Berlin bound

I am sitting on the 7:50am IC train from Munich as it snakes its way north through Germany. I arrived three days ago for a holiday; Stephan came a couple weeks before to visit his friends and family. We’re off now to spend four days poking around Berlin, a brand-new city for me and one that Stephan hasn’t visited in six years.

I’m trading my nightly pen-and-paper journal for blog posts on this trip as a way to both share what we’re doing and alleviate my guilt from neglecting my stupid blog. Publishing a journal entry makes me anxious as I write this, but I think it’s a good experience if I’m serious about improving my writing.

We’re currently in the third hour of our six-hour trip and I have no idea where we are. I see more trees than expected, maples and pines and linden with its little fragrant flowers, and in all the ditches fireweed or, much more common, a tall plant I don’t recognize with pale yellow flowers. The landscape began wide and flat, mostly crop fields, pale green or yellow, dotted with buildings and small forests. The houses were almost all white-walled and unadorned, with red-tiled roofs. We’re now passing through steep, low hills covered in trees or the occasional field. Clusters of houses or a single large industrial building are in every seam or pocket of flat land between the hills and everything feels more closed-in and crowded. Not all of the houses are white here, some are mint green or yellow or light brown, many are gray or cream or beige.

Contrary to my normal vacations—my operating mode in general, really—I have not prepared at all for our stay in Berlin...or for this trip in general. Other than a vague notion that Berlin has many museums and distinct neighbourhoods I know next to nothing about the city. I am curious to visit what was East and West Berlin during the Cold War and see remnants of the Wall. And art. I want to stare at pictures on a wall and feel feelings. I’m ready to get me some culture; I hear there’s a lot more of that in Europe than Canada…though I’m skeptical that culture is ubiquitous judging by the number of fanny packs wandering the streets.