Berlin

It has been fifteen days now that I have been living in a hostel in the heart of Berlin. The city is lovely, with a very down to earth feeling and a focus on organic food and healthful lifestyles. (Of course there is another side of Berlin, full of booze and clubbing, but I have not explored this aspect) I have seen numerous street performances of jazz and folk music, a circus band, a Spanish guitarist...This is a city of international visitors, here to study art and music, to study German or attend one of the numerous universities in the vicinity.

The city is full of parks, with green trees swaying along wide cobblestone streets. The buildings are all old and boxy, painted in many colors. The bottom floors are fronted with wide glass windows peering into atr studios and small local shops. It does not feel like a consumer city, and there is a focus on locally made products. Few buildings rise higher than five or six stories. It has been cold, but with an even balance of cloudy and sunny days.

I have written 15,000 words about China while here, and attended six figure drawing classes in the last two weeks. I rented a bike for two long days of cycling around the city, and attended numerous local street markets, including a Turkish market selling figs and olives, Baklava and Turkish "Pizza" full of spinach and goat cheese. There are several sweet women at the hostel whom I have befriended and we have enjoyed traveling around and exploring the city together.

Thinking that it would be a good city to settle down in, I began to look for apartments. I thought it might be nice to stay and study art further while I write. To make some friends and stay a few months. In January I will go to the international teaching conference in Bangkok to get my next teaching job. I was thinking this would be a good time to re-evaluate my living situation and either stay longer or do something different.

I began to search for apartments. I wrote to 3-6 different housing offers on a local website and on Craigslist. I began going to see apartments. There seems to be an enormous number of apartments available, and an equal number of people moving into the city looking for places to stay. Most of the emails I wrote to people subletting houses did not reply. Some replied, and then were not home when I rang the doorbell. Many housing situations were very run down and inadequate. Just as many were nice places, but it was a popularity contest against 20 or 30 other applicants to get the spot. I went to one house where the owner had invited 7 people to look at the house at the same time and then asked everyone questions such as, "Who here likes techno?" to determine who would make a good roommate. It was humiliating. It felt like a high school popularity contest, and I knew pretty quickly that I wouldn't make the cut.

In the meantime, I was visiting with folks in the hostel who were telling stories about where they had come from and where they were going...Egypt, Morocco, Spain, Prague.....I started to feel jealous. The travel fever set in. Why wasn't I doing that? Why stay in Berlin anyway? I have no specific ties to this city more than any other. Perhaps I should be traveling and writing rather than staying put and writing...I started to grapple with myself about what exactly my plans and goals are for this year. In true Becky fashion, I became despondent and unable to make a decision. What am I doing here? Why Berlin? Travel or stay put?

In the last few days, I have been equally divided in my interests. There are so many benefits for both lifestyles. An apartment brings permanency, private space, the ability to acquire art supplies and make paintings. Although, being unemployed, staying put can feel very stagnant from day to day. Traveling brings adventure, change, mystery and intrigue. I can still write and make art, but the spaces are less private and not as conducive to being creative. I can't carry as many supplies and friendships are all shorter term. When I want to stop traveling, I can always just stop. Come back to Berlin.

I am pretty sure I have made a decision to travel on. I am trying to trust my instinct. I can re-evaluate again in January. I will be in Austria visiting friends at a ski resort on Dec. 27th and at the recruitment fair in Bangkok on Jan 9th. Today a girl invited me to work on a WWOOF farm in Italy, picking olives in November, and it might be a good time to visit my aunt in Croatia as well...

Any advice? Words of reassurance for me? Please keep in touch with me, and I will keep you all updated!

With love,

Becky