Juggling Sadness & Excitement (and the Privilege of Writing that Sentence) [Copenhagen, Denmark / Berlin, Germany]
We are two days into our 3.5 week stay in Berlin, and before I can share our experience here so far (which has been interesting, indeed!), I need to properly say adieu to Copenhagen — a task which triggers in me several paradoxical emotions: sadness and excitement, guilt and appreciation, shyness and desire to share.
Our last few days in the happiest city in the world brought a whole new perspective to the city. It rained. A lot. Did we let it affect our enjoyment? Absolutely not. But it did make us both thankful for the weather we’d had until then and gave us a more realistic look at what it would really be like if we lived here all year round.
Today’s rain highlight comes the night Nat and I had a reservation for the one ‘nice’ dinner of our stay. We’d booked our spot at Restaurant Relæ the day we arrived for the lone free 9PM Wednesday night slot before we left and of course, it was our first day of solid, nonstop rain. Since we’d been getting around exclusively on our bikes for 2+ weeks now, it didn’t even occur to us to get there any other way. So we donned our raincoats, wiped off our bike seats and headed North for the 15-minute bike ride we grossly underestimated.
15 minutes turned into three quarters of an hour with rain whipping our faces and soaking our clothes. We arrived at Relæ completely drenched, late, and smiling sheepishly. Anywhere else in the world, we would have most likely gotten kicked out of a nice restaurant like this, but here, we kind of felt like the only patron ‘locals’ and got greeted with a knowing nod, a towel and a hand pointing to the restrooms. We toweled off, sat down and had one of the most delicious meals we’ve had in our lives — even if we only took the more affordable 4-course option.
We spent the rest of our time discovering more delicious cocktails (the winner is still Curfew’s Little Dragon), organizing impromptu coffee with one of my primary school friends who I hadn’t seen since the 6th grade, visiting Tivoli Gardens and partying ’til 4AM with our new Danish friends, and squeezing in a last minute bike ride the morning of our departure before turning in our trusted two-wheelers.
Leaving Copenhagen was harder than we expected. We really fell in love with the city. The easy biking, the cozy coffee shops, the healthful food, the active lifestyle, the beautiful buildings at every turn… I have no shortage of compliments for Copenhagen (#complimentsforcopenhagen). With this melancholy comes the question: is this how we’re going to feel saying goodbye to every stop on our tour? And do I even have the right to be so sad when getting to experience all these places in the first place is such a huge gift and privilege?
Who knows… I do vow to at least be honest in the feelings I have, question them and myself regularly, and be as open as I possibly can.
Now, the other side of the coin: our excitement for Berlin!
At first glance, Berlin isn’t quite as ‘pretty’ as Copenhagen, but it’s much bigger and we haven’t explored beyond our immediate neighborhood of Friedrichshain yet. I’ll get back to you when I’m more informed.
Friedrichshain is very cool though, as can be attested by our very grumpy taxi driver from the airport. With a narrow cobblestone road across a lively square on a Sunday evening, said driver did not like parking at our destination. “Hier ist gut? Hier ist sheiße! Friedrichshain…” he huffed to my “Here’s good!” (in German; I’ve been practicing).
Nat’s cousin graciously lent us his apartment here, as he is out of town and it was free. Filled with the touches of his half artist, half scientist mind and the character of his two adorable daughters, believe me when I say this flat is magic. With small discoveries in every corner — a note on the freezer door (“Are you sure?”), a finger-drawn ‘lol’ on a steamy bathroom mirror, the smell of pencils when you enter… I can’t describe the feeling — it’s just magic.
One caveat — challenge or gift? — there is no WiFi in the apartment. Since Nat and I are working remotely, WiFi is kind of important, so we rented a portable router for 3 weeks for ~€140, the cheapest seemingly reliable option we found online from a company called alldayinternet. Considering we never got a tracking number, cannot reach them by phone, their contact form doesn’t work and their app is an empty shell, we were actually shocked when our router arrived on time. Maybe because we didn’t have internet the night before, Nat and I splurged on an episode of Narcos, some YouTube videos of The Voice and a couple of Skype calls. After a few connected hours, the internet stops. Now since alldayinternet has zero customer service and the ways they claim we have of tracking our usage do not work, we have no idea if we (and I am horrified to even write this) blew through 7GB of data in a few hours or if the router simply broke down, but we’re not hopeful either way.
As I sit here in a trendy books x bagels shop with a sluggish connection trying to finish this blog post before CrossFit (AXT CrossFit, our fitness home in Berlin!), I wonder if we shouldn’t challenge ourselves to live without WiFi at home for the duration of our time here. Nat has a co-working space he’s signed up for already; I just need to find a couple of coffee shops that have better internet (0 for 3 right now) and limit the use of my sadly not unlimited free roaming. The rest is detox.
Up for the challenge? Stay tuned for the next post…***
