Go East Young Man

Why do people travel? Then write about their travels?

For me the best moments of a trip is when the plane glides onto the runway, or when the train pulls into the station, and for that shining moment the realization hits that I am in a foreign land, in a different time zone and every adventure is possible, every romance (yes, the cliched tall, dark stranger).

On a rainy Thursday morning, the first of June, I arrived in Berlin. Steve and I take an express bus to the Zoologischer Garten station, and everything seems familiar, in a dejavu kind of way (it's been five years since my last trip to Berlin, the two weeks of five hostels and traipsing around with my suitcase through the U/S Bahn system, and yet somehow, I still liked Berlin). We spent half an hour trying to find the rental agency, all the while desperately tired (I'm getting into a blind panic at this point), and then when we finally find it, the secretary informs me that we should have headed straight to the apartment.

A twenty minute taxi ride later, we arrive at my apartment of summer 2006. Centrally located in Mitte, with the trendy Prenz Lauer district minutes walk away and Alexanderplatz only a few stations way on the U-bahn. The manager/ owner Herr S.is a nice old man, and was setting up my new closet when we arrived. The decor of the fully furnished place screams Ikea. I look out onto a small courtyard, and the wall of the next building. Home. Beer, bratwurst, here I come.