A few days in Berlin for a gentle reset.  Which may sound surprising given the ferocious use of fireworks by Berliners on New Year’s Eve.  I arrived on the big night.  Passengers on the U-bahn boarded with wooden sticks of fireworks jutting up out of their backpacks, grinning and jostling each other in anticipation. Later, safely ensconced in a friend’s warm apartment, I watched these incendiaries bloom across the city, reaching a frenzied crescendo at midnight to the glorious strains of the Blue Danube Waltz, thanks to my friend’s excellent stereo system.  Champagne glass in hand, watching the chaos and the beauty on the streets of Berlin, I felt strangely and serenely at home.  

I actually find Berlin to be a restful and contemplative city. I derive a secret pleasure in walking past Berlin’s Altbaus and glancing up into windows lit gold from within. Often, I glimpse someone’s library of books, the blue flash of a dramatic tv show, or a garland of winking lights on a Christmas tree that has yet to be discarded unceremoniously on to the sidewalk.  There is a lot of space to meander and the city is surprisingly green with trees and parks. A light dusting of snow arrived in the last days to sprinkle a bit of winter magic. 

The world of Berlin art never fails to challenge me and shift my perspective.  This time it was the Hamburger Bahnhof National Gallery of Contemporary Art.  The stark red structure of Cevdet Erek’s “Pergamon Stereo – Berlin Fragment” was a surprise to me.  I was immediately engulfed in his use of sound as sculpture.  He creates a soundscape that is as captivating as it is unsettling, excavating and entwining the complex histories and cultures of Turkey and Germany. The main event, however, was Jeremy Shaw’s “Phase Shifting Index, 2020”.  It is a visceral immersion into a parallel universe of music, dance, and speculative fiction. I delighted in trying to understand each of the futuristic – yet recognizably nostalgic – dance subcultures documented in the project on seven reversible screens.  At the same time, it is a synchronous piece that, eventually, simply took me over and delivered me back into the real world feeling pleasantly askew.  

The best part, of course, was catching up with old friends and eating some of my favorite foods. Berlin has always been a secret foodie destination — so much more than curry wurst! — and the cosmopolitan melding of cultures has created exciting menus. 

My favorite meal was brunch at annelies, a Kreuzberg cafe that still has an old porcelain-clad chimney heater inside. Scrambled eggs may not sound like a gourmet meal.  But Matthew Maue’s smoky cured yolks shaved on top of creamy scrambled eggs is transformative. The meal is served on top of Albatross Bakery’s crisp and chewy sourdough bread, paired with a healthy dollop of creamy yet tart tomato aioli and a piquant slice of fennel kimchi. Comfort food from my childhood reinvented by the cosmopolitan mix of Berlin. 

Hoping to impress a bit of history upon my son, I took him for a tour with Berlin Unterwelten or Berlin Underworlds.  Their tours are one of my favorite recommendations for visitors to Berlin. Endlessly informative and interesting, their tours go deep into World War II air raid shelters and Cold War escape tunnels. Their guides are knowledgeable, giving visitors fascinating nuggets of information that linger long after you have walked the dark corridors under the city. It’s difficult to know what will resonate with a teenager, reluctant as they are to admit anything to their parents.  But he seemed duly impressed by the thick concrete and munition artifacts on display, absorbing the grim history in those claustrophobic rooms. His eyes lit up when the lights were briefly shut off and the walls glowed with luminous phosphorescent paint, the solution to frequent blackouts during air raid bombings.      

Afterwards, we went for a long, cold walk in our old neighborhood, tracing the path along what remains of the Berlin Wall, reminiscing about our years living here and the way the city surprised us.  Berlin is the city I never expected to feel like home.  But I’m so glad it does.