Tuesday checking out a bit of socialism’s dark side. We took a tram to (not kidding) Karl Marx Allee, a long monstrous street that reeked of the Soviet days more than any other street in Berlin I’d walked on so far. This was a famous boulevard in East Berlin, designed to provide monstrous wedding-cake style buildings that featured apartments and shops for the proletariat. Apparently, this architectural design of the entire boulevard was supposed to be amazing and wonderful for the workers. But staring at the massive, usually eight-story buildings, all a dirty white or light brown, homogenous, bland, and communal, I felt a sense of oppression, depression, and despair. I could not imagine living in such buildings where everyone’s apartment looked the same.
That’s the trade off, I thought, as I walked up to a bronze bust of Karl Marx. Having read all of Das Kapital, I agree with many of Marx’s critiques of capitalism - many of which are relevant today. But what’s the alternative? America might be an overworked, overproducing, inefficient, crass mess with severe psychological problems, but our efforts at competing, using our talents, and surviving every day with minimal government interference actually provides a better quality of life and chance for a successful pursuit of happiness. As capitalism’s tendrils also work their way into Berlin, I see vitality in new building projects, malls mixed with small businesses, and skyscrapers mixed with historical museums and cathedrals. No matter what economic troubles we face, the idea of a master planner who makes everything fair is a cruel illusion that only leads to totalitarianism and corruption. Thankfully, Berlin is embracing the better parts of capitalism and exploding into the future. But I worry about capitalism eradicating the city I fell in love with, wiping out the neighborhood Cafe CKs and Bar Gagarins in lieu of Walgreens and Starbucks. In this sense, I’m glad Karl Marx is still hanging around in spots.
We took a right onto Warschauer Straße and kept walking toward a bridge that crossed the Spree. We headed toward a rougher neighborhood, the kind you see in most major international cities where the people turn young, wear a variety of alternative clothing styles mainly of the leather and/or ripped variety, smoke lots of cigarettes, dye and cut their hair various colors, and look disgusted about everything. It’s probably where the most cutting-edge, underground, alternative music gets listened to, the most drugs are consumed, and the most fun is had on the least amount of income or budget. I know I’m an old 37 year old not dressed for the part, but I always love the energy contained in these parts of town. As we crossed the huge Oberbaum Bridge overlooking the Spree, graffiti, huge ugly concrete and metal slabs of bridge, train and tram tracks, and litter bombarded us. It was another section where the Berlin Wall used to divide the city and we left Friedrichshain to now enter Kreuzberg. The entire borough is called Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, and the two boroughs I mentioned were joined together into one borough in 2001.
Seeing the people who populated this area and now walking through even denser quaint streets packed with restaurants, bars, cafes, shops, and anything you can think of, I sensed that the tearing down of the Berlin Wall is still unleashing pent up creative freedom and enterprising energy 25 years later. I could not imagine the division, especially with East Berlin repressing the right of these people to be individuals. I saw a few old churches and buildings nestled in among the newer shops and stores, like octogenarians at a college party.
We lingered in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg a while longer, grabbed a beer, and then headed back. Grabbing a Polish dinner at a great restaurant called Tostina, we had terrible translation issues as the waitresses and owner spoke zero English. But it was all good. Pierogies are pierogies in any language. And a party of about 15 people sat right behind us, clearly having a good time, and we barely heard them. So polite and tasteful. I went to bed that night thinking about the energy of Berlin, the people still enjoying freedom after years of despair and depression. As an American, I cannot understand it but I can attempt to appreciate and admire it.
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Indulging in the morning and early afternoon, we went to our usual Bar Gagarin - this time for breakfast. I had an Americano and curd pancakes that were heavenly. I read Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady outside. Another perfect moment of just enjoying life, watching the busy yet pleasant and relaxed life buzz around me. Then, the three of us meandered down to a special coffee shop called The Barn. With the feel of a large modern warehouse, it contained huge coffee roasting equipment in the back, only a few small wooden tables and benches, and some friendly wait staff preparing items off a small menu. I ordered an espresso with milk, sat down, and took a sip.
