So - I...got around while I was in Berlin. (tee hee) I think the moving thing started because when I moved to Berlin on a research grant after graduating from university, [October 2009] I was actually tight on money, and the cheapest most charming place I found was a temporary with a mid-month move-out date. I started doing escorting work (ie, not needing to be tight with money) mid-December-ish...but by that time, I'd agreed to rent a friends' flat for a few weeks while he was on holiday...and then by August, it made sense to rent a very nice place where I could take incalls, and then I extended my stay in Berlin three times.
And anyways, moving from sublet to sublet and neighborhood to neighborhood lets you stay within 15 km2 and still really travel, you know what I mean? Living outside the ring in the middle of a bunch of parks down the road from the best borek shop and the best asian grocery store in Berlin, not so far from Junfernheide Teich (amazing...check it out if you get a chance) is very different from having a window that looks onto Schlesisches Tor, which is very different from living in the depths of Neukoelln.
But having moved 18 times in thirteen months, I am very excited to be stationary. Right before boxing up and storing and preparing for an extended holiday, I signed a one-year lease on a spacious, refurbished one-bedroom with a view.
Too stressful. Much too stressful. From now on, I'll let p.m. jaunts out to hotel suites in the west satisfy my wanderlust.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
What happens in Berlin, stays in Berlin...
so...everyone talks about New York's streets being paved with gold, of Vegas as the city of Sin and Secret, and LA as the city of dreams...
Unless by gold you mean a derivative of the Black gold that got Jed to Bev hills, and unless you dream of smog, endless traffic and strip malls that stretch for miles, they fall short. In my opinion, though, Berlin is that magical place that actually realizes and serves up the stereotyped attributes of...in my opinion...very very inferior metropoli.
Maybe Berlin's so great because it's cheap. Which means...you don't have to work 60 hour weeks to have a decent flat/food/access to ammenities. IT also means commercial rent is low, which means you can open a cafe/club/indie vintage lesbian porn store on a whim and not go broke. It's also full of expats, who are notoriously not-clique-ey because...they aren't settled enough to have cliques yet. You can quickly make a group of friends, but it's a big enough city that if you realise that the techno-speed scene is no longer your thing and you would like to take up yoga and knitting, you can move on too. It's a city that doesn't punish risk-taking behavior. Or at least not so harshly. So people take risks.
And when you take risks, you transform yourself. friend of mine said that everyone comes to Berlin and undergoes drastic transformations. [he was a tall, lanky, awkward and painfully shy boy from a good southern family back then. Now he's still tall and lanky...but fabulous and flamboyant.] You can go from being... a just out of AA coke addict to a magazine editor. You can drop that corporate PR job and for 300 euro a month, you can get a fabulous little storefront and for another few thousand, dec it out with fabulous vintage 70's ddr crushed velour and wood-laminate furniture and serve fabulous milchkafee and brownies to a fabulous set of people.
Or, you can go from being a...conservative, nerdy valedictorian with a hunch and overbite at a private school founded before her country who wasn't kissed until she was 19...to a high-end escort.
Berlin. Definitely a city for transformations.
Unless by gold you mean a derivative of the Black gold that got Jed to Bev hills, and unless you dream of smog, endless traffic and strip malls that stretch for miles, they fall short. In my opinion, though, Berlin is that magical place that actually realizes and serves up the stereotyped attributes of...in my opinion...very very inferior metropoli.
Maybe Berlin's so great because it's cheap. Which means...you don't have to work 60 hour weeks to have a decent flat/food/access to ammenities. IT also means commercial rent is low, which means you can open a cafe/club/indie vintage lesbian porn store on a whim and not go broke. It's also full of expats, who are notoriously not-clique-ey because...they aren't settled enough to have cliques yet. You can quickly make a group of friends, but it's a big enough city that if you realise that the techno-speed scene is no longer your thing and you would like to take up yoga and knitting, you can move on too. It's a city that doesn't punish risk-taking behavior. Or at least not so harshly. So people take risks.
And when you take risks, you transform yourself. friend of mine said that everyone comes to Berlin and undergoes drastic transformations. [he was a tall, lanky, awkward and painfully shy boy from a good southern family back then. Now he's still tall and lanky...but fabulous and flamboyant.] You can go from being... a just out of AA coke addict to a magazine editor. You can drop that corporate PR job and for 300 euro a month, you can get a fabulous little storefront and for another few thousand, dec it out with fabulous vintage 70's ddr crushed velour and wood-laminate furniture and serve fabulous milchkafee and brownies to a fabulous set of people.
Or, you can go from being a...conservative, nerdy valedictorian with a hunch and overbite at a private school founded before her country who wasn't kissed until she was 19...to a high-end escort.
Berlin. Definitely a city for transformations.
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