A home for my words.

I first went to Berlin to visit a German friend that I met while living in Ecuador. She’d moved back to Germany to finish a degree and I used a long weekend from work in Madrid to visit her.

Much of that trip has fuzzed with the passing of time, but I do know I made solemn solo trips to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, located outside of Berlin.

A scan of my email shows that I also did a SANDEMANs walking tour of Berlin and that my friend and I later visited the Reichstag Building’s dome and the German Spy Museum together. To my delight, she agreed to see the sequel of Train Spotting, which was newly released, although she hadn’t seen the first film. I remember being pleased that despite being released 20 years later, the sequel so well done.

My friend was from a village and Berlin was a new experience for her, too, so we had fun walking around and exploring the city. She also made sure we had elaborate spreads of breakfast laden with copious amounts of fresh German bread and drank lots of beer.

This friend wasn’t much a party-goer, but she knew of a few bars we could check out. The issue, however, was that both I and her friend that joined us had allergies to cigarette smoke, which most bars in Berlin were filled with. She knew only a handful of places that wouldn’t be thick with smoke and we landed at the nearest one. It actually had a separate smoking section that still released plumes whenever anyone entered or exited it, but it was a cold night and the bars were filling up. This was as good as it would get. I agreed to scour the place for three seats while the girls grabbed our beers.

The pickings were non-existent, but in a backroom I saw two men sitting at a table meant for at least four people. It seemed like they might be on a date, but I politely asked if I might be able to squeeze into the empty spaces with my friends. They happily agreed.

My friends returned and we all went on having our own conversations for quite some time. But at some point our groups merged and we began speaking with the German and American guy next to us. The American asked where I went to school and named someone he knew that also went to my school. I then told him that they guy he was referencing happened to also be living in Madrid at the same time that I was! We exchanged numbers and agreed that I had to come back to Berlin and visit him at some point.

Three months later, I did! I got to see a bit more of Berlin’s nightlife on that trip and summer was finally emerging, so we spent lots of time outdoor with his friends.

On one outing, our group was rushing to catch a train to a man-made lake outside of Berlin. It was made clear that if we missed this train, we’d have a long wait. I also needed the extra time for commuting to the airport for my flight back to Madrid. There was tension because we hardly had seconds to spare, so I felt pressure to break a cardinal rule in Berlin: crossing on a red light. In my defense, there were absolutely no cars in sight. It was the most perfectly vacant road and again, people were making such a fuss about missing the train. Apparently, that didn’t make it dire enough. As I went to place my foot into the road, one member of the group said (and you have to imagine this with a German accent), “Alexandria, there are children!” I still laugh about it to this day.

Years later, I stumbled across a German children’s book on how to cross the street properly and cackled. I took a picture and sent it to another German friend who acknowledged how humorously on-brand the book’s concept was for his country.

The same American guy from the Berlin bar eventually visited Madrid, where he, I, and our mutual friend all hopped around at different tapas spots in La Latina.

I think many of us have heard the term, “small world,” and I love when that saying comes to life! For a number of years, I think I so fervently sought out moments of kismet in life that I was met with it. I have a few stories of meeting and re-meeting people in various corners of the world. In fact, in my first month post-college, I bumped into over twenty people in all sorts of places and trains across New York City that I’d known from college. Those encounters were unplanned; I was simply keeping my eyes open and willing those moments to occur. I might want to take a cue from my old ways and conjure up some more of those moments 🙂