Berlin is mysterious. Four days in this city is probably not even enough to discover properly any area of the city. Touring the city by car, I saw snapshots of the Turkish markets, highways, the Berlin Wall, trams on the east side, busses on the west side, commuter rails, Rittersport chocolate, lovely apartments, my friend’s balcony where I can sit in the morning and watch the sun rise while the September cold hadn’t settled in yet, Tempelhof, the-day-after of the kite festival, Postdam, the outskirts Wannsee – Kladow… So many things flashed across my eyes as if I was watching a sped up montage of history and culture, and my brain racing to retain as much as possible of the scenes. It’s a beautiful city no doubt, complicated, mosaic, layered, changing.

The city has character. People are happy and moody, the way big cities are with the constant flowing of time and business. It’s extremely inter-connected, but somehow shuts down on Sunday! It’s obviously a very political city as well and has seen milestones in modern history. How overwhelming it is to realize that things happen right there, with Germany being an important European power, and so many books, fiction and non-fiction alike, are about that very city. I felt small and swallowed by time and place. Oh gosh, I thought, this is Berlin!

Perhaps if I was a historian, I would have focused on seeing other things… But being me, I chased after chocolate and chocolate. You could say that Berlin is very sweet, very darling. Not something you would usually say about a huge city.

There’s so much I cannot write about Berlin, because I felt like I saw only 1/1000 of a second of its existence – so much I wish I could feel and understand. But “optimism” is the word I’ll use to describe the city. Optimism. Berlin has seen bad and good, and through all that, is a witness of changes. The city has made it through tough and great times, and I saw that a place can really start over and change. Once, what was an airport can now be a square. What were train tracks can now be a garden. And if times get hectic and suffocating, I can always escape to the top of the hill to see the city from above.

The Berlin sky is one full of hope.

And although blurry, I had extremely happy moments in Berlin. May you never sleep.