That above is the first thing I saw (aside from the cab ride which was just a blur) after the cab driver stopped the car and told me my office for the next six months was "straight back there..."
This happened 75 minutes after the airline representative told me my luggage was lost. And approximately 22 minutes before the individual who was supposed to arrange my lodging asked me where I was residing.
Did I mention that I was in Berlin, Germany completely on my own for my very first trip across the pond? Oh, and as I left the office that first day, with no luggage and needing to find a place to stay for at least that night, it rained on me. Actually it poured. Honest.
Thankfully my luggage was dropped off late the next day, though wearing damp clothing up till then was no treat. But I had found a place to stay for five nights even if the instructions from the owner were a bit troublesome...don't open the door for anyone and don't ever open the windows. Add in to the mix that it was a fourth floor walk up with no working lights in the stairwell and it was enough for me to question just what the heck I was doing in a foreign city in the first place.
But after a long first week of extreme adjustments, and one very gracious office manager, I finally found the beginnings of my stride and started to experience the beauty of Berlin. Probably for most people it's not a city that would be described as picturesque, quaint, elegant or beautiful. It is still a city rebuilding and re-identifying itself. Yet, there is a sincerity in the rawness and truth in that roughness.
I felt it was a place eager to move on from its tainted past but unwilling to forget it. Remnants of the war exist practically in every crevice of the city. And what I found most intriguing was how the city dealt with the old and new, forcing the newly built structures to interact with and engage the remnants without mimicking or copying. Blocks of the city can be read as articulated artifacts of time, and thus history, telling a story without words, or perhaps put more correctly for which words would not be sufficient.
Recently I looked through my photos from that time and I imagine that most of the 'touristy' shots I had taken look relatively the same. But it's the images like this that I have to wonder about; what are these places like today, do they even exist, are they surrounded by new development, would I even recognize them if I were to walk by them tomorrow?
I like to seek out these off-the-beaten-path moments. It's really no different than finding a true local pub or restaurant (you know, the type of place that doesn't advertise their food with photographs on the sidewalk). For me, its those small items and the easily overlooked details that form the whole and capture the essence of place. At least that's how I define it...