I do not lie. It was a flavor explosion in my mouth. It’s one of those moments where I realized, up to now, I hadn’t been drinking coffee. I don’t know WHAT the hell I’ve been drinking all these years. THIS is coffee. The Barn uses green coffee beans, sources the best coffee in the world, and roasts it themselves, They definitely know what the hell they’re doing. We also stopped at a great bakery called Zeit für Brot until heading out for more “serious” shenanigans in the afternoon. Troy had to work for a few hours, so Aaron and I ventured off. I experienced a surreal moment when he had to stop at a mall to pick up something. It was a giant, odd store of about six stories strung together by a complex web of escalators - like a JCPenney growing upward and out of control. It had a grocery store on the bottom and the other floors were mostly clothes and other department store items. I sat on a bench watching the escalators for a few minutes as people wound their way up and down in the middle of the day on a Wednesday. It felt so normal and American in a way, but I reminded myself that I was in Berlin. I experienced the surrealism to its fullest and enjoyed sitting for about 15 minutes in such an odd place, so removed from my routine life.
From the mall, we walked toward a cluster of museums near where we grabbed dinner on the first night and went to the German Historical Museum. I’ll admit, it was overwhelming through the sheer volume of material. It was a reminder of the sheer amount of time that Germany has existed in various guises from the Dark Ages onward. Everything imaginable existed on display: furniture, armor, books, costumes, religious artifacts, musical instruments, toys, pamphlets, postcards, advertisements, paintings, photographs, maps, newspapers, ceramic art, glass art, metal art, dishes, silverware, propaganda materials, engravings, sculpture, cars, swords, guns, military equipment, flags, etc. etc. etc. I wish I could coherently tell you some things of value after this experience, but I was truly overwhelmed drinking in 1500 years of German culture in about two hours. A few fleeting observations:
- Germany has morphed in so many different ways over 1500 years. It’s been invaded countless times, held by the Holy Roman Empire, been called Prussia, and once consisted only of ununified states.
- Before the Gutenberg press, it’s stunning how much care went into an individual book. I spent a lot of time looking at the layout, colors, little pictures accompanying the text, fonts, and bookbinding of books made before 1450. All handcrafted, no machinery. Painstaking is an understatement. And it gave me chills to look at these books that seemed so alive, like they were illustrated yesterday. People who have been dead almost 800-1000 years were speaking directly to me.
- I found the ostentatious belongings of rich nobles to reveal trappings as shallow and unnecessary as those we have today. In one instance, there was a large travel trunk so that an aristocrat could completely recreate their bedroom routine from home with lots of frills, bells, and whistles. No roughing it for nobles! Heaven forbid if you left your favorite cologne at home.
- I sense how much beautiful art and how many wondrous material objects were produced due to wealth, materialism, and power. While it’s nice to look at these artefacts, now on display for the public, it made me wonder more about the tension between beauty/art and what kind of vicious society is required to bring that beauty/art into existence. While a few rich aristocrats and merchants amused themselves with beautiful, expensive objects, so many others suffered in poverty and supported this frivolity through toil and labor. This knowledge taints the warm and fuzzy feeling of looking at gold-inlaid dining room tables with handcrafted chairs and real silverware.
- The World War I section was interesting in viewing the United States’ role in entering the conflict. While it wasn’t negative, Germany showed bluntly how we used propaganda to rally the United States to hate Germans and enter the war. It’s enlightening to see how the United States is viewed when ‘Mericans aren’t around to yell and scream about offended feelings and accusing those critical of America as unpatriotic. We’re not always viewed positively, and I found the German presentation fair (especially being a student of literature where I’m taught to be critical of any culture). Sarah Palin would not like this museum.
- It was in this museum that I saw the only mention of Hitler or Nazis during my entire stay in Berlin. The World War II section was on the bottom floor, and you had to walk past the 1989-present section and the 1945-1989 section to get to the pre-1945 section. The entire section was very understated. No excessive, overt displays of guilt. Just a blunt, hurtful, humble acknowledgement of the horrors of these times and the lows to which Germany stooped. They didn’t try to hide or cover anything, but they didn’t highlight it either.
My mind swimming, I walked out of the museum and stared up at the Berlin Cathedral. On a whim, I asked Troy (who had just joined us again), “Can we go up there?” Oh yeah, he said. He realized that we’d walked past this thing dozens of times but never thought to go inside. I’ve been in one cathedral before: The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Savannah. That was quite a cathedral. But it had nothing on the Berlin Cathedral.
