Though I've been to Berlin before when
I was young, every time I turned a corner the city held some new
surprise. Berlin doesn't feel so much like capitol city as a
sprawling student town in love with art and music and beer and
freedom.
Berlin was a reunion with my friends
from Cambodia. They are some of the best people I know, and where my
family while I was on my gap year. During my week in Berlin my
friends dropped in and out from all around Europe. It was strange to
see them away from Asia. I kept expecting to look out a window and
see a Tuktuk or temple, but I cannot imagine better companions for
exploring! D Every night was a new adventure: from trying to avoid
elderly nudists at a open air concert by a lake to watching the sun
rise along a canal with a random pair of hitchhikers from Belarus in
a camp set up to protest rising rent, to wandering quiet streets
through the night.
At an incredibly relaxed concert
My favorite place we visited: Techalus,
a old building plastered with graphetti and occupied by artists who
passionately resist the efforts of a bank to retake the building. The
dusty, dark walls seemed alive with art and light filtered in colored
by paint on the windows – strained glass of the modern age. A
rabbit warren Alice in wonderland dreamscape of everything from
intricate murals to political statements to scrawled slogans.
Perhaps one reason it has taken me so
very long to write a blog for Berlin is how contrasting it is: a
vibrant, but chilled out city delighting in its present but haunted
by a history which catches you by surprise. In English there is no
word for a monument to say you are sorry, but in German there is.
Some of the most beautiful architecture I have ever seen was at the
memorial for the holocaust, and the Jewish museum where the shadows
seem full of ghosts. The past and present blur together here,
skyscrapers hover over a skyline of old towers and domes. There is a
lot of soul to the place.
