31. Berlin, berlin

a tale of two citys

I am on my train back to Hamburg after four days in Berlin. And I have thoughts and opinions.

As some of you know, I visit Berlin almost bi-weekly for work. This undoubtedly entails that I barely ever do anything fun. Even if I am meeting friends for dinner, I am exhausted from a long commute in the morning, an entire day pretending to be human at work, and finally, (and quite recently), having squeezed in a workout amidst all of this. 

So, when Alex and I played ‘fastest fingers first’ earlier this year and managed to get two of the much-coveted tickets to Saint Levant’s Berlin show, we decided to make it into a vacation. 

Back in 2021, with very little money (me) and even less time (Alex), we took our first trip together to Berlin. It was the peak of June, that one week in Summer when everything is too hot — the weather, the public transport, our tempers. 

We spent our mornings drinking bitter coffee from the Chemex in the Airbnb’s kitchen, afternoons drinking sugary iced drinks and slurping rice noodles at a cheap Vietnamese restaurant down the road from our Airbnb, evenings taking long showers and nights in the very ornate room with no AC, sitting in our underwear and copious amounts of sweat. 

We went on little excursions each day involving as much walking and heat as my unfit body could withstand. We went to the Tiergarten which unlike the parks in Hamburg provided very little shade, visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews next door and then walked over and spent hours in the Topographie des Terrors, reading about the horrors perpetrated in the very ground we were standing.

By the fourth day of our six-day trip, I wanted to be back in our Hamburg home. I missed the windy cool of Hamburg. I missed the greenery of the city. I missed the quiet and the predictability of the city. And I knew I could never possibly make Berlin my home.

A year later, I was faced with the choice of moving to Berlin. I was going to go work for a firm headquartered in the city and my need for a steady income and a subsequent long-term residence permit was eclipsing the disdain for the place. After toying with the idea for many months, we decided to pause it. This meant regular trips to the city for work, long commutes, crashing on friends’ beds and floors and being generally exhausted through the trips. I don’t want to enjoy the city when I visit as an ‘employee’. 

The city is not for my pleasure on those days – it’s utilitarian. It’s akin to a tub of yoghurt eaten to stave off the late afternoon hunger, not the late-night ice cream you eat as a treat.

So, when we decided to use this concert as an excuse to have a short Berlin vacation, I took days off. And even though my workplace was minutes away from the hotel we stayed in, I barely even looked towards that neighbourhood. I was vacation Sanj. And I had one goal, see if Berlin can win my heart this time around.

We were going into the city having seen horrific scenes coming out of protests (a space that feels like home in Hamburg) and knowing the scrutiny and censorship that activists face there. We explored two parts of the city during our four-day stay and experienced the city in two majorly different ways. On my third day in Berlin, I asked my Instagram followers what they thought of the city. An overwhelming majority said that they thought the city ‘is a bit wild’. 

I agree. A part of Berlin is like an ageing white man who is way past his prime and is trying so hard to hold on to the remnants of its glory days. It has acquired this reputation of being cool and edgy but as time has gone on, under the guise of being ‘alternative’, it has caught some of the more conservative ideas of its peers. So, while you can be free and open in certain ways, if you don’t fit the criteria of the ideal minority, you will definitely be at the receiving end of some grief from old man Berlin.

But on the other hand, on our several trips to Neukölln, we saw another side of berlin. The berlin of colour is steadfast in its ideals. The berlin who is a minority stands – chest puffed out, unapologetic, graffiti spray cans in hand, kufiya around their neck – and laughs in the face of the police in riot gear. This berlin books out a concert by a Palestinian artist, queues for hours and then turns the concert hall into a protest. This berlin holds each other close and shows up every week despite inevitable police brutality. This berlin holds in its heart a bookstore that sets up a display of books by Palestinian authors proudly at the front of the shop (the only one I have ever seen in Germany). This berlin has flags everywhere in the neighbourhood. This Berlin has Knafeh and Samosa on the same street.

This berlin has my heart. I could live in this berlin. I won’t but if I had to, I know that I would find community and home in the berlin which has a heart.

Until next time, which Berlin/berlin would you visit?

sanj 🫨