Of course it all had to come to an end eventually. Strangely though, by the time I left Berlin on my way to Norway afterwards, it didn’t feel like the end. I could have been convinced that I was heading back to Berlin after my short vacation up North. We spent a lot of time in Berlin and because of school and our living situations I feel I got to understand a lot more about how Berlin functions outside of a tourist’s perspective.
Since coming back to the United States, I’ve thanked some people in German for holding the door open, so I’m still getting used to not being in Berlin anymore.
Google Maps aka Magic
Life in my suburb is really different from Berlin life. Public transportation is almost never a feasible option, grocery trips are to warehouses, and there is actually an astonishingly lesser amount of greenery and trees. Instead of pretty huge buildings and courtyards, I see lots of rows of two and three floor houses with private backyards. I can say that Berlin definitely looks amazing as a city, it’s a marvel just to walk around on many of the streets. Speaking of streets, I got lost on those a lot by the way, the other day I was looking through my phone’s gallery and found tons of screenshots like this,
Which I tried to use to navigate my way around Berlin, though getting lost was always pretty interesting in its own right.
I came back from Berlin with some nice shoes, some new clothes and truly a lot more questions than I left with. I may have got a grip on Berlin, but Europe for all of my life has been this distant mythical thing, along with the rest of the world. So, now that I’ve got a taste, I’m left wondering how France, or Spain, or Romania, or Chile, or Singapore look and I’d love to visit those places one day.
I had a ball in Berlin and it was honestly the best summer of my life. I’m really grateful for the experience and look forward to my next time there.