Just like with the Dresden Cathedral a few days ago, I lost my breath in awe. But this time, it wasn’t from looking at the outside. It was the inside. I walked into the nave and felt an overpowering sense of spiritual magnificence and grandeur. Quite possibly, this is the most beautiful room of any kind that I’ve ever entered.
The height of the ceiling, the open space, the giant church organ, the paintings and sculptures dripping off every part of every wall, and the clean symmetrical precision of the nave’s design caused my legs to wobble.
I had to sit down in a pew for about 15 minutes and take it all in. I found this experience spiritually profound. Reflecting on both the positives and negatives of the human condition as I had been doing for the past few days in the middle of his majestic, scarred, hopeful city, I thought of God’s place in this scheme. Distant? Removed? Involved? Enabling? All of the above? None of the above? A grand illusion? I don’t know. But somehow, the cathedral centered everything for me at this point in the middle of the week while also leaving a good deal of my experience as a mystery. My “Why?” went unanswered, and I just enjoyed the presence of whatever inhabited this cathedral.
Then, I felt like I was in a fantasy novel for a few moments. After climbing up some newer marble stairs for a while, we walked up a claustrophobic set of stairs that were cramped and windy, leading up to the top of the tower.
As the walls pressed in around me and I walked up some old wooden stairs, I thought of myself as a priest making this climb 100 years ago. Making it up to the top, I got my first 360 degree view of Berlin from a tall building.
As the wind blew at my hair, I slowly took in views of this German city from a variety of viewpoints. The city struck me as rather flat, with a few moments of a skyscraper skyline like American cities. But those few moments were growing. As you can see by the cranes, it’s not an exaggeration that this city will be entirely transformed in just a few decades. But for now, many churches punctuated the neighborhoods, boroughs, and suburbs that stretched into the distance. I imagined what this view would have looked like after World War II and how it must have been so ravaged and destroyed. And here I was in 2014, 25 years after the Berlin Wall came down, watching Berlin grow rapidly before my very eyes. It was beautiful, and reminded me of a medieval template with modern trappings overlaid onto it.
Despite the importance and magnificence of this trek, the walking and stair climbing killed my energy. We went to a great Turkish restaurant afterward and wound down our evening somewhere for a beer, but unfortunately my 37-year-old human body ran out of steam. Requiring respite and rest, I simply filed my insights away, concentrated on making it back without collapsing in a heap, and looked forward to another day after some renewal through sleep.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
By now, you know the drill and I can say a few words without describing my experience in full. Morning spent at Cafe CK, a brunch and omelette at a lovely cafe called Anna Blume, and - of course - The Barn once more for a cup of espresso manna from the gods. But then we hopped on the tram and look a long ride deep southeast into old East Berlin to Treptower Park. This is a large old Soviet park and its centerpiece is the Soviet War Memorial, built to commemorate the deaths of the Russian soldiers who died in the Battle of Berlin in 1945. The park area itself is spacious, quiet, and full of large trees everywhere. Right next to the Spree, I could see myself just camping out to read during the day. There’s plenty of room to roam unlike many crowded American parks full of people, dogs, and noise.
Crossing a street, Aaron and I walked toward the Soviet War Memorial, wondering what awaited us. As you can see from the satellite view on Google Maps, the Memorial area is designed elegantly, symmetrically, and simply.
We walked in at the upper left at the northwest point, walked down a tree-lined path, and stepped between two giant marble blocks where the faint symbol of the old U.S.S.R. was still visible on each side.
Until then, I had not seen such an overt reminder of who used to run this place. The walk leading up to the memorial reminded me of the Lincoln Memorial.
Instead of water, there were five gardens. Instead of Lincoln, there was a towering statue of a Russian soldier with a baby in one hand and a sword in the other, its point buried in a broken swastika on the ground.
Talk about conflicting feelings. We might have had a Cold War for 44 years but the Russians helped us defeat the Nazis. I took my time walking up to the statue. It was a long walk, and distances were misleading.
