Maybe not during the ride, but taking a
train
requires more effort in my opinion. You have to plan ahead and sometimes you might arrive between a trough when there are no trains for awhile and you have to sit there waiting.
You also have to be considerate of other people, like you may need to give up a seat for a older person or a pregnant woman. You might be sharing a standing-pole and have to make sure you're close enough to grab it but not too close to the other people. You need to make sure you don't stare at someone and make them feel uncomfortable.
But perhaps i'm describing more of the local train rather than a longer commute one that you seem to be describing.
But i do believe the effort I listed above makes the train enjoyable in a different way than the car. It makes you feel connected to something larger because you have to integrate yourself into it.
WIth the car it's just get in and go when you want. That has it's advantages too but if i were to have to pick just one I'd pick the train so long as it was as accessible as it is in a place like
Berlin
. Of course that's not the case in much of the states.
Sweet to hear that you are in Berlin. Do you have a long term lease there or is this a temporary stay? I know about the betahouse remotely. I remember when i was in Berlin -- before i was an "actual" developer and suffered from imposter syndrome -- i wanted to go to that
coworking space
so bad. But i thought it would be filled with real developers and designers and they would intimidate me so i never went.
I actually have much fond memories tied to Prenzlauerberg.
I'm almost certain that's where a restaurant called
Zucker Fee
was that was one of my and my girlfriend's favorites. I wonder if it's still there.
"Be careful where you let your roots grow" or "a rolling stone gathers no moss"?
Both.
I've had discussions about how often some midwesterner college grads move post school, driven by job/school destinations.
In a way you get to think that maybe you aren't even moving... because moving requires you to have lived somewhere. In a way when i read this i imagine you as someone who has moved seven times but someone who has settled down and rooted zero.
I for the first time after post-graduation feel like I have rooted.
And you're completely right when you say no place has it all and it's not the place that makes the man. I reckon in
Berlin
right now there are plenty of made-men who feel at ease with who they are. It doesn't matter if their neighborhood might not have the best x, y, or z. It's more about them.
Now there's limits to this. When i stop along some gas station towns on my drives to
Michigan
I often think that although the place doesn't make the man, it can neglect to nurture him. I wouldn't thrive in such places.
As the plane descended into
Berlin
, my girlfriend and I looked for landmarks through the window that we recognized. She's had sharp eyes and will always spot things first and point them out to me. "Look it's
Tempelhof
!".
Berlin
Westcity
coffee
Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky
dopamine
Facebook
tea
Louvre
October
uncanny
popcorn
movie theater
seltzer water
St. Petersburg
As he grew older he found it harder to recognize people. He still could recognize everyone, but there was a time in high school when he couldn't imagine not being able to see and old classmate and knowing it was them right away. Even if they were to meet in ...
Jeannie Hammond
Berlin
coffee
American Spirits
MIA
Jeannie Hammond
thought of the perfect way to spend her day off. And she did something else.
There was a doner truck that sold the best kebab in
Berlin
two corners away from his apartment. He went and got a loaf of bread from a Kaiser mart instead.
I once was able to tell you my favorite memory or even memories. But lately I've grown to think of memories more as weather and terrain.
As in I used to think that the perfect terrain was mountains in the sun. And then I thought it was mountains in the snow while being huddled inside a quaint cabin.
Once I thought the perfect terrain was coastal, dry beaches.
The list goes on and on, but since then I've come to just think that I couldn't pick one as my favorite. I like them all. I love the space like desert of
Utah
and I am blown away by the green urban scape of
Berlin
.
These days such great memories come from so many different wellsprings. And I can't point down to where they happen. Although you are right that they always are connected to people.
Pinging keni cause I wonder what her thoughts are on this.
As I write this I'm starting to realize that the best memories in hindsight are always connected to people. But sometimes I get thinking that the phase I'm currently in in the moment are best when I'm alone. I think my 30s will be based on figuring out this dichotomy. Maybe not figuring, but exploring.
