What’s the point of piranhas when there’s Berlin?

Our dear colleague and enthusiastic Berlin blogger, Karin Willms, is currently travelling around South America. There she’s piranha fishing, freezing to death in four pairs of socks, camping on the third highest mountain in Bolivia or casually chewing on coca leaves. Although she is far away from home, Berlin isn’t really letting her go. Here’s an excerpt from her letter to us:

“Even early on during my trip, ‘Berlin’ has turned out to be a magic word. Eyes start to shine, faces light up! Whilst I’m trying to get my head round the fact that I am far, far away and to enjoy the foreign, distant parts, I keep on meeting, in the remotest corners on this planet, people who launch into endless monologues about or sing the praises of Berlin.

For instance, in the great sand dunes of Huacachina. There I am stomping through the sand with Mr. Sydney and Mr. San Francisco and we exchange the customary “where-r-u-froms" and then it happens. They both ruin the sunset for me by dragging me through several of Berlin’s bars and telling me the greatest stories about the coolest city in the world. Whether I know this or that...and oh yea wow...there’s that ping pong place. You can play table tennis and drink beer! That’s so cool! That’s followed in broad sunny-boy English by the story about the guy who tried to open a bar just like it in Sydney. But it wasn’t the same. Didn’t work... he just put up a ping-pong table and sold beer...But it wasn’t Berlin and why on earth am I here anyway and not in Berlin.... and oh ...has the sun gone already?

It’s totally true. Everyone, really everyone loves Berlin. They want to go or were already there or want to live or know somewhere there and have heard that... and – in a nutshell: Somehow you are where everyone else wants to be!”

Karin is coming back at the end of the year and will then continue her regular blog about Berlin. We’re already looking forward to it.