Approaching the statue on such a sunny day, with green trees, singing birds, and energetic young people walking around, I thought of what happened here and of the Russian soldiers who died - just like our soldiers died. All soldiers share a common humanity. Usually working class poor used as fodder for war. I felt the unique dark Soviet despair of how the U.S.S.R. honored their fallen soldiers. This was a very non-American memorial. No real color (other than nature), no attempt to leaven the experience with any positivity, no weepy sentimentalism. Just…they died, the cause was noble, we remember them. Period.
But memorials are memorials. A man in a suit sat on the right side of the top of the steps for a long, long time. He was there as I arrived and still there when I left. I wonder what reflections he had, and who or what he reflected about. And again, just seeing young people, young hipster dudes with beard, young attractive women in the flush of youth, in the context of such a beautiful sunny setting, gave me hope that the sun does shine again after darkness and despair rain upon a people.
Next, we took another long tram ride to a completely opposite part of the city: Charlottenburg. This borough is squarely in West Berlin territory and it’s where my friend Troy stayed when he first arrived in Berlin. At this point, I was on “beautiful neighborhood overdose.” Yet another place in Berlin I had yet to lay eyes on, and its neighborhoods were again rich with detail: buildings full of flats and lofts, small and large businesses, parks, people everywhere walking and biking, cafes, bars, restaurants, hotels, hostels, you name it. Dense, urban, yet peaceful, colorful, and full of culture. I could read, drink coffee, and walk the streets here forever and never get tired, just like so many other sections in Berlin. In Atlanta, I can maybe add up a handful of streets here and there to even come up with a few miles like this - and it would be 1% as impressive. We had a beer at a bar with an outdoor patio. Two men with accordions played for patrons. Just part of the scene.
We also took a good long look at Charlottenburg Palace. Walking around it took a long time, and the huge and beautiful Schloßpark - full of beautiful flower gardens - surrounded it. This palace was completed in 1713 and originally housed the royal House of Hohenzollern who had been around since the 1050s. There was a formal reception of some sort happening in the back, with well-dressed men and women hobnobbing over glasses of wine and hors d'oeuvres. Just change the dress and I could have been transported back in time to more aristocratic days. Hopping in a taxi (where the woman driver knew English because she once dated “a Canadian gentleman”), we headed for a place further south called the Pula Grill. A Croatian restaurant that appeared as if it was an unfrequented hole in the wall, the wait staff started us off with a free glass of port. Then, we proceeded to eat one of the best meals we’d all ever consumed. I had a beef stroganoff that was insanely good. Troy and Aaron, more experienced travelers, agreed that this might be one of the best meals they ever had. I felt like hanging out there forever. It was so quiet. Even the bathroom overlooked a pretty courtyard, as if I stayed in someone’s expensive home deep within a quiet part of the city. Back to Bar Gagarin for a beer, and then we called it a night. Aaron left the next morning, so it was down to Troy and I for Friday. That night, the moon shone beautifully outside of Bar Gagarin, and I didn’t want the night to end. I just wanted to sit with my beer and relax, and relax, and relax...without a care in the world.
Friday, June 13, 2014
My last day in Berlin served as a winding down day. Cafe CK in the morning, Thai food for lunch, walking around some parks in the afternoon.
Then, food and beer to kill the early and late evenings. But two moments stamped that last day, which I present in reverse chronological order.
America is into sports, but it tends to contain itself into two settings - the TV, and the stadium. TVs provide access to games through people’s homes or sport bars. Stadiums (especially with college football down South) attracts tailgaters and enthusiasts into one spot. Otherwise, it appears as if no one else cares. In America, people consume their sports privately, in groups. It’s exclusive. In Germany, even though the World Cup was in its earliest phase (featuring games such as Mexico versus Cameroon), EVERYONE watched the game. It was communal, public, inclusive. I do not kid when I say that we walked from Tiergarten through Mitte past Alexanderplatz up to our usual Bar Gagarin, and we did not miss a play or a shot. Everyone had the game on - businesses, cafes, restaurants, even public spaces where giant screens were set up and crowds of people gathered to watch. The shared public enthusiasm stunned me. We grabbed pizza and a Coke, and watched the game. We stopped for a beer at a restaurant called Senefelder, and watched the game. And finally, back to Bar Gagarin where we watched the game. Despite not knowing the language and not really knowing the intricacies of soccer, I felt included when sitting with other Germans, reacting to plays, and generally having a good time.
