The People I’ve Met in Berlin
photo: Alejandro Arretureta
I never thought I’d move to Germany after finishing high school. But somehow (let’s pull down the merciful curtain of silence as to how exactly) I ended up doing just that. I turned up here, quite uninvited, and disheartened by every confused “wie bitte?” I kept hearing. I had my naive and uninformed vision of Berlin as a place where Nick Cave wrote a book and Wim Wenders made a movie, and that was what constituted my expat starter pack. As it turned out, that and the curiosity to recognize different Berlin lifestyles was all I needed.
At first I felt quite overwhelmed by the variety of people I’d met. Being Polish, and with the super comforting awareness that my mum’s just four hours away, I really felt the least adventurous and exotic among all the fantastic people coming from overseas. I loved this cultural diversity and soon didn’t feel surprised anymore that most of my new friends spoke English, but kein Deutsch.
