Love notes from Siel is a newsletter about love, writing, and travel from me, Siel.
Dear friend —
We got lost as soon as we landed in Berlin.
The wealth of public transportation options confused us: Too many different buses and trains could take us into the city center, and all of them seemed to have separate stations located in random spots around the airport. Signs were scarce; Google Maps wasn’t much help. At 10 pm the airport was already deserted so my boyfriend and I wandered around, lugging our bags and getting increasingly snippy with each other —
Which is to say, Berlin wasn’t the city I’d imagined it to be.
I’d pictured a sleek, modern, machine-like metropolis, where everything ran efficiently and cleanly like a brand new Mercedes. In reality, much of Berlin is gritty with graffiti tags, flaking paint, and scatters of trash, scuttled along by the cold wind under a perpetually gray sky. Trains and buses often run late — or don’t run altogether, due to strikes or protests or construction. Many stores only take cash.
There’s a charm in that disorganized chaos, but there’s desperation in it too. Berlin has the same problems common to big cities — homelessness, poverty — but more visibly so for this continent. Here, for the first time in Western Europe, I saw a significant population of mentally ill people on the streets. One yelled loudly at imagined friends or enemies as I passed by; another obsessively humped a store window, pants open.
It was like being back in Los Angeles! Too many people around the world have been abandoned by our governments, our societies —
Berlin wasn’t what I thought it would be, but visiting it was still a wish fulfilled, seeing in person so many historically significant places — from WWII ruins to the remains of the Berlin Wall to remembrances to victims of the holocaust.
And I saw a lot of beauty in Berlin too: pedestrian streets lined with trees blooming pink, people of all ages folk dancing joyfully in a city square, an international street food fest at Markthalle Neun, gorgeous Prussian palaces with their gigantic gardens, free and open to the public. I found out German bread is delicious, as is German beer. People spoke English and were nice and polite and helpful, if not particularly friendly. I even got to make my own chocolate bar — a white and milk chocolate swirl with caramel bits, raspberry crispies, and a pinch of sea salt — at a Ritter Sports workshop.
So what have I learned through this? I’ve learned Berliners who grew up on the east side had to learn Russian in schools while growing up. I’ve learned Germany is a big country and its various cities can have completely different vibes. I’ve learned I’m quite brilliant at picking chocolate bar flavors. And I’ve learned my relationship can survive stupid, travel-related squabbles.
Have you been to Berlin? How does your experience compare?
Love,
Siel
A Berlin novel you might love:
Here in Berlin by Cristina Garcia (Counterpoint, 2017)
An unnamed character interviews a diverse range of people in contemporary Berlin — from former WWII nurses to defenders of war criminals to hardy immigrants to sex workers — each adding their distinct point of view to create a kaleidoscopic panorama of the city.
Three links you might love:
One of my favorite films of all time is Victoria. It stars a Spanish girl who’s recently moved to Berlin, who on the night in question meets a group of four guys at a club, befriends them — and then the plot spirals out and goes to crazy places you wouldn’t expect. But that’s not all — The entire 2.5-hour movie is filmed in a single hypnotic take — and most of the conversation is in an imperfect but adorable English, the one language the characters have in common.
Why you can’t escape the internet attention economy. “The Internet was made by people on Adderall, for people on Adderall,” writes Danielle Carr.
The strange fashion tragedy that is SHEIN. “SHEIN might be singled out as the worst fast-fashion retailer because the United States fears and envies China and has a particular interest in denigrating its successes, and it might be singled out because it is, in fact, the worst: the greatest polluter, the most flagrant IP thief, the largest violator of human rights, and — arguably worst of all — the most profitable. SHEIN has shown the world that unsustainability pays. Together with the companies that will follow its example of ultra-fast fashion, SHEIN will accelerate the already-rapid acceleration toward global catastrophe.”
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