And finally, like a favorite snapshot, or like an impressionist painting with a handful of brushstrokes that represent the whole, I experienced a perfect moment during a week of perfect moments that illustrates everything great about this trip. Call it a transcendent perfect moment, if you will. In the early afternoon, I returned to Cafe Moma, where I had the espresso and apple treat on my first morning in Berlin back on Sunday. Today, the weather grew dark, slightly cold, and stormy. Troy had to do some work and errands, since he was leaving tomorrow after his 90 days in Berlin. So I had this early part of the afternoon to myself. I sat at a small table inside, nursed an espresso, and read Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner. The cafe owner played Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, music universally acknowledged by all cultures as the best of its kind. It was raining outside, and I smelled the rain. It was dark outside, which made the light inside that much more comfy and mysterious. I had to remind myself that this experience was happening in Berlin, Germany, a place that just a week ago I literally could not imagine myself.
EVERYTHING was perfect in this moment. Everything was as it should be. We (myself included) seek things too much. Maybe happiness is a new job, more money, getting laid, getting a significant other, having a baby, a new house, a new car, a new video game, a new material object. Sometimes, we feel happiness peaked in the past during childhood, high school, college, or our twenties. While I feel these things too, I’ve come to understand that life’s happiness arrives in moments, but you have to put yourself out there to make those moments more probable. Sure, this “moment” had a few thousand dollars behind it to make it happen. Some perfect moments do take a bit of cash. But the essence of the moment could happen anywhere. Some rain, coffee, a book, and good music. That’s a sacred space, and we can all create that space anywhere, anytime.
While I began this post with a review of my inferiority complex about travel and outlined how exotic I at first perceived international travel, this perfect moment reminded me that travel isn’t about the material aspect no more than a good life is about materialism. Travel is about the essence, the experience, the intangible. It’s also about discovering universality as well as unique experiences. Berlin may set a cultural bar that’s higher than America’s right now, but that doesn’t mean that pockets don’t exist in the United States - or that we can’t create our own Berlin experience within America. In the end, we work and contribute to society for the income and the civic duty, but we must embrace and honor the sacred spaces that make us happy, fulfilled, and at peace. For me, that moment in Berlin with the book, espresso, rain, and music simply reminded me of the core beauty of life that I’ve always had access to and that no one can take away.
Travel, in the end, is a state of mind. It’s not an escape, because you’ll find your same sorry self when you get there. It’s a heightening of experience. But if you don’t know how to heighten your experience locally, you won’t heighten it abroad. My friend Aurora (who is a veteran international traveler) and I chatted the other night, and she said something quite true: “Even walking around any hometown or place in the United States can be just as magical as anywhere else if you keep your eyes and attitude open.” In the last few years, I’ve found the magic of life in Sauquoit, New York; Kent, Ohio; Rock Springs, Wyoming; Bozeman, Montana; and many other out of the way places. So, it’s not much of a surprise that I was ready for that moment at Cafe Moma in Berlin. Then again, I’m actually ready for that moment anywhere. Anywhere there’s coffee, music, conversation, and a sacred space to enjoy our lives in peace while relating to our fellow human beings - that’s travel.
Saturday, June 14, 2014
I could regale you with petty travel stories about long lines, Amsterdam’s serpentine airport, hurry up and wait moments, a couple who all but hated each other sitting next to me on my long flight back, devouring my two meals after not eating before the flight, the clusterfuck of U.S. Customs, teenagers on a shuttle bus in Atlanta talking about how much they love Zaxby’s, etc. etc. But that’s not the interesting stuff. On Saturday, I returned home as an international traveler. While getting my ass from point A in Berlin to point B in Atlanta, I found the childhood magic had already disappeared. I now know what a trip to Europe is like. But I was glad to have started this trip like a child. There are few experiences left in life for me where I feel scared like that. Hopefully, another city or country awaits in the future that can scare me and then reward me with perfect moments like Berlin did during those seven days. It’s been almost two months, but Berlin changed me in subtle ways, and I’m still processing how. Like Henry Rollins says, “Knowledge without mileage is bullshit.” Well, I’ve got some passport-stamped knowledge to chew on for a while - and I look forward to planning out another international journey.
