I had been suspecting that San Francisco and Berlin are sisters. Today, when I was looking for Bergmannstraße because my friend Julia had told me that there was a store there that I would like, I got lost a little bit and found a huge Golden Gate Bridge painted onto the wall of a building.
It feels a lot like San Francisco here; the spirit of the people is creative and young at heart. My prejudices against Germans are finally starting to fade. I am glad because that is one of the reasons I came here; I wanted to find reason to let go of my prejudice.
I arrived in Düsseldorf around 1pm local time on Wednesday. When I got to my parents' house, I immediately laid down for a three hour nap. After waking up, I stayed up for a few hours and then went to bed at 1am. I slept all the way until 2:30pm the next day. I would have slept more but my mom woke me up and interrupted the dream in which I was getting ready to marry Ute Kordes, an old school friend (a girl).
One thing I really liked today was that when my mom and I went to the bank to get Euros for me, the date was displayed in the typical German fashion: 20:12. And of course that made me think of the year 2012. I love the creative ways in which the universe reminds me of the things I love.
This post doesn't serve much of a purpose besides announcing that I am in Germany now. I will be here until January 2nd.
He asked me what it was like during my two months in the mental hospital, such as what kind of room did I sleep in, what did I do all day, what kind of people did I meet there. After I finished telling him, he said:
"I can see why you, coming from an institution, would want to paint your walls in bright colors."
We're going to Berlin baby; they love me in Berlin
Look it up; it's a quote.
Seriously though, I go to Germany to visit my family on Tuesday, December 18. I will be there for two whole weeks, which is the longest I have been there since I think 1998.
Berlin has been calling me for years. I have only been there once, in 1992, on a class trip for a few days. I often fantasize about an alternate reality/parallel life, in which I never left Germany and started a new life in Berlin instead of California.
Today in my cab I mentioned to a guy from Arkansas that I really want to go to Berlin but that it's really far* from my parents' house. I also told him that I often go home for only one week, but that this time I was going for two weeks.
He said "So you're going then, right?"
"To Berlin?"
"Yes. You're going to Berlin, right?"
And I told him yes. And that's how I found out that I was going to Berlin.
I'm thinking I will go there for two or three days. I'm thinking I will take the train. I'm thinking I will call up my old friend Maxi, who was my best friend in 7th grade and has lived in Berlin since 1995 or 1996 and whom I haven't spoken to in almost as many years. I'm thinking I will try to go to a goth club there. I heard Germans are pretty good at this goth thing.
*Okay, so it's not actually that far. Googlemaps says that it takes about 4 hours 28 minutes to drive there. That's not that much at all! When I talked about this with my mom today, she said that we have always had this *idea* about Berlin being very far away because of The Wall and it being in East Germany and all of that, but that, strictly geographically speaking, it's actually not that far at all.
