Twenty-second Letter, March 12

Good morning, Berlin!

What an impressively beautiful weekend. I’m feeling beyond drained, almost sick, today, yet somehow still happy.

Yesterday I gave a little street art walking tour to some Girl Scouts with a hands-on legal graffiti component at the end. It was fun, and I got to meet the highly irresponsible but entertaining Mika who told me a bit more about the inner workings of the Berlin writing scene.

I spent a beautiful morning exploring the “rough underbelly” of the excessively gentrified Hackescher Markt and then went up towards Mauerpark to listen to bands and watch the Sunday artists at work. I’ll put the tour details in a separate post, so someone could conceivably recreate it.

Although I was a solid hour and fifteen minutes late to church and weighed down with a backpack, a bag, and a camera as a result of my morning adventures, I still made it in time to hear the tail end of the service.

In my sun-soaked happiness, I persuaded all of my friends to forego the pre-planned lunch of pho in exchange for Berlin’s best known burgers. Phoebe and William biked to Schlesisches Tor (even harder to spell than it is to pronounce) while the rest of us hopped in the U-bahn. HyeWon brought up our first post-Saddleback outing to Markthalle IX, when we followed the same route down to Kreuzberg in the sunshine, which she remembers as being such an amazing day. To me that day seemed a bit nostalgic and melancholy, but I’m glad she remembers it happily. I’m also glad we’re more comfortable and close now.

Burgermeister lived up to the glorious hype after a brief twenty minute wait. Once content, we headed around the corner to the Spree, crossing Oberbaumbruecke to sit on the river’s edge with the rest of Berlin and its dogs. It feels like winter is over.

Gleefully yours,